Jupe pinched himself on the arm and grinned from the passenger seat of my Volkswagen. “Yep, I definitely feel different.”

I swiped my monthly pass through the card reader at the parking garage entrance down the street from my bar. It buzzed in acceptance, and the gate’s striped barrier arm rose. “Well, you sure do look it,” I agreed, stowing the pass in a pocket on the sun visor.

“Different how?” Jupe tugged at one of the long espresso curls jutting out around his face. Like other Earthbound demons, his head and shoulders were crowned by a swirling halo of hazy light. His was an alluring spring green that matched his unusually pale eyes and gave off a lightning-bug luminescence in the shadowed interior of my car.

“You look older . . . more sophisticated,” I teased.

“Really?”

I rolled my eyes and pulled through the raised gate into the dark garage. “No.”

He punched me in the arm.

“Dammit, that hurt,” I complained in the middle of a laugh, rubbing my shoulder. “See if I ever give you anything again, you ungrateful punk.”

Jupe snickered as he stretched out long, wiry legs and examined the savings deposit receipt perched on his knee, thoughtfully tracing his finger along the indented ink. The deposit was for $15,000, originally in the form of a check, made payable to me from Caliph Superior, the leader of my esoteric organization back in Florida. The money was payment for the black-market glass talon Jupe’s father, Lon, had bought to help me out a few weeks ago. My magical order was rolling in dough, so I didn’t feel guilty that they had offered to reimburse Lon. But when he refused their check, I couldn’t keep the money for myself, so the only logical solution was give it to his son . . . while Lon was away in Mexico on a three-day photo shoot. Sneaky? Sure. But if you’re going to lie to Lon, you have to do it while he’s away on business. Otherwise he’ll just sense it before you can make it out the door. Jupe taught me that trick. He should write a book, How to Outsmart an Empath. The boy has skills.

But who knew giving money to an underage kid would be so hard? Jupe and I spent almost an hour arguing with tellers inside my credit union: no, I did not want to put it in some giftable trust fund that Jupe couldn’t touch until he was twenty-one. He already had a fat college fund and enough bonds and CDs to start a third-world country.

Problem was, the credit union didn’t allow minors on a joint savings account without a parent or legal guardian cosigning, and I was neither. Girlfriend of the Boy’s Father didn’t qualify, apparently. The branch manager couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t wait until Lon was back in town to get his signature. I wasn’t about to tell the manager that Lon would refuse—which he would. After a blue-faced argument, the manager finally, inexplicably, gave in.

“By the way, I know you still don’t believe me,” Jupe said as he snooped inside the glove compartment, “but I really did do it. Me. I got the manager to make an exception and let us open the account.”

God, he really wasn’t going to give that a rest. I swatted his hand away from the glove compartment and steered the car down the ramp to the next parking level; the Metropark garage sticks the monthlies in the dregs on the bottom floor. “You’re a charmer, don’t get me wrong.” And he was. Witty, geek-smart, almost annoyingly outgoing, and well on his way to becoming drop-dead gorgeous. Just yesterday he bragged that he’d overheard some girl in his class referring to him as “totally hot.” Did I mention he was cocky?

“I’m serious, Cady. I concentrated with my mind and twisted his thoughts around. I think it’s my”—he leaned over the armrest and spoke in a lower voice, as if someone could hear us outside the car—“knack.”

Knack. Slang for a preternatural ability possessed by an Earthbound demon. Most Earthbounds have one, but many knacks fall short of spectacular. A little foresight here, a little nighttime vision there. A whole hell of a lot of psychokinetics, most of them no more than bland party entertainment, unable to lift anything heavier than a freaking spoon a couple inches off the table. Don’t get me wrong: the occasional impressive ability does exist. I’ve met Earthbounds who could pick a lock with a touch, and others who could curse your unborn child. Those weren’t exactly commonplace, though.

“You’re crazy,” I said, waiting for another car to back out. A large, sparkling jack-o’-lantern clung to the top of its antenna—less than two weeks to Halloween. “For starters, you’ve got a couple more years before your demonic ability will start expressing. And second, you’ll inherit it from your mom or dad. It’s genetic, you know—you don’t just get a new ability out of thin air.”

“I know all that,” Jupe complained. “Who’s the demon here, me or you?”

“You are. I’m mere human.” Well, human magician with a few extra skills, but still human.

“Yeah, and I got the stupid ‘knack’ speech with the ‘birds and the bees’ from my dad when I was eight.”

“Poor, poor Lon,” I murmured. The car windows were fogging up; it was going to rain. I turned the defroster on and cranked up the compressor fan.

“All I’m saying is that I know about what’s supposed to happen. But I’m telling you, Cady, I can make people do things. I can get inside their minds and change their thoughts.”

“Pfft. I’ve never even heard of a knack like that.” Well, Lon could influence thoughts when he was amped up into his transmutated demon state, but that’s nothing Jupe knew about, or would ever know. Not from me, anyway. Besides, Lon’s influence was temporary, and he had to be touching the person. Plus, it was more common for the inherited knack to be weaker than the parents’, not stronger.