Summon The Keeper. The Second Summoning

“I’d love to, Ms. Neal, but I just don’t have the…that wasn’t a suggestion, was it?”

“Actually, it was an alternative to a month’s worth of detention.”

After the incident with the football team, her parents had forbidden her to open anyone’s mind to new possibilities—although to give them credit, they’d admitted that two of the linebackers and a defensive end had been significantly improved.

“The committee has their first meeting tomorrow at lunch, on the stage. Be there.”

“Yes, Ms. Neal.”

“Now, if you’re finished for the day, go home.”

“Yes, Ms. Neal.”

She could feel the vice-principal’s gimlet gaze on her all the way to the door.This bites. Save the world evenings and weekends and the rest of the time I’m at the beck and call of every petty dictator who works for the school board. I’m a Keeper. Why am I still here?

As the door closed behind her, two confused teenagers walked in slow motion toward the phone from opposite ends of the hall, music from a modern love song growing louder and sappier the closer they got. When their hands touched, the music reached a crescendo, then faded as Ms. Neal confiscated the boombox from a group of students on the stairs.

“John?”

“Terri?”

On the wall, the heart glowed.

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“Well, gee, this is just so much better than sitting in a warm and comfy truck with someone who cares about you.” Shooting the darkening sky a disgusted look, Austin picked his way between wet snowflakes to where Claire was sitting on a parking lot divider and jumped up on her lap. “I personally think it’s pathetic that you’d rather face a quintet of evil gnomes than a normal human relationship.”

“I’m not a normal human.”

“Who is?”

“Diana thinks I’ve made a huge mistake with Dean.”

“And this is the same Diana who very nearly released the hosts of Hell?”

Claire smiled and buried her face in the back of his neck.“You’re right. She’s been wrong before.”

“First of all, of course I’m right. Secondly, she’s not wrong this time. And thirdly, stop sighing like that, you’re getting me damp.”

“I know my responsibility as a Keeper.”

“Responsibility?”

“Yes.”

“That and three seventy-five will get you a mocha latte. Speaking of which, when do we eat?”

“Soon.” Claire nodded at the late model sedan pulling into the parking lot. “There’s our ride.”

“Oh, great. She brakes for unicorns. And hobbits.” Leaping down, he headed for the cat carrier, muttering, “I only hope she brakes for stop signs.” Settling into the sheepskin pad, he glared up at Claire. “You know she’s going to spend the whole trip telling us cute stories about her three cats.”

“I know.” Closing the carrier, Claire turned to face the conscripted Bystander’s cheery wave and wondered if maybe Hell hadn’t gotten free after all.

THREE

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IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DRIVE from Kingston, Ontario, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in seventeen hours. Dean knew someone who’d done it—admittedly in the opposite direction, but the principle was the same. It did, however, require a number of factors working in the driver’s favor.

First of all, the varying police forces in charge of the highways stretching through Ontario, Quebec, Vermont, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia needed to be off the road. Second, nothing could go wrong with the vehicle. The glove compartment inexplicably deciding not to close was one thing. Dropping the entire exhaust system onto the asphalt just outside of Fredericton was something else again. But then, it usually was. Thirdly, the driver had to be so pissed off at an ex that his anger would keep him awake and alert to the dangers of the Canadian highway system—which was pretty much like the American system only with more moose—for the entire seventeen hours.

Fortunately, government cutbacks on both sides of the border had accomplished what a Tim Hortons on every corner hadn’t, making the odds of being stopped by a moose were significantly higher than being stopped by the police. And Dean’s truck might be pushing the ten-year mark, but both muffler and glove compartment were in top condition although the latter now held a hairbrush, two lipsticks, seventeen packets of artificial sweetener, a fast food child’s toy, a pink plastic pouch he thought held a pressure bandage until he realized to his intense embarrassment that pressure bandages didn’t have wings, half a bottle of water, and an open can of geriatric cat food.

He just wasn’t angry enough at Claire to drive for seventeen hours straight, although it had been a narrow miss when he’d found the cat food. Until they’d parted ways, he’d assumed the smell had been coming from Austin who was, after all, a very old cat.

