Her whole body tingled, as if his mouth had been all over her. No wonder the demon realm had tossed them back; even hell recognized the unacceptable temptation between them.

He was her boss. And an arrogant jerk most of the time. Plus, he hadn’t really wanted to kiss her.

Not true, her body screamed. Even the most unrepentant demon with its cozening lies couldn’t have faked that erection. He’d wanted it, and by God, she wanted him to admit it. He couldn’t just keep using this intense chemistry between them as the flash powder in his demon skirmishes. Too many more scorching kisses like that and she’d blow up too.

Yeah, hell so didn’t want any part of this battle.

“They’re gone.” Liam rose to his feet, graceful as always, as if they hadn’t just wrestled free of the demon realm. Tongue wrestling apparently counted.

But he was right about the gone part. Nothing remained in the hallway except the two crescent knives on the floor, smeared in blood and birnenston. Corvus, the salambes, even the sparkle of slivered souls, gone. “Was Corvus sucked into the trap?”

Liam shook his head. “If the djinni had been, the body would still be here.”

He held a hand out to her and pulled her to her feet. He kept her hand in his and gently twisted her wrist so the bracelet winked at them. The crevices of the knot work gleamed with a strange iridescence. “Like ichor stuck in its teeth,” he murmured thoughtfully. “The mouth of the trap. And the throat led back to the tenebraeternum to swallow them all. My ever-hungry ravager is suitably impressed.”

“And I’m a little . . . unsettled,” Jilly said. Admitting as much rankled, but she’d seen he didn’t bear the weight of command lightly. “Why did this come to me? I’m the last person on earth who ever wanted to trap anyone.”

“Who better to be in charge of it?”

“Um, you? You’re clan chieftain of the league anyway.”

“It’s too narrow a torque to fit around my neck. For whatever reason—the teshuva’s reason—the power came to you, Jilly.”

What did she fear? The power the bracelet gave her over evil? Or the implied power that Liam, as chief evil fighter, had over her? She was totally willing to hand him the knot-work trap, and she trusted him with the fate of the world, yet still her heart raced when he touched her.

His blue eyes turned unfathomable, and he released her to collect his hammer. “The commitments never waver. And neither can we.”

When he straightened, he seemed taller than ever. She stiffened her spine to match him. Tentatively, she reached out with her demon senses, not much different from trying to sniff out the first whiff of something burning on the stove. “No tenebrae left in the building. The malice outside are gone too.”

“Escaped or sucked down.” He pulled out his cell phone. Over the hiss of a bad connection, he spoke quickly.

She bent to retrieve her knives and wipe them on her jeans. When she straightened to stick them in her pocket, the hallway blurred around her, and for a moment she thought the demon realm was rising around them again.

“Easy.” Liam grabbed her, and she realized she’d tipped far to one side. “Too much for you?”

She wanted to scoff, make a smart-ass comment about how he might be six- foot-and-did-it-matter-after-that, but he was definitely nothing she couldn’t handle. But he wasn’t talking about himself, and then she’d just reveal that she had thoughts about his too-much self.

Before she could figure out what her next smart-ass comment should be, he swung her into his arms.

She’d always thought petite sucked. People thought less of her because there was less of her. But cradled against his chest, she wondered if she’d been blind to the bennies.

“You’re worse than me,” he murmured. “I called Archer to bring a car.”

Finally, she found her voice. “I can walk.” Not much of a smart-ass comment. Sounded kind of weak, actually. Especially muffled against the expanse of his chest.

“All the way back to the warehouse?” He tightened his grip.

“I was just dizzy for a second.” Where she curled her fist in the shadow of his coat lapel, the bracelet glimmered. “It’s kind of pretty, huh?”

“Pretty dangerous.” He started down the hallway without releasing her.

She tucked in her feet to keep from scuffing on the walls down the stairs. “That wasn’t business as usual, was it?”

His jaw flexed. “Sera has a connection to the tenebraeternum that seems unique in league annals. Archer did a piss-poor job of describing it, but it sounded nothing like that. I wouldn’t have guessed there’d be worse.”

