“Shut the fuck up,” I whispered, in awe at the breadth of the collection.

“Your collection has grown since I last saw it,” Lon commented. “You used to specialize in earthly amulets, now half of this shit is glowing with Æthyric dust.”

“I’ve expanded.”

Lon glanced at the shelf I was inspecting. “The Æthyric demon body parts are new.”

“To be fair, some of them are angel. One Banshee tooth, or at least that’s what the former owner claimed.”

“Go big or go home, huh?” Lon observed.

Spooner shrugged and straightened his green ascot. “I only discovered their existence a few years ago. Most collectors aren’t willing to sell what they’ve acquired. It’s a tough but profitable market.”

“Tough enough that you had to steal back the glass talon from Craig Bailey?”

A cruel smile boosted Spooner’s freckled cheeks. “He knew he didn’t have much time left on this plane. He wanted to … give it back to a fellow collector.”

I investigated the shelf of talons and bones. Nothing remotely glass. However, one empty display stand cowered alone in a back corner, a wire clamp attached to an indented metal base. The right size to hold a talon?

“Where is it now?” I asked.

Spooner squinted his eyes. “Hmm, I’m not sure if I remember. Cady, isn’t it?”

Lon looked at me and nodded. “You’re up to bat.”

Right. I surveyed the amount of space I’d need. The chairs would have to go. I began moving them aside.

“What are you doing?” Spooner asked.

I left one chair in front of the table and motioned to Lon.

“Have a seat,” Lon said, raising his gun. Spooner complied.

From the small pocket in my wrap dress, I removed a fat stick of red ochre chalk that we’d purchased from a local occult shop on the way over—the only one in La Sirena: more of a catch-all New Age-slash-Pagan supply shop, really, but it was convenient and they had what I needed so no sense in being too snobby about it.

The chalk marked the cement floor beautifully. A dark red, dusty line trailed behind my sketching hand as I bent at the waist to sketch the binding triangle, nice and big, to enclose Spooner right where he sat.

“What are you doing?” Spooner asked.

“What does it look like?”

His eyes followed me, head swiveling. I began hashing out the binding symbols surrounding the borders. Ancient symbols, arcane fortifications. It flowered at my feet like a beautiful, complex math equation scribbled on a scientist’s blackboard.

“It looks like one of the Hellfire’s vermilion seals,” Spooner noted, his voice betraying the tiniest bit of panic. “Which, by the way, is going to cost us thousands of dollars to repair.”

“Bill me.” I finished my work with a flourish, snapping my wrist, then stepped back to admire my work. Flawless. Retreating to scour the glass cases behind Spooner, I found what I needed without much effort. “Aha!” My eyes focused on a small caduceus lying next to some Nordic broadswords. “Do you have a key to this?”

Spooner eyed Lon’s shotgun, then reluctantly snapped his fingers in the direction of the cabinet. The door swung open.

“Spooner’s demonic talent is opening locks,” Lon explained. “Manual ones, at least. That’s one of the reasons I’ve got electronic locks. Ten years ago he stole a couple of books from me, before I built my house. But I got those back, didn’t I?”

“You did. I also fucked your ex-wife.”

“No, I believe she fucked you, along with everyone else in the Hellfire Club. Don’t flatter yourself.”

After examining the core of the caduceus—it was graphite, thankfully, not a dud—I walked over to the point of the triangle and exhaled.

“What’s she doing?”

“Looks to me like she’s putting you in a magical pigpen,” Lon said.

I pulled from the electrical current. The lights dimmed.

“How can you …?” Spooner was now alert and more than a little alarmed. “You’re a magician?” He stood up. Lon racked the pump shotgun again and aimed until he sat back down.

With a gentle push, I released kindled Heka into the carved staff, charging the triangle in a brilliant display of white light as I recited the binding spell. I teetered on my feet when the nausea came, but recovered quickly and gave Lon a dizzy smile. Ta-da.

Spooner squealed like a fifties housewife who’d just spotted a mouse on the floor, folding himself up in his chair, legs drawn up tight. He covered his ears with his hands. “Stop it! What have you done? My head—” He ground his teeth together. “Too much pressure. My head!”

He’d never been bound. Most Earthbounds haven’t. It’s always a shock the first time.

“Where’s the talon?” Lon asked.

The orange-haired man ignored him. “Oh, God, my head. Please make it stop.”

If I had a dime for every time I’d heard that during a binding in my bar …

“Spooner, you are now bound by me, and I command you. Those are the rules. Now answer me. Where is the god-damn glass talon?”

“In the table,” he intoned, voice low and obedient. His eyes shot open and he covered his mouth with both hands, shocked that he’d said it. “You could have just put the gun to my head and I would have told you. Please unbind me— please!”