"I ... no. My head feels weird." What was I supposed to say? Did you know there"s a squid creature attached to you, and it"s Marlin? "I think it must be the drink."

I think it must be the drink...

That was it! I was absolutely, positively certain of it. Everyone in that room except me was drunk on punch, and none of the kids in that room saw what I was seeing - and what I was seeing was reality mixed in with a little bit of a mirage. Only it was the blood that was the reality, along with the tentacles and the maggots. And the stone table.

The oak paneled study was the fantasy - and the punch induced it. It was spiked with more than alcohol, that was for sure.

But I"d stopped drinking the punch, so I wasn"t drunk, even though Marlin had invited me in because he a.s.sumed I was. I only had a little bit of demon juice in me, and so I could see what the room really looked like ... and I was scared to death.

Once more, I"d gone on a date, and been sucked into demon-ville. I mean, that"s all great and fabulous once I"m a demon hunter, but right now, I"m a high school student, and it"s not like I"ve got my knife in my itty bitty purse.

In fact, all I had in my purse that could even remotely pa.s.s for a weapon was nail clippers.

I drew in a breath for courage, and decided that one tiny pair of clippers would just have to do.

Then I saw two more tentacles sliding across the floor heading straight toward me, and I knew that nail clippers weren"t the answer. I wasn"t ready for this. How could I fight this?

Mom.

The tentacles were only a few feet away now, and I clapped my hand over my mouth, mumbled something about needing to throw up, and turned and raced out the door.

I didn"t know where I was or what I was going to do, but I knew I had to find someplace safe, then hole up and call my mom, so I pulled open the first door I found and lunged into a dingy, dust-covered bedroom filled with moldy, decaying furniture and a stench that made me want to really throw up.

I ignored it and pulled out my cell phone and my nail clippers. I jabbed the speed dial number for home, then opened the clippers and extended the metal file, giving me a weapon that extended about one and a half inches. In other words, completely freaking useless for self-defense against most creatures, but deadly to a demon if I could put that point through his eye. The trick, of course, was not getting dead first.

On the other end of the line, the phone rang.

"Come on, come on..."

One ring, then another and another until finally, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Mom!"

That was all I said. Because right then Marlin burst through the door, yanked the phone out of my hand, and hurled it through the window. Gla.s.s shattered under the force, but I barely heard the noise. Instead, all I heard were my own screams.

"So you know," Marlin said, his mouth moving, but a deeper voice coming out. "It matters not. This year"s sacrifices have been chosen. Your failure to drink fully of the elixir is of no consequence. What you have seen does not matter. The dead tell no tales, Alison, and you cannot stop us. Judemore will rise. He will feed. And he will bestow his bounty upon me for yet another year."

He said all of that, and then he smiled. And before I even had time to think that I really didn"t like the look of that smile, he lunged.

And guess what? I was right. My nail clippers with their tiny metal file were no match against Marlin. I needed a knife. A gun. A Civil War replica sword. Something - anything - to fight with.

I had nada though, so I hauled out every martial arts trick I"d learned, and I few that I made up right there on the fly - but he was one h.e.l.l of a lot tougher than me, and I wasn"t even slowing him down.

I wanted to cry with frustration. More, I wanted to cry with anger - at myself for being such a complete and total idiot. For coming here. For doing everything wrong. And for getting myself, my best friend, and a bunch of kids killed.

Because that was what was going to happen. I knew it the moment Marlin hauled me off the floor and carried me kicking and screaming and beating and fighting into the study. I knew when he tied me to a blood-soaked chair.

I knew when he didn"t pry my fingers open and take my tiny nail clippers, leaving them instead as a symbol of what I couldn"t accomplish no matter how hard I tried.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I tried to listen to what Marlin was saying, but I couldn"t hear through the rush of my fear.

Right then, I wanted my mom, and not in a way most kids want a parent when they were in trouble.

I wanted my mom to burst through those doors and kick some demon a.s.s.

But I knew she couldn"t. I"d barely said a word. She probably didn"t even realize I was in trouble.

I"d messed up. Big time.

And I wasn"t even going to be around to get grounded for it.

Something hard and tight locked around my heart and my breath felt fluttery and hot. Fear.

I didn"t want to die.

But right then, I really didn"t think that I had a choice.

Kate Not good, I thought as I desperately tried to call Allie back. Frantic calls from your daughter that end abruptly are never a good thing.

