“Lon!” I called out, vaulting onto my feet as the lights in the room dimmed again. It wasn’t me that time. Unless someone else was pulling, I must have fucked up the electrical current; in my defense, the whole place was probably shoddily wired to begin with.

The circle now broken, I stormed forward and grabbed Lon’s arm. Let’s get out of here! I thought. He shook his head to clear the shock, then hustled alongside me before taking the lead and ramming the crowd out of the way. They weren’t concerned with us.

The gray demon was recovering from its injury. Any second it would realize that it wasn’t bound. As Lon and I dashed out of the doorway, I glimpsed David scrambling to hide behind his bodyguards as the mob backed up and the lights popped and sputtered.

Without much enthusiasm, I hoped the electricity held; someone had an unpleasant containment job on their hands, and it would be a hell of a lot harder with the lights off.

29

The stone sidewalk that led from the Hellfire caverns to the parking lot was clogged with people mingling near the bonfire, people who had no idea what was going on inside. Lon yanked me behind some shrubbery off the path. The door to the caves opened and slammed behind us and someone shouted, “Stop them!”

“We’ll have to sneak around the beach,” Lon whispered. He tugged me along behind him. We headed into the shadows.

“Wait!” I squeaked, leaning down to pry open the metal buckles on the straps of my shoes. I got them off in record time, grasped them by the straps, and sprinted in my bare feet. The sand was cold and damp beneath my toes.

We stuck to the shadows and trailed a line of beach shrubs that curved around the back of a large dune stretching away from the base of the cliffs. Voices faded behind us. From this distance, I could barely see the crowd outlined against the distant light of the bonfire. But I was still able to identify one person: the bald guy Spooner had sicced on us earlier. His flaming gold halo stood out in the darkness. At least we had a considerable head start on him. No way could he catch up. I hoped.

“How—are we going—to get to the car?” I asked haltingly between breaths as I ran.

“Forget it. We can’t go back that way. Sengal is a hyperosmiac. Preternatural sense of smell. He can hunt us.”

“What? The bald guy following us?”

“Yes. We’ll get the car later. Keep running.”

Away from the caves, we headed deeper into the dark coast, trudging through sand until we cleared the massive dune and were forced to slow our pace along the edge of the incoming tide. Chilly water broke around my feet.

We continued running along the water’s edge until I thought I was going to die from exhaustion. I peered over my shoulder for the millionth time, but couldn’t see anyone behind us. “Stop, please,” I begged. My sides were cramping. We slowed to a brisk walk. “These are your people … What will they do to you? Don’t they know where you live?”

“Tomorrow they’ll have sobered up. And David will be reprimanded by the head of the Hellfire Club.” He paused, then murmured, “I’ll make sure of that.”

“I heard some people talking about Mr. Dare.”

He looked down at me and nodded. His chest rose and fell as he caught his breath. “That’s right. He started the club with my father. Practically runs this town. So I’ll be fine.” He gestured toward the caves in the distance. “They just need to cool off. Especially David. Right now they are all drunk and unreasonable.”

“Fucking insane is more like it.”

“Contained insanity,” he corrected. “That’s the whole purpose of the Hellfire Club. Most of these people are okay in the real world, but at these parties …”

I nodded. He was right. I’d seen perfectly normal, up-standing demons walk into my bar and after several drinks turn ornery and out of control. I wondered what Lon would be like if he ever got that crazy.

“Look,” Lon said immediately, in response to my roving thoughts, “I used to go to these things religiously until Yvonne got out of control, then I quit. Except for a brief backsliding period a few years ago when I got depressed, I don’t go anymore. I’ve seen and done my share of immoral things inside that place, but that whole demon-fight-club thing is new.”

He touched the stripe of coagulated blood on his cheek and winced. “First you clocked me in the eye … now this. It’s not my night.”

I couldn’t see him smiling, but humor lightened his voice, and this softened my panic. His spiraling horns were dark against the golden light of his halo. Just when I thought I’d gotten used to them … but there I was, staring like a fool. I pushed away the urge to touch them again, just to be certain that they were still real.

“I don’t mind,” he murmured.

Mildly embarrassed, I twined my fingers around his and we resumed our walk, shoulder pressed against shoulder. The farther away from the Hellfire caves we got, the better I felt. Inside, at least. Though his hand was warm in mine, my feet were Popsicles. Occasionally I stepped on a piece of shell or rock that broke the numbness. I’d never hated the beach so much.

After we’d walked for a good fifteen minutes, Lon stopped.

“Shit.”

“What?” I asked, turning back to look. I didn’t see anything.

“I can hear Sengal again. He’s not going to give up.”

I scanned the shoreline and spotted a tiny speck of gold up on a low hill in the distance. It floated down the hill and toward the water, following our tracks. Hovering, it turned and began moving toward us.