Andy saw my uncertainty and reached across the table to pat my hand. “Look, if I were going to tell you all kinds of crap Raphael doesn’t want me to say, I would have done it by now. He knows that.”

“Yeah, but he’s under orders to kill you anyway.”

Andy shrugged. “You may have noticed he’s not too good at following orders.” He smiled at me. “You two have that in common.”

I couldn’t think of a good comeback, so I just reached out and cuffed him on the side of the head. “Jerk.”

“So are you going to go be a girl detective, or are you going to sit around the apartment being useless all day?”

I gave him a dirty look, but we both knew he’d won the argument. Fighting my reluctance, reminding myself that Andy was far more vulnerable than I, I handed over the Taser. I just hoped he was right about Raphael. If I came home from my little adventure and found out Andy’d been killed in my absence, I didn’t know if I’d ever get over the guilt.

The Spirit Society meeting starts at three-thirty and usually lasts until about five. Many of the faithful go out to dinner together afterward, but I wasn’t going to count on my parents spending the extra time.

The house was in one of the more heavily residential areas of the city, but there was a tiny grocery store across the street. I slipped inside for surveillance duty shortly after three o’clock—it would be pretty embarrassing to break into my parents’ house and discover that they’d decided to play hooky this week!

I browsed aimlessly through the shelves, keeping an eye on my parents’ house through the front window. I’d dressed in a conservative—for me—pair of jeans, with a light windbreaker that I kept zipped to cover the hint of belly that showed between the jeans and my blouse. I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but at five foot nine and with spiky red hair, it was kind of hard to miss me. I saw the geezer at the cash register watching my every move. The store was so small, it was hard to keep up the illusion that I was shopping for more than about five minutes.

Sensing that the guy at the cash register was getting more and more antsy, I snatched up a bottle of Tylenol, then went to the register.

“Will there be anything else?” he asked, still giving me the hairy eyeball.

“Nope, that’ll do it,” I replied cheerfully.

I watched my parents’ front door out of the corner of my eye while he rang up my purchase. Then I made a big deal out of rooting through my purse looking for exact change. I was almost completely out of reasons to stall when the door finally opened and my parents stepped out. Mom locked up behind them, and they began walking briskly down the street in the opposite direction from my vantage point.

Sighing in relief, I pulled out a twenty and handed it to the cashier. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and took the money. He shorted me on the change, but I figured I owed him the extra buck for rent.

I tried not to look furtive and sneaky as I climbed the three steps up to the door and slipped Andy’s key into the lock. I’d been half-afraid the key wouldn’t work, but the door opened easily, and soon I was inside.

The first thing I noticed was the way-too-strong floral air freshener. I sneezed three times in rapid succession.

What was that all about? My mom usually kept small bowls of potpourri sitting around, but they wouldn’t have this strong a scent. Then I ventured another sniff, stifling my need to sneeze again.

Under that cloying fragrance of pasteurized, processed flower product, there was something else. Smoke.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Ignoring Dad’s study for the moment, I made my way to the den at the back of the house. The focal point of the den was an oversized fireplace. Sure enough, there was an impressive pile of ashes in there. When I got close enough, I noticed the air around the fireplace was still warm, and when I pulled aside the curtain, I saw a glowing ember or two.

Having a sneaking suspicion what I would find, I went to Dad’s study.

Outwardly, it looked exactly as it had yesterday. But I wasn’t a bit surprised when I pulled open my drawer and saw that it was empty. I slammed it closed and recited as many curses as I could think of. Then I gave the drawer a swift kick for good measure.

I supposed the only reasonable thing to do was to search through the rest of the files, hoping to find something Dad missed. However, I wasn’t optimistic about my chances of success.

I was just bending to open Andy’s file when I heard the front door open and close. I froze. Now what?

Footsteps moved down the hall, and I realized at once that whoever this was, it wasn’t my mom or my dad. When they went to Spirit Society meetings, they went dressed in their Sunday best, which meant high-heeled pumps for my mom and leather-soled dress shoes for my dad. Whoever was in the house was wearing squeaky rubber soles.

Now I wished I’d brought the Taser with me, even if that would have meant leaving Andy vulnerable. My instincts insisted the intruder was one of the bad guys. I tried to convince myself I was just being paranoid because I was trespassing myself, but I didn’t believe it.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I heard those footsteps coming closer.

There was no exit from this room save the door, which would lead me straight into the intruder’s arms. And there were no closets or other convenient hiding places.

I backed to the far side of the room, searching frantically for anything I could use as a weapon. I almost laughed as I picked up the only thing I could find that was even remotely weapon-like—a letter opener. If I got attacked by a giant, rabid envelope, I was prepared.

The study door swung open, and an unfamiliar man stepped in. Dressed in faded, tattered jeans and a wife-beater that showed off about a zillion tattoos on each arm, he looked very much like your stereotypical city-dwelling predator. If this were someone else’s house—and someone else’s life—I might suspect he was a burglar, hoping to clear the place out while my parents were gone. But I knew that wasn’t the case even before he smiled at me.

“Ms. Kingsley, I presume?” he asked, and the voice sounded strangely cultured in that decidedly déclassé body.

I blinked and brandished the letter opener, feeling vaguely ridiculous. “Who the fuck are you?”

His smile stayed in place. “I’ll take that as a yes. And you might as well put your, er, weapon down. You won’t find it terribly useful against me.”

On the one hand, I couldn’t expect him to be intimidated by a letter opener. On the other hand, something about the way he said that made me think he wouldn’t be much more intimidated by a big-ass hunting knife. Which meant he was probably a demon. And considering what I’d learned from Raphael, I had a pretty good guess just which demon this was.

Of course, I wasn’t supposed to know anything about Der Jäger, so I didn’t let on that I had any idea who I was facing.

“I think I’ll keep it, thanks.” With my left hand, I rummaged in my purse, hoping to find my phone. I didn’t think I’d have an opportunity to call in the cavalry, but I figured there was no harm in trying.

Der Jäger kept smiling at me, but it was an eerie, cold smile. “Put it down, or I’ll be forced to take it from you. Trust me, you would not enjoy the experience.”

“You seem to know who I am,” I said as my questing fingers finally found the phone. I could hardly hear my own voice over the pounding of my heart, but bravado was so natural to me I was pretty sure I sounded less scared than I was. “If you know that, then you know I’m not just going to roll over for you.”

His smile broadened. “Yes. I was counting on that.”

I had just flipped open my phone when he flung himself at me. I was ready for him, so I made sure my makeshift knife was between us. He ignored it, slamming into me and knocking me to the floor, his own momentum forcing the letter opener in to the hilt.