Kingston to Halifax could be done in seventeen hours, but the trip took Dean three weeks. Just across the border into Vermont, he stopped to help a stranded motorist and ended up with a job in his diner while the regular cook worked out a small problem involving a cow, two liters of ice cream, and a tourist from New Hampshire. Dean didn’t ask for details; he figured it was an American thing. He thought about Claire every time he saw a young, dark-haired woman, or a cat, or anything weird on the news. He thought about her when he picked up after the waitress, when he told customers to wipe their feet, and when he went to bed alone at night.

He thought about her when the waitress suggested he didn’t have to go to bed alone at night. He thought about her as he thanked the waitress politely for the suggestion but declined. He wasn’t actually thinking about Claire when the waitress asked if he was gay.

“No, ma’am. I’m Canadian.”

That seemed to explain things to everyone’s satisfaction.

He thought about her pretty much all the rest of the time, though, and when the regular cook returned, he actually paused for a moment before getting back on the highway, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t head back into Ontario and try to find her. Didn’t leaving make him as incapable of compromising as he accused her of being?

The shriek of brakes from the semi coming up behind him not only ended the moment but very nearly solved the problem. Heart pounding, he put the truck in gear and continued east.

He’d seen Claire deal with Hell. And Austin. If she wanted to, she could find him.

It was mid-December by the time he arrived at his cousin’s apartment in Halifax. He’d intended to stay only until he could book passage on the ferry home, but for one reason or another, many of them having to do with beer, it didn’t happen.

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Austin stretched out his paw and neatly hooked a French fry from Claire’s fingers. “You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

“No.” Except that the truck that had very nearly run her over as she closed a site at Highway Two and King Street in Napanee had been just like Dean’s. Except it hadn’t been a Ford. And it was red, not white. And Dean’s truck just had a standard cab. And was clean. But other than that…

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The bed sagged under Claire’s weight, then kept sagging as the mattress came to an understanding with gravity. It wasn’t the most uncomfortable motel bed she’d ever slept in, but it was close. It reminded her of the bed in the motel just outside of Rochester. The bed that she and Dean had so briefly and so platonicallyshared. If she put out her hand, she could almost feel the heat of…

…a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old cat.

“You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

“No.”

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“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Having reassured the dark-haired, blue-eyed, glasses-wearing young waiter, Claire put her fingers back in her mouth.

“Bar’s been almost shut down twice, you know, but I never seen a rat in here before.”

He still hadn’t seen a rat, but Claire had no intention of telling him that.

“Good thing you had your cat with you, eh?” Dark brows drew in. He scratched at stubble. “Actually, I don’t think you’re supposed to bring your cat in here.”

The possibilities were adjusted slightly.“It’s okay.”

“Cool. You want another drink?”

“Why not.” Since she’d already been distracted enough to nearly lose a finger, Claire figured she was entitled to watch as he walked away from her booth in the darkest corner of the nearly empty bar.

Austin horked a dark bit of something up onto the cracked Naugahyde seat.“You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

Fingers in her mouth, Claire ignored him.

He snorted.“Good thing you had your cat with you, eh?”

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Just outside of Renfrew, Claire stood on a deserted stretched of highway and stared at the graffiti spray painted twenty feet up a limestone cliff. The hole, situated between the“u” and the “c” had turned the most popular of Anglo-Saxon profanities into a metaphysical instruction.

Before Austin could ask, she shoved frozen fingers deeper into her coat pockets and sighed.“Yes. I am. Now, drop it.”

“I was only going to mention that Dean would know exactly what cleaning supplies you’re going to need to get that paint off the rock.”

“Sure you were.”

On the opposite shoulder of the road, someone slapped a handprint into the condensation covering the windows of their parked Buick.

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Against all expectations, Diana enjoyed the decorating committee meetings.

“So it’s settled; for this year’s Christmas dance we use a snowflake motif.” Stephanie’s smile could cut paper. “And, Lena, I don’t want to hear another word about angels.”

“But angels…”

“Have been done to death by all and/or sundry. Get over it.”

Watching Stephanie cut through the democratic process with all the precision of a chainsaw sculptor was significantly more amusing than watching the cafeteria’s hot lunch gel into something approaching a life-form.

