Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga by Carol Wolf Page B

anyone else seen a demon? Other than her demon, in the form it took while it was here?”
    There was silence.
    “So,” she continued, “we have no way of knowing if what she described is true.” She looked over at Tamara. “It could be just what the demon chose to show her.”
    Tamara shook her head. “Demons are dangerous. They are unknowable.”
    “Right!” I agreed. I loved Richard. Richard was gone. What he’d become was not something I wanted to see again. Really.
    “I still don’t see why we can’t ask the demon some questions,”
    Sol said. “Call him here, sort everything out.”
    “He didn’t like being here,” I told them. “He waited more than four hundred years for his freedom. He would not like being called back.”
    “What can he do?” Curt Sanderson entered the conversation once again. I glanced at him, but he still wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was beginning to interest me.
    “He could set the world on fire,” I told them. The bears laughed. The humans smiled. They all thought it was a joke. I reached out and took the rod from Kat and swept it around the bowl so that it rang out anew. “He could set the world on fire,” I stated. The laughter died away as the bowl sang true and clear in harmony with my voice.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    T amara took the others back to the shop, probably to decide who else they had to consult with, before disbelieving me some more. I was left to rest, which was fine with me because my wounds were throbbing again, and despite all the sleep I’d gotten, the idea of going back and curling up in that quilt for another couple hours was extremely attractive. But Curt Sondstrom didn’t get up when the others did. His fear was spiking again.
    Tamara took me aside before she went out the door and lifted an admonishing finger. “You will remember that he is a friend, and you are under my roof.” With no further explanation, she went out to catch up with the bears and her soul sister on the way to the shop. When the kitchen door closed behind her, Curt met my eyes for the first time.
    “You wanted to talk to me.”
    “I did?”
    “Tamara told me what happened to you. Look, I didn’t do anything to you, but something of mine may have helped.”
    He was tamping down his fear as much as possible. I could smell the sweat on his upper lip. “What are you talking about?”
    “Tamara said you have some things that I made.”
    It took me a moment, but then my teeth bared. “Oh. You make instruments.”
    He put up his hands. He might be just a straight human, but he could feel what was flaring off of me just then. “Look, keep in mind, I didn’t do anything to you, and I didn’t know what was happening.”
    “No?” I smiled. It was not my nice smile. It was the smile that has more teeth in it than a human ought to have. I was gratified to see the metal worker guy lean back hard in his chair and make a smile of his own. His was the kind where you expect to see the tongue come out any minute to lick his lips. His little beard was trembling.
    I went to the back room and got the bandana I’d left by the bed. I put it down on the table, opened it up, and pushed it over to Curt.
    “You made these?” My blood and my gore were still on them, and the teeth marks on the leather, and the torn wire where I’d finally gotten myself free.
    His eyes flicked over them uncomfortably. “Uh. Yeah.”
    I leaned over the table, and he flinched back again. “Did you make them for me?”
    “No! I swear! Look, I really didn’t know what they were going to be used for.”
    There were hollows in his words, covering his lies. I wondered if Kat had left, taking her singing bowl with her, just so that I couldn’t be certain. “Did you do the magic in them that makes them work?”
    “Uh, kinda. Well, yeah. Look, will you let me explain?”
    “I thought that was what I was doing.” After all, he was still completely intact. He wasn’t bleeding one little bit. And I did not have his throat