I laughed so hard tears wet my eyelashes. “Nora, I’ve broken just about every rule there is. I don’t know why you’d think I’d balk at breaking another one.”

She smiled, warmth glowing from behind her glasses. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I’ll make an appointment with Mark to discuss the issue. Now, as for your problems with Drake—why don’t we have a nice cup of tea and talk it over?”

Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Jim’s (and Nora’s) words had hit me hard. I raised my chin and shook my head. “No, I’m through obsessing and monopolizing the conversation and whatever else I’ve been doing over that annoying man. I’m just going to have to work things out on my own. Er... would it help if I talked to the Guardian people, too?”

“It certainly couldn’t hurt. Don’t worry about that now—I’m sure we’ll get everything straightened out once I can sit down and talk to them. And as for you ... Aisling, I didn’t mean you couldn’t talk to me about your troubles,” Nora said, opening the shutters that closed off a small bar from the kitchen area. “I will always be here to listen to you, if you need a friendly ear.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” I gathered up my things and the book she’d handed me and glanced at the clock. “I’ll let you know if I need a shoulder to sob on. Right now I have an outfit to pick out for tomorrow’s dragon conference, a book of demonic class types to memorize, and a demon to appease. If I leave now, I think there’s time for me to zip over to Paris and make it back by midnight. I’ll bone up on the texts you gave me once I get back.”

She looked skeptical as I rushed into my room, grabbed my purse and passport, and ordered Jim to follow me. “Aisling, you’d really go all the way to Paris and back in twelve hours just to make your demon happy?”

“Paris?” Jim asked, shuffling its way out to the living room. At the word its ears pricked up, its eyes lit, and it suddenly looked a good ten years younger, not to mention five pounds lighter. “Did I hear that right? We’re going to Paris? Right now?”

“Yes, I would,” I answered Nora first. “Jim and you are both right—I have been obsessing and moody. I owe it a trip. By my voice, by my blood, by my hand, demon, I banish thee to Akasha.”

Before Jim could do more than open its eyes wide with delight and surprise, it disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

“Man, that’s a handy little spell,” I said as I ran for the door, waving at Nora as I went. “See you later—I’ll be back by midnight. Don’t let the committee get you down. It can’t be anything serious or we’d know, right?”

Honestly, there are times when I think I should be teaching a class called Famous Exit Lines You’ll Later Regret.

3

Thanks to the swift efficiency of the Eurostar high-speed train running under the English Channel, three and a half hours after I had raced out of Nora’s London apartment, I was standing on the street staring down a dark alley named rue des Furoncles sur les Fesses du Diable (aka Boils on the Buttocks of the Devil Street), a familiar view since that particular narrow alley was home to Le Grimoire Toxique, the cute little shop that catered to the wiccan and witch crowd in Paris. This area of town was heavily given over to occult-type shops, most of which were harmless places where non-Otherworldians came to buy incense and love spells. The shops given over to supplies used by those who knew what they were doing were hidden away on similar dark, out-of-the-way streets like the one where Amelie Merllain lived.

The tiny bells over the door to the Grimoire Toxique tinkled cheerily as I pushed open the door, a similarly cheery smile on my face. Two elderly ladies stood next to a bookshelf as a third woman, middle aged, with a slight amount of gray mixed into her short black hair, stood on a stepladder and fetched bottles from a top shelf.

“Bonjour, Amelie,” I said in my best French (which admittedly was atrocious). I sneaked a peek at the slip of paper upon which I’d written a greeting gleaned from my seatmate during the trip to Paris. “Um. Tu es que l’ombre de toi-meme! Quoi de neuf ?

Amelie’s figure froze for a second. “I believe I am more than a shadow of myself, but not much is new here in Paris. Could it be that someone from out of town is asking?” She turned around with a warm smile. “Aisling, I knew it must be you. You have a way of speaking French that is truly . . . impressive.”

I laughed and hugged her when she hurried down the stepladder, her hands full of jars that she set down on the counter. Speaking in quick French, she gestured toward me as she bustled around behind the long counter that served as her sales desk. The two ladies looked at me with pursed lips.

“Bonjour,” I told them. They murmured what I assumed were polite replies. “Sheesh, Amelie, it’s been forever since I last saw you!”

“You exaggerate. It has been under two months, I think. I will be with you in just one of the brief moments.” Amelie doled out a pink powder, some dried herbs, and a handful of rose hips. “I told my ladies here that you are a friend from America, and are a powerful, much-respected Guardian.”

The ladies looked anything but awestruck. ‘Then you are guilty of exaggerating as well.” I hooked my foot under the rail on a tall wooden stool at the end of the counter, and plopped myself down on it. “Regardless of the time passed, I’m pleased to see you again.”

“And I you,” she said as she made up a neat paper package of all the herbs, giving them to the two ladies with a few hurried comments. “But where is Jim? Cecile will be deranged if she is not to see him.”

“Oh, Jim!” I leaped off the stool, a little zinger of guilt lashing me. “I forgot all about it. I put it in the Akasha.”

“The Akasha?” There was a little stereo gasp as Amelie spoke. The two ladies looked horrified and backed up a few steps.

“Yeah. The Akashic plain, actually. You know—the place everyone calls limbo? Where demons who don’t eat their vegetables go?”

Amelie just looked at me. The two ladies stood clutching their packages, eyeing me warily as if they were afraid to go past me to the door.

“You are joking at me, yes?” Amelie asked.

“Urn. About the veggies, yeah. I put Jim in the Akashic plain because of England’s quarantine laws for animals. It’s an easy way to get in and out of the country without having to worry about documents for Jim.”