“Diana…”

Jerked out of her reverie, Diana fought the urge to come to attention. Tall and blonde, Stephanie wouldn’t have looked out of place in jackboots, provided she could find a purse to match, and someday she’d run a Fortune 500 company with the same ruthless ?lan she used to run Medway High. Unfortunately for the world at large, Keepers weren’t permitted to make preemptive strikes.

“…since we’re trying to make this place look less like a gymnasium, I want you to make a snowflake pattern out of white-and-gold streamers about five feet down from those incredibly ugly ceiling tiles.”

Diana glanced up at the ceiling, then over at Stephanie. The gym was probably thirty feet high, and it would take scaffolding to reach anything higher than the tops of the basketball backboards. The odds of the custodians building that scaffolding were slightly lower than the odds of any member of the senior basketball team being picked up by the pros. At zero and thirteen, the senior basketball team couldn’t even get picked up by the cheerleaders. “You want me to what?”

“Try to pay attention. I want you to hide the ceiling behind a crepe-paper snowflake.” Stephanie met Diana’s incredulous gaze with a level blue stare, assuming compliance.

Although not the uninvolved stick in the mud Claire had been during high school, Diana had tried to give the whole Keeper thing the requisite low profile. Given how generally pointless she found the whole public school system, it hadn’t always been easy, but she’d made it to her final year without anyone pointing and screaming “Witch!” Well, no one anyone who mattered listened to, anyway.

So what had Stephanie seen?

And bottom line, did it matter?

“A crepe-paper snowflake?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Itwas an ugly ceiling.

Meeting over, Lena fell into step beside her as they left the gym.“You’re thesenior student on the committee,not Stephanie, so ifyou wantedangels…” Her voice trailed off suggestively, having applied the maximum emphasis allowed.

“It was the committee or a month of detention,” Diana reminded her. “But I don’t think angels are a good idea.”

Lena looked crushed.“Whynot?”

“Flaming swords, smiting the ungodly…”

“Angels aren’tlike that!”

“Maybe not the ones you run into, but the problem is, you can never be sure.”

“Ofwhat?”

“Of what kind of angel you’re running into.”

Lena thought about that for a moment, then, as Diana headed into the first of her afternoon classes, muttered,“My mother’s right. You’reweird.”

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With over three million people, Toronto had two working Keepers, one very elderly Keeper plugging an unclosable site out in Scarborough, and half a dozen Cousins monitoring the constant metaphysical flux—one of whom had made a small fortune following the stock market in his spare time. He said he found the relative calm relaxing.

The Summons took Claire to the College Park subway station on the University line where ninety-six hours previously a government worker from one of the nearby offices had been pushed from the platform. At the time, the old Red Rocket had been three hundred meters away grinding its slow way north. The intended victim had plenty of time to dust himself off, climb back onto the platform, and threaten the man who’d pushed him with an audit—but that was moot. Inept evil was still evil and a hole had opened at the edge of the platform.

For the next three days, it spewed bits of darkness out onto commuters in the morning and gathered them up again in the evening larger and darker. It was probably a coincidence that members of the Ontario government, arriving daily at the legislature building only a block away, proposed a bill to close half the province’s hospitals and cut education spending by 44% during those three days since it was highly unlikely that any member of the ruling Conservative party took the subway to work.

By the time Claire got to the site, the hole was huge and thousands of government employees had arrived at their jobs in a bad mood and left in a worse one—which was pretty much business as usual only more so.

Just after midnight, the platform was essentially deserted. A group of teenagers, isolated in headphones and sunglasses, loitered at one end and an elderly woman wrapped in at least four layers of clothing and surrounded by a circle of grimy shopping bags glared at her from the other.

With a sigh, Claire shifted the cat carrier to her other hand and walked reluctantly forward, wondering why she couldn’t see through the glamour. When she got close enough, and the scent of unwashed clothing and treasured garbage overwhelmed the winter-chilled metal, machine scent of the subway, she realized that she couldn’t see through the glamour because there wasn’t one.

“Hey, tuna!” A black nose pressed up against the screen at the front of the carrier, then suddenly recoiled with a sneeze. “Six days old, wrapped in a gym sock previously worn by someone with a bad case of toe rot, and I’d rather not be any closer.” He sneezed again. “Can we go now?”

“No. And keep your voice down. We’re in a public place.”

“I’m not the one talking to luggage.”

