of being stalked by this guy. “For like three seconds. And I only did it because you walked away from me when I was talking to you.” I took a step forward, neck bent to look up at his suddenly startled face. “I don’t have the time or the energy to deal with another demon bent on world domination, so put that right out of your brain right now. Got it?”
Hodin stared down at me. I’d been careful in what I’d done, embarrassing him without any real threat. He might not be as powerful as me, but he had a bigger spell lexicon. I was used to fighting for my life, though. The threat was in how I’d tagged him, and he knew it. “You are following me,” I said, startled when the scent of burnt amber drifted out to tickle a memory. “And I don’t like it.”
Lips twisted in annoyance, Hodin looked at the cars until they began to move again. He then turned to the people watching, and they all found somewhere else to go. “Who is Ku’Sox?”
How come people never leave when I stare at them? “Go ask Dali,” I said belligerently, but it was telling that he’d missed that part of demon mischief.
Sure enough, he backed off, eyes on my hair still floating from the line energy. “You will stop spying on me,” I demanded, easing up on my own anger. Sure, I’d gotten him to turn around, but now it might get sticky, and my gut tightened at the uglier curses I had at my fingertips. “And I want a straight answer so we can settle this right here, right now,” I said boldly. “Are you making people attack each other in their sleep?” Oh, God. If he was, I was going to be banned from more than Patricia’s, because we were going to tear up this street.
“No,” he said simply, his goat-slitted eyes going to the surrounding buildings.
“Really?” I said, incredulous but believing him. Demons always wanted to be caught. It gave them something to do and they thrived on the notoriety, believing to an unhealthy extreme that there was no such thing as bad press.
His eyes returned to mine, and I stifled a shudder. “You seem relieved,” he said, and I exhaled as I looked at the passing cars and the slowly returning foot traffic.
“I am,” I admitted. “I don’t like busting demon ass. There’s too much collateral damage, and I never get paid for it.”
He flicked open his dark glasses and fitted them on his narrow nose. “You think you could best me?” he said rather loftily.
I ran my gaze from his hair, lightly moving in the breeze, to his biker boots. “Yep.”
“You can’t even get a packet of no-doze from the local spell caster,” he accused.
Great, he’d seen that. “I’m not the one who ran into a denuding curse, trying to avoid bruising my nose. Pinning you to the pavement would take a lot out of me, though, and as nice as Thanksgiving dinner is in the hospital, I have plans.” I hesitated to give my words more weight. “Stop spying on me. I mean it. We have rules in this reality, and one of them is you can’t stalk people or scare them to get what you want. If you want to know something, ask me. I like conversation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to head over to the university for some no-doze.”
I turned to leave, not sure if he was going to honor my request or not. Regardless, he’d put me behind my time, and now I was going to have to text Jenks and Ivy that I’d pick them up half an hour later than planned. It didn’t seem like much on the surface, but Jenks had to eat every forty minutes when he was active, and though Ivy would see that he ate, Jenks hated being taken care of.
“Give me your money,” Hodin said, and I spun.
Is he mugging me? I thought as his long, ring-decked hand stretched out. “Excuse me?”
Hodin’s hand dropped as he looked askance at the nearby shop behind him. “I’ll get your no-doze for you. You’re going to need it.”
“And you know this . . . how?” Suspicion narrowed my eyes. “You know who is setting people against each other in their sleep.”
Hodin shrugged. “Give me the money. If I can get that witch to sell me the charms, you tell me how you earned Al’s forgiveness for treating with the