Soon, I thought. The sounds of battle behind me receded as my head filled with the buzz of magic, an unnatural calm coming over me.

The creature winked in and out of sight, slashing at my jeans, tearing through my right thigh. For a second I saw its hideous face twisted in malice, heard a growl instead of a laugh, and knew it was time.

When the goblin appeared before me once more, I pushed the sword into its chest and let loose the magic I had stored there.

The creature’s eyes widened for a moment, and then it just exploded in a confetti of flesh and flying droplets of blood. I was too close to avoid getting splashed, and I looked sadly at the new coat Lucifer had given me, now shredded and covered in gore.

The sword still hummed with stored power. I turned to help Jude and Nathaniel. Both of them stood a few feet away, their backs to me, and I realized they’d kept the vampires from me while I fought the freaky thing from Faerie. Most of the vamps were blazing from the touch of the sun even as they staggered determinedly forward to destroy us.

There wasn’t much point in expending more energy when the sun would eventually finish the vampires off for us, so I whistled to attract the attention of the other two. Jude glanced over his shoulder and I waved at him to join me. He barked at Nathaniel and the three of us ran down the hill in front of the mansion, crossed the road and stopped at the edge of the woods.

Nathaniel murmured a few words, a portal appeared before us and I dove into it, the other two following close behind. A moment later I crashed face-first into the hard-packed snow of my backyard.

Jude leapt lightly to his feet beside me and nudged me with his nose. I lifted my stinging face from the snow and gave him a weak smile. I heard Nathaniel’s uncertain footsteps crunching in the ice behind me.

“Well, that was fun,” I said, pushing up to my knees.

The back door burst open and Samiel clattered onto the wooden porch, followed by Beezle. Samiel’s face went white when he saw me. Beezle looked furious, and his face was covered in popcorn kernels, a sure sign that he’d been eating under stress. My gargoyle landed on the railing, his little hand balled in a fist on his chest.

“Don’t you dare do that again,” he said. “I’m an old gargoyle. You could have given me a heart attack.”

“Do what?” I asked, still on my knees in the snow.

Samiel charged me, hauling me to my feet with his arms under my shoulders. His eyes scanned me anxiously, frowning at the claw marks at my cheek and shoulder and thigh.

How could you go out without telling one of us? he signed angrily. You were gone; Nathaniel was gone. We didn’t know what to think.

“We called J.B.,” Beezle said.

“What did you do that for?” I asked, annoyed. J.B. had probably raised the alarm. There would be Agents looking for me all over the place. “Why didn’t you try to call me?”

“We did. You didn’t answer your phone,” Beezle replied.

I patted my pockets for my cell, pulled it out. There were three missed calls from my house phone, and two from J.B. There was also an alert indicating that I had several voice mail messages. I was sure I didn’t want to listen to those. They probably involved yelling.

I called J.B. while Samiel glared at me.

“Black,” J.B. barked.

“Hello to you, too,” I said. “I’m not dead or in mortal peril, so you can call off the search party.”

“Where were you?”

“I’ll explain later. By the way, what do you know about a creepy goblin thing that looks like its skin is turned inside out?”

“Can this creature appear and disappear at will?” J.B. asked.

“Yes. And it has kind of popping frog’s eyes?”

“The Hob,” J.B. said, his tone alarmed. “Did it come after you?”

“Don’t worry. I killed it.”

There was a long silence at J.B.’s end.

“What?” I asked. “What now?

“I’m coming by the house later,” he said, and hung up.

I gave my phone a dirty look since I couldn’t give one to J.B., and then stuck it in my pocket.

“Let’s go inside,” I said to Samiel. “You can yell at me at your leisure while I drink something warm.”

We filed into the house, Nathaniel bringing up the rear. I was too tired to argue with him about staying outside so I let him join the throng trooping upstairs to my apartment.

Beezle landed on my unwounded shoulder. “I see you’ve managed to ruin another coat.”

“I see you’ve been in the popcorn stash while I was gone,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, wiping popcorn crumbs from his belly.

“You’re hardly surreptitious,” I said.

“What do you expect? It’s your fault if I’m bingeing. You shouldn’t have disappeared without a word.”

“I’m sorry I worried you,” I said.

“You should be,” he replied.

I pushed open the door and entered the kitchen. “This is your cue to apologize to me for being rude before I left.”

“For what?” Beezle asked. “Telling the truth?”

I shook my head. Beezle would never see that there was such a thing as being too blunt. And apologizing for hurting my feelings had never been very high on his priority list.

I looked at Jude, still in wolf form. “We need to get you a stash of clothes you can keep here.”