Great, she was uniquely dangerous. She was always telling her kids that playing the lone-gunman rebel off on a wild tear was a bad idea. She even thought she’d walked the talk. At the moment, though, she wasn’t walking at all, and despite the strong arms wrapped around her, she felt very much alone again. “Could we catch Corvus the same way? Could we sweep all demons out of the city?”

He shook his head. “I still don’t know how this fits.”

And by “this” he meant her. There was no “we.” She was just another cog in his cosmic battle machine. How’d she keep managing to forget that? He certainly never did. The whole time his kiss had wiped her mind, he’d been plotting strategies and doing crosswords.

How desperate was she? She didn’t want to answer that.

At the bottom of the stairs, she struggled out of his grasp. He had to put her down or risk dumping her.

Couldn’t dump her when they’d never been steady, her helpful brain reminded her. Sure, now it was back online with smart-ass comments directed at herself.

The main floor of the building was a vacant convenience store with only dust behemoths on the empty shelves. Liam easily broke the locks on the roll-down security gate and wrenched up the steel curtain. The screech and stink of rusty metal made her stiffen, demon senses scanning for salambes.

Liam slanted a glance at her. “We’re okay now.”

“Now,” she muttered.

The rush of colder air swept the room, and the dust behemoths tumbled in frantic circles like they couldn’t wait to get out either. Liam stepped out onto the street, his face lifted to the night, his hand near the grip of his hammer despite his reassurances.

Demon sign streaked the sidewalk and the stanchions for the L as if black- light paint. But that was it. Even the psychic screams left behind when the teshuva overwhelmed their prey were missing.

Liam’s gaze was shuttered. “You got rid of them all.”

Which, last she heard, was a good thing, so why the wary look? Unless he thought he was next. After her shamelessly soliciting his kiss, she couldn’t blame him for sensing a trap. Ironic, considering that was her hang-up.

She kept a chunk of space between them as she lifted her hand near a smear of ether on a light post. It matched the unearthly phosphorescence deep in the weave of the knot-work bracelet. “What sign does a fleeing djinni leave?”

“It’s still riding Corvus’s body, so big footprints, half-smoked cigarette butts, getaway cars. The usual bad-guy spoor.”

She surveyed the cracked concrete with its scattering of trash. Down the urban canyon of buildings, the rumble of another train sounded. “Not going to help us tonight, is it?”

He shook his head. “Not now that it’s obvious we won’t listen to his pitch about joining the dark side.”

“You wanted to keep him talking?”

“Little harder to keep up his end of the conversation after you put two knives in his chest.”

“What did you really think you’d learn? That he’s a bad guy?”

“And you’re a badass.” Liam shrugged. “The djinni-possessed and the talyan have always walked separate paths, the djinn to greater dissolution, the teshuva to repentance. Why did he seek us out? What does he think is changing?” His expression darkened. “He said he has learned something from us. I shudder to think that we’ve given him any insight or advantage.”

“He’s probably just trying to make us doubt ourselves. Isn’t that the devil’s MO?”

Liam studied her, blue eyes as shadowed as when he spoke of Corvus. “Doubt has never stopped you, though, has it? I find myself drawn to that.”

She bit the inside of her lip as she tried to unravel the compliment—was it a compliment? Damn it, now he was making her doubt. “I thought we did good. We practically burned a hole through hell.”

“Is that what we’ve shown the djinni?” He closed his coat, tucking away his hammer—and any other evidence that he’d ever been drawn to her. “Corvus had marginal control over the ferales when we tangled with him last fall. Now he has this new species of tenebrae, and he’s able to manipulate the salambes. This is not a comforting progression.”

She touched the bracelet. “But you have—the league has—more weapons now too.”

He hesitated. “Right.”

She bristled. “What? I’m not a worthy addition to your crew?”

“I don’t know what you are. Or Sera either, for that matter. All I know is that she and Archer do scary things together, things that, as far as I’ve seen, have driven us closer to the edge, not eased us back. You don’t unleash a nuclear weapon when you still think you can save the world. And as for you—”

“Us,” she insisted. “You were right there with me, remember? In the demon realm.” She lifted her chin. Let him deny it. “Kissing me.”

