Thaumaturgy is all about connections. As above, so below, as Harry said. If you had a piece of something, you could do all kinds of interesting things to the whole. Mercy and I had spent an afternoon etching runes into a dozen Pente stones before chipping off small pieces of each. Then I'd glued the bits to old earring studs and hit the lot of them in my underwear drawer. Three of the stones had already been discovered and tossed out by Mom, which left nine to work with. It took us a few minutes to sort out the pair that corresponded with this particular stone, but by the time Dad got home, we were in bed, feigning sleep.

"Sounds like bed check is over," I said, listening intently. Bottles clinked in the interior of the fridge, and a cap came free with a light pop. "She's in the kitchen now. You know he has a beer before bed."

Mercy nodded and pressed a finger to her lips. She was right. We weren't going to get anything if I kept running my mouth. So I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes, blotting out anything but the faint hum of magic in the earrings, and the sounds coming from the other end.

"You didn't have to stay up," Dad said quietly. One of the kitchen chairs creaked as he sat. "I know it's been a long week."

"I was up already. Harry is coming down with a cold, and he's been fussy. It kept the older kids up, so I finally let them camp in the living room. I only just got them to bed."

Dad sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Dad was silent for a moment, probably sipping one of the microbrews he kept on ice. Finally, he said, "It's not about that. I think I'm about to make your life harder. I need you to keep the girls home from school for the rest of the week. Something happened, and I won't feel sanguine about sending them back until I know more about what's going on."

Another creak. Mom must have sat down across from him. She drummed her fingers on the table. It sounded like the ominous roll of thunder. I'd put money down that Mercy had glued the Pente stone to the underside of the table.

"What happened? Is that wizard-"

"Harry isn't involved," Dad said quickly. "At least, not yet. Murphy is asking him for a consult, and I think we need his help."

"I don't like it," she said, fingers drumming harder. If she kept up, the Pente stone might fall, and then the jig was up. "Every time he's involved in one of your cases, someone gets hurt. How many times have you ended up in the hospital because of that man?"

"How many times has he saved me from ending up in the morgue?" Dad countered.

Mom didn't say anything to that. Instead, she stood with a scrape of chair across hardwood and opened the fridge. Another round of clinking, a pop, and she returned. She was drinking too. This was bad.

"You're sure you need him?" she asked. I could picture her rubbing her eyes. She sounded exhausted.

"It's either Harry or a priest. I haven't seen anything quite like this before."

There was a quaver in his voice when he said the last. It made me feel cold. Dad had faced supernatural nasties for a while now, and I'd never seen him flinch. Things weren't just bad. They were really bad.

"What happened?" Mom asked. "I know you can't say much about an ongoing investigation, but is there anything you can tell me? Maybe it will help."

"It's one of the girls' classmates. The janitor found her in the resource section at the back of the library."

Mom sucked in a breath and when she spoke, her voice was muffled, probably by a hand. "Is she...dead?"

"No, though it might be kinder if she was. She's..." Dad paused, then seemed to rethink whatever he'd been about to say. "She's in bad shape. It looks like she was in there for eight to ten hours. She's contorted herself into positions that should be anatomically impossible. She should be screaming, unconscious, or...something. She just keeps laughing and moving. Every time she does, something grinds or pops or bursts through the skin. She shouldn't be alive. The doctors keep trying to blame it on Three-Eye. The verbal tics fit, but the contortions don't."

"Is it a...?"

"Demon," Dad whispered. "He's pretty sure. We won't know what kind for a while."

I curled a little closer to Mercy and muttered, "Sounds like it's of the 'your mother sucks cocks in hell' persuasion."

Mercy let out a soft, half-hysterical giggle before she could stop herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth a second later, eyes wide as the realization sunk in. I hadn't hallucinated the thing in the library. Something was loose in the school and it had attacked one of our classmates.

"Harry is visiting Rowan in the hospital tonight to see if there's anything he can do for her. Lord willing he'll be able to put her to sleep, at least."

I tugged the earrings off. I'd heard enough. Rowan Young, the class burnout. She'd been failing most of the semester, even with the fancy tutor her parents had hired to get her grades up. Had she been in the back trying to study? Had she been attacked while I dithered in the doorway, convinced I was going nuts?

"Poor Rowan," Mercy whispered. "We were so close. Do you think there was something we could have done to help?"

"We still can. We'll find out what did this to her and lead Harry to it. I found it once and I can find it again."

"It's not a good idea," Mercy said, but she didn't sound overly concerned. Her eyes gleamed with anticipation of an adventure.

"No, it's not. Are you going tell them I'm doing something stupid?"

Mercy kissed my cheek and smiled. There was something wicked to it.

"Only if I'm not invited."