“As a rule, I don’t explain myself to lower demons. But I will tell you all this—just so none of you ruin this with your stupidity. That monkey is best friends”—she stopped and took in the blank looks of the two still wearing human faces—“he has access to the target and is important to the target and he has no protections, at least not anymore, from our kind. The target, however, could reduce any or all of you to ash with a wave of his hand. He might even give me trouble. So… I approach him from several directions at once, each contact chipping away at his personal protections, each time layering my own personal magic over him.”

“Why not grab the monkey and hold him hostage?” Nicor, the only demon still standing, asked.

“And invite the Hammer of God to rescue him? Or did you forget that an Angel of the Host is here… just a short distance away?”

Nicor pulled back, shaking its head. Hobal pushed upright against the cabinet and shook its head also.

“Then leave the planning to me and one of you haul this meat to the basement with the others. And light more incense,” she said, before heading back into the room she had claimed for her own.

There she moved to the beat-up dresser and opened the top drawer. Inside, lying on a pair of white silk panties, was a pair of necklaces, one formed of Rowan wood, the other a Native American fetish of carved soapstone in the form of a wolf, each artifact strung on a broken cord. The wooden one twisted her vision but the stone wolf made her body want to vomit.

Carefully she folded the white silk over, covering both pieces of jewelry with the insulating cloth. Closing the drawer, she first sat down, then lay back on the bed and contemplated her next move. Her lover’s scent was on the pillow and she breathed deeply of it and smiled to herself.

Chapter 20

“Anything?” Chris asked the three werewolves as they entered the Arcane conference room he had appropriated for a command post. A pair of mini drones sat perched on the meeting table, projecting a holographic 3D map of Burlington onto the tabletop in green light.

“Nothing on the South side,” Devaney, the newest member of Stacia and Declan’s mini pack, said. A swath of the map turned blue.

Holly, chewing one fingernail, met his eyes and shook her head. Instantly the downtown section of the projection turned blue as well.

He turned to Stacia. She was frowning. He waited, watching as she worked through whatever was bothering her. “She’s masking herself somehow, from our noses and from your visions.”