But of course he didn’t deny it. He was too good for that. Instead, he just took a half step back. Right. Just denying her. Though she hadn’t moved, she felt as if the pocketed blades had gone through her jacket into her belly.

“There’ve been no female talyan for two thousand years or more.” His voice was low, almost lost in the approaching rumble of the train. “Maybe there was a reason the mated-talyan bond went extinct.”

Not just denying her, but her whole gender. Or subspecies or essence or whatever.

“Or maybe the males were just fucking blind,” she snapped, “and doomed the world to rampant evil rather than admit . . .” Admit what? That they had something together? Had what? “Rather than admit they needed each other. Why have a real team when you can always rustle up a tribunal to ask if women even have souls?” Her voice rose over the clatter of the train on the tracks above them. “Let’s just burn the witch, make her cover her hair, deny her the vote, or pay her less for equal work. Screw you and your sexist demon. Maybe I don’t need you either.”

A wind, cold as winter iron, dry as charcoal ashes, hissed around them. Centered on her. She held up her hand. Whether the bracelet was the source or lodestone of the wind, she couldn’t tell, but the knot work gleamed with preternatural intensity in the light of the train passing above.

One long step and Liam was in her face, his fingers locked around her wrist, blue eyes overlaid with demonic violet. “Don’t you dare.”

The heat of his skin shorted out the impulse beating in her chest like wings. She swallowed hard and tasted blood where his wounded reven had marked her too, streaked across her face during their wild, realm-spanning kiss. She kept her gaze fixed on his. Because she might be unnerved, but she wasn’t going to let him see that.

He stared down at her. “You done with your rant?”

“Since I’m so dangerous, you done pissing me off?”

“Probably not.” He’d already made clear he wouldn’t get any closer, but he managed to tower over her without taking another step. “And you’re not dangerous enough to take me on.”

She thrust out her hand, palm flattened to hold him at bay, and opened her mouth to keep arguing. But nothing came to her. The nothingness was almost as brilliant as the shock of his touch when he grabbed her wrist as if he thought she was going to strike him or run away.

She waited for her habitual flash of outrage, but found nothing there too. Just a realization that she could keep fighting, but he wasn’t really the enemy. Finally she offered tentatively, “Hard as it is to believe, we’re not in the demon realm anymore.”

His jaw worked, as if he couldn’t find anything to say either. After a moment, the barely-there dimple appeared as he smiled. “You never cease to surprise me, Jilly Chan. Just when I expect a left out of you, you go right.” He didn’t let her go but shifted his grip. His fingertips brushed the bracelet as he cradled her fist in his palm.

She sighed and opened her hand in his, trying to ignore the cold burn of the bracelet. “And whenever I think you think you’re always right, you go left.”

“A meeting in the middle, then?” He tangled his fingers through hers.

She had to angle her neck to gaze up at him; he was so much taller. Did he honestly believe they could find a place they could both stand, with her big boots running roughshod over his big plans?

Before she could answer, the headlights of an approaching car caught them in their little tableau. The hatchback angled across the street and stopped, faced into oncoming traffic, had there been any.

Sera leaned out the driver’s window. “Archer said to come get you. Just in time, I see.”

Liam held Jilly’s hand another heartbeat. As if he was waiting for her, as if she was supposed to make a choice with him still streaked in blood, her still twitching at the memory of demons and soulflies and his fierce kiss. Her lips felt tender from the weight of his mouth, like they might be inclined to say something that the tougher part of her would never allow. She’d bite her tongue, but then she’d just taste him again. And a mere taste wasn’t ever enough.

The tenebrae herding her into a train had been more subtle. She stepped back, though the loss of his touch let in a cold the demon realm couldn’t match.

He let her go. The scowl he turned on Sera was forbidding. “I see you’ve been taking driving lessons from Archer.”

She blinked. “It’s the middle of the night. The demon hour. No one’s coming.”

Liam opened the back door of the car. “You could still get a ticket.” He gestured Jilly in, his face as stone set as that of any cop collaring a perp.

“Luckily, At-One always takes care of its loyal employees’ little transgressions. And the teshuva are responsible for the big ones.” Sera glanced back as Jilly climbed in. “You two look rough.”

