“Third overdose tonight. We'll straighten him out.” The young police officer tucked the pen in his shirt pocket and glanced at Cary. “Thanks for calling it in.”

“No problem.” Cary watched the guy strapped to the gurney, his wrist handcuffed to the railing, as he was lifted into the back of the ambulance.

None of the officers or paramedics had radiated a silver glow, so the demon hadn’t hijacked a ride with them. The cop climbed into his patrol car and followed the ambulance as it headed out.

Darkness filled the empty spaces again.

Cary coughed, unable to eliminate the sulfuric taste clinging to her throat. It should be gone by now, but it wasn’t. She turned to find Levi leaning against the wall, just out of sight of the departing EMS crew, pale-faced and squinting.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Taking her phone from her pocket, she activated the flashlight app. He nodded.

“Really, I'm fine,” he insisted.

“They won't find any illicit drugs in his system, unless he was on something when he got jumped,” she said. “Poor guy will probably end up in rehab anyway, confused and disorientated.”

“That's for the best, isn't it?” Levi asked. “Even if he remembered the events from tonight, they could help him.”

“No one deserves to remember the sensation of drowning in their own mind. Shrouded in blackness, memories misplaced, and fear hunting them. Inside their head, victims are alone.” She sighed.

“He’ll be fine. He'll work through the trauma.” Levi grabbed the lasso from its sheath on his belt. “Anyway, I want to know where that son-of-a-bitch jumper demon went.” He clicked it open and dragged the lasso gently across his face, neck, and arms. Finished, he frowned as if disappointed he’d come up clean.

“I doubt you’re possessed,” Cary told him. “Think about it. You have no silver aura, plus you’d sense it instantly… Or, so victims have told me. So, um, I'm going to go.”

“Can’t be too sure.” He stepped toward her. “I’ll cleanse you.”

“I’m fine, trust me.” Her insides constricted. She stepped back and couldn’t help but scratch her arm as if spiders crawled over her flesh. Even if the lasso revealed no physical signs on her skin, she wasn’t in the mood for torture.

His jaw twitched. “You know I don't have a choice but to be sure, so don’t make me chase you.”

She inched backward until her back hit the wire fence and tucked her phone into her pocket. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“You bet, but I’ll enjoy it more when I’m certain you’re clean of filthy demons.”

That stung. Sure, she loathed the beasts of Hell as much as the next hunter, but hearing the hatred in Levi’s voice reminded her of why she could never be with him. No matter how many times she told herself she was human with only a slight allergic reaction to salt and all things religious, she could never escape her dark side. She was born on earth, and the only way she could protect herself from demons dragging her into Hell was to get to them first.

“You're not giving this up, are you?” Silently, Levi stood there, studying her with an arched brow. She stuck out an open palm. “Hand it over.”

“Nah, you can redo me afterward,” he said. Despite the seriousness in his eyes, a smirk formed on his lips.

“And let you act out your fantasies on me? No thanks. Give me the lasso. I’ll do it myself.” She reached out for the handle, but Levi grabbed her wrist, pulling her close. His touch sent her heart into a spin.

With his free hand, he scraped the loop along her forearm. Pain exploded across her arm and felt like acid biting into her skin. A scream caught in the back of her throat. If she hadn’t been watching while Levi scratched the salt stones down the back of her knuckles, she’d have sworn someone had dragged a dozen blades along her arm. The lasso, a blessed object, didn’t leave physical scars on the possessed, but it sure destroyed evil spirits.

“There, you happy now?” She pulled away from his grip, but Levi wasn’t letting go. “You fight me at work, when I’m trying to help you, and even in bed.”

Despite the smile dancing across his lips, at that moment she simply fought to stay upright on shaky legs. If she showed Levi a sign of weakness from the lasso, he’d probably try to purify her. People have been known to die during basic exorcisms, and who knew what a full, holy cleansing might do? She wasn't sure. Ever since her dad’s vanishing act a few months after her eighteenth birthday, she had no one to ask questions on how her demon side worked. There was always Uncle Thomas (who wasn’t really her uncle, but best buddies with her dad). They had spent summers together when she was a kid, traveling the country.

