Page 21 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

Besides, I don’t know how far the tether range extends. What if I’m on the other side of the city and it snaps back like a rubber band? What if Valefar suddenly drops to his knees on my kitchen floor in agony while Bethie is napping three feet away?

Too many variables.

“Mam! Ma ma ma ma!”

Bethie interrupts my scattered thoughts. She is done with the baby swing. She’s dangling her arms, head drooping like a small drama queen signaling her ennui. Smiling, I scoop her out and set her on her feet, and she immediately toddles off toward the climbing structure with that toddler confidence with absolutely no self-preservation.

“Okay, okay.” I follow right behind her, arms out.

She makes a beeline for the slide—not the small, sensible baby slide, but the big one. The blue tube curves around the corner of the structure. She grabs the bottom rung of the ladder with two determined little fists and looks up at me.

“Up,” she says. Clear as a bell.

“You want the big slide?” I ask.

She pats the rung. That’s a yes.

Well, she’s testing her limitations. Very normal for her age.

I help her up each step, one hand steady on her back, the other ready to catch. She’s good. Better than I expect—her little legs find each rung with that new toddler bravery.

At the top, I settle her at the opening of the slide, crouching behind her, giving her just enough room to go first.

“Go ahead, bug. I’m right here.”

She looks down, considering. Then, with a shriek that could crack the sound barrier, she shoves off and shoots down the slide in a blur of chubby arms and wispy blonde curls.

I hear her hit the bottom—the soft thud and immediate sound of delight—and I follow right behind her. The plastic is sun-warm against the backs of my thighs. I land half a second after her, catching myself on both feet.

We rinse-repeat a few times, but after the fifth slide, I’m still grinning when I notice Bethie hasn’t moved.

She’s standing exactly where she landed, right at the slide’s exit. But she hasn’t toddled off to repeat her new obsession. She hasn’t looked back to make sure I’m following.

She’s facing the street.

The playground is quiet. A car passes a block up. A train whistle echoes in the distance. But Bethie’s head is tilted. It’s slow, weighted, purposeful—not a toddler tilt. That’s something else.

I straighten up, focusing in.

Across the street, on the far side, a man stands on the sidewalk. He has a dog—a lean, rangy thing on a short leather leash, some mixed breed with a big chest and a square jaw. And its eyes are…yellow. The man himself is not unusual at first glance. Medium height, brown jacket. The kind of face your brain smooths over when you try to describe it later.

He’s not walking. He’s just standing there.

And the dog isn’t sniffing the ground or pulling toward the grass the way dogs do. The dog is completely still.

Then the man’s gaze moves—from some vague middle distance to us. To me. And it stays there. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A chill shivers down my spine, icing every nerve ending.

I watch him watch me. This prolonged eye contact that isn’t curiosity or recognition. It’s something more patient than that.

A sound from the dog pulls my attention down, and my stomach drops. The hackles along its spine are raised. A full ridge of fur standing straight from its shoulders to its tail. Its lips have pulled back from its teeth—not a snap, not a lunge. Just a slow, silent snarl like it’s keenly aware of something.

Something like a trail.

Bethie’s hand reaches up and finds my leg. She doesn’t grip it. She just touches it lightly, like when she wants to make sure I’m still there. But she’s still fixated on the man and his dog across the street.

“Bethie bug,” I say softly, reaching down to secure her hand. “What do you see?”

She is quiet for a moment. And my daughter—my babbling, clattering daughter—opens her mouth with eerie, uncharacteristic calm.