Two people materialized behind Ian. For a split second, I thought I was having a PTSD attack with vivid hallucinations, because I recognized one of them and this couldn’t be happening. Not again.

The boyishly handsome, blond-haired demon grinned much the same way he had when he’d shoved that bone knife into Ian’s eye several weeks ago. Only this time, the knife in Dagon’s hand was silver, and he was grinning as he aimed it at Ian’s back.

Chapter 11

My other nature ripped free as if I’d never had the power to hold it back. My vision blackened, my emotions iced over, and my skin split from the power exploding out of me. I couldn’t see Dagon fall to his knees, but I could feel it. I could hear him, too. He was screaming with what sounded like unbelievable pain.

How curious. I hadn’t even started to rip him apart yet—and what did Ian think he was doing, pushing me aside?

“Get behind me,” I heard Ian hiss. “A dozen more demons just teleported in here!”

I felt the bone knife Ian withdrew from his coat. Felt the water pulsating inside of him, its power calling to me. Then my vision cleared and I saw the new demons. They were behind Dagon, who was writhing on the ground in much the same way Ian did when a new memory overtook him.

Ah, yes, my father had ensured that Dagon couldn’t be near Ian without crippling pain. The Warden must not have told Dagon that. How predictably evasive of him. Now, Dagon was helpless and he couldn’t teleport away to save himself—

Ian flung his knife and speared Dagon through the eye. Ian reached for his next weapon, but I knocked it from his hand. Dagon was my kill, mine! Then I ripped the water out of Dagon, smiling as the bloody deluge coated the stunned demons around him. I yanked most of the water out of them, too, pulling it forward to hit Ian like a red wave. It coated Ian while barely drenching me because he still had me behind his back.

That would remind Ian that I could take care of myself.

I was about to freeze the bloody water into ice knives when Dagon rasped, “Get me out of here!” Then Dagon and the demon closest to him disappeared as that demon teleported them away.

“No!” my vampire nature screamed.

Her rage catapulted her back on top. The other demons tried to teleport away, but most of them were too desiccated to summon the necessary power. Ian began teleporting among them, ramming his knife through their eyes before they healed enough to vanish. Still, a few teleported away before Ian got to them.

“Let me back up,” I said to my vampire half. “I can finish this.” I just had to rip a little more water out of the other demons to ensure their doom—

“You let Dagon get away!” my vampire half screamed. “Now shut up and stay down!”

Ian paused in his slaughter to swing an amazed glance my way. “Do you need a moment alone with yourself so the two of you can sort this out?”

One of the remaining demons took advantage of Ian’s distraction. He muttered a spell and a bright red beam formed, hurtling toward Ian. Ian teleported away, but the beam followed him like a heat-seeking missile. Ian held out his hands, fingers blurring as he conjured up a blocking spell.

My celestial half shot back on top, sending a frozen wall of bloody water to capture the beam. The beam blasted through it as if it wasn’t there. Ian was still conjuring his blocking spell, but he was out of time. When that red beam slammed into him, my vampire half wrested back control.

I sucked in a breath that exploded out with relief when that beam bounced off Ian without causing any harm. Instead, it reversed course and aimed itself at the demon who’d cast it. He tried to run, but he was too weak from water loss. I pulled my bone bident from my jacket and hurled it at his face. One end missed his eye, but the other tip sank home.

I flew at him. Ian beat me, teleporting over and ramming that second tip home before I reached the demon. The demon’s face exploded in a cloud of smoke and sulfur.

Leah suddenly zoomed past me. The remaining demons began screaming and tearing at themselves in horror over whatever hallucinations the ghost had forced into their minds. It allowed Ian and I to slaughter them with an ease that would have felt cruel if they hadn’t come with Dagon to kill us.

When Ian was about to shove his knife through the last demon’s eyes, I shouted, “Don’t, I need one alive!”

He only stabbed one of the demon’s eyes out, muttering, “Hurts, doesn’t it? I certainly didn’t forget that.”

“I’ll keep this area clear, but you shouldn’t linger,” Leah said before streaking toward the other end of the parking lot.

Ian glanced at her before his gaze swung back at me. “The spell that demon flung at me bounced right off me. How?”

“I put a deflection spell on you before I left you. Prevents any magic from touching you that doesn’t come from me, but it only works once.” And it had taken a lot of power to do that spell, but I left that part out.

Ian snorted. “You had a ghost babysitting me and affixed a deflection spell onto me? Blimey, you make Mencheres look like an amateur when it comes to overprotectiveness! He’ll trip over himself welcoming you to the family when he hears of this.”

“I’m not part of the family,” I said, ignoring his challenging arch of the brow.

“Yes you are, and who was that blond sod you sent screaming to his knees before he got away?”

My shock lasted only a second. Of course Ian wouldn’t recognize Dagon. The demon was the starting point for everything my father had ripped from Ian’s memory.

“That was Dagon. If, ah, you didn’t know who he was, why did you chuck your knife into his eye?”

Ian shrugged. “You attacked him first, so I surmised he was the one who most needed killing.”

Dagon needed killing, all right, but it was my father’s spell reacting to Ian’s proximity that had sent Dagon screaming to his knees, not me. “You,” I said to change the subject, shoving my bident under the demon’s remaining eye. “Start talking. What was Dagon doing here tonight?”

“Kill . . . him,” the demon said, his glance indicating Ian. Then he laughed, a dry, crackling sound. “You’re not supposed to be here . . . halfling. We heard . . . you’d left him.”

“Halfling. How marginally insulting,” I said mockingly. “Don’t tax yourself thinking up something better, though. You’ll need all your wits to tell me everything Dagon is up to.”

“Kill . . . him,” the demon repeated, his one eye glaring at Ian.

My other nature hit the bars of her cage hard enough to make my vision briefly go black. I kept her down, but I was shaken. Was it always going to be like this? Fighting my other half when my stress levels were high?

“I could rip the last of your water out of you and choke you with it,” I said in a dispassionate tone. I might not let my other nature get control again, but I could pretend I would. “Or, you could tell me what I want to know.”

“Dagon is . . . weaker.” The demon’s voice cracked even more. Talking must be hard on his shriveled vocal cords. “Needs to slaughter . . . souls that got away . . . to take back power they stole from him. Why Dagon killed . . . the woman in Egypt . . . and others. But he really wants . . . him.” Emphatic nod at Ian. “Used . . . the blood he’d collected from . . . an old amusement park . . . to cast spell to find him—”