I stare at the talisman where it lies in the dirt, and then look back up at Carlos, confused.

Just because he's taken off his protective amulet doesn't mean that demons will come swarming like flies.

In fact, I've seen no trace of demons since we arrived—except for the literal traces around the site of the burned car, that is. Apart from that, though, demons did not seem to be among the Walkers' otherwise considerable troubles.

Yet even as I watch, I see the tell-tale signs of a bad possession begin to manifest. Carlos's brown eyes film over and turn completely white, and a thick black goo, like half-congealed blood, begins to leak from their inner corners and track in sluggish trails down his face. His body contorts, twisting in on itself, and he hunches down with his knees and elbows bent at odd angles, his head tilted so far to the side that I wince when I hear his neck crack. Worst of all, when he smiles up at me, his mouth stretches far too wide, splitting his face, and is packed full of long, needle-thin teeth. He looks like a monster from the lightless depths of the sea.

Or of Hell.

"What the devil..." Karin wonders aloud, staring at Carlos with a look of revulsion and surprise. Clearly, I'm not the only one who can see the demonic manifestations, which means that whatever's got a hold of Carlos is powerful.

Powerful and bad, by the looks of it.

He rolls his head on his neck with another crunch and pop of vertebrae that makes me shudder. I know it's not really hurting Carlos—demonic rules, and all—but it sounds awful. Karin flinches away as the demon's dead-eyed stare lands on him and it smiles, showing off its too-large mouth and nightmare teeth.

Recovering himself, Karin straightens to his full height and looks down his long nose.

"A neat trick," he says, in his best condescending-villain voice, "but you mistake me for the common fool if you think I fear you. I am Karinius Locke, necromancer and demon-tamer, and I will send you back to whichever hell you crawled from as easy as a child blowing out a candle on a birthday cake."

He raises his hand, and I see the occult symbol tattooed on his palm as he begins to chant rapidly under his breath.

"Om hreem shreem kleem masaan..."

As he rambles on, I recognize the mantra as one from the Buddhist tantric tradition, a powerful spiritual weapon when wielded in the right hands, and look at Carlos, expecting to see him writhing in distress.

Instead, his awful, impossible smile stretches even wider still, his needle-teeth dripping some kind of venomous-looking drool, and he laughs.

It's a sickening sound: the rustle of dry leaves and the wet click of bone on bone.

Karin stops chanting and looks down at him where he crouches like a coiled spring, or a loaded trap, clearly surprised.

"What is this? What sort of demon are you? Speak!"

"Deeaath-briiingeerr," it rasps, a long black tongue snaking out past its teeth.

I almost laugh as Karin takes a step back, hand pressed to his breast like an over-dramatic stage actor.

"Well," he gasps, regaining his composure, "my own efforts may have been in vain, but I am fortunate to have the best exorcist in the world at my command. Samasa—remove this devil from your...friend...and send him back to the pit where he belongs."

I cannot disobey, and look at Carlos with a more clinical gaze, seeking the distinction between himself and the being that possesses him.

I can't find it.

Carlos is either so far subsumed beneath the power of the invading spirit that I can't detect him, or...

Or his body is no longer his own.

"I can't" I say, swallowing the sick feeling at the back of my throat. "Master Karinius. There's nothing to exorcise."

The creature laughs again, a sound like torn flesh that makes my skin crawl, and scuttles, crab-like, to Karinius' feet. It looks up at him with a grin that splits Carlos's face nearly ear-to-ear, needle-teeth extended like the spines of some strange, repulsive anemone, its dead-white eyes wide.

Karin stumbles back a pace, a hand covering his mouth.

Then he grabs for me, clutching at my arm and dragging me to him, placing me between himself and whatever has taken Carlos as its own.

"You've sworn to serve me, Samasa," he says, his foul breath wafting in my ear. "So serve me now. Protect me from this fiend. Show me your demon's form in all its glory—reveal your full power to me now!"

He pushes me forward, probably thinking that I'm going to transform with something like the same showy display I'd impressed him with earlier, but all I do is stumble forward and fall.

Even as I do, I curl in on myself, a strange new pain lancing through me as Karin's bidding clashes with my ability and willingness to obey.

Transforming takes energy, and I have none to spare. If I do so now, I don't know what might happen.

Carlos sidles away from me with a curious hiss and then turns his attention back to Karin, who retreats further as the demon utters a weird, clicking growl.

"What's wrong with you, Sama? Obey me—transform!" His voice sounds high and breathless, and if my soul wasn't in danger of being torn apart, I might have enjoyed the fact that he's clearly afraid.

Instead, I scream as the bond bends me to its will, agony striking me like lightning as my demonic nature consumes the only energy available within me—devouring my human heart and my life itself.

Meanwhile, the commotion has drawn Toni and the remaining Walkers from the house, and there are shouts and gasps of surprise and horror as they see what Carlos has become. Cass approaches me where I lie, writhing as I fight Karin's bond and my own conflicted nature at once, and starts to reach for me, but I hold up my hand.

"Stay away!" I gasp. "Don't touch me!"

