Sins of the Demon

we’re coming in.”

“Excellent.” I stopped and crossed my arms over my chest. Tilted my head. “And what happens if I don’t do as you ask?”

Tracy gave a bark of laughter. “I shoot your ex. Do you really think I won’t? You know I won’t hesitate.”

“Okay. Shoot him,” I said. “And no, this isn’t some stupid bluff. Why the fuck should I care if you shoot your partner?” I locked eyes with Roman. “Isn’t that right, Posterula Inc?” I snorted. “You’re listed as the CEO, right? Posterula…secondary door or gate. Very imaginative.” I resisted the urge to pump my fist in the air and give an exuberant shout. Damn straight! My instincts weren’t off!

Roman shot to his feet—not bound after all. He rounded on Tracy, scowling. “You said no one would figure it out!”

Tracy’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I said the chances were low. It doesn’t matter now. Grab her and put her into the goddamn diagram.”

I spread my hands as Roman stalked toward me. “Oh, you don’t have to manhandle me into the diagram. I’ll walk there on my own, but first I want to know why the hell you tried to get me busted for murder.” Then I winced, shook my head. “Never mind. I know why.” Fucking hell, I could be dense sometimes. I looked at Tracy. “You wanted into my summoning chamber, didn’t you? You set me up just enough to get them to do a search warrant.”

“You did a good job cleaning up your diagrams,” he said. “But like all good summoners, you use blood as a component when tracing them out.”

Shit. “Luminol. You sprayed the floor with luminol.” It would have glowed like the Christmas decorations on my house. And since the glow usually faded after about thirty seconds, all he’d needed was a few minutes alone in the basement to spray the floor down and take a long-exposure picture. Then he could go back and build his own storage diagram. No wonder he was able to summon two major demons back to back.

I shifted my attention back to Roman. “Okay, I get why Tracy—or Raymond—would want to get some revenge against me. But why the fuck are you helping him with all this? What the hell did I ever do to you?”

Roman shrugged. “Not a damn thing. You were convenient. You’re the only summoner I know, and it helped that you had plenty of people who could serve as victims to link the portals.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said before I could censor myself. “I was convenient? What kind of sociopath are you? Dude, you need serious therapy.”

I barely had time to throw up a block before he closed the distance between us and clocked me hard in the side of the head. My arm took the brunt of it but he still hit me hard enough to drop me to my knees and make me see stars. I sent up a silent thanks to Eilahn for her attempts to teach me self-defense. I’d be out cold if not for her relentless drills.

“Cut it out, Roman,” Tracy snapped. “She needs to be alive and conscious.”

Roman grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet, frog-marched me to the center of the diagram and then dumped me in the middle. “I financed this whole thing because with this gate I can be a summoner as well. Then I won’t need those fuckers at ESPN or anyone else.” He backed out of the diagram and folded his arms across his chest.

I gave a dry laugh and shifted my attention to Tracy. “Is that what you told him? That’s hysterical.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed but Tracy just shook his head. “Don’t listen to her, Roman. You’ll see for yourself in just a few minutes.” He holstered his gun and then lifted his hands, eyes unfocusing briefly. Queasiness hit me, and I had no doubt he was activating the diagram. I couldn’t see the energies, but I was quite sure that he was getting things started.

Roman smiled. “I’m not a summoner, Kara. But I do have sensitivity to the arcane—enough to allow me to work the gate. That sensitivity is one of the reasons I was drawn to you, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It wasn’t until I met Tracy, and we became friends, that I figured it out. He’s the one who told me I didn’t have to sit on the sidelines. And after the Symbol Man murders he knew you were a summoner.” He gave an ugly laugh. “You were an obvious choice.”

The queasiness grew a fraction, and Tracy’s forehead furrowed in concentration. Clearly he was expecting something to happen, and it wasn’t. “But he was wrong, Roman,” I said, shrugging. “I’m not a summoner.” I gestured around me at the diagram. “The gate would be open if I was, right?”

“Don’t listen to her!” Tracy snarled. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face despite the chill in the building. “She is a summoner. You know she is! It’s just taking longer to open than I expected.” His eyes snapped to mine. “The focus. You destroyed the focus.” His lip curled. “Doesn’t matter. I can still do this without it.”

“But you still need a summoner,” I said, acting a hell of a lot more casual than I felt.

Roman shifted, frowned. “Are you sure about this, Tracy?”

“She’s a goddamn summoner!” he shouted, fury suffusing his face. “Now shut the fuck up and let me do this!”

I took a deep breath. This was going to suck. Hard. “If I was a summoner, I wouldn’t be able to walk out of this diagram.”

Tracy’s eyes widened. “You’re bluffing,” he said. Then he sneered. “Badly, too. You’d be torn apart. You wouldn’t risk that.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t.” Come on cuff, don’t fail me now, I thought as I walked out of the circle.

Okay, the first step was walking, the second and third were stumbling as the nausea slammed into me. It was gone as soon as I was past the outer perimeter, but I fell to my hands and knees in front of Tracy and puked on his shoes anyway.

He gave a shout of horror and dismay as he leaped back, then he looked to the diagram. “I don’t understand,” he said, utterly flabbergasted. “I know you’re a summoner.” He shook his head as if trying to get his thoughts to fall properly into place. “And even if you’re not, the wards should have dropped you.”

Shakily, I wiped my mouth and got back to my feet. “Yeah, well, I’m clever that way. Now why don’t you be a good boy and shut this thing down before someone gets hurt.” As if to underscore my point the sound of gunshots came to us from the foyer.

“This is bullshit!” Roman seethed, rounding on Tracy. “You promised me!”

Tracy held up a hand, still staring at me. “It’s impossible. I had you assessed. There’s no way you can simply stop being a summoner.” He shook his head. “We don’t have a choice. They make sure we become summoners.”

A weird chill ran down my spine. “What are you talking about? Who’s ‘they?’”

He gave a dry and tortured laugh. “The lords. Come on, now. You haven’t figured this out? If your dad hadn’t died, do you think you’d have ever become a summoner? You wouldn’t have been mentored by your aunt—who conveniently left Japan and returned here in order to raise poor, orphaned you.”

The breath froze in my chest. “My dad was killed by a drunk driver.”

Tracy snorted. He was beginning to recover his composure now. “Right. Have you ever looked at the accident report? I have. He shouldn’t have died in that wreck.”

I swallowed hard. Of course I’d never read the report. Why the hell would I torture myself like that? “Why… why would they do that?”

His eyes grew dark with unshielded agony. I suddenly wondered if the death of his mother had truly been a suicide. “Because without us they have no way to return.”

“Return? What—”

“Fuck this!” Roman snarled, cutting me off. “Show me how to work the goddamn gate, and then these lords can have one more summoner on their payroll.”

“No, shut up, Roman!” I said, eyes on Tracy. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, bitch!” Roman shouted. “Tracy, hurry up and make me a goddamn summoner!”

Tracy leveled a glare at him. “Don’t be stupid. You can’t be a summoner.” His hand dropped to his gun, and I had zero doubt that Roman was about to die.

But I’d forgotten that Roman was strong and fast as hell. Before any of us could blink he’d knocked the gun aside and tackled Tracy. Roman wrenched the gun from Tracy’s hand with the accompanying sound of breaking