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white on the steering wheel. I pried them off and squeezed my jaw, then tugged at my shirt, fanning out the collar of heat rising around my throat. I was in such deep shit.
    A white minivan emerged out of the grayish dawn and crept up behind me. I tensed, and my hand slid toward my holster.
    But then the minivan flashed a turn signal and veered around me.
    I let out my breath.
    This paranoia was only going to get worse.
    I needed to get to my safe house, ASAP. Lay low for a while. Study the female. Regroup. Then track down the next portal. Destroy it. Keep going. This didn’t change a damn thing.
    Plugged into its car charger, my smartphone lay in the center tray. I kept glancing at it. Rather than grabbing it—rather than giving in—I tightened my hold on the steering wheel.
    The female.
    Her healing power. It unnerved me, I didn’t like surprises. I liked knowing exactly who and what I was fighting at all times. But the connection she’d formed with the other demon . . . it had been invisible, and distance didn’t seem to affect it.
    Whoever she was, she was powerful. Probably some warlord’s daughter, knowing my luck, and by noon I’d have fifty of her brothers coming for my blood. Could I use her as leverage?
    I glanced at my phone again.
    No, Asher.
    Two dark objects swooped overhead. I jerked forward, craned my neck, my heart palpitating at the base of my throat—
    Just crows.
    Demons couldn’t track me down this fast.
    My gaze flicked to my phone.
    Fuck it. I picked it up and navigated to his number. I stared at his name a moment, then chucked it into the passenger seat, fuming.
    There were about a thousand demons left in existence, less than twenty on earth itself. If I had succeeded in destroying all the portals before they caught on, I would have trapped their kind in their own world, ending their predation on humans once and for all. Then I would have had only twenty unsuspecting, lesser demons to kill.
    Without their beloved portals, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Hell, they’d probably die on their own of some human borne disease before I got the chance to do the job.
    But now, thanks to my sloppiness, and thanks to her , it would be Jame Asher versus all of demonkind.
    They would come pouring up through the portals, flooding out from the gates of hell, sniffing me out like bloodhounds and feeding off human misfortune like a pestilence.
    One man against a thousand demons.
    I didn’t stand one dick of a chance.
    Finally making up my mind, I grabbed my phone and dialed his number.
    Linking with the dashboard via Bluetooth, it rang over my Hummer’s speakers.
    He answered.
    “Jame fucking Asher . . . you better have a damn good reason for calling me after two years, you son of a bitch.”
    Brad Hawkins, former best friend, best man at my wedding, my daughter’s godfather . . . the closest thing I had to a brother and the only family I had left.
    “What, you sitting by the phone waiting for me to call?” I said. “Get a life, dickhead.”
    “What’d you do this time, Asher?”
    I dragged my hand down my face, thinking how to phrase this right. “One slipped through my fingers. I don’t know, this stupid portal master. He knows who I am . . . he recognized me.”
    Silence.
    “Listen, there’s an opening at my firm,” Brad said finally. “It’s entry-level, but it’d be something to get you on your feet . . .”
    “Did you hear me?” I said.
    “Pay’s shit, I know, but the commission structure’s gravy. Give it a few years, you’ll be raking it in—”
    “Does it sound like I give a rat’s ass about your commission structure?” I spat. “Did you hear me?”
    “Yeah, I heard you. You fucked up. What do you want me to say?”
    “I don’t know . . . help me! ”
    “I don’t do that anymore.”
    “Look, I captured a female, too. Some kind of healer. You’d probably know more about her . . . I need your expertise on this one, bro.”
    “I have a