Uncle Rory was an avid hunter. He was also a do-it-yourselfer. He had all the gadgets and machinery needed to make any kind of bullets—even kick-ass demon killer ones.

“So when you kill the demons, what do you have to do, Milayna? Through the heart, in the head, what?”

“Well, a standard demon just has to touch the dagger and it’ll die. But Abaddon had to be stabbed through the heart. So if I had to guess, I’d say the Four Brothers would have to be stabbed through the heart, too.”

“I wonder if we could get by with just coating a regular bullet with the metal from the knife. We could get a lot more that way.”

“Guess it’s worth a try.” I shrugged.

“Or a shot… get it? A shot? Like a gun—” Uncle Rory chuckled at his own joke.

“Yeah, I got it,” I said with a smile. My uncle’s jokes were so lame.

“Okay, well, let’s get started then.” He lifted the knife and looked at the handle from different angles.

“What do we do? Just chop it?” I asked.

“No. First, we soften the metal and then we…”

All I heard was blah, blah, blah after that. I didn’t know half of what he was talking about. And what he was going to do wasn’t nearly as fun as chopping it in my opinion.

Melting metal, gemstones, black haze.

I could smell a caustic odor. The gemstones seemed to make music as they tinkled into the pan below, the hiss of the blowtorch shushing them.

The metal glows, the gems sparkle… they crack open and black smoke fills the room. I cough, can’t breathe.

I felt it. Everything that happened in the vision, I felt. Coughing was first. The odor set my throat and eyes on fire. It felt like I ate a ghost pepper chili and then rubbed it in my eyes. My nose ran and tears covered my cheeks.

The vision grew stronger. The invisible poison choked me, and I clawed at my throat. I felt dizzy. The room began to blur and the edges became hazy.

“Milayna?” Xavier asked. His voice sounded far away, deep and slow.

“Don’t melt the knife,” I managed to say between strangled coughs.

“Wait!” I heard Chay yell.

Uncle Rory flipped off the blowtorch, and, coughing, I fell on all fours onto the floor.

My dad crouched beside me. “Milayna? Did you have a vision?”

Well, duh, Dad.

“Yes. The gems. They’ll break if you try to melt the knife,” I said between gulps of air.

“So?” someone asked. I wasn’t sure who.

“They’ll release some kind of poison when they open. They can’t be removed from the knife.”

“Damn. It was a good idea too,” Chay’s father said.

“I guess we’ll have to rely on the knife itself. Why don’t you give it to me, Milayna, and I’ll hold it for you?” Xavier held out his hand.

I looked to my dad and then at Xavier. “No. Thanks, but I’ve got it. It’s right where it needs to be.”

“Smart girl,” Mr. Roberts murmured.

I glanced to the side and saw Chay watching me.

Uncle Rory packed up his gear, and everyone filed upstairs. Chay and I were last to go.

“You wanna give the dagger to me to hold for you?” Chay asked with a sarcastic edge to his voice. The corners of his mouth lifted in a small grin.

“Yes.”

He pushed off the wall he was leaning against. The small smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a look of confusion. “Why would you give it to me, Milayna?”

“I trust you,” I whispered.

“Even after—”

“Yes. Even after. I trust you with my life, Chay.”

“You shouldn’t.” He turned and walked away; he didn’t look back.

But I do. I love you. Whether I like it or not. And some days, I freakin’ hate it.

***

“Himmel isn’t happy.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“He’s going to visit again,” Scarface said.

“I’m sure he will. There’s still part of my house standing. He’ll want to crush that part, too,” I said and rolled my eyes.

Scarface cocked his head at me, a look of confusion on his face. Evidently, sarcasm didn’t translate well to hobgoblins.

“He has another game planned for you to play,” Friendly said, clapping his hands together.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be great fun. Where is Himmel anyway?”

“Over there.” The goblin pointed to a spot behind Xavier’s house.

Scarface batted down Friendly’s stumpy arm and scowled. “Idiot. He’s in the underworld. Where else would he be?” he said to me.

“Was he here for the game?” I asked Friendly.

“They are always here for the games.”

“Shut up,” Scarface growled, grabbing the hobgoblin and popping back to Hell where they belonged.

I looked at the area behind Xavier’s house. It was open land. Undeveloped real estate owned by a company that planned to build another subdivision.

Why would a demon be lurking over there? The goblin must be high on sulfur fumes.

I turned to go inside and ran smack into Chay. “What are you doing out here?”

“I saw the hobgoblins.”

“They aren’t here anymore. Why are you sneaking up on people?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. You weren’t listening. You have to pay attention, Milayna. Don’t you remember the one thing I taught you when Azazel came around the first time?”

“I don’t know who I can trust,” I said.

“Yeah. Which means you need to be watching your back all the time. You can’t rely on anyone else to do it for you.” He hooked his thumbs around his belt loops and tilted his head, his eyes roaming my face. “You were smart not to give it to him.”