So, despite her dad insisting he hadn’t told a soul about them, maybe Thomas was more up to speed on demons than her dad had explained… Except she didn’t have his contact details, either.

Levi backed up, arms raised, starting to pray.

Damn him and his tenacity.

She bit her lower lip until it hurt, then flicked her long hair off her shoulder and exposed the side of her neck. “Fine, go for it.” Her heart froze as she fixed her gaze on a discarded bag of chips—anything to ignore the pain. She avoided most chips due to their high salt content, but the yellow packet read “Sour Cream and Chives”, the worst kind.

Levi slid back several loose strands of hair, and his warmth seeped into her being. In her memories, his kisses had melted her like ice cream in the sun.

Think about the damn chips, Cary.

As he lifted Noose, panic crammed into the deepest corners of her mind.

His smile softened her muscles, but the moment the loop connected with the side of her neck, it was like a branding iron pressed against her flesh. The pain sunk into her, burning her innards. Levi dragged the weapon up her cheek and onto her brow, but he might as well be using a blade.

She dug her fingernails into her palms.

This was why spirits bolted out of humans the second a lasso touched them, and why handcuffs were needed to keep them from running off until they were exorcised. They hurt like a bitch.

“You’re done. Now do me.”

Cary couldn’t move, let alone smile. She doubted she’d ever bring her lips to work again, not with her arm and face feeling as if they’d just dropped off her body. “I just saw you do it, and I trust you. Something you’re obviously lacking.”

“I trust you. I don’t trust demons.”

The sharp pain of needles scalded her arm, but Levi only followed the rules. And this was why Cary preferred to work alone.

He took her hand, warm and soft, the complete opposite of the pain he’d just caused seconds earlier. And her mind morphed into a tangled mess of confusion about Levi.

Stay. Run away. Jump his bones. Tell him the truth.

“I’ll walk you back to the club,” he offered.

She pulled free from his touch and sidestepped around him. Seemed she was choosing the fleeing option. “I’m fine. Have a nice night.”

“Cary,” Levi called out. “Maybe we can catch up?”

When she glanced over her shoulder, he hadn’t moved. Their previous attempts at dating always ended in a disagreement or him asking too many dangerous questions. And despite every inch in her body begging her to change her mind, to remember the good times they’d spent together, the way he’d made her laugh with his stupid jokes, she turned away. Any guy she dated couldn’t be a demon hunter, let alone the best in the country.

“Maybe next time.”

“I’ll catch that jumper and make it pay for hurting you,” he said.

She swallowed her unspoken words. The fiend was hers, and she’d get it before Levi did. Besides, him following the rules by the book had brought her more pain than the demon that’d thrown her off her feet.

“You do that,” she responded. Her footsteps quickened down the dark alleyway. She made her way toward the main road, glad to put distance between them and clear the Levi fumes from her head.

The upper-level specialists at Argos were bound to know the whole story behind the nightclub jumper. Except they only worked business hours, unlike everyone else at the joint.

Didn’t matter. She’d be back home in Detroit tomorrow, so she could grill Argos before long.

Her cell vibrated. She grabbed it from her pocket and tapped it open. Another message from Argos: teens holding a séance tonight had conjured something real. Location wasn’t too far from the club either.

“Probably ten minutes according to the map. Doable.” The majority of calls bounty hunters received were stopping kids from messing around with the dark arts, so this would be an easy distraction to forget Levi.

Curving left onto the main road, she quickened her pace. The city didn’t interest her. Neither did the hooting horns, or the partygoer voices echoing in the night. Tracking down demons was all that mattered.

Yet, Levi refused to leave her thoughts. Regardless of how much she tried to stay away from the man, her emotions kept taunting her, reminding her of their moments together. She lived with a lot of regrets, from not searching for her father the moment he vanished, to not reaching out to her dad’s buddies while there was still a chance of finding them. But letting herself fall for Levi topped her list. He’d broken her, and recovering seemed impossible, so she dealt with it the only way she knew how: by keeping her distance.