No answer. For that matter, no ring. The phone went straight to voice mail.

My stomach twisted with worry. I should never have let her go to the mall. What was I thinking? Malls were dangerous. h.e.l.l, the world was dangerous. Who knew that better than me?

As my mind churned, my fingers were busy looking up Parker"s phone number, then dialing, then tapping out a rhythm on the counter as I waited for a ring, then an answer.

Finally, a sleepy voice came on the line.

"Is Allie okay?" I asked without preamble.

A pause, during which every dark fear I"d ever known bubbled up inside me.

"Who?"

"Allie!" I shouted. "My daughter. She"s there with Parker and Mindy."

"Kate?" I heard the confusion in Rhonda Downing"s voice. "What are you talking about? Parker and the girls are sleeping over at Tanya"s house." In the silence that followed, I heard her understanding. "Aren"t they?"

"Call," I said sharply. "Call and find out."

I slammed the phone down, because I already knew what the answer was. The girls weren"t at Tanya"s anymore than they were at Parker"s. They"d planned and plotted to go somewhere, though, and now they were in trouble, and I didn"t have any way to find them.

Think, dammit, think.

I didn"t even know if the trouble was of the human or the demon variety. Not that it mattered. I was going to find them, I was going to save them, and then I was going to ground my daughter until college.

First, I had to find her.

How? They could be anywhere. All I knew was that she had her phone, or at least was near it. Maybe I could triangulate the phone signal? They did that in the movies, right? So maybe if I called Rome, someone at Forza could- Mindy.

I didn"t need Forza - for that matter I wasn"t even sure if my Hollywood triangulation plan would work. But I knew that I could track Mindy.

But were they together? Dear G.o.d, please let them be together.

I raced toward the back door, then sprinted across the back yard to Laura"s house. My best friend is also Mindy"s mom, and they live in the house directly behind us, which makes it convenient for moments like these. Not that my heart could stand many moments like these.

"Does Mindy have her iPhone?" I asked after pushing my way inside, past Laura who stood blinking and sleepy in a bathrobe. The phone had been a guilt-loaded present designed to lessen the emotional trauma of the divorce. Mindy had been thrilled, and Laura had justified the purchase by pointing out the cool feature that let you go onto the Internet to find a lost phone - or, presumably, track down the missing child who was holding it. "I need to know where she is!"

Horror crossed her face and I realized belatedly that I could have approached the whole "our daughters are in danger" thing a little more gently. To Laura"s credit, however, she didn"t interrogate me until she was already at the computer.

I barely had time to tell her what happened when a map appeared on screen showing the location of the phone. "I"m off," I said. I"d grabbed my favorite jacket on my way out the door, so I had my stiletto in the sleeve and another knife in my purse, along with a bottle of holy water. I also keep supplies under the front seat of my minivan, but I didn"t want to waste time going back to my house.

"Take my car," Laura said, when I"d told her as much. "And bring my baby back." She sounded brave, but I could see the worry on her face and knew it reflected my own.

"I will," I said, and I meant it. I only hoped I could do it. More than that, I hoped that Allie was still with Mindy.

That, however, wasn"t something I could worry about. This was the only lead I had. Allie had to be there, and I raced west toward the cliffs that overlooked the coast, maneuvering my way up into one of San Diablo"s ritzier neighborhoods until I finally found the address where Mindy"s phone now was.

Immediately, I knew I had the right place. There were cars everywhere, and teenagers littering the lawn and ma.s.sive front porch. The fear that had gripped me loosened a little. Maybe this wasn"t life-or-death after all. Maybe she"d gone to a frat party. Maybe she"d dropped the phone.

Maybe I needed to get inside that house and find out for myself.

Inside, I found more kids, more eating, more music, more drinking.

But I didn"t find Allie or Mindy.

I glanced around, frantic, not sure where to even start looking. The place was huge.

As if in answer, a scream ripped through the room, cutting through even the din of the party. I couldn"t have been the only one who heard it, and yet I was the only one who reacted, and I was sprinting up the stairs, heading for the source, before the echo of the sound had died out.

What I found turned me cold.

A baby-faced man standing in the center of an oak-paneled study, arms outstretched, his body bathed in red, his skin bulging and popping as something within him rose and grew. And, yeah, I knew what that something was: a demon.

