professor. Is your laptop possessed? Eating your homework? Sending socially awkward e-mails? Give me a call, and I’ll give you a diagnosis. I might even give you deniability. But first, a tune from my personal local fave songstress, Lupa Moon... Hmm, okay, how was that, Dave? Am I talking too fast?”
“Turn the mic off, Perry.”
The next morning brought cloudy October skies and a wind that smelled of frost. The atmosphere reminded Mac of endless hours spent doing sports drills before school— football, rugby, and whatever other team that would have him. Hockey outdoors if there was ice, after school on the streets if there wasn’t. The memories of cold mud and bruises were sharp and precious. They gave the part of him that was still wholly human a source of strength.
Maybe that connection to his old self was what made it so easy to fall back into a man-with-a-plan routine. He had investigating to do, and he knew where he was going to begin.
As he got dressed, he looked inside the gun locker he kept in the closet. He’d had to surrender his police weapon, but his 9 mm Sig Sauer P229 semiautomatic was in good working order. He had plenty of clips of ammunition. Good to know. He’d never been the kind of cop who relied on firepower to solve his problems, but times they were a-changing. He wasn’t going to need it in broad daylight when sword-toting vamps were safely in bed, but come sundown he was going armed to the teeth, silver bullets and all. One night of playing tag with Caravelli was enough.
And then it was time to go to work. The moment he took his raincoat out of the closet and slipped his notebook into its roomy pocket, Mac felt like himself again. His chest unknotted with relief, the same sensation as finding a long-lost set of keys.
His good luck held. His search for Holly on the Fairview University and Community College campus lasted less than half an hour. Like many early-morning students, she was walking, head down and eyes half shut, from the bus stop to the library. Mac came out of his lurking position beneath the spreading branches of a cedar tree.
“Hello, Holly.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, turning the color of old cottage cheese. She was scared. “Oh, Goddess, what are you doing here?”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Okay, so I didn’t leave a good impression the last time we met. I’m safe now. I’m on a strict diet of junk food and antacids.”
Frowning, she shifted her overloaded backpack. It looked like she had half the bookstore in there. “How’d you get out of the Castle?”
“I walked out. The maid service sucked.” He stretched out one hand, indicating a nearby bench. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
She didn’t budge, but watched his every twitch. “You walked out, huh? How?”
“Luck and an absence of hellhounds.”
“Goddess, Alessandro’s going to be pissed.”
“Can we talk? Anywhere you like.” He kept standing, hands in the air, like a suspect under arrest.
She looked wary, then interested, and then checked her watch. “Yeah, okay. But this had better be good. And I want to talk someplace where there are lots of people around.”
Mac wasn’t going to argue. He’d have said the same thing. He lowered his hands slowly. “Coffee?”
“Okay.” She turned and headed for the Student Union Building, but kept him a few paces away and within clear view. Her distrust bothered him, but it was no more than he deserved.
There were coffee wagons set up outside, releasing clouds of heavenly scent into the crisp air. Heavy plastic tables and chairs were ranged around them, the garish shades of green and pink almost luminous in the gray light. The outdoor eating area made more sense in the summer, but students seemed to use it all year around. Maybe they needed the cold air to wake up.
Holly kept marching until she joined the line outside the Zap Baby Espresso Bar. Her quick, graceful movements brought other things to mind, like the way she kissed.
Mac blinked, rejoining the here and now with a guilty jolt. He was daydreaming about a girl like he was in eighth grade. One with fangs and claws. Yup, he was one sick puppy.
He stood beside Holly. The tension between them felt like solid ice. “How’s classes?”
She flicked her dark ponytail over her shoulder. “Hard. How’d you find me?”
“I was a cop, remember? Everyone knows you’re taking a business degree. The rest was simple deduction.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Everyone is everyone. You’re a celebrity in the supernatural community after defeating my evil demon mistress in the smack-down of the decade. You sneeze and every vamp, fey, and werewolf wants to talk about it.”
“Oh, great.” Holly winced. The gesture emphasized the dark circles under her eyes. With her softly pointed features and the oversized sweater that hung almost to her knees— probably Caravelli’s—she looked like a sleepy child. “So you listen to celebrity gossip, eh?”
He pointed to the Student Union Building. The CSUP call letters were mounted over a small door to the right, along with a large poster of the Gothed-up werecougar announcer, Errata.
“There’s the radio station. They chatter on-air like it’s the amateur stalker hour. And, you know, there are some bottom-dwellers in some of the motel bars who’ll talk to demon trash like me. If I buy them drinks, that is.”
Holly gave a lopsided smile, showing she was entertained despite herself. “So what do they say?”
“No one can figure out why you’re bothering with school. You’ve got major magic.”
That earned him an eye roll. “I was running my ghost-busting agency into the ground. I didn’t know how to balance the books, or market effectively, and forget anything to do with payroll. Being a witch didn’t make me a businesswoman. Get real. I beat Geneva. So what? It’s not like I won the lottery and can retire. Life goes on.”
By then they were at the front of the line. Mac ordered a plain medium coffee, Holly a latte. They took their cups to a bright green table at the edge of the eating area. A scattering of crumbs on the pavement had attracted a flock of sparrows, and Mac had to walk carefully. They wanted the food more than they feared his feet.
Holly dumped her backpack and sat down. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“The demon thing,” he started, but then stalled. It was going to be hard to put everything into words.
“What about it?”
He caught his breath and plunged in. “After you zapped me, I’ve been eating like a human.”
“How long has it been?”
“I got out of the Castle about six months ago.”
Her brow furrowed in surprise. “You’ve been back here all that time?”
“No.” Mac smiled briefly. “I took a detour.”
The corner of Holly’s mouth turned up. “Is there a punch line to that?”
“Well, I got out of the Castle the first time by sheer accident. There were these New Agers in Sedona trying to summon an angel. They thought they were making a portal into the hereafter. They got me instead, poor bastards.”
Holly gave a startled whoop of laughter.
Mac chuckled. “Anyway, to give them their due, these folks were terrific. I was a wreck, after everything that happened, everything I’d done. They let me stay with them out in the desert—and I mean literally just sit and look at the earth and sky—for as long as it took to put myself back together.”
“So their angel had guardian angels of his own.”
“Yeah, though I never did bond with the whole vegan idea. If that’s heavenly food, I’m not pure enough yet