“Damn, Cary. Keep your head straight. Forget him.” She marched forward, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans.

The taste of rotten egg coated her tongue and filled her nostrils, just like it had near the jumper demon. Had it followed her? She scanned every passage, staring at anyone who drove past, but the smell never faded. Stopping, she spun in place, inhaling the air to get a sense of the direction it came from. Except, the strength didn’t alter.

“Shit. Is it me?”

She lifted the fabric of her tank top to her nose. Phew, it reeked of sulfur. Smelling her arm, the deathly stench intensified. It must have been when she was bowled over. That damn jumper had leaped toward her as if attempting to devour her. It should have been repelled by her kind like the others were. So, why had it still attacked her? Her stomach knotted because her instincts told her something was wrong. Very wrong.

By the time she reached the residential part of town, perspiration dripped down her back. Except for the clamor of cars, this part of the city was quiet and sleeping. Several vehicles lined the narrow road, and she stopped in front of a single-story brick house. In the distance, the traffic hummed, but on the back street she stood, a silence wrapped around her, thick and oppressive.

A kid’s bike lay on its side in the middle of the driveway, and rose hedges flanked the footpath. It looked like any other house in a residential neighborhood. Every window in the house was black; most likely the rest of the family fast asleep, or not home. She double-checked the message.

Yep, this was the correct address.

Dried grass crunched beneath her steps as she curved around the side. Perhaps the kids were still awake in the backyard. The report from Argos specified the paranormal trackers had overheard young boys talking about a seance at midnight, and her phone showed it was close to one in the morning now. Great timing with the messages, Argos.

She’d check on the place, just in case. Both good and bad entities existed on other planes, and opening the portal with a board meant the user had no control over who or what stepped through. Though, more often than not, the bad ones shoved their way front and center, searching for an escape out of Hell.

The lights were off on the side of the house too, but faint voices drifted on the wind from the backyard. She crept down a narrow passage between the home and a tall wooden fence and stepped out into a large yard crammed with potted plants.

An eerie oak hovered over a rickety shed all the way at the back. Flickering light streamed from beneath the shack’s door, followed by laughter. Cary advanced, and a raven perched on a branch cawed a threat at her as if forbidding her to come any closer.

This couldn't get creepier if it were a movie set.

She glanced at the house behind her, making sure no lights came on in the last few seconds. Having to explain to the police why she trespassed could chew up her night. The windows stayed dark.

Pressing an ear against the gap between the door and the frame of the shed, she listened to make sure a couple wasn’t getting it on inside. Mumbling voices. Then silence.

A boy spoke, loudly enough to hear clearly, his voice quivering. “Tell us your name.”

Someone else gasped. “It’s moving.”

Cary clasped the door handle, took a deep breath, and burst inside.

Three teens boys, no older than fifteen, jumped out of their seats, their eyes wide in the illumination of a single candle on the table near a spirit board. Cary rolled her eyes. All the lighting and midnight stuff were rubbish. Contacting the dead could happen anytime, without any props.

At the foot of the table sat several cans of beer and empty pizza boxes. “Underage drinking is a serious offense, boys.” She stepped into the room, her shoulders back and her chin high to make herself appear larger.

“A … Are you a cop?” the shortest kid asked, his lips twisted into a grimace as he rubbed a hand over his pizza-stained T-shirt.

“Here on official business.” She reached over and seized the board and the planchette that had attached itself to the surface. It buzzed in her hand as she retreated from the shed. Whatever claimed this board could be benevolent and required a mere reminder to cross back. Speck demons, not always evil, attached themselves to all kinds of inanimate objects. From a haunted chair giving its owner static shocks each time he sat in it, to a poltergeist moving kids toys, to items imprinted with residual energy from a person who had once owned it.

The boys were on her heels. “Hey, give that back.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the teens trailing after her. “Aren’t you too old to be playing with board games?”

“Aren’t you too old to be busting in on kids? We could call the cops on you.”

“Go ahead. I have no problem explaining this to the cops,” she lied. Police would only ask way too many questions. Time to get a wiggle on.

