PROLOGUE

In the name of life and light

"Now, Jonah, I want you to remember that taking care of your new brother is going to use up a lot of your mother's and my time. But just because we pay more attention to him doesn't mean we love him more. It's just that taking care of a baby is hard."

"I know, Daddy," Jonah said. "You told me that already. I'll be okay, I'm a big boy." Daddy chuckled, as if Jonah had said something funny. Four and a half was big. Mommy said so. Right now, Mommy was in the front seat, holding the baby, and Daddy was driving. "Will he play with me?" Jonah asked.

"He'll have to get a little older, first," Daddy said. "Don't kick the seat, kiddo." Jonah made his feet stop. "You know, hon," Daddy said to Mommy, "it's really not safe to hold the baby while we're driving. There's a second, perfectly good car seat back there - maybe I should pull over. . ."

"Oh, please, Michael. Simon's safer in my arms than in any such contraption." Mommy was using two hands and a blanket of flowing white light to hold the baby snug to her chest. Jonah called that shiny-hugs. "Anyway, his first car ride is special. After this we'll use the seat."

"Did you hold me with shiny-hugs when you brought me home?" Jonah asked.

"No, I didn't think of it. At first, with you, I did everything exactly how the books said I was supposed to. It took a month or so on no sleep before we learned to improvise."

Jonah was looking out the window. Across the street, there was a man in black with a really big thing like a dog. Jonah pointed at it. "What's that, Mommy?"

Mommy looked, and gasped. "Michael, pull over!" Then Daddy looked, and said a Bad Word. There was a screechy sound, and the car pulled over and stopped.

"Jonah, get out of the car seat and duck down on the floor," Daddy said. He sounded all quiet and serious, like he had after the time Jonah had gotten lost at the beach. He was getting the white cloth-thing that meant he was at work out of the pocket in the car door and putting it on his shoulders. "Do it right now. Don't look, don't let anyone see you." Scared, Jonah started doing what he said.

Mommy was getting her work-thing out too. She kept it in her purse. "Deborah," Daddy started to say.

"I'll stay back. But I'm not going to sit in the car and watch you fight."

"The baby. . ."

"He's still safer with me. If I could, I'd hold Jonah too." Daddy looked at her for a second, then started getting out of the car really fast. Mommy got out on her side, too, though she wasn't as fast. "Hide, Jonah!" she said, just before closing the door.

Jonah really did want to hide. The problem was, Daddy's window was a little bit open, and Jonah could hear outside. "Freeze!" Daddy said to someone. "You're under arrest. Restrain the demon and put your hands on your head." Since he could hear, he wanted to see. He sat up and peeked just a little bit through the window. Daddy was glowing white, like a light bulb. He was talking to the man with the dog-thing.

The man laughed. "Your crippled powers can't withstand the destruction of mmppph!" Something had picked the man up and pressed him face-first into a building, upside down. It looked like shiny-hugs, except harder and meaner. Then the dog-thing looked at Daddy. Jonah ducked his head a little lower.

And it talked. Except it wasn't sound-talking, it was some other kind of talking, that Jonah heard in his head. “Release it, human. It is useful to me.”

"I promise you, he wouldn't have been any use at all," Daddy said. "You're going back where you came from."

"I have heard of your kind," the dog-thing said. "I do not think you can stop me." It talked funny, like it didn't feel anything at all.

"Try me and see," Daddy said, and suddenly he was glowing really bright. Then Daddy and the dog-thing were both moving very fast, and Jonah couldn't see what was happening. Then Daddy was flying backwards really fast, like a thrown toy.

Mommy screamed, and tried to catch Daddy with shiny-hugs, but he landed on his head. There was an awful cracky noise. Mommy screamed again, and sent lots of feel-better sparkles at Daddy, but Daddy's neck was all red and his head was turned funny. The sparkles stopped. "You'll pay for that," Mommy said to the dog-thing, but she sounded like she was crying. She was holding the baby with just shiny-hugs, now.

"Shall I?" the thing said. It walked forward. It was bleeding, and its mouth was hanging open, but that was bad because its blood was nasty-black, and its mouth had three rows of teeth, one inside the other. Then the dog-thing jumped over the car. Jonah ducked. When he looked up again on the other side, Mommy and the dog-thing were looking at each other again. The dog-thing was missing an ear, but on Mommy's tummy, right below where the shiny-hugs holding the baby stopped, her shirt was really red. Jonah was crying, but he tried really hard not to make noise, so the dog-thing wouldn't hear him.

"I have won, human," the thing said. "I will consume your pathetic get."

"No," Mommy cried. "You can't have them."

The thing limped toward her slowly. "Why not, human? You will not destroy me, for you have sworn not to destroy. You are not strong enough to banish me back to the pits. You cannot even protect yourself. You can do nothing."

"I can do this." White, glowing chains shot out of Mommy's hands and wrapped around the dog-thing.

It wiggled, but it couldn't move. "What is this?" it said. Even though it didn't make noise when it talked, it sounded really loud.

"Shackles a demon will never break."

The thing started turning to black smoke, but the smoke stayed inside the chains. The chains started pulling it toward Mommy. "I will escape someday, human," it said. "There is always a way."

"Yes," Mommy said. "But it doesn't have to be easy." The chains pulled the thing toward Mommy, and then the white chains and the black smoke disappeared. Then Mommy fell down backwards. Simon was still safe on her chest, but he started crying. Jonah cried too. He didn't peek anymore, he just hid on the floor of the car until the policemen came.