I would be so glad when I graduated and could just worry about working flexibly. Well, except Kanesha wanted me to go to college.

I wanted me to go to college, but it seemed I had more and more in the way of other things, more important things, to do than educate myself for the normal life that was clearly not possible for me.

Normal life. But for right now, somebody needed to protect those people in Oregon.

Mundane protection they might have. Supernatural seemed unlikely.

Why did the succubus want me gone? Was it because she blamed me for what had happened to Tyz’vel – not in the sense of liking him, but in the sense of being more than a little afraid of me for being responsible for that. Demons, I suspected, didn’t have friends.

Allies. Maybe.

Friends could be a weakness, but they were also really useful to have around. I still needed to assess Sarlac’s sister face to face, but maybe I could get initial contact over the internet.
Warn her somehow.

Or maybe I should just use the private investigator identity and tail Sarlac until his bodyguards got tired of it and ran me off.

But I couldn’t juggle that and school either. I sat in my apartment, staring at my laptop. On it was a social media profile for the sister. Belinda Marrick. She stared out at me.

I sent her a friend request I assumed would be ignored. It seemed like the only thing I could do right now, in this moment, with the time I had. There were photos of her kids, too. Twelve and nine. Boys.

Kids. I completely didn’t want to involve kids, for so many good reasons. Could a child sell his soul?

Could a parent sell her child’s soul? No, I was pretty sure it didn’t work that way, Catholic First Communion aside. The kids, though, might fall into some trap that would later be hard to get out of.

Age had to be a loophole, I told myself. Kids couldn’t be expected to be remotely responsible for binding contracts.

The friend request got me a message back, “Who are you?”

What did I say? I checked her profile, checked which of the stupid games she played. Should have done that first. Made an account, started playing. “Looking for neighbors in…”

“Oh, okay.”

She accepted the request. Now, there was a quick way to get strangers to contact you. It might be useful in the future.

For right now, I had to convince her I was harmless, talk a little, then drop the bombshell.

If I had that sort of time.