He snorted. “Better living through chemistry. All right then, Zack and I’ll run down the threat posted on her website and see if our computer forensics people can get anything else to pop.”

“And I’ll drop by the station and do background checks on the band members and her manager.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. He turned onto the highway that led to my aunt’s house. “So what’s going on with your aunt’s portal to hell?”

I shuddered. “The only hell in my aunt’s house is the condition of her library.”

“That’s what I was referring to,” he said dryly.

I exhaled. “It’s all warded up and protected again, though I made sure that I was included in the wards this time.”

“But has she ever explained what it is?”

Frustration welled. “No. Every time I try to pin her down about it she changes the subject, or gives me some vague answer that makes no sense.”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Like how?”

Frowning, I fought to remember some of the stranger answers she’d given me. It didn’t help that she’d given me several different varieties. “Let’s see . . . One time she told me it was a flower in a daisy chain. Another time she said it was a bar across a door. The best one was where she said that it’s ‘the butterfly on top of the rock.’ ”

“That makes no sense at all.”

I smiled without humor. “Welcome to my world.”

He pulled to a stop in front of my aunt’s house. “Call me in the morning?”

“Will do,” I replied. I started to get out of the car but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“Be careful tonight,” he said, voice suddenly low and grave.

I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, then shut it, chagrined. Oh, yeah, I’m summoning Rhyzkahl tonight.

“I will,” I replied. I didn’t know what else there was I could say.

He gave a tight nod and withdrew his hand. I shut the door and stepped to the curb, and resisted the urge to watch him drive off.

Chapter 7

The building that housed the Beaulac Police Department was on a street occupied almost completely by city and parish offices, which meant that on a Sunday afternoon it was damn near deserted. I half-expected to see a tumbleweed blow by. Not that I was complaining. At least this way I didn’t have to search for a parking spot.

I entered through the back door that led to the Investigations Division and continued on down the woodpaneled hall to my office, intentionally walking loudly in an effort to cover the annoying buzz of the fluorescents. Unlocking my door, I flicked on the lights to reveal the not-very-spacious glory that was my closet-sized office. I didn’t really mind the lack of space. It meant I didn’t have to share it with anyone. And I’d finally managed to put something up to break the monotony of the stark white walls: a “Magic Eye” poster that wasn’t really a “Magic Eye” poster at all. I’d quickly discovered that it was incredibly entertaining to watch people struggle to see a 3-D image that didn’t exist.

I fired up my computer and started calling up basic background checks on everyone. The drummer, Roger Peeler, had been arrested for possession of steroids several years ago, but had avoided conviction. Trey Westin was clean as a whistle. Not even a parking ticket. I ran Michael Moran as well, for the sake of thoroughness. Who knows, maybe the whole brain damage thing is a fake, I thought with inappropriate and obnoxious humor. But, no, Michael Moran wasn’t even in the system—not a surprise if he didn’t have a driver’s license or state-issued ID.

However, the manager, Adam Taylor, had several outstanding warrants for worthless checks. I allowed myself a feral smile as I pulled up more info on the warrants.

I let out a low whistle. Now here was a guy who most assuredly had a stake in whether or not Ether Madhouse made it big. Seven different warrants sworn out by a variety of people, for a total of almost twenty thousand dollars. I wasn’t terribly surprised that he hadn’t been arrested yet. There were a ridiculous number of people with outstanding warrants for various offenses, and the warrants divisions of the PD and the Sheriff’s Office were both understaffed and overworked. And since check fraud was a decidedly nonviolent crime, offenders seldom had to worry about getting a knock on the door. Often they were only arrested after a traffic stop, and that was only if the officer happened to run them for warrants, which wasn’t always the case, though it was becoming more standard with the improvements in the computer systems.

I leaned back in my chair, wincing as a spring dug its way into my hip. Well, if nothing else, I now have a hammer to use on Mr. Taylor to get dirt on others involved in the band. I smiled in satisfaction and sent the info to the printer. I ran checks on Lida and Ben Moran as well, but both were as clean as Trey.

The printer seemed oddly loud in contrast to the deep hush of the rest of the office. I glanced at the clock and sighed. Almost five P.M. already. Way to spend the day off.

