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Chapter One

To the guy who gave me my first pair of handcuffs

Thanks for being there

I'd like to thank the people closest to h all this But ent, Richard Curtis - who saw the possibilities before I knew they existed, and uided those possibilities and brought them to life

Chapter One

I took a deep breath to settle loves up to cover the bare patch of skin at h the fleece as I est spell pot to sit beside a s careful to not let the transfer ht of the cheap white candle I had bought on sale last week

Spilling a bit of wax, I stuck the taper to the top of the grave rowing haze at the horizon, scarcely discernable frohts TheNot a good ti anyway if I didn't call it I'd rather ht

I grihtly lit church behinderrands, not even aware I had made a deal with a demon, much less that it was ti this inside where it ar supplies and all the raveyard had a perverse rightness to it, even with the snow and cold

And I wanted toblood off the ceiling

Whether it would be demon blood or my oas a question I hoped I wouldn't have to answer I wouldn't allow aliarept's familiar I couldn't I had cut it once and made it bleed If it could bleed, it could die God, help ood here

The fabric of my coat rasped as I clutched my arms about myself and used my boot to aardly scrape a circle of six inches of crusty snow off the clay-red cee circle etched out The rooular block of stone was a substantial race stopped and chaos took over The previous clergy had laid it down over the adulterated spot of once hallowed ground, either to be sure no one else was put to rest there accidentally or to fix the elaborate, half-kneeling, battle-weary angel it encoround The na only the dates Whoe of twenty-four I hoped it wasn't an omen

Ce again sometimes worked - and sometimes it didn't - but in any case, the area wasn't sanctified anyround that was still consecrated, it ood spot to summon a demon If worse caround and be safe until the sun rose and Algaliarept was pulled back into the ever-after

My fingers were shaking as I took from my coat pocket a white silk pouch of salt that I had scraped out ofThe amount was excessive, but I wanted a solid circle, and solanced at the sky to estiht where I thought it should be That someone had used this circle to summon demons before didn't instill al or immoral to summon demons, just really, really stupid

I made a slow clockwise path fro the outside track of the salt as I laid it down, enclosing the angel round The circle would be a good fifteen feet across, a rather large enclosure which generally took at least three witches to h to channel that ht about it,me as its newest familiar

Tonight I'd find out if o would keep reed to be Algaliarept's faainst Piscary, the catch being that I got to keep my soul

The trial had officially ended two hours after sunset tonight, sealing the de my end enforceable That the undead vampire who controlled most of Cincinnati's underworld had been sentenced to five centuries for the murders of the city's best ley line witches hardly see his lawyers would get him out in a measly one

Right now the question on everyone's mind on both sides of the lahether Kisten, his forether until the undead va to do it, scion or no If I ht alive and withabout me a little less and my roommate a little more, but first I had to settle up with the demon

Shoulders so tight they hurt, I took the reen tapers from my coat pocket and placed thera I lit them from the white candle I used to make the transfer media The tiny flames flickered, and I watched for a o out before I stuck the white candle back on the broken grave marker outside the circle

The hushed sound of a car pulled raveyard fro ed my knit cap down, stomped the snow from the he But there was nothing left to procrastinate with

Another slow breath, and I touched raveyard My breath hissed in throughas my equilibrium shifted The ley line seeh loved hand, I steadiedenergy continued to build

Once the strengths equilibrated, the extra incoritsensations backwashed at the theoretical extreers and toes Each time it orse Each time it was faster Each time it was more of an assault

Though it seemed like forever, the force balanced in a heartbeat My hands started to sweat and an unco both hot and cold took loves and jaled, clear in the winter-silenced air They wouldn't help me Not even the cross

I wanted to set aliarept knehen I tapped a line, and I had to summon it before it showed up on its own and robbed ht claim as its summoner The copper spell pot with the transferno witch ever did and lived to tell of it; I stepped forward, putting aliarept into

Standing across froround, I exhaled The monolith was covered in a black s it look like a fallen angel That the figure was boeeping over a sword held horizontally in his hands as an offering only added to the creepy feeling There was a bird's nest wedged into the fold of the wings as they curved around the body, and the face didn't look right The ar to be human or Inderlander Even Jenks didn't let his kids play around this one

"Please let ht," I whispered to the statue as I mentally moved the white rill of salt froered asin my center was yanked out to force the shift Thefound my balance, I set it down in the snow before it spilled My eyes went to the green candles They had turned eerily transparent, having been h, existed in both worlds, adding their glow to the night

The power froain, the slow increase as unco a line, but the ribbon of salt had been replaced with an equal ah to close overbands of reality, and because I set the circle, only I could break it - providing I had in with

"Algaliarept, I su Most people used all sorts of trappings to su as I already had an arrange its presence would pull it across the lines Lucky me