“Take her,” he told Damien. That was when her eyelids flipped open. “We’re not here to hurt you, we –” Salem broke off as her eyes bled to black. Then it was like a wave of energy splayed out of her and sent he, Damien and I careening into the walls.

I coughed, getting to my feet. “Fuck. You guys okay?” Hearing grunts of affirmation, I turned my attention to the girl who had crumpled to the floor, her black eyes honed on me. “Demon.” Well, shit.

Having met demons before, I knew to be scared. They weren’t evil like the stories said. Just like other species, they could be good or they could be bad. But the entity that lived inside them – the one looking right at me through black eyes – was a whole other matter.

“Only one thing is fucking stopping me from hurling a psychic punch in your direction, which is that you’ve been hurt bad enough,” Salem snapped at the demon as he stood upright. “But if you attack her again, I won’t hesitate.” The demon didn’t react in any way.

Indicating for the others not to move closer, I spoke to the demon, my voice clear and steady. “I know you can hear the shit going on downstairs. You could hear it before we came inside, couldn’t you? You waited. Knew this was your chance to get out.”

The black eyes just stared at me blankly.

“We were helping you.”

“You’re one of them.” The voice was flat, toneless, and tired. “I don’t want your help.”

“You’re not too fond of vampires right now. I get that. Personally, I’m ashamed of what my own kind have done. That’s why we’re here. To make them pay, and to burn this place to the ground. I don’t think you want to be here when that happens.” Demons could control and call on fire, but not if they were as weak as the one before me. “You dug deep and used what energy you had left to fight whatever is sedating you and fight us. But we both know that little act drained you.”

“I’m not going with you.”

I couldn’t exactly blame her. If the situation had been reversed, I’d have said the same thing. If we took the demon to The Hollow, she would bring hell on us the moment she was fully recovered. “There’s a teleporter with us who can take you wherever you want to go.”

A brief pause. “How can I trust him?”

“You can’t. I wouldn’t expect you to. But if you stay here, you’ll die. What do you have to lose at this point?”

Another pause, this one longer. “Get the teleporter.”

“Damien, astral project your ass to Jared, please. If the danger’s died down, ask him to come up here.” With a nod, he did as I asked.

It was a few minutes before Jared appeared, just as Damien returned to his body. The demon was barely hanging on to consciousness at that point.

Before I could say anything, Salem asked Jared, “Everything under control down there?”

“The clients and staff are dead, except for the keeper. She’s hog-tied with Denny’s slime, so she isn’t going anywhere. We’re starting to free the captives. What’s going on here?”

“I need you to teleport her away,” I replied. “She doesn’t want to come with us, but she can’t leave by herself.” Seeing his confusion as he met those black eyes, I explained. “She’s a demon.”

“You want me to touch a demon?” His expression said, ‘Are you fucking crazy?’

“We owe her. For what our kind did, we owe her.”

For the first time, Jared seemed to really see the room, see the signs of torture. Sighing in resignation, he gently scooped the demon up off the floor. The guy was no coward. “Where do you want to go?”

“The Underground,” she slurred.

“Ha!” I barked. “No fucking way.” Both Jared and the demon double-blinked. I knew about The Underground. “If he appears there with you looking like that, every demon there will dive on him. And a whole lot of them will die, because he’s no easy target. Try again.”

Respect and a hint of impatience flashed in the demon’s eyes. “My apartment.” She gave Jared the address.

“If I get there and find myself surrounded, I’ll teleport us both back here. Understand?” His voice wasn’t harsh, but it was firm and brooked no bullshit. The demon gave him a curt nod. Sweeping his gaze across Salem, Damien, and I, he then said, “I’ll meet you guys downstairs in a minute.”

Once Jared disappeared, Salem turned to me. “You handled that well. Later you can tell me how you know about demons. Right now, we need to make sure everyone’s okay.”

It turned out that a few were badly hurt, but all would heal soon enough. Max had a fever, which was apparently a side effect of having a spear of frost penetrate his chest. Stuart was absolutely covered in deep claw marks, courtesy of hawk talons belonging to a shapeshifting vampire. Reuben’s eardrums had burst as he’d been right next to the vampire who’d released the sonic boom of sound. Also, Denny was barely conscious after being attacked by one of the captives he freed; the guy turned out to be a psi-vampire, and after taking a huge amount of Denny’s energy he’d managed to escape.

As for the other captives, only nine of them were vampires – one of whom was killed by a maid who had teleported from room to room, picking off captives. In addition to the vampire, she’d killed two humans, a coyote shifter, and a witch before she was destroyed.

Apart from the demon and vampires, the only other left to live was – in Harvey’s words – ‘a guy whose skin turned to scales as he grew wings and flew the fuck away’. Most were speculating that he was a dragon shifter who hadn’t had enough energy to fully transform.

It was shortly after Jared teleported the last of the survivors and the injured squad members to The Hollow that the brothel keeper finally woke. She looked nervous as all shit to find herself surrounded by several vampires, all of whom were glaring at her with pure hatred.

When her gaze settled on Sam and Jared, she swallowed hard. Sweat beaded on her brow as her pulse began to pound – I could hear it from where I stood with Salem.

Clasping her hands behind her back, Sam grinned. “Hi, remember me? I’m the one who caught you with my whip when you tried to make a run for it. Not before you ordered your bartender to kill me, of course.”