I let out a snicker and sat on the front step. I listened as the panicked screams faded into the night sky, then dialed the number for the St. Long Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“Hi, this is Detective Kara Gillian with the PD,” I said when the dispatcher answered. “Could you please send a patrol unit to my home address? I have a ten-fifteen on a 62R here.” A 10-15 was an arrest, and a 62R was a burglary. Though I worked for the Beaulac Police Department, I lived outside the city limits, which meant that if something criminal happened at my house, it was sheriff’s office jurisdiction.
“A 62R … Kara, someone broke into your house? Way out there?”
I recognized the woman’s voice as a dispatcher who’d previously worked with the PD. Slightly pudgy with harshly dyed red hair, but I couldn’t remember the woman’s name to save my life. “Yeah, but all he managed to do was break a window by the door.”
The dispatcher laughed. “Bad choice of houses!”
You have no idea, I thought. “No kidding,” I said instead. “Good thing the noise woke me up.”
“All right, I’ll get a unit out there.”
I set the phone down and clasped my hands lightly around my knees, looking up at the moon that shone full through the barest sheen of clouds. A languid breeze twined through the dark trees, rustling needles and bringing a deep, rich scent of earth and pine to me. I hugged myself against the slight chill, listening to the faint buzz of a mosquito and the song of a nearby cricket. A satisfied peace stole through me, an almost-Pavlovian response to my environment. I’d lived in this house my entire life—with the exception of one terrible month after my father was killed by a drunk driver. I was eleven and had been placed in foster care until my aunt Tessa could return from Japan to take over as my legal guardian. My mother had passed away three years before that, from ovarian cancer that had gone undetected until it was far too late, and there were no other relatives—or even close friends—to take me in, a fact that had not pleased my aunt at the time, especially since the one time she’d met me before I’d been in diapers. But she’d done what she could to lessen the upheaval for me, despite her reluctance to take on the enormous responsibility of raising a preteen kid. She’d moved into this house with me instead of yanking me out of the only home I’d ever known, knowing that in time I would find more comfort than grief here.
I was nearly thirty now and finally beginning to realize just how important that comfort was to me. I loved it out here, far from town and other houses. I lived on a seldom-traveled highway, my driveway was long and winding, and the nearest neighbor was well over a mile away.
It was the perfect house for someone who required privacy.
And it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I’d learned my aunt’s ulterior motive for the decision to raise me in this house. My aunt Tessa was a summoner of demons, and the basement of this house was an ideal place for a summoning chamber.
A few minutes later, the demon swooped down to land neatly in front of me, dangling his ashen-faced prisoner by one ankle. “I believe he is suitably cowed.”
Too bad I couldn’t give this treatment to all my arrestees. We’d probably have fewer repeat offenders, I thought as I handcuffed the unresisting man. I left him whimpering softly on the porch with his hands cuffed behind his back, then returned my attention to the demon. “My thanks again, Kehlirik.”
The demon slowly sank into a crouch. “Summoner, this was the first time you called a reyza unaided, yes?”
I gave a wary nod. Had I screwed something up?
He snorted, flaring his nostrils. “I did not think that you called me for the sole purpose of thwarting an intrusion. Had you another desire for this summoning?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I … had been hoping to learn how to reverse a portal without having to close and reopen.” That was why it was worth the effort to summon the higher-level demons. With the proper negotiation of terms, they could be persuaded to share a measure of their knowledge and skills.
The demon ticked his claws against his leg, a thoughtful expression on his monstrous face. “And you were forced to anchor and close when I left your control to apprehend your intruder. Forgive me. I should have waited to know your wishes first.”
“No, it’s all right,” I said, more than a little shocked by the apology. “Trust me, I’m very pleased that you caught the guy, especially before he did any real harm.”
“Still, I should have waited to know your will first.” He gave me a small bow, moonlight glinting off the curved horns on his head. “When next you summon me, I will school you in the technique to allay my shame in failing you.”