Page 122 of What Happens at Nightfall

“Like Warehouse 13!” Adam had been so disappointed when that show ended.

“Dad,” said Melinda. “The government doesn’t actually have a secret magical artifacts unit.”

“Well, if they don’t, they should,” said Jess stoutly, and Adam felt full of the sort of love that made characters in musicals break out into song, but real life wasn’t accompanied by portable orchestras, so he contented himself with taking Jess’s hand instead.

“They use lead-lined boxes for nuclear waste,” intervened Cindy. “Is it fairies who don’t like iron, or does that work for demons too?”

“Hey, Alexa!” called Melinda. “How do demons feel about iron?”

“According to the website Wikipedia,” replied the glowing device on the side table, “cold iron is historically believed to repel, contain, or harm ghosts, fairies, witches, and other malevolent supernatural creatures.”

The pendant bounced on the table.

“Well,” said Jess, eyeing it. “He’s malevolent, all right. But I’m not sure he’s just any supernatural creature. Also, we’d have to find a lead-lined box.”

“If you skip the lead, you have one already. Purpose-built.” Cal looked expectantly around the room. When no one answered, he said, “Cornelia’s marble box in the Vanderwilt mausoleum. It’s a box within a box.”

“It’s not just that,” interrupted Ingrid. “Hello? Did you look around? The rosebush? The statues? The stained glass window? I’m willing to bet most of the elements in that mausoleum were enchanted in some way. It’s not a tomb; it’s a demon containment facility.”

Adam hit himself on the forehead with his free hand. “The rose that’s eternally in bloom.”

“And Cornelia on the roof,” said Jess.

“On the Hyacinth Path.”

“So that’s settled, then,” said Jess. “We lock the demon in Cornelia’s box and throw away the key.”

Ingrid chewed the end of her braid. “You’re sure I can’t just . . .”

“No!” That had come out more forcefully than Adam intended. “I say we lock it up sooner rather than later. Before it makes someone an offer they can’t refuse.”

“Tenure! Grants!” the tinny voice bleated. “You! You in the glasses! Archives! Papers no one else has read! Boy! You! The one with the socks? How will you do your Latin homework without ME?”

“That,” said Cindy, “is quite enough of that.”

Taking her former necklace by the chain, she took one of Cal’s cider cans and dropped the pendant through the hole. It landed with a clink and a faint fermented odor of apples.

“I don’t think there’s any iron in that,” Cindy said apologetically, “but it’s a start.”

It was, thought Adam, quite a comedown for an arch-demon, interred in a can of locally sourced cider.

Jess looked at Adam, her brow wrinkling. “He didn’t try to bribe you with anything. The demon. He offered me coffee—and the secrets of my parentage. He offered Ingrid tenure.”

“He told me he could tell me who sculpted the Civil War monument,” said Cal, looking wistfully at the cider can.

“He told me he’d be happy to give me my necklace back,” said Cindy. “Once I got him out of it.”

“Exactly,” said Jess. She turned back to Adam. “But what about you? Why didn’t he try it on you?”

Adam had never thought about it before. Had Belfagor offered him anything? The demon had slipped into his head and twisted his thoughts; he’d tried to take healthy passion and turn it into something sick and degrading. But he’d never come out and tried to bribe him.

Really, now that he thought of it, Adam was a little offended.

He held up his hands. “Who knows? Maybe it was because he knew I wasn’t a threat. I’m not the one who shoots rainbows from my hands.”

Jess raised a brow. “Flowers bloom where you walk. Angry hordes of tree leaves fly through the air at your command.”

“Huh, what?” said Melinda.