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“Diana!” Righteous indignation propelled her onto her feet “Dean’s a nice guy who does most…” Diana’s left eyebrow rose. There was as little point in lying to her as there would have been in her lying. “…almost all…okay, all of the work around here. A nice guy. Do you even know what that means?”

“Sure, I know. It means he’s not getting any.”

“Diana!”

“Relax, I’m just yanking your chain.” Lips pursed, she made a disgusted face. “Man I hope I’m not as big a prude when I’m almost thirty. I told One Bruce and Michelle about you getting stuck on an unsealable site and they both said that Keepers are sent where they’re needed. Not very helpful, I thought Anyway, since you’re settled, I gave them both the phone number. They seemed to think that with you in one place and me still in training and us in contact because we’re family, we have a chance to actually lay some lines of communication between Keepers. Which reminds me, theApothecary is thinking of setting up as an online server so we can start using e-mail to stay in touch. Here we are, joining the twentieth century in time for the twenty-first.”

Carrying on a conversation with Diana was often like shopping in a discount store: piles of topics crowded the aisles, stacked ceiling high in barely discernible order. The trick was pulling one single thing out to respond to.“The Apothecary doesn’t even have electricity.”

“I know. He says he can work around it. So what about you and this Jacques guy Mom mentioned?”

Claire sighed.“Jacques is dead.”

“I know. But if the Apothecary can run e-mail without electricity…” She let her voice trail off but her eyebrows waggled suggestively up and down. “It sounds like what you really need is Jacques possessing Dean’s body.”

HELLO.

“That is never going to happen.” Although Claire directed her response as much at Hell as at her sister, only her sister acknowledged it.

“I know.”

“You know, you know, you know; you’re beginning to sound like Austin.”

Diana fixed Claire with an exasperated stare.“Keeping the peace, fulfilling destiny, that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy.”

“I am as happy as I can be under the circumstances.”

“Now who’s sounding like Austin. What makes you think I’m talking about you?”

Claire winced. That had been incredibly insensitive of her.“I’m sorry, Diana. Did you have a problem you want me to help with?”

She grinned and shook her head.“No. But if you want, I’ll come by and figure out how to deal with Sara, seal the pit, and get your butt on the road again.”

“Diana!”

“Oh, chill, Claire.” Dark brows dipped into a disdainful frown. “I’m five hundred and forty-one kilometers away,she’s not going to hear me.”

“Your butt is in a sling if she has!” Claire could feel nothing through the shield. Unfortunately, that only meantshe hadn’t yet gone through the shield. “If you’ll excuse me, and even if you won’t, I’m going to go check and see if you’ve started Armageddon.” Ignoring protests, she closed the curtain with one hand and pulled at the neck of her cotton turtleneck with the other, telling herself that the room hadn’t suddenly gotten warmer. She wasn’t quite running as she crossed the sitting room.

“Can I assume you’re not hurrying out to feed me?” Austin asked. “Who were you talking to?”

“Diana.”

“Subverting a powerless postcard? Typical. What did she have to say for herself?”

“Nothing much.Her name. Out loud. Through a power link. If she’s wokenher up…”

Austin caught up to Claire at the door.“What are you going to do.”

“Beats me. You know any good lullabies?”

Out in the lobby, Dean looked up from prying open a new gallon of paint as Keeper and cat raced for the stairs.“Problem, Boss?”

“I don’t know.”

“Need my help?”

Five weeks ago, even three weeks ago, she’d have snapped off an impatient “No.” What good would a bystander be against a Keeper who’d attempted to control Hell? Today she paused and actually considered the possibilities before answering. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Is ither?” Jacques asked, materializing as they started up the second flight of stairs.

“It could be,” Claire panted, silently cursing the circumstances that made the elevator inoperative. It seemed to take forever to open the padlock, and the lack of noise from inside room six was surprisingly uncomforting.

The shield was intact. Aunt Sara lay, as she had, on the bed. The only footprints in the dust were Claire’s, laid over her mother’s, laid over her own and Dean’s. She stepped forward, following the path, and studied the sleeping woman’s face with narrowed eyes.

No change.

Sighing deeply, she took what felt like her first unconstricted breath since Diana had called Aunt Sara’s name.

And sneezed.

Nose running, eyeballs beginning to itch, she backed out of the room and relocked the door.

“We are safe?” Jacques demanded from the top of the stairs. “She sleeps?”

“She sleeps,” Claire reassured him, wiping her nose on a bit of old wadded-up tissue she’d found in the front pocket of her jeans.