db1bd484fe8700408f51338793ca8c56

The cat sighed, his breath painfully loud up under the edge of her toque.“You know, if you watched moreNational Geographic specials and fewer after school specials…”

“You watchNational Geographic to see lions mating!”

“So?”

Without the time to count to ten, Claire counted to three, looked into Dean’s eyes, and reluctantly decided Austin was right. She couldn’t win. If she convinced Dean to leave her, it would diminish him in his own eyes and, all things considered, further diminishing would not be a good thing.

“Okay. You can stay.” His smile made the potential for disaster almost worthwhile. Deep down, she realized how completely asinine that thought was, but she couldn’t seem to prevent a warm glow from rising. “Whatever happens,” she murmured a moment later, leaning away from his mouth, “don’t break the circle.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

To Dean’s surprise, the darkness gathered into a familiar form. Its legs were froglike and ended in three toes. Its arms, nearly as long as its legs, ended in three fingers and a thumb. Its eyes were small and black, and it appeared to have no teeth. Its fur and/or scales changed color constantly.

Imp.

The last time Dean had seen an imp, he’d been scraping the lumpy mass of its pulverized body out from under a sheet of wallpaper. The last time he’d seen an imp alive, it had been dangling from Austin’s mouth.

The tiny piece of physical darkness sat up, looked around, squeaked something that sounded very much like“Oh, fuck,” and disappeared under Austin’s front paws.

Claire squatted beside the cat.“Tell us everything that went on here, and I’ll pop you back through the hole before I close it.”

Faint defiant squeaking.

“Wrong answer.”

Austin’s tail lashed and the squeaking grew louder.

“You’re lying,” Claire sighed.

Indignant squeaking.

“I know, it’s hard for you to tell the truth. But it’s hard for Austin to keep his claws sheathed, too. You don’t honestly thinkthey’d lie to protect you?”

Reluctant acknowledgement. From the intensity of the high-pitched torrent that followed, the imp was clearly spilling more than name, rank, and serial number.

Shifting from foot to foot, Dean tried not to think about how cold he was getting. Maybe he should have gone back to the truck. Maybe he should go now. He’d just go in and tell Claire he’d decided to leave.

Go in?

The toe of his right boot rested less than an inch from the circle Claire’d sketched in the snow with the oak branch. Backing quickly away, he tried and failed to remember moving forward.“…it’s going to want out, and you’ll be the only thing it can use to break free.” But if the darkness could reach outside the circle, did that mean the levels inside with Claire had become dangerously high? Claire was in danger. If he loved her, he had to save her!

If he loved her?

No if. In a world that had become a stranger place than he ever could have imagined, loving Claire was the one thing he was sure of. As he realized that, he realized he was standing back at the edge of the circle. He had to do something to distract himself.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Wow, this is really…tidy.” Claire shifted her grip on the cat and turned slowly to look around the clearing. “Really.”

Dean finished squaring up a pile of fresh cedar prunings and straightened.“Are you okay?”

“We’re fine.” Erasing an arc of the circle with the edge of her boot, she stepped clear. “I got enough information to close the hole. I know why it never closed on its own, and I know how the demon came through. But you’re not going to like it.”

He didn’t.

“So you’re saying that by making the angelwe made the demon possible?” When Claire reluctantly nodded, he felt the blood drain out of his face. It was a distinctly unpleasant feeling.

Austin studied him for a moment, then looked up at Claire.“I hope you weren’t planning on sex any time soon.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_6]

In spite of the cold and the approaching dusk, there were still hundreds of people surging back and forth between the lights at Bloor and Yonge. Most of them, heavily laden with consumer crap they didn’t need, were tired, cranky, and desperately in search of one last bargain. Byleth had never seen anything so wonderful.

One hand clutching the dashboard as though she needed to anchor herself to the car, Eva shook her head.“I don’t like just leaving you here.”

“I’ll be fine.” She’d have been out of the car at the stoplight except the damned seat belt had jammed. And it would be damned, she see to it personally. “Pull over anywhere.”

“We’re willing to take you where you’re going,” Harry told her as he maneuvered the car into a parking place on the south side of Bloor Street, just past Yonge. “Eva’s right. I don’t like just leaving you.”

“I’ll. Be. Fine.” The stupid bulky coat was in the way. That was the problem. She squirmed around and yanked at the…there! A jerk on the handle had the door open. Byleth flung herself toward the world just in time to hear Eva say:

“I’d feel better if you took this money. It’s not much but…”