“I only snatched him to get your attention,” I said. “Now that I’ve got it, this is what I want.”“Damn my dame!” Al shouted, hands raised to the ceiling. “I knew it! Not another list!”

“Now you’re going to get it,” I said, guessing Al was coming when the ones in the back scattered. “You should have been nice.”With a weird cry, the closest surface demon fell back, but it was too late. A flash of red light exploded overhead, smashing the buildings away as if I were at the center of an atomic explosion. The surface demons scattered like brown leaves, the remnants of their clothes and auras fluttering. It was Al, and he burst into existence in a grand mood, an old-fashioned lantern in his hand and a walking cane at his side.“Rachel Mariana Morgan!” he shouted enthusiastically, raising the lantern high, and I painfully rose from my crouch, breaking my bubble with a small thought. “I’ve come to save you, love!”

“Al brought his attention back down from the ceiling. “You really don’t want to have sex with him? Why? What’s wrong with him?”

“Why?" I said, taking the paper from him as Al smiled. "If it's not what I agreed to, I will burn Al's gonads off the first chance I get. Turn around. I need to use your back for a second.""Ah, hold on a tick," Al said, snapping his fingers again and catching the new paper drifting down. "How silly of me. This is the one. Here.”

“What are you doing now?" Al questioned "Seeing if your circumcision is gone? It is.My expression went blank, and Trent hesitated.He looked at me, and I put a hand to my mouth, face flaming. "Oh. My. God. Trent. I'm sorry""Um" Trent said, clearly at a loss."Call me tomorrow," Al said seriously, "I've got a curse that will take care of that. Unless you like the snake in a turtleneck look”

“Oh my God!" I shouted, smacking at myself to get it off. The chanting abruptly stopped as I danced about the interior of the circle, beating the chunky dust off me. It only made things worse, and I began coughing on someone's dead grandmother. My eyes watered, and I finally gave up, glaring at them from around my hair, now all over the place. Damn it, I was covered in strawberries and human remains.”

“Head lowered, Al looked at his bare hands, folded in his lap. “I knew you could, otherwise I wouldn’t have let you get into that position. But now everyone else knows it, too. I wasn’t expecting how vulnerable you would be, and word gets around. It is too easy for…” He hesitated. “You’re so damn helpless…,” he tried again, his words cutting off once more. “How am I supposed to keep them off you now that they know?”