eyes like that would somehow stop Amber from leaving.
Amber laughed softly and then remembered what she was about to do. This could be the biggest mistake of her life. And her last chance to do something she’d been wanting to do since that morning. Risking Quentin coming to, she cupped his scruffy jaw, bent over, and brushed her mouth across his. He was warm and slightly feverish, a fact that spurred her into action.
Sarah brought their food just as Amber grabbed the coasters and turned to leave. “Wonderful, I’ll be right back. Don’t take my plate away. Oh, and Quentin is taking a quick power nap. But really,” she said as she rushed out, “don’t take my plate. I’ll just be a minute.”
She tore out of the Tavern and ran all the way to Dora’s house, gasping for air when she got there. She went around to the back door to find Kyle blocking it. Literally. He held his arms across the doorframe, clipboard in one hand and pen in the other. “I can’t let you do this, Ms. Kowalski. If anything happens to you, I’ll be out of a job.”
“Your concern is touching, Kyle,” she said between gasps. “And it’s not like I pay you.”
“But you do. In other ways.” He pushed his round glasses up his nose then returned his hand to the frame.
“Kyle, look… Wait, what ways? Have you seen me naked?”
He bit his bottom lip and shook his head.
What the hell? “Never mind. You realize I can just walk through you?”
“Yes, I do. But that’s rude, and you would never…”
She walked through him and opened the back door. Kyle gaped at her, appalled.
“Sorry, Charlie. I’m on a mission.”
“You’re going to get killed.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked up toward the attic window. “I don’t think so.”
“And how many demons have you befriended lately?”
The grin that crept across her face could not be helped. “Hundreds of thousands.”
He scoffed, then said, “Wait, really?” before dropping his ghost clipboard. It didn’t make a sound.
Amber stepped into the house, careful to stay inside the black salt lines. She walked to the center of the small kitchen. Having no idea how long she had, how long Rune could hold Quentin, she drew in a deep breath and stepped out of the circle. Then she closed her eyes and waited.
Her hands shook at her sides, and she almost dropped the coasters. She’d been killed by something from the afterworld once already. She did not care for a repeat performance. When she was still breathing twenty seconds later, and her innards were still…innardly as opposed to outerly, she took a reluctant step toward the stairs. That was when she heard it. The breathing. The raspy inhales and exhales of an injured animal.
Swallowing hard, she started up the stairs, taking them slowly to let the demon know she was not a threat. Then again, it’d killed at least three people—more if Quentin was correct—and as far as anyone knew, it hadn’t actually touched any of them. It could crush her skull with a collectible rattlesnake paperweight or decapitate her with one of the vintage New Mexico license plates hanging on the walls. Any number of gruesome deaths awaited her.
When she got to the top floor, she looked around. The rasps were coming from the same corner the demon had occupied before, hidden by shelves of supplies and inventory.
She sat on the floor, crossed her legs, and took the coasters into both hands. Maybe she could communicate with it, try to understand why it was here, but she couldn’t dive if she couldn’t see into its eyes. Or could she?
Closing her eyes again, she concentrated on its breathing. She could feel its energies in the room—heavy and full of static. It sent electrical currents flickering over her skin.
She focused on that. Its energy. Its breathing. Its presence. Then she flipped a coaster and laid it on the floor as time slowed around her. The air thickened, and her shoulders relaxed.
Its anger washed over her first. Its rage. She let it. Absorbed it and tried to understand it. Why? Why these victims? Why here? Why now? A clicking sounded in the distance, like someone typing on a keyboard. And then faces flashed in her mind like the flickering of a silent film. A rotund businessman in Chicago. A beloved grandfather in Seattle. A pretty senator in Kentucky. Face after face of people it had killed. But it always killed the other, as well. It called its