Demon Song

until I reached the tent. In fact, a few people cleared a path. The demon let out a howl of rage that I would dare walk away from him. My heart was pounding like a trip-hammer, fearing he would simply make an all-out effort to break the shield.

Instead, he quieted down, so by the time I was enclosed in the cool white cotton shelter I could breathe and take a moment to close my eyes and regroup.

“Celia.” When I opened my eyes, I was facing the third naked man depicted by the demon. Of course. Why wouldn’t I expect to see a medic in a triage tent?

“Gaetano.”

He let out a small smile before turning to an IV unit to adjust the amount of fluid dripping into the arm of a priest. “Might as well call me Chris.”

I was saved from responding when Matty walked into the tent. There wasn’t any way he couldn’t notice my blush, along with the cause for it a dozen paces away. Matty patted my arm with actual sympathy and handed me the handkerchief from his pocket to clean up the blood that had spattered on me before speaking: “If you survive the day, we probably need to talk.”

My weary sigh sort of said it all. “That would be nice.”

“Ms. Graves?” I looked up to see Vice President Marion Lovell briskly walking toward me as I spit on my arm and rubbed it with the now-pink hankie. “Could we speak?”

Can you actually refuse to talk to the vice president of the United States? I wasn’t sure, considering all the Secret Service agents at her sides. “Sure. Why not? What else can go wrong today?”

22

I felt amazingly vulnerable in the wide circle. The whole area had been deserted. Troops and police had pulled back fifty yards to a newly constructed outer barrier. There was no question that the one a mere twenty yards from me was going to fall. Everybody knew it, so it made sense to create a new one, tied to hundreds of mages, rather than just a few—so no one man could be hurt as badly as Bruno and Creede and the others had been. I’d never seen that much magical firepower in one location before. Just the residual bleed from it made my teeth feel like they’d been chewing on live wires.

The demons all knew something was up. They were standing all along the flickering casting circle, just waiting. I was going to be between the barrier that was about to drop and the new one that had to be raised—with the horn.

Matty was with me in the circle. He’d volunteered once the archbishop said I’d probably only survive if someone was constantly praying for my salvation.

“I feel like I want to throw up.”

“You ate, right?”

I hate night? Huh? I pulled the noise-canceling headphone from my ear. “Sorry. What was that? I can’t hear a thing with these on.”

He looked appropriately chagrined. “Sorry. You’re not supposed to hear. I asked if you ate.”

Oh. “Yeah. Dawna gave Okalani a couple of bowls of that awesome broth from the barbeque place. I should be good until this finishes, but if not, there’s a spare in the backpack.” I motioned to said backpack with my toe. “How about you?”

“Filet mignon and fresh asparagus,” he said appreciatively. “The Feds are really good about last meals.”

“It’s not.” I had to believe that and stared at him hard, willing him to believe it, too. While Matty and I hadn’t really ever gotten along during my engagement to Bruno, we’d seemed to have come to an understanding in recent weeks. Matty was thinking of me less like a really annoying person and more like a person really annoying things happen to. “You want to go over the plan again?”

He pursed his lips and whispered, “Seems pretty clear to me. The first barrier goes down and all the bad guys race toward you, me, and the other priests—the fresh meat.”

I nodded and replied in a similar way: “Then you raise the first trip wire and the circles go up around and everyone starts praying the same prayer.”

He glanced at his watch. Just seconds left. “That’ll be the tricky part. I haven’t tried to raise four separate circles before. I know it’s the magic from the others that will keep them up, but it would have been easier just with the two of us. We have enough firepower to hold off an army.”

I touched one of the dozen protection charms and major holy items strewn around my neck and waist. The Archbishop of Canterbury had donated one of the crosses from the Tower collection. Supposedly it had been used during the Crusades. Matty was carrying a shield with a white rose barely visible on the old iron; it vibrated with energy, even after hundreds of years. They were our “just in case” backups.

“True. But they’d overwhelm us before I could get a note out. This causes more confusion. Once they’re all flying around and attacking the circles, the archbishop sets the second trip wire and Okalani brings in Beverly and the second horn.” Who knew the archbishop was a minor mage? That turned out to be the final stroke of luck in the vice president’s plan. She was a very smart lady.

“And then we all pray.” Matty sighed. “And I don’t mean just novenas. Here we go. Seven, six … get those earphones back on.” I did as he said and all the other priests did the same in their separate painted circles.

Like on a movie set, the last three numbers were silent, demonstrated only by Matty’s lowering fingers. The last was a fist, and all the other priests mirrored him and raised glowing swords. My stomach lurched as the blue barrier in front of us began to flicker and fail. I knew Bruno and Creede were working their tails off to be sure that everything went smoothly. It had broken my heart to see the slash marks across their handsome faces. When this was all over, they’d need health charms to help them heal up.

The lesser demons began to collectively smash into the barrier and finally it gave way. All manner of creatures from the worst nightmares of the worst horror movies ever written flowed toward us in a wave that made me want to run screaming backward. It took every ounce of my willpower to stand still. I saw Matty’s mouth and hands move and suddenly there was blue everywhere once more. It looked like all the other circles went up just fine, because demons were bouncing off and burning up left and right. But nothing approached our circle and in moments I discovered why.

There was a Reserved sign on our table.

The greater demon was walking forward and everything in his path crawled or skittered aside. He looked at the barriers around us and the holy items and … smiled. His mouth moved and that made me smile in return, because I couldn’t hear a word he said. I raised my shoulders in a shrug and pointed at the headphones before pulling my knives and waiting. Matty prayed and counted beads on his rosary while the demon became frustrated, striking out at a barrier that seemed to be holding just fine.

Then pain erupted in my head and it suddenly occurred to me that I should have had someone do a mental- attacks casting on me. Damn it! I’m not so easily defeated, Celia.

I mouthed the words slowly, so there was no question: “Go … back … to … hell!” It wasn’t time to raise the horn yet, unfortunately. We needed as many demons outside the rift as possible, or so claimed Adriana. She’d returned with a translation of most of the instructions just in time. Unfortunately, there was one passage she hadn’t been able to work out. Okalani had taken her to the library to talk to Anna, who spoke a number of dead languages. I ignored the pain in my brain and looked right past the demon at the pretty stars in the night sky. It actually was pretty. Lots of shooting stars and weirdly colored planets.

You said I needed new material. I think this will do nicely. The words sounded like my own voice on my phone-mail message. I shouldn’t have looked up. One of the priests—I think his name was Father Ignacious—was suspended from the demon’s hand and was thrashing in pain. The demon now looked like … me.

Fuck a duck.

The sheer horror of the vision kept me from closing my eyes. I saw myself, fangs extended and skin glowing. The demonic me grabbed the priest’s hair and pulled his neck to my waiting mouth.

No. Please. Not that.

I did close my eyes, but the demon’s connection with me forced the images straight into my mind. Forced me