The hardest part of a prisoner transfer was that you had to trust the other party to behave themselves. That was complicated by the fact that it was impossible to trust the other party; they were, simply by the fact that they had one of your friends, completely untrustworthy.

You had to hope that your hostage was important enough that your enemy would find their honor, despite being completely dishonorable. That meant the scariest part of the transfer was after the exchange took place, when you had what you wanted, and they had what they wanted.

You could usually tell how good your chances were of surviving the exchange by the number of men they brought. If there were only a couple of men and it was in a public place, then the odds were in your favor. But if you showed up to a prisoner transfer in a place as public as Griffith Observatory and there were at minimum a hundred thugs on the other side, and all you had in your corner was a pixie, a demon, and yourself, the odds of getting out of the transfer with your life were severely lessened.

We would have to leave quickly, so I left the portal open when we stepped toward the snake monster in the impeccable suit. Phil laid under the snake’s shiny loafer, beaten and bruised, but breathing.

“Quite the entourage,” I said.

His tongue flickered as he spoke. “I sssssssee you have her.”

“You sound different than the guy on the phone,” Kimberly said.

“Ssssssssilly girl.” The snake laughed. “My bosssss does not sssssully his hands on ssssssuch things.”

The demon who had double-crossed me wasn’t there, which meant Benny was right not to risk his people, and suddenly I hated him less for not walking directly into a trap and more for proving me wrong. I wouldn’t have walked into it, either, except that I was compromised, tainted by my feelings.

Kimberly stuck her hands on her hips, unimpressed. “Except answer his own phone, that is.”

“Enough, Kimberly,” I said. “Who is your boss, then?”

“Not important,” the snake said.

“I think it’s important.” I stepped forward. “How else will I know who to kill for hurting the girl?”

“You do have ssssssspirit.” The snake chuckled. He was having a grand ole time for a moment, but then his face grew deadly serious. “I hate that. Now, the girl.”

“Not so fast. What’s to stop you from killing us when you get her?”

“Nothing, excccccccept my honor.”

“Is that the same honor that has you sacrificing a little girl?” Kimberly’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you even want her? It’s almost sunup.”

“My bosssssss has his own reasssssssons.” The snake looked back to his army of monsters. “As for your former query, I could ssssssssimply kill you now and take the girl if I did not have honor. Is that what you would prefer?”

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“If you kill us, you’ll never get the knife.”

“Where is it?”

“Hidden,” Kimberly said. “And we’ll only tell you where after you give us Phil back.”

“The deal was the knife and the girl for the alien. No knife, no deal.” He raised his hands in the air, and the monsters lifted their guns.

“We can just retreat into this portal and do this later,” Kimberly said, squeezing the hilts of her sheathed daggers. “We’re not the ones who need to sacrifice her before sunrise.”

“Sssssssssshe’s no good to ussssssss dead. You, on the other hand—”

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense,” Kimberly said, holding up her hands. “Isn’t dead the only way she’s good to you?”

“Look, it’s easy,” I said, stepping between them. “Once Phil’s safe, we’ll tell you where to get the knife. Come on, you couldn’t have thought it was going to be that easy, did you?” I pointed to the horizon and the sun creeping over the edge. “Tick tock.”

“I don’t like it…but I accept it.” He beckoned Anjelica over. “Send over the girl.”

I leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Be strong. We got this.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

I felt her back tense as I pushed her forward. She might have said she believed us, but her body thought differently, and I didn’t blame her. It was one thing to intellectually think about going into the belly of the beast bravely, quite another to do it for real.

“Now, give us Phil,” I called out once two demons ran forward to grab Anjelica.

The snake bent down and kicked Phil to us. He was struggling to get free as I pulled off his gag. “Welcome back, buddy.”

His eye was bloodshot and bruised. “You shouldn’t have done that. They’re crazy.”

I pulled Phil to his feet. “So are we. C’mon, let’s get you home.”

As I trudged toward the portal with Phil strung over my arm, Kimberly called out to the snake monster. “The dagger is in the Quik Stor on Figueroa and Grant in Wilmington. Unit 25.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the key I had given her earlier. She tossed it through the air. “Here’s the key.”

She followed me quickly through the portal, and I closed it behind her after taking one look back at Anjelica, who was trembling under her proud exterior. I took a deep breath and turned away, appearing back in Kitsune’s shop.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Phil said. He’d stumbled to the ground.

“Here,” Kitsune said, giving him a concoction that she brewed up in our absence. “It will help, but it will taste terrible.”

“Thank you,” Phil said. “Thank you all, but really. You shouldn’t have. You have no idea what they plan to do or what they’re capable of.”

“Start the Apocalypse. Rule the world. Sow carnage and destruction.” Kimberly narrowed her eyes at Phil. “Some crap like that. Sound about right?”

“More complex than that, but those are the broad strokes.” Phil shook his head.

“Demons are very predictable.”

I grabbed some salve from the table and busied myself cleaning his wounds. “They won’t get away with it.”

“How do you know? They seemed pretty determined. They said they wouldn’t stop until they killed the Devil and controlled Heaven itself.”

“Well, that’s slightly more ambitious than most demons, but we have it covered.” I pressed the salve on a cut across Phil’s shoulder, and he winced. “Did you meet the main boss?”

“Yes, he took pleasure in torturing me personally.”

“Where did they take you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. A mansion of some type. It was hot there. So hot. I could barely stay awake it was so hot.”

“What did he look like? Any distinguishing features?”

Phil shook his head. “No, aside from having an impeccable smile. Demons all look the same to me.”

“Hey!” I said. “I’m half demon.”

“Now you know my secret,” Phil said. “Humans look the same, too, for the most part. It’s only after many years that I trained myself to see Kimberly and you as your own beings.”

“That hurts, but I can’t say I would be able to tell you apart from another alien.”

Phil pulled away and looked at me. “I’m concerned you aren’t concerned.”

“It’s not that I’m not concerned. You just have no idea what we’ve been through tonight. After this is over, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I think I would prefer never to think about this again,” Phil said.

“Fair.”

We’d managed to get one of our friends back, but that was only half the plan. The dagger and Anjelica were still out there, and we had to get them back. That kid was not going to die. Not if I had something to say about it.