Jilly settled back. “So do you. Unless those are jelly-doughnut stains and not demon guts. Busy night?”

“Yeah, very.” Sera returned her attention to Liam, who’d claimed shotgun. “Where to, boss?”

“Jilly’s apartment.”

Jilly hunched in her seat. “I’m being sent to bed without supper. I didn’t know you could get fired from possession.”

“No, no,” Sera said. “It’s fires of possession.”

The grind of Liam’s teeth was audible in the small car. “I want survival tips, ladies, not a Smothers Brothers outtake.”

“Smothers Sisters,” Sera said. “Who listens to them anymore anyway?”

Jilly gave her a ghost of a smile in the rearview mirror. “Survival tips from who?”

“Your neighbor seemed to know a lot about the bracelet.”

Jilly frowned. “You can’t wake Lau-lau. It’s the middle of the night. She’ll be terrified.”

He stared forward. “We’ll see.” Then he asked Sera for a rundown of her demon encounters for the night, and that was the end of that conversation.

With her jacket scrunched uncomfortably to avoid poking herself on her weapons, Jilly huddled in the backseat. The heat from the blowers up front didn’t quite reach her. Or anyway, she couldn’t get warm.

What had happened between her and Liam? Together, they’d snared the salambes. And the severed souls of the haints had vanished too. When she’d vowed to find out what happened to Andre and then to get solvo off the streets, she hadn’t quite figured on becoming a trap herself, a menace not so different from the sort she’d fought all her life. Sure, she intended to use her powers for good. But then there was that whole possessed-by-evil thing....

She realized the silence had spread to the front seat too.

Liam’s resigned sigh carried less air than the straining heater, but Jilly heard it. “So, Sera, what haven’t you told me about this mated-talyan bond?”

Jilly cleared her throat. “I might’ve already let slip that wild demonic sex makes for a fun night of possession.”

Sera glanced back at her. “How’d he take it?”

“About like you’d expect.”

“Hmm. Archer got over it.”

“Undoubtedly,” Liam snapped. “I know you’ve been in the league archives. What have you found?”

Sera squirmed. “Nothing specific, nothing definitive, or I would have told you.”

His low growl held demonic double octaves.

“But,” she went on hurriedly, “I think the teshuva got scared.”

Jilly leaned forward, arms braced on the seat in front of her. “Demons get scared?”

Sera shrugged. “Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But there are oblique references to secret meetings between league leaders. They apparently decided the mated bond ran counter to the mission of the teshuva and unbalanced the human/demon link with potentially catastrophic results. I’m guessing, from supply manifests and armory inventories, that they outlawed relationships between talyan, then split the leagues into male and female factions.”

Jilly scooted farther forward. “What happened to the girls-only leagues?”

“Unknown. After all, I’m reading the bad ol’ boys’ club version of events. And I didn’t get the sense they were really eager to talk about it. You know how men are.”

Liam cleared his throat.

“But it’s obvious,” Sera said, “over the centuries, the leagues lost touch, not just with their female counterparts, but with each other.” She glanced at Liam. “It’s only lately that there’s been any communication at all. Thanks mostly to you, Liam.”

He grunted. “Lot of stubborn, old- fashioned, rule-bound autocrats.”

Jilly snorted.

He glared over his shoulder at her. “Put your seat belt on.”

She ignored him. “So there could be more of us out there.”

Sera gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Maybe. It might be worth exploring. In all our free time, when we’re not fighting off evil incarnate in a desperate attempt to prevent the powers of darkness from sneakily—and lately not so sneakily—transforming our realm into a destination getaway for vacationing hell dwellers.”

“Or maybe we’ll leave it alone,” Liam snapped. “Considering our predecessors thought there was an excellent chance you all would destroy us, maybe the world, with your heretical demon-slaying—”

“Doesn’t that sound off to you?” Jilly mused. “How can destroying evil be heretical?”

Liam ignored her, his attention on Sera. “Then tell me why I shouldn’t separate you and Archer.”

Any semblance of warmth deserted the car.

Sera’s voice echoed with demonic lows. “Because you can’t.”

“That begs the question.”

“No begging,” Sera demurred. “You just can’t.”

