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Regarding her coldly, I swirled the glass, clinking the ice. “Getting you drunk was a bad idea. God knows you’re frustrating enoughsober.”

“I notice this thing you do,” she said, now licking the rim of her second empty glass. “It’s very human and despicable. When you don’t want to answer a question, you say something completely irrelevant.”

I tipped up my glass to her. “Good job, you’re learning.”

“See! You just did it again.”

I frowned. “You made a behavioral observation, and I congratulated you,” I said, my eyes following a passerby that stared at Lana, dumbstruck by her beauty. His gaze moved to me, and he startled at whatever he saw. I watched him scurry away. “What else do you want?” I continued, returning my attention to her. “You want me to buy you a drink? Here, I’ll buy you a drink.” I bought her a third rainbow cocktail. “Happy?”

“Very,” she said, starting in on it with lustful eyes. Then she stopped. “No, you dodged it again... you still haven’t saidInfernari.”

“Infernari,” I said. “There. I’m not afraid of a word.”

“But you are.” She smiled wickedly, her long canines looking particularly sharp under the shine of the outdoor lights. “They say a name has power. Now, when you look at me, you’ll see an Infernarus, not a demon.”

I drained my whiskey and slammed it down, my lips tightening into a pucker. “When I look at Azazel, I see a demon. When I look at Clades, I see a demon. When I look at Grandmaddox, I see a demon. When I look at you...” I inhaled sharply through my nostrils, “I don’t see a demon, I see something that I don’t want to be seeing.”

It was the damn whiskey talking.

We lapsed into silence, and I couldn’t meet her eye.Careful, Asher.

“When I look at you,” she said softly, “I don’t see a monster.”

I frowned down at my empty cup. “I’m not having this conversation with you. Talk about something else.”

“Grandmaddox’s jambalaya?” she offered.

“Will give me nightmares,” I finished, grateful for the change of subject. “I’m serious. Tonight, all I will be dreaming about is centipedes stewing in red Cajun sauce... I think some of them were still alive.”

“They’re basically the same as shrimp and crawfish,” she said, “and I saw you eat a shrimp.”

“There were spiders too, Lana... and cockroaches.” I shuddered. That fucking dinner was justwrong.”

“So? That’s not even unique to Infernari. Humans eat spiders and cockroaches, too.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“In Cambodia and China. We’re not as different as you think.”

My nose wrinkled. “Is that what they teach you demons in your geography classes? Which country you can visit to get a good deep-fried cockroach?”

“Demonis a derogatory word, you know.” The alcohol was making her tongue sharper, and despite her hooded lids, her eyes were piercing when they met mine.

“That’s why I use it.” This conversation called for more alcohol. I got another refill from the bartender and slipped her a fifty. “Leave the bottle.”

“What if humans had killed your family?” Lana asked. “Would you want to exterminate them, too?”

The question caught me off guard. Somehow she’d figured out my sad story. The family that was taken from me by her kind.

I paused, peering down at the ice melting in my whiskey. The alcohol gave me that warm tingly feeling in my stomach, but right now it could go either of two ways.

No, not tonight. Tonight, I wasn’t going to mope. God knew I’d drunk myself to sleep plenty of nights before, sobbing over photo albums.

But Ididwant to talk about it.

I wantedsomeoneto ask about it. My reasons. My justifications.

“I’m not a bigoted person.” I tried to keep my voice even, taking another slow sip. “It’s thenatureof demon magic.” I didn’t even feel the burn of the whiskey, not now that we’d moved to this topic. “They were cursed because some demon somewhere used their blood for I don’t even know what—for all I know, it could have been a fucking parlor trick—and my wife and daughter had to die for that. For no reason.” I looked up at her, nodding grimly as I topped off my glass, spilling some on the bar. “It would be different if you cursed us willingly. If it had been Azazel, or Clades, if they had come in and killed them on purpose, then I would get my revenge and be done with it, like you said. But it wasn’t on purpose. Their death was a byproduct, a mistake. They died because of the very nature of demons.That, I’m not willing to abide.”