He smiled winningly. “I’m sorry for being a total jackass.”

I pushed away from the door and gaped at him. “Are you sick? Maybe take a wee too much cough syrup?”

“No, why?” he said, continuing to beam. His smile was a little disconcerting. He looked like a game show host.

“I’ve never heard you apologize for anything to anyone. I might need to send out an interdepartmental memo to commemorate the occasion.”

He spoke in a low, confidential tone. “Look, Maddy, I really need to talk to you. Can I come in for a little bit?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Something was wrong here. J.B. never smiled, he never apologized and he never, ever called me Maddy. I shifted my weight, considering him, and that was when I saw Beezle. His little body was crumpled facedown on the porch a few feet behind J.B.

“Beezle!” I cried, and shouldered J.B. aside, kneeling on the peeling wood of the porch. I lifted the gargoyle very gently in my hands and turned him over. There was no visible sign of damage on him but his breathing was very shallow.

“Well, I was trying to get inside, but having you outside is an acceptable substitute,” J.B. said behind me, and he kicked me in the side of the face.

5

STARS EXPLODED AS I TUMBLED DOWN THE PORCH stairs and onto the walkway. A metallic taste filled my mouth and I spat blood as I rolled to my back. I could feel more blood dribbling down my chin. I’d lost Beezle during my gymnastics routine and I tried to sit up, groping the ground for him.

“What the f**k?” I said to J.B. as he walked slowly down the stairs toward me. His eyes were alight with madness.

“Oh, little girl, if you knew how long we have been seeking you,” he said, and his voice was very, very different from J.B.’s voice.

He didn’t look very much like J.B. either. The irises of his eyes had expanded to cover all the white, and changed from J.B.’s bottle green to a fiery orange-red. The pupils slitted, and his teeth . . . Well, suddenly he seemed to have far too many and each one was far too sharp.

He stepped over and kicked me in the face again. I whimpered as my head slammed to the pavement. I wondered listlessly where my neighbors were. It was after four o’clock. Weren’t people supposed to be on their way home from work and school? Why was everyone just letting this thing beat the crap out of me in the middle of the street?

The thing-that-was-not-J.B. bent over me, yanked me up by a handful of my sweater and put J.B.’s face close to mine. I could smell brimstone on its breath.

“I will be honored above all others once I bring my master your heart,” he said, showing me a strange sigil that was burned into his other hand. The sigil looked like an ampersand with the bottom loop cut off halfway.

All I could muster at that moment was some spit and bravado, so I hocked a mess of blood on his face. “Sorry, bud. Whoever sent you here is going to be disappointed because I’m keeping my heart right where it is.”

“Whoever sent me? You mean you do not know the sign of my master, Focalor?”

“Why would I know another freak like you?” I asked, and kneed him in the balls.

He dropped me to the ground and yowled in pain, which accomplished what I had wanted—to be released. Unfortunately, the abrupt landing also made my head explode, so I was unable to take advantage of the opportunity to get away before it grabbed me again.

“Can it be?” he hissed, and his saliva spattered on my face. My skin burned where the moisture touched it. “You do not know your father is the sworn enemy of my master?”

Something of the blankness and confusion I felt must have shown in my eyes because the monster started to laugh. The sound of its laughter made me nauseous.

“You don’t know. You don’t know who you are. And—” He took a long sniff, closing his eyes to savor it. Then he opened them again, and his smile widened. “You’re a virgin.”

“That’s private,” I muttered, my face coloring. Unbelievable, I thought. I was on the verge of having my heart torn out by some bad guy’s lackey and I was embarrassed because he knew that I was the last virgin over the age of thirty in the United States. But I was having trouble thinking straight. I knew I should do something. I just didn’t know what.

“Oh, your heart will be a pretty prize indeed,” he said, and he pulled back his arm. His fingernails lengthened until they looked like the sharp, curved claws of a tiger, but they were as black as obsidian.

So this was it. My heart would be torn out by those claws in a second. I was going to die. And Beezle . . . What would happen to Beezle?

“Mom,” I whispered.

“Your mommy isn’t going to come for you, little girl,” he said, and he plunged his hand toward my chest.

An instant before he touched me, a blast of blue flame came out of nowhere and hit the monster in J.B.’s face. The last vestiges of the glamour fell away just before his body went up in flames with the frightening rapidity of a nuclear blast. I saw a seven-foot demon, red-skinned and bat-winged, looking like a Doré engraving from Paradise Lost. He howled in rage one moment, and the next instant, he was gone. Nothing remained except a scorch mark on the walkway.