I'm desperate for energy, and the slightest contact will unleash my influence in a way I doubt I'd be able to control.

"What have you done to him?" Cass demands, looking up at Karin, who's still retreating slowly from Carlos's crablike scuttle and monstrously changed face.

"Done? I haven't done anything!" he protests, and then startles as Carlos emits the same awful, clicking growl, like some terrible, echolocating bat. "Samasa! Defend me! I demand that you take your demon form, NOW!"

A scream tears itself from my throat as a fresh bolt of agony strikes me through. Karin doesn't understand, I realize. He thinks I must be like a Shifter—like Ian or the Walkers—able to manifest my alternate shape when and how I choose.

I'm not.

My form manifests as an expression of my demonic power, the capacity of the Ainasyan part of my soul to store energy like water, and right now that reservoir is empty. I have nothing, and yet the bond demands that I give Karin what he wants. The opposition of these two facts is tearing me apart.

As I'm stripped bare, my demonic half drawing from the only source it can, I begin to fall away as I come undone. I see myself as though from afar, watching my soul tear itself to shreds.

That's when I see it.

A thin golden thread, anchored in my heart of hearts, its other end trailing to some source I can't see. It's not the bond I made with Karin—that is something heavy, cold, and dark: a lead-weighted chain of steel. This is light, and warm, and lovely, and as I follow it with my mind, I finally recognize what it is.

It's Ian. It's my love for him, and his for me—a bond of a kind it seems even Karin can't break. It shouldn't exist, should have been erased when I gave everything to a man I hate for the sake of the one I love, and yet there it is, still strong and wholly intact.

And at last, I understand.

The bond I have with Ian isn't a demonic contract at all. The pact I formed with him the first day is long fulfilled. What we have is something deeper—something more—and it goes both ways. Karin may have my service now, but only Ian has my heart.

It's also, I realize, an open channel to just the sort of energy I need.

I reach along it—asking, but demanding nothing—and then fall back into myself with unspeakable relief as it responds. Whether Ian is awake and conscious or not, it doesn't seem to matter—he gives readily and willingly, and the energy floods me like warm honey, golden as sunlight, sweet and pure.

My body arcs as the energy fills me up, healing my unseen hurts and extinguishing my pain. For a moment I lie on my side without moving, feeling like I'm floating in a warm sea, and then I raise myself slowly and I stand.

From the gasps and looks of shock on everyone's faces, I know that I've regained my full Ainasyan form—a chimeric blend of man, eagle, and serpent. Gold scales cover my body, and gold-feathered wings erupt from my back. Black talons tip my fingers and toes, and black hair falls in a curtain to my waist. And though I can't see them, I know that fangs fill my mouth and that my eyes are the red, slit-pupiled eyes of a snake.

Even Carlos's demonically distorted face holds a look of awe in its blank white eyes, and Karin stumbles as I beat the air once with my wings. Then his thin lips spread in a triumphant grin, and he laughs.

"Excellent, my beautiful weapon! Now get rid of this creature!" He points at Carlos, who merely turns back to face him with the same slow, clicking growl.

"No, wait!" Toni shouts, starting forward, but Jack grabs her and holds her back. "Carlito!"

I walk forward slowly and stop in front of Carlos. Karin is usually more restrained and careful with his words; he must be frightened to have given me such a messy command.

The death-bringer looks up at me from its weird crouch and whatever it sees in my face it seems to like, judging by its awful laugh. It scuttles out of my way, and I keep walking until I reach Karin.

"What are you doing, Samasa?" he demands. "Obey me!"

"I am obeying you, Master," I say, my voice resonant and deep, and look down at him, my height now greater than his. "There is only one way to 'get rid' of a death-bringer, and that, Master, is to give it what it wants."

Then I reach out with both my taloned hands, grip the sides of Karin's head, and twist.

I release him and he falls, his neck as broken as his hold on me, his soul now bound to the little black sphere. The death-bringer cackles with delight, sidles forward, and picks the marble from where it lies in Karin's limp hand. Then, with a final, awful laugh, it dissolves like smoke, leaving Carlos's body like a black mist blown away on the wind.

"And that," I remark, with a fair measure of satisfaction, "is why making deals with demons is a bad idea."

Toni dashes to Carlos's seemingly lifeless form, but he's already starting to come around.

He took a risk, letting the death-bringer subsume him so deep, and I was a bit touched that he cared about and trusted me enough to have done so. I owed him now, but not—I noted happily—as a demon held by a pact, but rather as a friend.

That was the only kind of bond, besides love, that would ever hold me again.

"Hiya Sammy," he rasps hoarsely, looking up from where Toni holds him in her arms. He looks a little worse for wear, pale and shaky, but not harmed. "Did we win?"

I smile, even as I release the power I hold and let it flow back along the line that binds me, and to which I am happy to be bound. "Yeah," I say, my voice light and human once more as I regain my usual form. "Yeah, we did."

"Good. That's...good." He yawns widely and sits up, combing leaves and dirt out of his tangled hair. "Now what d'ya say we get the fuck out of here before anything else shows up?"