I let a long sigh. “What?”

“The dagger. You were smart not to give it to your boyfriend,” he murmured.

“Who? Xavier?”

Chay leaned his shoulder casually against the house. “Yeah.”

I laughed. At Chay’s perplexed look, I laughed harder.

Men can be so clueless. How can he not know?

“What’s so funny?”

“Everything. Nothing.” I waved my words away with a flick of my hand. “You need to figure this one out on your own. ‘Bye, Chay.”

I reached for the door to walk inside—it was locked. It would have been a much more dramatic exit if I didn’t have to ring the doorbell and stand waiting for someone to answer the door. I looked over my shoulder and saw Chay’s lips twitch, trying to hide a grin. I sighed. I already hated living with Xavier.

“I’m gonna need a key if I’m forced to stay here, Dad,” I said as soon as the door opened. I shut it firmly behind me without a backward glance at Chay.

“There are keys on the counter,” Xavier said.

“Oh. Thanks.” Taking one, I headed to my bedroom to sulk in peace. I opened the door and found myself in the middle of a war.

“Milayna! You just knocked down all my planes. Now the army will lose because they won’t have any air support. Geez. Way to kill a country.”

So much for peace and quiet.

“Sorry, frog freckle. Can you play downstairs?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Mom told me to play up here.”

“Great.” I pulled my iPod down from the shelf, shoved in my earbuds, and turned the volume up until I couldn’t hear the buzzing plane and bomb explosion sound effects Benjamin was making. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax, but all I could see was Chay’s face.

So much for relaxation.

***

I see faces. Four faces fly at me at the same time, from different angles. They flicker in and out like static on a television set. Their mouths move, but nothing comes out. As they fly by, they distort, like I’m looking at them through a carnival mirror. Their foreheads protrude, and then their bottom jaw juts out at me. The faces whiz by faster and faster until they’re nothing but blurry objects flying around my head.

Then it stops.

I’m standing on the walkway outside Xavier’s house. It’s dark, rainy. Four cloaked figures stand in the street, looking at me. The hoods of their cloaks cover their faces, but I know who they are. The Four Brothers. Another man appears beside them. Azazel. The hood of his cloak is down. I can’t see him clearly. Something catches my eye—a glimmer, a sparkle. I look at the sash of his robe where a dagger is hanging. A dagger like the one I have, like the one I stole from Jake.

“Milayna,” Azazel says. Even in my dreams, his voice is grating, nasally and icky. “You’ve met my brothers?”

I shrug one shoulder, dismissing his question.

“What about my friend?” Azazel asks.

I watch as a sixth man appears, his back to me. His cloak is red. The hood is drawn over his head. He slowly reaches up to pull it down, turning so I can see his face…

I jerked awake. All I remember was dark hair curling slightly around his collar.

I pushed my tangled hair out of my eyes and sat on the side of the bed. The sixth man was vaguely familiar. I’d say it was Jake, but he had blonde hair. The man in my dream had dark hair. No, this was someone else.

Slipping out of bed, I tried not to wake Ben sleeping on a cot next to me. I walked downstairs for a drink when I saw him. He stood on the street like the other man had. He wore the same black cloak. His hood was down. I could see his pale skin almost shimmer under the street lamp. It looked almost translucent. Like if I was near him, I’d be able to see his veins and bones through it. His nearly white hair was slicked back on his head. I strained to see his face, but the street lamp cast it in odd shadows—it looked distorted and sinister.

What was he doing at Xavier’s house? How did he know we were there? Xavier never mentioned having midnight stalkers. It had come up several times in conversations that we had them. Especially Jake.

I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Jogging as quietly as I could to the master suite, I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again—a little harder this time. Still no answer. Opening the door, I slipped inside.

“Xavier.” I poked his cheek. “Xavier, wake up.” Another poke. He batted my hand away.

“What?” he snapped, turning his head away from me.

I poked the back of his head. “Wake up.” Poke…poke…poke.

“Stop poking me, damn it!”

“Someone’s outside,” I said.

He sat straight up. “Why didn’t you say so?”

He’s shirtless. Geez, where’s his shirt? Not on him. How do I get him to put one on? Here Xavier, put this on so I don’t have to look at your abs. Oh crap, what if he sleeps in the nude? I’m so not ready for that.

“I was having too much fun poking you.” I laughed, more out of nervousness that I was about to see more of Xavier than I wanted to than about the poking. Although, that was fun. “Seriously, you wouldn’t wake up.”

“Who’s out there?”

“Looks like the same guy that was at our house. Do you usually have midnight visitors?

“No.” He started to pull back the blankets, and I braced myself.

Please, please have pajama bottoms on. Please. He doesn’t. He has boxer shorts on. Those aren’t much better, but at least he isn’t nude. That’s good… yeah, that’s good.