“He thinks we’re dangerous,” Jilly added helpfully. She sat back and clipped on her seat belt when Liam swiveled his head to glare at her again.

“He’s right,” Sera said. “And the only thing that keeps me from being dangerous and destructively psychotic from the knowledge that an eternity of war spreads ahead of me”—her hazel eyes gleamed with enough violet to refract in the windshield—“is Ferris.”

Liam shook his head. “So either way, with Archer or without, the fate of the world lies in the balance?”

“Damned if you do . . . ,” Jilly offered, ready for his glare this time.

“My world was always at stake,” Sera said softly. “I just forgot I cared. Until I loved him.”

Despite the grumble of the old engine, the breathy whistle of wind past the poorly sealed door, her words fell in a hush. Jilly wanted to swear, open the window to let in the night, do something to break that stillness before she looked into it and saw . . .

“Never mind,” Liam said curtly. “It’s too late now anyway. Whatever Corvus has figured out, we can’t put the djinni back in the bottle.”

Sera startled. “Corvus?”

“Watch the road, damn it. I’ll fill everyone in after dawn. Pull over there.”

Jilly felt another chill as the car rolled to a stop. Laulau’s light was on. What would her elderly landlady be doing up at this time of night?

“Imagine that,” Liam murmured. “Another known unknown with odd hours.”

Out of the car, Jilly fell into step behind Liam as he approached the door, Sera a step behind that. Liam tried the door. It was unlocked.

“That’s unnerving,” Sera murmured.

A dank, earthy scent spiced with ginger rolled out, turning to steam on the cold air before dissipating. The shop was deserted, but from the back, Lau-lau’s voice rang out, “That you, xiao-Jilly? If you’re someone else, the qilin will kill you, so get out.”

Liam froze.

“A qilin is a Chinese unicorn.” Jilly gestured at the small cinnabar statue almost lost in the clutter on the counter. “So I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Speak for yourself,” he muttered.

Jilly glanced in disbelief at Sera.

The other woman shrugged. “I didn’t believe in demons either.”

Jilly huffed out a breath. “It’s me, Lau-lau. With friends.”

“Your dragon-man?” Lau-lau poked her head through the curtain that shielded the back room. Her thin hair was rolled in curlers. “Ah. My tea was good, yes?”

He nodded. “Quite restorative.”

She cackled. “Such a gentleman.” She turned a curious glance on Sera. “It’s good Jilly has found friends her own age.”

Jilly sighed. Was immortal her own age? “We need some help, Lau-lau.”

“Yes. The demons are out in force tonight.”

The three talyan stared at the old woman.

She peered back, black eyes crinkling. “You are not the only force fighting evil in this city, you know.”

After a moment, Liam shook his head. “We seemed very alone.”

Lau-lau waved her hand. “More powerful, perhaps, but not the oldest, and not alone.”

“This is too weird,” Jilly said. “I just happen to get possessed by a demon, and my landlady just happens to be a secret commando in the war on evil?”

Lau-lau scoffed. “ ‘Just’ nothing. Why do you think I rented to you?”

“But I didn’t know anything about demons then.”

The wrinkles in Lau-lau’s face deepened around her down-turned mouth. “The shadow was on you already.”

“Your penance trigger,” Sera said softly. “It set you on this path a long time ago.”

Lau-lau nested her hands, one fist inside the other, her gnarled knuckles white. “I’m sorry that I could not turn you aside on your path.”

For an instant, Jilly envisioned that divergence. A different life. An actual life, with death and everything. A life without ever discovering the league. Or Liam. The instant, bone-deep denial of the thought shook her. “I wouldn’t have listened.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.” Lau-lau gestured for them to follow her into the back.

At the small kitchen stove, Lau- lau stirred a huge cast-iron pot. Despite her hair rollers and housecoat, she obviously hadn’t been to bed yet. The redolence of fresh ginger burned in Jilly’s sinuses, and she rubbed her nose to hold back a sneeze.

Lau-lau angled the spoon to display the watery paste. “Strengthens the Po. Demon repellent.”

Sera peered over the older woman’s shoulder. “Does it work?”