At the outer edge of the shopping bags, her eyes were watering. Nothing could smell so bad on its own, it had to have been carefully crafted. Claire was thankful she’d never had to study under this particular Keeper.This afternoon we’ll be combining the scents of old cheese and the stale vomit/urine combination found in the backs of certain taxis… Like life wasn’t already dangerous enough?

“You Claire?”

“Yes.” At least the other Keeper wasn’t insisting on using the traditional and ridiculous “Aunt Claire.”

“Are you Nalo?”

“I am. So, where is he?”

Claire blinked at the other Keeper.“Pardon?”

“Your young man. I heard at Apothecary’s that one of us made an actual connection with a Bystander.” She craned her neck, showing a remarkable amount of dirty collar. “Did he have trouble finding parking?”

There was absolutely no point in suggesting it was none of her business.

“We’re not traveling together anymore.”

“You’re not? Why not? I heard he was a looker and pure of heart, too.” One eye closed in an unmistakable wink. “If you know what I mean.”

Claire made a mental note to smack Diana hard the next time she saw her.“We’re no longer together because I decided that he wasn’t safe traveling with me.”

“First of all; you decided? And second, he’d already been to Hell, girl. What did you think could happen that was worse?”

“How about asphyxiation?”

Nalo pointed a long, dark finger in a filthy fingerless glove at the cat carrier.“If you can think of a better way to keep Bystanders far away from this hole, then I’d like to hear it. Until then, I don’t take attitude from no cat.”

It was probably fortunate that the approaching subway drowned out Austin’s response.

The teenagers got on, and out of the door closest to the hole stepped a large young man in a leather jacket, a tattoo of a swastika impaled by a dagger nearly covering his shaved head. Pierced lip curled, he swaggered toward the two women. He sucked in a deep breath, readying himself to intimidate, then looked appalled, and choked.

“You know what I think when I see a tattoo like that?” Nalo murmured as the sound of violent coughing echoed off the tiles. “I think, he’s gonna look like a fool when he’s eighty and in a nursing home.”

“Maybe he’ll regrow his hair.”

“Won’t help, he’s got male pattern baldness written all over him.”

Claire couldn’t see it, but she could see the words “hate” and “kill” written into the backs of his hands. Reaching into the possibilities, she made a slight cosmetic change. Then she reached a little farther.

His eyes widened and, still coughing, the hand that said“male pattern” gripping the crotch of his jeans and the one that said “baldness” outstretched to clear the way, he ran for the stairs.

“Will he be back?”

“Depends on how long it takes him to find a toilet.”

“He could just pee in a corner.”

“That’ll take care of half the problem.”

Nalo grinned.“Very clever. You’re subtler than your sister.”

“Public television pledge breaks are subtler than my sister.”

“True enough. Well, that was the last regular train past this station, so let’s get to work before the maintenance trains hit the rails.” Nalo shrugged out of her coat, peeled off the gloves, and was suddenly a middle-aged black woman in a TTC maintenance uniform. A lot of her previous bulk had come from the tool belt around her waist.

“You do a lot of work in the subways?” Claire asked, setting Austin’s carrier down and opening the top for him.

“Hundreds of thousands of people ride them every day, what do you think? Most of the holes close on their own, but enough of them needed help that it finally got easier just to buy the wardrobe—we’ve got a Cousin in the actual maintenance crew who picked it up for me.”

“Was he monitoring the site?”

“This one and a couple of others.” The older Keeper glanced at her watch. “Security’ll be here shortly. I’ve dealt before, so I’ll deal again; why don’t you and your younger legs jump down on the track and map the lower parameters.”

Yes, why don’t I? Although she tried, Claire couldn’t actually think of a good reason, so she stalled. “What about the camera? I should adjust it to show a different possibility.”

“Already done.”

So much for stalling. Pulling her kit from her backpack, she walked over to the edge of the platform and sat, legs dangling.“You coming, Austin?”

“Not likely.”

“There’s mice down there.”

“I should care?” But he trotted over for a closer look. “Notjust mice.”

A group of tiny warriors no more than two inches high, their dark skins making them almost impossible to see, were silently surrounding an unsuspecting rodent. The kill was quick, the prey lifted in half a dozen miniature arms and, to Claire’s surprise, thrown against the third rail. There was a sudden flash, a wisp of smoke, and tiny voices chanting, “Bar. Be. Que! Bar. Be. Que!”