I lay there for a few moments, wondering what had just happened, who had rescued me and how on earth I was going to get back up the stairs when I felt like I’d been boxing with a rhinoceros.

As I looked up in the sky and contemplated these things, I finally noticed that a thick black fog had surrounded my property. It was as if the house had been encased in an opaque bubble. Now that the creature was gone, the fog slowly dissipated. At least that explained what I had perceived as lack of caring on the part of my neighbors. They hadn’t been able to see the big nasty kicking the crap out of me.

“Beezle,” I said, and sat up abruptly. That was a bad idea. I didn’t just see stars. I saw galaxies, and the galaxies spun and whirled in a way that made vomiting the only plausible option. I breathed slowly in and out through my nose until the queasiness passed, then pushed up from the ground using my hands until I was in a squatting position. I wasn’t sure if I could get all the way up to standing.

A host of new aches and pains screamed and shouted for attention. My ribs felt bruised; my face was swollen; my skin still burned where the demon’s saliva had touched it. I ignored all these things and focused my blurry eyes so I could find Beezle.

I squinted until I could see more or less clearly. I spotted Beezle, lying on his belly in the middle of the front lawn. I crab-walked to him very slowly and picked him up, turning him over and cradling him in my hands.

“Beezle,” I whispered. “Beezle, please be all right.”

He made no noise or movement except for the shallow little puff as his chest moved up and down. At least he was still breathing. But what was I supposed to do for him? Beezle had never been sick or injured, and I didn’t know anyone else who had a gargoyle.

I carefully rose to my feet and limped to the porch with agonizing slowness. Grasping the railing, I pulled myself up the porch stairs and stumbled through the front door into the foyer. The downstairs door stood open, the way I had left it when I’d hurried down expecting Gabriel. I frowned and glanced at my watch. It was half past four, well beyond the time I’d expected him. Maybe the creature’s spell had somehow kept him away from the house.

“And why are you worrying about that now?” I muttered, hauling myself up the stairs with one hand on the railing and one hand cradling Beezle. When I cleared the last stair my breath was coming hard and my ribs were on fire. I pushed my front door open, light-headed, and sank to my knees.

“Can I help you?” a voice murmured behind me.

I was pretty out of it, and Gabriel’s voice made me jump about three feet in the air—from my knees, no less. I did a kind of jerky half turn and fell to my left side, landing on my elbow so I wouldn’t squash Beezle while keeping him out of Gabriel’s sight. The impact reverberated through every hurt muscle and bone in my body, and I gritted my teeth as I glared up at him.

“Knock much?” I said.

“The door was open,” he said, gesturing down the stairs. He stood in the doorway, looking just as cool and dark and beautiful as he had the day before. He wore the same expensive coat and shoes, and the slightest of creases appeared between his eyebrows as he frowned down at me. “May I ask what happened to you?”

Oh, a giant freaking demon was just here trying to take my heart and bring it back to his master. No big, I thought. I shifted a little so that I rested on my forearms, legs stretched out behind me, and looked up at him. I really wanted to stand up because I felt it would be better for my dignity, but Pain and Weariness were ganging up on Dignity, and it decided to retreat in self-preservation.

“I had a little accident,” I said.

“I see that,” Gabriel replied. He looked at me expectantly, and when it became clear that was all the information he was going to get, he said, “I have the rent check.”

“Right. The rent check. Can you give me a second?” I asked.

“I will wait in the foyer.” He turned so quickly and moved so silently down the stairs it was almost as if I’d imagined him.

“Okeydokey,” I said. “That was awkward.”

Beezle hadn’t moved through all of this. His breath still came steady but shallow. I had no idea what the creature had done to him or how to fix him. I needed to get rid of Gabriel quickly so I could figure out how to help Beezle.

I heaved to my feet, trying not to cry out as all my aches and pains flared anew. I staggered into my bedroom and laid Beezle gently on my pillow, covering him up with a bit of my flannel blanket. Then I went into the bathroom to wash my face. I felt grimy.

I glanced in the mirror to check the damage, and my mouth dropped open. Both of my eyes were puffy and purple. Dried blood and dirt encrusted my chin and my right cheek. My left cheek was bruised where the demon had kicked me. The demon’s saliva had left a spattering of burn marks all over my face, each one no bigger than the size of a small pebble. I lifted my shirt and found my torso covered in black-and-blue marks.