Page 65 of Demon and the Raven

“Yes,” I insisted. “I know you.”

She glanced at Lorne, then back to me. “It’s stupid.”

“Or not,” Lorne prodded her. “Spit it out.”

Her lips pressed together tightly.

“Amanda,” I snapped at her. “There are only so many things it could be. We’ve ruled out the fae, and it’s doubtful it’s any kind of shape-shifter or vampire because either one of those would have reasoned with Nott. Also, from what my grandfather said, when he conversed with those here on Corvus, neither needed a rift to visit him.”

“Your grandfather met a vampire?” she whispered.

“Focus.”

She coughed softly. “Sorry,” she rushed out. “But you know, vampires are my jam.”

“Stop,” I warned her, smiling, appreciating the moment of levity. “Go ahead and say what you think it could be.”

“But it’s dumb.”

“Nothing’s dumb at the moment.”

She grimaced instead of answering.

“Could it be a demon?” Lorne asked, eyes on my face.

“What?”

“Yes,” Amanda blurted out. “That’s what I thought too.”

“A demon?” I looked at him raking his fingers nervously through his thick hair, and then at her biting her bottom lip. “What exactly are you talking about when you use that word?”

“First, is hell one of the realms that can access our world through a rift?” Lorne asked.

“Yes,” I replied, without telling them how I knew. I couldn’t bring up the fact that Arawn hunted demons that had escaped from that plane and entered our world. I could tell Lorne later, but not in front of Amanda. “But they don’t just come through rifts. There have been demons coming and going from this plane since forever. Think about all the stories.”

“True. But there are also different kinds of demons, aren’t there? I mean, I’m thinking about them in a fire-and-brimstone, Judeo-Christian kind of way since that’s how I was raised, but that’s not the only kind there are.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

“All right, so at the moment to keep us from going down some random rabbit hole of identifying precisely what kind of demon we’re dealing with, let’s use the word demon as a catchall for any malevolent being wanting to do us harm.”

“Yes. Good. Let’s go with that,” I confirmed.

“Does your faith even have demons?” Lorne asked me.

I shook my head. “Not as a pagan…no. I was raised to revere nature, the seasons, and the wheel of the year.”

“But?” he asked, squinting at me, reading my face, having heard the pause in my voice.

“But my family are witches as well, so of course, all my life, I’ve heard about demons.”

“In what way?”

“In the way that you said, that there are malevolent beings that want to do humankind harm.”

“Okay,” Lorne said, exhaling sharply.

“What’s wrong?”