Ignoring the boys watching her, she started clearing the board of whatever was attached to it. “I bind you inside this object. I bind you from our world, away from me.” She repeated her chant over and over, while gripping the board outstretched in front of her. Slowly, it started to weigh more than it should, testing her strength. The planchette jerked about on the surface of the device, hitting an invisible barrier at the edges. Oh, the sucker wanted out.

“Whoa,” one of the boys said.

Her voice rose. “I bind you away from this world.” With her free hand, she grabbed the blade from her boot mid-stride. She may not have all her gear with her, but she rarely left home without a knife (engraved in protective runes) for emergencies.

“Hey,” Shorty called out. “That cost me thirty bucks.”

“Well, it could have cost you much more than that.” Positioning the blade at the side of the board, she turned away from Shorty. “All spirits that dwell here are now dispelled.”

The board’s weight pulled Cary’s arms down and it flapped wildly in her hand. Then it flung out of her grasp, skittering across the lawn. She tucked her knife away and chased after the board.

One of the boys squealed and vanished somewhere behind her.

“You can keep it,” Shorty yelled.

Cary marched toward the board. It sat still, eerily peaceful in the folds of the overgrown lawn. Calm before the storm. Grabbing her phone, she flicked to her playlists, scrolling through to the one titled “Hail Mary”, and tucked it into her bra.

Cary hit play. Suddenly, her earlier headache morphed into a migraine across her brow. She knew it was from the prayer, and ignored the ache. She reached for the board and kept it an arm’s reach in front of her. Its weight was normal, but that was a ruse she wouldn’t fall for again.

“AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

A less painful prayer than the powerful ones used at exorcism, at least. She clasped the quivering board with both hands, dismissing the irritating buzz from the phone's speaker going off against her flesh.

Winds suddenly lashed against her, tugging at her clothes. Stumbling back a few paces, she held on, waiting for whatever speck was in there to get sucked back to where it came from. Without any other weapons, that was all she could do. It was bound to take a few shakes and rattles, but the method usually worked.

A kick in the teeth hurts, but you’ll never repeat your mistake again. Her father’s saying each time a demon beat Cary and he had to jump in and rescue her. And it happened a lot growing up. She’d take this spirit down in no time and make her dad proud.

Deep growls erupted around her. The bushes against the back fence shivered wildly, each rustling shake loud and precise as if she were right next to them. A trick of the devil, yet still her skin crawled. No benevolent spirit here.

A gravelly voice whispered in her ear. “You’re marked for capture.”

She spun, but no one stood behind her. The boys were half way across the yard, peeking at her from behind a tree.

“Amon has claimed you.” The words came again in her other ear.

“Show yourself, coward,” she demanded. Spinning in the opposite direction revealed no one. Marked?

“You’re mine.”

Her hands trembled with her nerves on full display. The demon’s words were a trick of the devil, an attempt to throw her off guard. That was all. “And you’re mine pretty soon,” she called out.

The prayer, on repeat play, started over. A wild wind roared through the yard, fighting to rip the board from her grip. Guttural snarls belched out from the object. A faint silvery aura lined the edges of the board.

“There you are, little sucker.” On her next breath, the winds died. Snarls ended. Silence. Heaviness enveloped her body.

At the corner of the house stood a silhouette, draped in shadows. Who the—

The spirit board jerked out of her hands, flying across the yard, and a dark orb swelled in size behind the board. A black creature crawled out. Paws planted on the grass, elbows sticking upward. A narrow head lifted, followed by skeletal shoulders. Two yellow dots for eyes locked on her.

A horrid shudder inched up Cary’s neck. Now she’d done it.

One of the boys behind her yelled in panic, “What’s that?”

Your fault, she intended to say, but refused to take her attention off the beast. Thanks a lot, boys.

On all fours, its tail remained attached to the orb, somehow holding its form without a human host. With an arched back, its disfigured pose gave Cary chills. Then it charged and flung itself at her, straight on.

Cary’s body iced over as she saw her life flash before her eyes.

Every conscious thought flew away as her legs turned to jelly.