“You can try it. Since you are Jilly’s friend, I’ll give you a big discount.” Lau-lau grinned at her.

“There’s a market for this stuff?”

Lau-lau’s grin sharpened. “There will be.”

Liam stood in the beaded doorway, a concession to the small room. With his arms crossed over his chest, he still took up more than his fair share of the space. “You could have told us earlier you knew.”

“You had other business,” Lau-lau reminded him. “Thanks to my tea.”

His expression didn’t change. “So tell us—plainly, please—about Jilly’s bracelet.”

“I explained, the knot work is a trap. The labyrinth has always held secrets. And dangers.”

He stiffened, and beads clacked around his shoulders. “Dangers for who?”

“The demons. And you, of course.” She narrowed her eyes. “Doesn’t it always work that way?”

He pushed away from the doorway. “Maybe you have a balm to counteract that.”

She shook her head. “Just as butterflies fly in the strong winds, fate is not washed away by even the strongest tea.”

Jilly broke in, her frustration mounting with Liam’s. “If we knew more about how to set the trap, bait it, spring it . . .”

“I sell herbs, xiao-Jilly. I am not a warrior with all the wisdom you seek.” Lau-lau swept a fretful hand down the front of her housecoat. In a voice more bitter than anything in her apothecary cabinet, she said, “Once, we all held pieces of the great mysteries. We are shrunken now, and old, forgetful. We have lost track of each other and the mysteries we guarded. Tricks and hints are all we have left.”

Jilly drew a breath to argue, but Sera shot her a silencing glance and dragged her wallet from her back pocket. “One good trick can shut up the toughest audience. I’d like some of that repellent. You take plastic?”

“Cash only,” Lau-lau said primly.

While they bottled up the unguent, Liam returned to the shop. Jilly followed and watched him prowl the tight space. She took a few steps in, narrowing his restless paces.

He half turned away from her, his expression distant, and poked at the impulse buys scattered across the countertop by the register. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened, and with one long finger, he separated a small tube from the rest. “You use this one. Cherry blossoms.”

She spared one glance for the lip balm. “How did you know she was something else?”

“I guessed. Things happen around you female talyan. Patterns shift. Forces realign.” His fingers grazed the reven at his temple before he raked his fingers through his hair. “Corvus started this, you know. He wanted to punch a hole through the Veil, and his efforts, with the help of my Bookkeeper, brought through a demon. The demon that possessed Sera, that would have given him access to the weakness in the Veil. Except Sera controls it now, in some strange way she can’t explain to me. So I’m sitting on a major threat to the status quo that has been maintained since the first Fall. And now you.”

“Me what?” She tightened her fists.

“You’re even harder to sit on.” He shook his head. “We’re headed to hell—do not pass go, do not collect handbasket—on my watch.”

She lifted one eyebrow, not sure if she should be more amused or disgusted at his arrogance. “So this is all about you? About your conceit that you have to be the best damn leader?”

“Damned is right,” he snapped at her.

“You’re just pissed that you can’t control Sera, can’t control me. You are no better than Corvus.”

The words sprang out of her as if she’d whipped the half-moon knives from her pocket. But she couldn’t blame it on the demon’s reflexes.

Liam’s blue gaze shuttered over his reaction, if he felt anything at all. “I have no more choice than you.”

She wanted to rail at him, force a crack in that cool facade. “I don’t know why, but I thought you were different.” She’d started thinking he was strong and wise and, oh God, a superhero from one of her childhood comic books, come to save her from all those wrong-way turns.

That had been just another of her mistakes. Like leaving home. Like confronting Rico. Like thinking she could help those homeless kids when half the time they didn’t even want her help, and the other half of the time they vanished before she could steer them toward the light.

Liam didn’t really want help either. He had his own thing going, as deep in denial as any of the angry boys she’d worked with.

Trying to go her own way, she’d ended up possessed. Thinking she could forge a connection with Liam, she’d end up . . . Forget it. She wasn’t going there.

Maybe those long-lost talya sisters hadn’t been banished. Maybe they’d left freely, if not happily. Their souls were forfeit, but at least they knew their own minds.

And they weren’t going to lose their hearts too.