Levi trudged down five flights of steps from his studio apartment, unable to ignore the panic squeezing his lungs because he still hadn’t heard a word from Cary, despite leaving several message on her cell. He held the phone to his ear, calling a place she’d mentioned staying at one time, and a woman’s voice answered.

“Good morning. This is Sunset Motel, how can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Cary Stone. Can you put me through to her room?”

He listened to the tapping of fingers on a keyboard. “Sorry sir, but Ms. Stone checked out early this morning. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that’s fine, thanks.” He hung up. So, she had been staying there, but skipped out on him, and then checked out on the same day. What was the rush?

The previous night, Cary softened in his arms and purred under his kisses. If only she’d stayed the morning, then he’d have one less problem to worry about. He called her cell again. It went straight to voicemail.

“Where are you, Cary? Call me A.S.A.P.” His voice echoed in the cemented stairwell. He hung up and pressed the phone into his pocket.

Calm down. She had a mind of her own and rarely took anyone’s advice. Okay, never. But it didn’t change the situation. If the rogue demon left this morning, what if it bumped into Cary?

With all the fucking shit that went down last night and then this morning, his instincts were going haywire. Nothing felt right.

On top of that, the elevator in his building had just broken down. He’d have to get it fixed before his tenants complained. Could he catch a break already?

Levi bent down to pick up an empty soda can when a chill washed over him. His breath turned to mist in front of his face, and the hair stood up on his arms. He heard moaning behind him.

He turned around and glanced up to see his elderly next-door neighbor perched precariously on the top step of the next level, her shoulders and head curled forward. She wore a thin, blue, floral dress with a matching belt, and her white hair was in curlers; she didn’t seem to notice the cold at all.

“Mrs. Smith, are you all—” Levi stopped, his words fading away, when he realized she had a silvery aura. His insides iced over. When her head shot up, he didn’t see the eyes of the sweet old lady from next door–he saw a demon.

He jogged up to her, two steps at a time, intent on getting her demon-free, immediately.

She opened her mouth part-way and growled, deep and guttural. The side of her lips twisted into a grimace, pure hatred in her expression.

“I swear I’ve become a demon magnet,” he said. “No need to track them down anymore. Just leaving my apartment does the trick.”

Mrs. Smith, or the thing possessing her, chuckled.

“I gotta tell you, Mrs. S. This shit has to stop. I do the hunting, not the other way around.” As he reached for Noose, Mrs. Smith swung her walking cane out from behind her, lightning fast, and whacked him across his head.

His hands flew out to catch the cane, but he lost his footing, lurched back, arms shooting out to try and catch the railings of the stairwell. Another hit across his neck, and he tripped down the stairs. His butt smacked against the steps, and he grunted with pain.

Levi pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth through the excruciating sting shooting up his spine. Tasting blood, he wiped his mouth, red smearing the back of his hand.

The old woman leapt down the stairs, cane in hand. Her mouth stretched into a toothy grin. She drove the end of her cane to his stomach, shoving him backward again.

His hands curled into fists. Time to play. Except, as he stared down his five-foot neighbor, he couldn’t bring himself to attack. He didn’t hurt women, let alone sweet old grannies.

She swung her can at the side of his face again, barely missing.

An inferno spread through Levi’s veins. His vision blurred with rage. “Enough!” he yelled.

The woman, or the demon, burst into an eerie laugh.

Levi grabbed the cuffs from his back pocket and lunged forward, snatching her arm. She thrust her fist into his gut and spat in his face. He squirmed. A fist smashed into his gut, throwing him up against the wall. The back of his head hit cement. His knees folded under him.

Wonderful. He’d been beat up a couple of times already in the last few days, so badly that now he was letting an old lady beat the crap out of him.

“Listen. Mrs. Smith, you’ve got to stop hitting me,” Levi said, dodging blows. “You’re infected by a demon, and I have to exorcise you, or you’ll die.” She hit him again, harder than should be possible, and the raw hatred flared through him. Focus on the problem and get rid of the blasted thing! He flicked open the cuffs.

She growled so loudly the sound from her throat echoed up the stairs. They were on the second floor, and he didn’t need other tenants coming out to inspect the sound.

The demon stepped closer, cane lifted high. Froth dribbling down the old woman’s chin.

Goddamn freaks. He dove forward, using his weight to shove her backward, and threw his foot out behind her ankle. She stumbled.

He seized her hand and snapped the handcuff around her wrist. He hauled her across the floor to the railing and locked the second cuff to the metal frame. They’d keep the demon locked inside Mrs. Smith, giving him plenty of time to interrogate the beast.

Stepping back, he paused a second to catch his breath and dabbed clean his bleeding lip. A twitch inched up his spine.

The old lady tugged against the restraint, her snarls booming in the stairwell, the handrail shaking from her wrestling with the handcuffs.

“You’re not going anywhere until I let you.” He massaged the throbbing bump on his head.

