I felt lower than a snake's belly, helpless, a waste of oxygen standing there while the dragons handled the imps and demons and who knew what else that might spew forth from the portal.

"Dammit, I'm a Guardian!" I told Jim. "I'm a professional! I have power!"

"Ub-huh. And Ilarax there is going to take the title of studmuffin of the year."

"I do have power. I have lots of power, oodles of it floating around me. How many people do you know who can harness a dragon's fire? I just need to focus. If I do that, perhaps I can slam the portal shut until one of Drake's guys shows up with an experienced Guardian,"

The demon, which had been engaging in a fairly impressive display of martial arts with two of Chuan Ren's bodyguards, leaped back onto the table and started chanting a familiar spell. It was summoning other demons. Chuan Ren threw herself at it, knocking it down onto the table, but despite its femmy getup, it was strong. She went flying across the room with a shriek that was almost as painful on the ears as the demon's.

If I didn't stop the demon, it would summon up its demon lord's horde. And that could only be bad news. "Come on, Jim," I said, mentally girding my loins as I strode forward. "We have a portal to close."

"What? Are you insane? You don't know the first thing about closing portals!" Jim stared at me in openmouthed horror as I pushed past it and marched to the table. The demon Ilarax, which had resumed its invocation, spun around and glared at me as I approached.

"That's right, but you do. Quickly, what do I have to do to shove your colorful friend back through the portal?"

"Ilarax is no friend of mine. He's in Magoth's legions, and that, let me tell you, is one badass demon lord. You don't want to mess with one of his demons."

"I don't care if it's a member of the Supreme Court. I just want to know how to shove it back," I said through my teeth, trying to maintain my smile as Itarax stomped its way across the table to stand in front of me, its hands on its befeathered tutu hips. Three imps marched behind the demon, their arms (they each had four) on their tiny little hips in a very bizarre parody as they eek-eeked aggressively at me.

"You need the twelve words," Jim answered, hiding behind me, its big furry head peeking around my thighs to look at the demon.

"'Guardian! You do not have the strength to hold me!" Ilarax snarled in a high-pitched voice. "To try is folly. Bow down unto the power of Ilarax and acknowledge me as your master!"

"Twelve words? Not the twelve words that are different for each demon? Not the twelve friggin' words that no one but the demon knows? Not those twelve words, Jim?"

"Yup, those are the ones."

One of Chuan Ren's men pulled himself up from the floor, wiping blood out of his eyes as he snarled something that sounded really nasty. A knife flashed in his hand as he attacked the demon, but it fell impotently when the demon twisted the dragon's arm into an unnatural position, the horrible crunching, popping sound making my stomach turn over.

"You sure you're up to this?" Jim whispered.

The dragon guard screamed as the demon threw him through one of the glass walls.

"Sure I'm sure. It's just a demon, right? I can handle that."

Lit the red wyvern's mate, leaped up from where he was trying to revive Chuan Ren and ran screaming toward the demon. Without even looking at the dragon, the demon lashed a leg out and caught Li full in the belly. He slammed into a wall, sliding down it like a limp sack of potatoes.

Jim raised its eyebrows. Drake and Gabriel's men were engaged in putting out the fire, which had quickly spread along the wooden paneling on the near wall. Fiat and his guys were beating back the wave of imps as they emerged from the portal, but even with the three of them stomping and squashing as fast as they could, the little turquoise and pink creatures were getting away from them, quickly wreaking havoc.

I turned back to eye the demon. It was standing with its back to me, its arms waving as it continued the words of summoning.

"Right. Force is out. Martial arts is out. It's just me and my brain against the demon,"

Jim groaned. "We're doomed."

I ignored my furry demon, a little tickle of an idea coming to mind as I snatched up the knife that one of the red dragons had dropped. There was only one thing to do.

Five minutes later Nora raced into the atrium, Pal on her heels. She skidded to a stop at the sight of me sitting on the now-subdued demon, my hand buried in its tutu. "I came as quickly as I could. The dragon said it was an emergency—are you holding a knife to that demon's genitalia?"

"Yep," I answered, pressing the tip of the steak knife into the demon's tender flesh. Its shriek was muffled by Jim lying across its head, but it still had enough power to cause an ice sculpture bearing caviar to crack and fall to the floor in a nasty mess. Around us, order was slowly being returned to the room. Harax's limbs, tied with linen napkins to the table legs, twitched as I allowed the knife to slide a little bit into its skin. "Knock off the sonic screaming or they're going to be calling you Salty."

"Ash, honey, I don't think that's going to serve as much of a threat in this instance," Jim said.

I looked down at the demon's bizarre outfit. "Oh. You may be right. Still, it surrendered rather than allowing me to hurt its noogies, which says something about it."

"But—but—" Nora looked around the room before pushing her glasses up and leaning forward to speak quietly. "Demons cannot be hurt, Aisling."

"I know, but the form they take can be destroyed. That's what made me think of a way to control this demon other than wards or the twelve words. The dragons tried to beat it up, but they didn't get very far because they didn't use their brains."

"Their brains?" Nora parroted, looking more than a little confused.

"I like to think that I take an alternate path to a solution," I said with a tiny bit of pride. "One of the things I've learned is that tackling a problem head-on isn't always the way to triumph over it. In this case, I knew there was no way I'd be able to beat the demon when it was physically stronger than me, so I decided to go for its weak point."

She looked at the demon's groin.

I nodded. "It's pretty obvious that it has masculinity issues, which means it values its manly bits. A little flick of the knife in the demonic happy zone and voila! Instant compliance."