He was surrounded by about a dozen kids sitting casually around the room, not freaking out or even reacting despite the writhing, changing thing in the middle. All the kids, including Mindy, who had a goofy smile on her face. Everyone, that is, except Allie - she was tied to a chair, and my heart twisted when I saw her. I, however, forced myself to concentrate on my goal: killing the demon.

This was not your run-of-the-mill body-inhabiting demon, and yet I"d heard of this kind of thing. Young men who gave themselves body and soul to a demon in order to gain power and never-ending youth. To keep it up, though, they had to make constant sacrifices.

The human/demon hadn"t even noticed me as far as I could tell. The rising had thrust it into a trance, but I guessed that wouldn"t last long. Soon the awakening would be complete, and it would want to feed. And that, I thought, was where all the kids came in.

I needed to take advantage of the trance. I needed to kill the thing right then, and I raced forward to do just that.

"Mom!" Allie screamed. "Be careful! You can"t see it, but he"s a demon, and he"s-"

"I can see him," I said, tackling the beast and knocking him to the floor. This was going to be too easy.

"Really?" She was so incredulous she almost sounded normal. "What about the room? The tentacles?"

"Tentacles?" I"d been poised to jab my stiletto through his eye. Now I hesitated.

"He"s holding onto the kids. All of us. Me, too," she said, glancing down at her ankles as if in support of her statement. "There was punch, but I only drank a little, and I could see what was real and they couldn"t and-"

"I get it," I said, though I didn"t completely. I got enough. The kids who"d drunk the punch must see the demon as I saw him, they just weren"t afraid. Because they were part of it now. Part of the ceremony, part of the world. Kill the demon, and they"d step up to fight. Either that, or they"d die, too.

To ensure the kids stayed alive (and to make sure they didn"t become demonic fighting minions), we had to cut the tentacles before we killed the beast. And since I couldn"t see them...

I jumped off the demon and raced toward Allie, who was screaming questions at me. I sliced the ropes that bound her, then handed her the larger knife. "Cut them," I said. "Cut all the tentacles. I can"t kill him until the kids are free."

Her eyes went wide, but she didn"t hesitate. Didn"t question, and despite the fact that I was beyond furious with her for sneaking off to a party, right then, I was pretty d.a.m.n proud.

Quickly, she reached down and sliced through the tentacles that bound her. When she did, the demon I"d left on the floor shook with life.

d.a.m.n. I"d been afraid of that.

"I"ll keep you safe," I said, racing back to the demon. "Hurry!"

She"d sliced through another tentacle by the time I got back to the demon. I landed a solid punch to its bulbous, writhing face. I risked a sideways look and saw a boy who"d been sitting calmly in a chair sink to the floor in a dead faint. Good. I"d rather a roomful of kids not see this.

Another set of tentacles cut, and this time the force of the break brought the demon to life. He leaped up, knocking me off him, then turning to attack Allie. I tackled him, buying her time to slice through another, as the demon twisted and kicked, and I blocked and parried.

I had my stiletto and d.a.m.ned if I didn"t want to use it. Fighting was easier when you were going for the kill. Trying to slow things down was hard. And painful, I thought, when he picked me up and hurled me toward the desk. I landed hard on my back, my breath going out of me, but I didn"t have time to think about the pain. Allie had reached the last kid - the last set of tentacles.

Mindy.

But the demon was on his way there, too.

No way.

I lunged, knocking him down before he could get to Mindy. I screamed for Allie to hurry, fighting to position myself as she hacked at the last two tentacles.

"Now!" she yelled, and I lashed down with my stiletto - and as I did, the demon thrust out his arm, knocking the blade from my hand and sending it skittering across the room. s.h.i.t!

I clutched his wrist, my knees clamped tight as I straddled him, but I couldn"t hold him for long. I needed a weapon, something I could slide into his eye - something sharp and pointy that could kill a demon.

"Mom!" Allie said, and as she spoke, she tossed me something small and silver. Instinctively, the demon tilted his head up and opened his eyes wide.

And that was all it took.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the clippers from the air, held them with the pointy file sticking out, and plunged the metal deep into the demon"s eye.

Immediately, I heard the hiss of the demon leaving the body. Beneath me, all that was left was a sh.e.l.l.

A dead body.

And there I was in a roomful of kids, all of whom would surely awake from their faints soon enough.

I sighed. A dead body wasn"t going to go over well with them.

Lamenting the fact that demons don"t disappear in a puff of ash and smoke, I grabbed the body under the arms and started dragging it. "Open it," I said to Allie, motioning with my head to a door at the back of the room.