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bloodstream. The only thing keeping her awake was Calypso’s deadly serious expression.
    “Tell me everything you know about the witch hunter,” she began. Her own half-caf mochaccino sat untouched between them on the freshly polished table.
    “I don’t know anything, really. Palmer said his name was Blake DeWitt.”
    “Palmer…Van Houten?”
    “Yes, he was the guy in the alley. He had a sword, calls himself a demon hunter. Do you know him?”
    “I know of him.”
    Mel rummaged in her purse and pulled out Palmer’s card. Cal grabbed the little white rectangle and studied it as though it might hold the secrets of the universe. “What was a demon hunter doing in the alley behind Gleason’s?”
    Somehow, staring into Cal’s dark blue eyes, the details of the early morning hours didn’t seem as farfetched. That realization only served to make Mel even more nervous. “Hunting demons?”
    “What kind of demons?”
    “Um…” Mel lowered her voice. “Gogmar?”
    “Oh crap.” Cal finally sipped her coffee, and under the table, her three-inch boot heels made a nervous rat-tat-tat on the tile floor. “How many were there?”
    “Just the one. That I…saw.” Mel whispered the word “saw”. She glanced around at the other patrons of Starbucks. No one seemed particularly interested in their conversation, though Calypso drew a few sidelong glances from several of the men. Her jet black hair, ruby lips and nosebleed heels never failed to garner a few double takes wherever she went.
    She leaned in closer to Melodie. “So you saw a Gogmar.”
    “Wish I hadn’t.”
    “What happened to it? Where did it go?”
    “Remember that essence of decay around the back door this morning?”
    “It’s dead?”
    “I assume. Unless it can recover from being impaled and then melting into green sludge.” The memory of it dulled her enthusiasm for the latte. It occurred to her that Calypso didn’t seem quite as freaked out as she should have been. It wasn’t every day someone confessed to a run-in with a demon.
    “Van Houten killed a Gogmar in front of you, and you remember it?”
    Mel set her cup down. “Are you humoring me because you think I’m nuts, or does this conversation not seem that strange to you? We’re talking about demons here. And I’m gathering you know about the pixie dust too. Maybe you have met Palmer before and you just don’t remember.”
    “I don’t think you’re nuts. And pixie dust won’t work on me.” Cal dove into her mochaccino and resurfaced, innocently licking foam from her lips.
    “Why? Because you’re a witch?”
    Cal’s nervous laugh died quickly. “Why would you… All right. Yes.”
    Ah, well, that explained a lot about Calypso. “I always suspected, you know. I figured you didn’t think I could handle it.”
    For the first time in Mel’s memory, Calypso looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry I never told you I’m a witch. I’m sort of in the closet.”
    “Oh. Why?”
    Cal dropped Palmer’s card on the table and slid it toward Mel. “Because of witch hunters like Blake DeWitt. If he’s around, and there are Gogmars roaming the streets, that means trouble.”
    “I don’t understand. It’s the twenty-first century. How can he still be hunting witches? Isn’t that illegal?”
    Cal nodded. “He isn’t trying to kill anyone. Only a witch can break his curse. It’s been in his bloodline since 1729.”
    “Palmer told me about the Cabochon and the transfer from one demon queen to another. If Blake gets a hold of this jewel, he can give the curse to someone outside of his immediate family, right?”
    “Yes. So far that’s happened only once. When a man named Wendell Blake managed to transfer the curse to his nephew, Calvin DeWitt, rather than passing it on to his own son. I think that was in the 1860s.”
    The caffeine had begun to transform Mel’s fatigue into nervous energy, and she fidgeted. Ignoring Calypso’s wide-eyed stare, she grabbed a sugar packet from the