He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, thank the good Lord, and we went downstairs. The man was still there. Standing in the same place. Watching.

But there was someone else outside, too. But he wasn’t watching Xavier’s house. He was watching the cloaked-stalker-demon.

I opened the door. “Chay, what are you doing? Get inside.” He unfolded himself from where he was sitting on the porch and walked through the door. “What are you doing here?”

“He was watching you. I was watching him.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Xavier said.

“Yeah, except she had to go wake you up to do it. How often do you have nightly visitors, Xavier?”

“Never, until now. And how the hell do you know she had to wake me up?”

Chay smirked at him before saying, “Hmm. The hobgoblins. They must have told them you were here. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Xavier asked.

“Unless there’s another traitor in the group.” Chay glared at Xavier. He glared back at Chay. They both looked like they wanted to kill each other. Why—I didn’t know and really didn’t care. They never liked each other. From the first day they met, there was this… thing between them. I was getting tired of their machismo.

“It’s Brann,” I said quietly.

“Huh?” Chay and Xavier said in unison.

“He’s the only one we haven’t seen yet.”

“I’m kinda afraid to know, but what demon is he?” Chay asked.

“The demon of fire. Look at his feet.”

His shoes glowed orange-red, like embers. They flickered like fire.

“Oh damn,” Xavier whispered.

As if the demon could hear us, he stretched his arms out in front of him. He cupped his hands together. When he opened them, a glowing ball of fire about the size of a baseball was floating in the air between them.

“Uh-oh,” I whispered.

“Milayna, when you were Googling these guys, you didn’t happen to find out what he could do with his fire balls, did you?” Chay asked.

Fiddling with the drawstring on my sweatpants, my gaze never left the demon. “Um, just what the legend said.”

“And what was that?” Chay was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

I reached out and grabbed his arm. “Stop fidgeting. It’s making me nervous.”

He laughed. “There’s a guy with a floating fire ball outside and my fidgeting is what’s making you nervous? You’re as weird as they are.”

“Probably.” I love you, don’t I? “The legend didn’t say much about Brann. Just that he was the demon of fire and he could manipulate it any way he wants.”

“Nice.”

The demon lobbed the fireball at Xavier’s house. It landed about five feet away, in the front yard. It shot up like a firework fountain on the Fourth of July. Sparks flew everywhere. We could hear it crackling and popping. He lobbed another ball. It landed next to the first, shooting upward into a fountain. Soon, the entire front yard was lined with fountains of glowing fire.

“What’s going on?” my dad said, running down the stairs with my mom close behind him.

“Brann showing off,” Chay said.

My mom went to the window and took a large step back when she saw the fireworks in the front yard. We didn’t like fire much. We didn’t even have a fireplace put in the house when it was rebuilt even though the original house had one. After our house burned to the ground, fire was on our list of things we never wanted to be around again, thank you very much. That made Brann the demon we least wanted to see.

As quickly as the fire fountains ignited, they were gone. And so was Brann.

“Where’d he go?” I asked.

“Do we care?” Xavier answered.

“Um, yeah. I don’t want him going somewhere and setting the whole subdivision on fire.”

There was a loud crash. I jumped. My mom screamed.

“What the…?”

“What is it, Chay?” I asked.

“The house next door just went up in flames. Like spontaneous combustion.” Chay made a sound effect of a bomb blowing up, complete with hand motions.

“Please tell me there was no one home.” I looked at Xavier.

He shook his head. “No one lives there. A lot of houses on this block are empty and used for show houses.”

Another loud boom sounded, and we all jumped. A house three doors down and across the street went up in flames.

I looked at Xavier. He nodded. I let out the breath I was holding. It was an empty house.

“I’ll call the fire department.” My dad’s slippers shuffled across the carpeting as he walked to the phone. “Hey, son, glad to see ya.” He clapped Chay on the back when he walked by.

“Nice to see you too, Mr. Jackson,” Chay answered.

I looked over my shoulder at the two of them. Chay seemed completely at ease with my family. Like nothing ever happened. And of course, my family accepted Chay back as if nothing happened because they knew it wasn’t his fault. None of us was angry with him or held him responsible, least of all me, but I was the one he seemed mad at. I was still lost in thought when I noticed Chay staring at me. I smiled quickly and turned my back to him.

Seeing him, the face of the person I loved, look at me with so much hatred in his eyes was physically painful. Something deep in my chest ached and my heart slowed, like his anger sucked the will for it to beat out of it. And the butterflies that always swarmed my stomach when Chay was near? Well, they were dying. One by one, I felt the last twitch of their wings slide against the side of my stomach before there was nothing. Each time a butterfly died, it chipped my heart. I wondered how many chips it would take until it shattered.

So I reminded myself for the thousandth time—he wasn’t my Chay anymore. He was someone else. And that someone didn’t like me. I didn’t particularly like him either.