She froze. Her head twisted toward him unnaturally. Hell if it didn’t freak him out.

“I’m happy to negotiate.” He inched closer. “Tell me where the demon with the target on its ass is, and I won’t hurt you pulling you out of there. Much.”

The demon stood there, watching him, licking her lips. Yep, the creeps were back in full force.

“Let’s start with an easier question: What did the rogue demon do to deserve all this attention?” He wiggled Noose in front of the old woman’s face, who pulled as far from him as her restraints allowed. “This little weapon can make your stay here a lot worse. Spit it out.”

The woman’s eyes rolled back, and her whole body quivered. Then in an instant, she leapt onto the railing and crouched low, her wrist still chained.

Levi lunged forward, but the demon hurled the host’s body off the railing and now dangled by an arm. Her hand seemed to almost lengthen.

Fuck, it was going to break Mrs. Smith’s arm.

He flicked Noose open and hurled the lasso over the edge, around the old lady’s neck. The demon growled and convulsed, her free hand raking up toward Levi’s face. He flinched back but tightened his hold.

“Speak.”

“Spotted leaving this m…morning.” Its gurgling, dark voice didn’t belong to Mrs. Smith.

“So, it speaks. Quickly, what else?”

“It’ll get caught. Being tracked.”

A sudden string of beeps belched from the phone in Levi’s back pocket. Priority alert and chime—unique to Argos’s urgent messages. He hadn’t had one of these for months.

He leaned toward the demon. “What else?”

Only a few seconds to go.

The beep continued, and his curiosity overwhelmed him. Such alerts were ultra-urgent, life or death urgent.

“Release me. I’ll tell you more,” Mrs. Smith whispered, while Levi pulled the cellphone from his pocket, tapping open the message. Just a quick look.

Cary’s face stared back at him. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed. He read the bulletin carefully:

URGENT

Bounty warrant issued for Cary Stone, former employee.

Possessed and attempted infiltration into Argos.

Last seen in Detroit, MI, today.

Jumper and host must be delivered intact.

Paid on Delivery: $100,000

A flutter of black moths exploded in his face. “Son of a bitch.”

He glanced down to find a limp Mrs. Smith, free of the demon. There went his chance for further interrogation.

He raised the old lady over the railing and unlocked the handcuffs. Then he removed Noose and sat her on the steps for a moment. She might have a fractured wrist, but she would live.

His mind was a whirl, unable to get the Argos warrant out of his head. It nauseated him.

Another glance at the phone screen, hoping the picture and the information would somehow change, but he hadn’t misread the notice… It was Cary.

“For fuck’s sake.” He curled his free hand into a fist as dread clung to him. Cary got herself possessed! The last hunter who got taken killed his family before others stopped the jumper inside of him. Demons that hung on long enough learned their hosts memories, habits, tricks... That had to be why Argos insisted someone return Cary with the demon intact inside her—to ensure they extracted the fiend and exterminated it correctly, with no chance of it slipping back into Hell with all of that intel on her family and friends.

For a few moments, Levi couldn’t bring himself to move, ignoring the time that passed. Breaths grew shallow, all the while his mind drowned in images of Cary. Her smile, the softness of her touch, the sound of her laughter. Despite being a hunter, she had an innocence about her, and if a demon was inside her, it would break her. Rip away the part of Cary that Levi adored. His pulse raced as he thought about his fear for her safety, nestling beneath his breastbone, ready to detonate.

He had to find her.

And with the unbelievable payday of $100,000, every bounty hunter in the state out to track her down. Perhaps even the retired ones, and with all of the competition, they’d be in a rush to be first. Somebody could hurt Cary too much, trying to claim the demon and paycheck. Getting to her first was his priority, too.

He stuffed the cell into his pocket, hoisted Mrs. Smith over his shoulder. His arm ached with pain, and the guilt of getting his neighbor possessed was minor compared to how worried he was about Cary, so he put it out of his mind and hurried up to the fifth floor.

Where would Cary go if she was on the run? Last night, at his place, she mentioned a small town called Watersmeet, and her family home. Levi was accustomed to demon patterns, enough to recognize that fiends used their victim’s memories to pinpoint special locations in a person’s past, such as family homes or parents or siblings. It used the host to get into those places, in with those people, and then it would kill them. He might have a little time to catch up with her before that happened.

He’d scour the entire country if it meant hunting down Cary before anyone else could hurt her.

Watersmeet was a good place to start.

The worst-case scenario dawned on him then: if Cary had been possessed in Ann Arbor, she only had a few more days before her soul would be devoured.

Cary’s smile haunted him, and goose-bumps prickled his skin. He needed to get Mrs. Smith to her husband, make up some kind of cover story, and get out before the authorities showed up, or he’d never catch up with Cary.

Letting Cary stay possessed wasn’t an option. No way would he allow a demon to take someone close to him again.