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“That’s why we’re here,” I said, taking his cue and whispering as well.

His eyebrows rose as if he were surprised that we’d already known Dean’s condition. “He’s in the back room with his father. I’ll take you there.”

I looked back at the guys and smiled. At least we were a lot more welcomed this time around.

We walked in to a pale Dean sitting on the couch while his father sat at a desk in the corner. Dean looked our way and smiled. His lips were cracked. “How are you feeling?” I asked. His look didn’t remind me exactly of Liam, but he definitely wasn’t looking too hot either.

“Sick,” he said.

Mr. Reid stood. “Do you know what’s going on? I was going to call you.”

“Ren called Randy,” Gabe said.

The old man nodded, then looked up expectantly, as if we held all the answers to everything.

“The first thing you should know is that we no longer work for the Order,” Travis said. “I figured we’d put that right up front.”

Mr. Reid sneered. “I don’t care about that. I never was too fond of the Order, anyway.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. The only reason why he wasn’t fond of them was because the Reid’s were borderline naughty witches.

Travis nodded once. “I just wanted it known.”

“Well?” Mr. Reid asked, staring at his son and then back to us.

I shrugged. “Liam is sick too. The only correlation we can think of is that—”

“Liam and I both had the familiar on us,” Dean said, his voice shaky.

“Exactly,” I said, frowning down at him. He really didn’t look good at all. He looked as if he could pass out at any moment.

“So, it’s that bad witch again?” Mr. Reid said.

Travis bristled, but I grabbed his hand and held it. It was one thing to tell his coven that he wasn’t sure Jax was all that bad, it was a whole other thing to tell someone else that he believed that way. Especially since the Reid’s were affected by Jax too. Which was evidenced by the sick Dean on the couch.

“Do you have anything in your archives about how to get rid of a demon?”

“Get rid of a demon?” Mr. Reid said, surprise and humor lacing his voice.

Gabe moved forward. “Not just the demon’s familiar, but the demon itself.”

Mr. Reid looked lost. “I have no idea all of what’s down in those books. I’m just a collector,” he said sternly.

Travis, Gabe, and I exchanged a look. Yeah, right.

“I don’t think there’s anything like that down there,” Dean said. “But you’re welcome to look.”

His father glared at him, but then Dean went into a choking fit and his sour face immediately lifted. “Absolutely. Do whatever you have to do to figure this out?”

“There’s one more thing,” I said, as Mr. Reid went to Dean and started to rub his shoulders like I’d done with Liam. “Jax is all of our problems now, as you can see,” I said, motioning toward Dean. “We plan on going to the Spring Equinox Celebration and telling every witch we know that they need to be securing their personal wards and keeping one another safe. They need to be on the lookout for anything negative because it just might be him.”

“But,” Dean said, his voice raspy. “Doesn’t he just want you?”

“We think he does,” Travis said, “But that hasn’t stopped him from using others to get to us.”

I squeezed his hand, knowing how difficult it was for him to talk about his friend like that. He still held so much guilt.

Dean nodded. “We’ll tell everyone we know.”