The demon began to dissipate and evaporate into the air. When there wasn’t enough to shake anymore, Artemis jumped to me, her mouth open as she panted, proud of her work.

“Good girl,” I said, stroking her head. Then I pulled her into a headlock, too, for some playtime. “That’s her second one today,” I said to Osh.

“Artemis brought Charley a present,” Osh said, explaining it to Garrett. “A demon.”

“And it’s loose in the house?” he asked, appalled.

“No, it’s not.” I scrubbed Artemis’s fur and rolled with her over the coffee table and onto the floor. Sadly, she landed on top of me instead of vice versa. It knocked the air out of me, but that didn’t keep me from talking. Not much does. “There’s no demon in this house, huh, Artemisia? Well, there is one, but … you are such a good girl. Yes, you are.”

“You look like a mental patient,” Garrett said, sitting back down. “All I see is you rolling around, talking to my carpet.”

“Did you hear that?” I asked her as she gnawed on my jugular. “He called you carpet. Bad Garrett.”

Then she stopped and stared off into the great unknown. A low growl rumbled from her chest. Her lips pulled back to reveal a killer set of canines.

“What is it, girl?”

This only egged her on. I lay there trying not to giggle. This was very serious. Trespassers would not be given quarter. No mercy!

I’d shifted and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but in true canine fashion, the slightest noise set her hackles on edge. She lowered her head and eased toward the window. Then, like a bullet shot out of a gun, she leaped through the wall and was gone.

She was so entertaining.

I laughed and turned back to the two men watching me.

“There really is a game tonight,” Osh said.

“This is bigger than a game.” I scrambled up and sat next to him again. “It’s bigger than—”

“We get it,” Garrett said. “Total annihilation. But can’t it wait until after the game?”

“No. I have a plan, but first I have to tell you what my secrets are, because if I tell you my plan first without telling you … never mind. Just listen.” I cleared my mind and thought how best to tell them that my husband, their friend, was created from an evil god. I steadied my resolve and decided. “My husband, your friend, was created from an evil god.”

Osh took another sip of beer while Garrett thought a moment, then took another sip of beer.

“Okay, let me back up.” This needed more explanation. They needed to understand what it could mean for all of us.

“Do you remember in New York in the warehouse when the evil emissary Kuur tried to kill me?”

They both shrugged at the stupidity of my question and took another sip.

I bit my lip. Closed my eyes. Scraped up all the bits of courage that remained on the bottom of my courage barrel and swallowed them. I was about to reveal something to them that could change the fate of the world. The god glass had been buried in the 1400s for a reason. The monks who buried it meant for it to stay buried.

“He wasn’t trying to kill me.”

I felt, rather than saw, their interest pique.

“I’m a god. Apparently not just anyone can do that. But I can be trapped. He was trying to trap me, and that’s what happened to the evil god Satan used to create his son Rey’aziel.”

Osh was wearing his best poker face, the one where he barely looked like he was paying attention. But I felt something jerk inside him. Like a puzzle piece falling into place.

I continued. “Okay, the story goes like this. In desperation, God, the God Jehovah, created what is called god glass. It’s an entire dimension, a hell dimension, inside a piece of glass. It looks like a jewel. Like an opal. It is absolutely indestructible and a hundred percent inescapable. Only the person or being who puts you in it can let you back out again. Jehovah created it to trap one god.” I held up a finger. “To lock away one god and one god only inside a hell dimension. A vast nothingness that stretches on for an eternity.”

“Which god did he create it for?” Osh asked.

“That I don’t know. Kuur didn’t tell me everything. I doubt he actually knew everything. He was working for Lucifer. Surely the prince of the underworld wouldn’t reveal his whole hand.”

“If Jehovah created it, how did Lucifer get ahold of it to use it to create Rey’aziel?”

“See, that’s the thing. The details get fuzzy here. For some reason, this god didn’t get sent into the god glass, but I have no idea how it ended up in the hands of Lucifer. Neither do I know how, but he used it to trap one of the gods of Uzan for the specific purpose of creating a son. Reyes.”