Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            Being fifty-plus years old, Bis was able to be on his own, and like most adolescents, he liked to sleep all day. His skin was dark and pebbly, though he could change its color at will to become almost invisible. All he had on against the night’s damp was a red scarf, and he really didn’t need that, either.

            At Bis’s encouraging nod, I resettled myself on the bench. Relaxing, I let my focus go slack as if I was using my second sight to see the ley line hovering like a red ribbon at chest height halfway across the park. But I wasn’t. After an hour of this, I was tired and faking it. I was never going to translocate myself into that ley line, so I simply gazed at the moon peeking past the heavy clouds.

            Between the ley lines and me were the two recirculating ponds and accompanying footbridge where I had spent my internship at the I.S. chasing out bridge trolls. The line itself ran over a small plot of concrete and a public Wiccan hearth, and beyond that was a wide space of open grass leading to Cincinnati.

            The crescent moon did little to light the cloudy night. It would be a few days shy of full for Halloween, but that was more than a week away. I could hardly wait, and I’d already bought a basket of cherry tomatoes to give out to the kids along with their Snickers and Pixy Stix. The holiday spanned the entire week, culminating in a final, dusk-to-dawn candy hunt. Humans shut down before midnight, right when the party really started. It was for the best, really. They weren’t made for the night.

            The soft sound of approaching dress shoes drew my attention to the man walking his dog. “Go-o-ood evening,” Al drawled, his threat obvious, and the man quickened his pace. “Focus,” he growled at me, and I quit trying to coax the black Lab closer.

            Bis dropped with a soft hush of sliding leather wings, pinpointing the back of the bench with an unerring accuracy despite the dark. “You’re really close, Rachel,” he encouraged, the white tufts of fur on his otherwise leathery-black ears standing out as he shifted them to listen to the people gathering in the field. “But you’re too far into the, ah, lighter spectrum.” Red eyes pinched, he looked up at Treble. “What’s the right name for that sound?”

            Treble’s gnarled feet tightened on the light pole until the metal groaned. “It’s not an auditory vibration. It’s a visual one,” she said, her deep voice rumbling like falling rocks and her lionlike tail switching. “And there isn’t a name for it, which is why this study is useless until your aura again syncs with Rachel’s. Gally . . .”

            “Enough,” Al muttered darkly, and I winced. I had a growing feeling that we weren’t out here for me but for Al. I hadn’t seen him jump the lines since he burned his synapses while trapping Hodin. Practicing along with me might be the only way for his pride to take it. “Your opinion on what is possible is not why you were asked to join us, Treble.”

            “Gally, if you would let me—” the old gargoyle said, her voice a pleading rasp.

            “No.” Al turned, one thick hand on the back of the bench as he glared up at her. “Take a break. Both of you. Go catch bats and do whatever you do when you aren’t bothering us.”

            “Stupid hoary fart.” With a downward thrust of her leathery wings, Treble launched herself into the air. The streetlight cracked and went out, and I flinched until I was sure nothing was coming down. When I next looked, she was high in the air, her huge, angled wings looking demonic against the city-lit clouds.

            Shoulders shifting, Al put his elbows on his knees, his chin dropping into a cupped hand.

            Bis sidestepped along the top of the bench to me, his craggy talons spaced so as not to leave a scratch. “Call me if you need me,” he said, and I touched the foot he set on my shoulder.

            I smiled, but inside, I was unsure. Our once indelible mental link was all but destroyed from Bis’s prolonged connection to the baku. He would likely hear my mental call if he was listening, but if he was busy or asleep? It was chancy at best, and I was to blame.

            “Rachel, you are alive,” Bis said as he saw my heartache, and Al straightened, his own sour musings seeming to hesitate. “I’d make that same choice again. We will figure this out.”

            And then Bis was gone, his small shape vanishing over the yellow leaves still clinging to the trees. Embarrassed, I slumped on the bench, arms over my chest.

            “I’d make that same choice again, too,” Al said, a gleam in his goat-slitted, red eyes.

            “Al.”