“Door,” I repeated, looking at Lon. Finally, something useful.

He stared at the photos thoughtfully. “Stars that open doors.”

Oh, I really didn’t like the sound of that.

GRAND DUKE CHORA

A clever and sly thinker, this Grand Duke uncovereth Hidden Paths and knoweth High Magics to Trap and Snare Enemies. He will maketh pacts with the Summoner to share his Wisdom, but will require Severe and High payments in trade. The Secret Science of War is etched upon his skin. He governeth two great Legions of the West with one thousand winged Dragoons. He appeareth from above as a Goodly Knight with a Cloak of Red Velvet.

—Ceremoniall Magics, John Gundye, 1498

The entry in Lon’s goetic demon encyclopedia included a small etching of the demon, drawn as a handsome soldier riding a devilish-looking flying beast, something between an evil Pegasus and a dragon. And if the medieval magician who cataloged this entry was even partially correct—He will maketh pacts with the Summoner to share his Wisdom, but will require Severe and High payments in trade—then it would stand to reason that Merrin made a pact with Chora to learn Æthryic magick. The pink magick in the cannery and at the putt-putt course would definitely qualify as magick to “trap and snare enemies.”

But what about the Æthyric spell in the tube? And the mandalas in the cannery—stars that opened doors? What doors, and who wanted them open—Merrin or Chora?

It won’t end. If he’s not successful this time, he’ll just keep trying. Thirty years are nothing to him.

Chora definitely wanted something out of the bargain that he hadn’t gotten yet, and if a new batch of children was being taken, then it stood to reason that he was the one who wanted these doors opened—not Merrin.

Merrin wasn’t the only magician who could summon Æthyric demons. Chora’s seal was listed in the goetic entry, so I figured I’d go straight to the source. But when I attempted to summon the demon later that night after dinner, he didn’t appear.

There was a very short list of reasons why he wouldn’t come when I summoned. So, assuming everything was executed correctly on my end—which it was—that meant the incubus was right when he said that Duke Chora was either dead, or here on earth.

We knew he wasn’t dead, because Merrin suggested that he’d keep coming back until he was successful. But if he was alive on earth, he hadn’t been just walking around, enjoying dips in the ocean, and sipping fruity drinks for thirty years. Æthyric beings can’t survive on earth for long periods, certainly not for thirty years. If he was on this plane for a substantial stay, he had to be riding someone—and by that I mean old-school demonic possession, as depicted in the movie that inspired Frater Merrin’s name . . . minus the green vomit.

Merrin showed no signs of possession when we found him at the Silent Temple. But if Chora was riding someone else, Merrin might know about it.

No getting around it: we had to track Merrin down again.

Once more I considered sending out a servitor, but it was just too dangerous. I toyed with the idea of reinforcing the Servitor Launch spell with wards, but magical experimentation could take days—or weeks. Plus, even with added protections embedded into a servitor, I still wasn’t confident that someone like Merrin with more knowledge and skill than me couldn’t reverse the spell, like Riley Cooper when she used my servitor to kidnap Jupe. I wasn’t stupid enough to risk luring a child snatcher to a child.

There had to be another way to track Merrin down without using Jupe as bait, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of one. My mind just kept churning up spells that weren’t viable, dead ends. It wasn’t just frustrating, it was utterly dispiriting.

A small, selfish part of me wanted to just admit defeat. Hole up with Jupe in Lon’s house and surround ourselves with extra warding magick and weapons. Ride things out until Halloween was over. I mean, I didn’t know any of these families—why should I have to be the one to save more kids from being taken? Everyone knew the danger by now; Earthbound parents would be fools to allow their kids to be unsupervised after dark at this point.

I was contemplating this ugly thought as I emerged from the Tambuku kitchen the night after the incubus summoning. My leg still ached from the magical earthquake at the putt-putt course. Maybe being forced to stand on it through my shift was making me grumpier than normal. A normal person would take something for the pain, but I was trying to hold out. When I ducked behind the bar, a familiar face greeted me, but it wasn’t Bob’s.

Ambrose Dare sat on a barstool in an expensive suit, bald head gleaming under the hanging strands of white lights that filtered through his green halo.

“Hello, Ms. Bell. Forgive me for barging in here without a warning.” Funny, because he didn’t really sound all that sorry. “I needed to discuss a couple of things with you, and I was in the area.”

I glanced nervously around Tambuku. The backup bartender was serving a customer at the other end of the bar. A few booths were occupied, but we were slow tonight. No one seemed to notice that one of the most powerful Earthbounds in the area was sitting at the bar. I busied myself with shelving newly washed tiki mugs.

He tapped his fingers on the bar top. A few liver spots freckled over the bones in his hand. “A fourth child went missing tonight.”

A mug nearly slipped out of my hand.

“She was taken two hours ago. It’s not just Hellfire children that are being abducted, Ms. Bell. It’s descendants of members who’ve undergone the transmutation spell.”