Banishing the demon down its own power stream and sealing the breach behind it would solve the problem nicely. A few minutes spent reinforcing things, and all but one of the embarrassing complications rising out of Dean’s first time would be taken care of and the other Keepers could just go back to saving the world instead of hanging about in metaphysical chat rooms speculating about her love life.
Halfway down the stairs, she reached into the possibilities.
Her focus split between the demon and the anticipation of dealing with that one remaining complication, she didn’t see Diana until her sister surged up out of a crouch, whirled around, and caught her power, stopping it cold a full three feet from its target.
The room, the house, and a three-block radius grew so quiet no one dared drop so much as a single pin. The point midway between the Keepers began to crackle and hum.
“I can’t let you do this, Claire,” Diana announced dramatically. “It isn’t right.”
Claire closed her mouth so forcefully the crack of her molars impacting could be clearly heard. “What are you doing here?”
So much for dramatic announcements. “What’s it look like I’m doing, doofus? I’m stopping you.”
“From doing my job!”
“From doing the wrong thing!”
“Says who?”
“Says me!”
“Diana, I’m warning you, get out of my way.” Claire’s voice had begun to hold more fear than anger. The last time Keeper had fought Keeper, the fight had occurred on the exact same spot and it had ended with one Keeper lost to darkness. “I was Summoned to deal with this thing!”
Diana squared her shoulders. “Then deal with the thing part and leave the rest of her alone.”
“It’s not a her! It’s a demon! Stop being so stubborn and look at its eyes!”
“I’ve looked into her eyes, which is more than you’ve done, and I know what I’ve seen.”
“You’ve seen what it wanted you to see.”
“You are so wrong. I saw what she didn’t want me to see. I saw someone who, from the moment she found herself in that body, made excuses to act against what she perceived as her nature. To act like a person. Okay, a kind of bitchy not easy to get to know I wouldn’t trust her to watch my backpack, kind of a person but a person. And you have no right to destroy that.”
“She’s seduced you!”
“What? The lesbian thing and a cute girl in a tight red sweater? Sure, I’ve noticed, but I no more let every beautiful woman I meet seduce me than you let every beautiful man.” Glancing over Claire’s shoulder, she smiled up the stairs. “Hey, Dean. And,” she switched a burning gaze back to Claire. “You just called her she.”
“That’s totally irrelevant!” It didn’t matter how much power she pulled, her little sister effortlessly pulled more. “Diana, listen to me. So far the dampening field has contained this little rebellion of yours, but once it gets out…”
“Little rebellion of mine?” Diana rolled her eyes in disbelief. “Claire, I’m serious about this. This is serious.”
“And you don’t seem to recognize how serious this is.” Older sister clearly wasn’t working, Claire switched to older Keeper, her voice cold. “You are betraying everything you’re supposed to protect!”
“Hey, Earth to stick up her butt, I’m protecting what I’m supposed to protect! I’m protecting a person from darkness. And you.”
The air began to buzz and, between the Keepers, grow distinctly brighter.
Just inside the door, Dean had to squint to make out Diana’s face and could only just barely see the back of Claire’s head. “Claire, she’s making a lot of sense. Why not shut this down and listen to her?”
The temperature began to rise.
“She wasn’t Summoned, Dean. This goes against everything we are.”
Diana stamped her foot against the floor in frustrated emphasis. “Claire! We’re not slaves to what we are. We’re as free to make choices as anyone, and I know I’m doing the right thing.”
The vibration started in the center of the light and worked its way through the room.
“You’ll open the hole yourself in a minute!” Claire warned.
“I’m just standing here, you’re the one throwing power.”
“Hello? Does anyone care what I want?” Byleth demanded.
NO.
“I do.” Austin came out from behind Dean’s legs and walked slowly down the stairs, the energy in the room fluffing him out to twice his normal size. He brushed against Claire’s legs as he passed and looked pointedly at a drift of orange cat hair on Diana’s jeans, then sat down just outside the old pentagram’s center. “So tell me, besides the latest Cure CD, what do you want?”
“How did you…?”
He smiled at her. “I’m a cat.”
“But…”
“Let it go,” Dean advised from the top of the stairs.
Byleth looked at him, realized he was nothing more than human but, more importantly, nothing less than human, looked at the two Keepers, looked at the cat, and sighed. “All right. Fine. You want to know what I want? I don’t know, okay?”
“You don’t know?”
“What, are you deaf?”
“Sounds human to me,” Austin declared as though that settled it.
“Well?” Diana demanded, spearing her sister with a dark gaze. “We haven’t got time for DNA evidence. Which one of us blinks first?”
Claire could feel Dean behind her, even through all the building possibilities. This was more than a Summoning, this was her chance to fix things between them. Balance of good and evil aside, if she didn’t banish the demon, they’d be condemned to long nights of playing cards with a cat who cheated.
“Claire, please?”
She had no intention of looking into the demon’s eyes, she knew too well how darkness worked, so she looked into her sister’s instead and saw Diana honestly believed in what she was doing. It wasn’t defiance, it wasn’t sibling rivalry on a grand and possibly explosive scale, it was, plain and simple and totally unexpected, an attempt to do the right thing.
But I was Summoned to deal with the demon.
Would it be enough to destroy
