Page 25 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

She stops whisking. “Halloween.” I nod.

The word sits in the kitchen between us like a lit fuse. Halloween. Samhain. The night the veil pulls itself thin as paper, when every demon in the Pit feels the mortal world close enough to touch. The night Lucifer would need only the barest expenditure of his considerable power to tear a rift wide open.

If I possess bone marrow, it must be turning to pure ice.

“Why are you asking me this?” My voice comes out more serious than I intend.

She purses her lips, the tension showing in her shoulders. I don’t press. I wait for her to finish making the meal for Bethie. She places a small serving of peas on the tray and brings it to the child, along with a sippy cup of milk.

“There you go, little bug.” Vesper kisses Bethie’s brow, the child fully enthralled by the colorful ponies.

“I’ll tell you,” she says, gesturing toward the bedroom. “But someone’s coming to watch Bethie soon, and I need to get dressed for work. Come with me?”

“Of course.”

A knot of dread coils tight within me. Did she see something of concern on her outdoor voyage? A powerful demon? Could one have tracked my sigil here? Or worse…my ember? The question gnaws on me.

Halloween is five months away. Five months until Lucifer can find me.

And I have no wish to go back.

11

Vesper

I’ve told him everything.

The man with the dog. The way he looked at me. The crystal going live with heat. The way Bethie—my barely-talking, cheerio-hurling, ‘ba’-calling daughter—had looked across the street and said hound.

And now I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around myself, the silence settling into the corners of the room. My nerve endings feel like someone ran a live wire through them. I’m cold everywhere, except where Valefar’s presence blankets me.

I’m still pulling my spine back together when he says quietly, “I should go.”

My head snaps up so fast, my neck protests.

“Go where?” My voice comes out sharper than I intended.

He’s standing near the window, not touching anything. His tail is low behind him, a slow, heavy sway that is the opposite of the bright, contented flicking I’m used to. His posture is the most defeated I’ve ever seen. And he’s looking at the door. Not at me. At the door, where I can hear the muffled noise of the television and Bethie babbling.

“It is too dangerous.” He still doesn’t look at me.

“Can you even go back?”

His silence answers before he does. “No.”

Wait, what?

I straighten. “No as in not right now, or no as in I accidentally kidnapped you from Hell?”

He sighs, his shoulders heavier than I’ve seen them, his body betraying extreme tension. “You summoned me through a closed door, Vesper. That does not mean I possess the key from this side. Your spell created the passage. I cannot simply recreate it.”

“But I can send you back.”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“You may attempt counter-summoning spells. Banishments. Reversal rites.” His mouth tightens. “But the barrier between our realms is strong this time of year. Your chances will improve as the Veil thins.”