I retrieved the stack of paper from the printer, then grabbed my bag and headed to my car, locking the door to the bureau behind me. The sky had clouded over in the short time I’d been inside and a damp wind tugged at the sheaf of paper in my hands. A deep roll of thunder seemed to vibrate the air around me and I looked to the west, gulping at the sight of a rapidly approaching wall of rain. Thumbing the remote unlock on the key, I sprinted the rest of the way to my car, barely managing to get inside and the door closed just as the rain reached me and swallowed the car in a deluge.

I looked out at the pounding rain, unconsciously hunching my shoulders into a defensive posture. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, even though I hadn’t even put the key into the ignition yet. Lightning struck in a blinding flash, followed so closely by a smack of thunder that I was pretty sure it had struck the car—or damn close to it. It’s normal Louisiana weather, I reassured myself over the galloping of my pulse. I’m safe in the car.

I yelped as a bolt of lightning struck a few feet in front of the car, leaving my ears ringing and my eyes burning with the afterimage. My heart slammed in uneven tempo, oddly out of sync with the peals of thunder. I’m safe in the car, I told myself again, though at this point I wasn’t so convinced that it was normal Louisiana weather.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. I could see the wall of rain retreating to the east, sky still flickering with lightning. I let out a shaking breath and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. The car still seemed to vibrate from the reverberations of the rapidly fading thunder, but I finally managed to slowly unpeel my fingers from the steering wheel. Just normal Louisiana weather. That’s all it was.

But it was several minutes before I felt settled enough to drive away.

Chapter 8

A mile away from the station the ground went from soggy to bone dry, and even though it was dusk, I could see that the sky was cloudless. This is Louisiana, I repeated to myself. Crazy weather is the norm.

Somehow, I remained unconvinced.

I made it home before six, which normally would have given me time for a quick nap, but I was still stupidly unnerved by the freak thunderstorm. After twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling I gave up and started my preparations for the summoning. “Well rested” was the preferred state to be in when dealing with a demonic lord, but I reminded myself that I had slept until one this afternoon.

Actually, not dealing with a demonic lord at all was best, but that wasn’t possible for me anymore. I’d first encountered the demonic lord Rhyzkahl by accident. I’d been attempting to summon a relatively tame fourth-level demon for help with finding the Symbol Man, and had instead produced a demonic lord—not a welcome state of affairs, since demonic lords were so averse to being summoned that they tended to slaughter anyone silly enough to make the attempt. However, I hadn’t been slaughtered and had been seduced instead—a complete shock, and one that I didn’t understand until much later. Almost half a year had gone by since then, and I was still trying to make heads or tails of my relationship with the demonic lord.

I’d summoned him three times since I’d sworn an oath to become his summoner, sticking to the terms of our agreement. The first time, he asked me what my two questions were, and I responded with a poorly phrased question about Ryan that Rhyzkahl managed to answer without actually telling me anything. Frustrated, I changed the subject and made my second question one about arcane techniques. Rhyzkahl was more than willing to teach me how to anchor a portal without closing it, and as soon as I mastered that, we did the hot and crazy sex thing in front of the fireplace.

And then he’d left. The second time he walked around my yard and my house for several hours, not saying much of anything at all, while I grew bored with watching him and dozed off in the swing on my back porch. He woke me up by doing interesting things to me, and we did the hot and nasty right there outside—a first for me. And I didn’t ask about Ryan, because I had a more pressing need to find out a detail about the warding structure in my storage diagram.

But last month’s had been the strangest and most surreal. I’d summoned him almost as soon as the sun set—as he’d requested. And then? We watched TV.

For two hours I flipped through channels, while he said almost nothing. Occasionally he’d lift his hand to indicate he wanted to see more of whatever was on. Everything from the local news and CNN to reality shows and HBO.

“You do realize,” I finally said, “that all of this isn’t really an accurate depiction of this world?”

He turned to me with a frown. “Truly? You are not forced to spend weeks on a remote island and engage in absurd competitions?”

I opened my mouth to explain, then I saw the amused gleam in his eye. Without thinking I grabbed a throw pillow and whacked him with it. “You ass!” I said with a laugh, then froze as shock coiled through me. Oh, fuck. I did not just hit a demonic lord . . .

The air in the room seemed to grow heavy as he lowered his head and regarded me. My mouth went dry as I dropped the pillow. But before I could stammer out an apology his hand shot out and seized the pillow.