“What’s the delay?” Nalo asked, walking over. “Oh, Abatwa. I don’t know when they came over from South Africa, but they’ve adapted amazingly well to the subway system. You know what to do if you’re challenged?”

As far as Claire could tell, they all seemed to be males.“Flattery?”

“That’s right. Watch where you’re stepping, it makes them cranky.”

Given the nature of some of the debris, Claire figured stepping on one of the Abatwa would be the least of her problems. She didn’t even want to consider how some of it had gotten down there. About to push off, she caught a memory and froze. “You said something about maintenance trains?”

“You’ve got lots of time.”

“But we don’t know how long this will take.”

“Girl, you worry too much.” Nalo’s pat was almost a push.

Claire took the hint and dropped down onto the greasy ties. As she turned toward the job, heavy footfalls heralded the approach of Transit Security. They seemed perfectly willing to believe that both Keepers were maintenance workers and that Austin’s carrier was a toolbox, making only a cursory check and leaving quickly. Claire suspected that the collection of filthy shopping bags discouraged suspicion. And conversation. And breathing.

Her suspicions were confirmed when one of the guards promised to tell the cleaning crew about the mess.“They can get them ready for the garbage train.”

“Garbage train?” Claire asked when they were gone. “Is that the maintenance train you mentioned?”

“One of them,” Nalo allowed, pulling a piece of chalk from her tool belt and squatting by the upper edge of the hole.

“One of them? How many of them are there?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On how many of them there are.”

“Wonderful.”

The cleaning crew arrived before they finished mapping. None of them spoke English, two of the three couldn’t speak to each other. They all made their feelings quite clear about the bags.

“I don’t know about you,” Austin muttered when they left, “but I’ve just learned a few new words.” He wandered over to the edge of the platform and peered down at Claire. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” The hole came over the edge of the platform, wrapped around the lip, and extended two feet down a blackened concrete block wall. It took a liberal application of nail polish remover to get even small sections of the concrete blocks clean enough to take a definition. And her fingers weregetting cold.

“Dean could get that clean in no time.”

“And if Dean were here, that would be relevant.”

“Hey,I didn’t chase him away.”

“Shut up.”

“Almost done?”

“Almost.”

“Good.”

She glanced up at his tone.“Why good?”

“Well, I don’t want to rush you, but there’s something going on just down the line.”

“Going on?”

He cocked his head, ears pointing south.“Sounds like a train.”

“Great.”

“But it’s stopped now.”

“Fine. Let us know when it starts moving. Nalo?”

“I’m ready. If you’re not sure you can finish before the train gets here, hop out and we’ll redo after.”

Claire glanced down the tunnel. She couldn’t see a light, she couldn’t feel the wind of an approaching train, and she just wanted this whole thing to be over. “There’s one last definition; I can finish.” The concrete wasn’t exactly clean, but it would have to do. A little extra pressure on the chalk got the symbol more-or-less inscribed. “That’s it.” A movement in the air lifted her hair off the back of her neck as she straightened. “Let’s go.”

Because of the bend in the site, it was impossible for a single Keeper to see the entire perimeter. While Nalo pushed her edge in, Claire reached into the possibilities and lifted.

The movement in the air became wind.

Claire could feel the vibrations of the approaching train in the soles of her feet.

The hole fought to stay open.

As the bottom edge reached the tricky turn at the lip, she could see a small light growing rapidly larger in the corner of her eye.

Rapidly larger.

It became a train.

I might just as well throw myself under it. I can’t believe I screwed things up so badly with Dean. How can I miss him so much and keep on living? What’s the point of a life without someone to share it wi…

A sudden multiple puncture through the skin of her hand jerked her back to herself. Grabbing possibilities, she tightened her grip on the definitions, flung herself up onto the platform, and slammed the hole shut just as a three-car train roared through the station, lights blazing and Christmas music blaring.

Lying flat on her back, she lifted her injured hand up into her field of vision.“I’m bleeding.”

“You’re lucky that’s all you’re doing; that cat just saved your life. What happened?”

“I was…”

“Thinking about Dean.”

She turned her head until she could see Austin, opened her mouth to deny it, and sighed.

“Were you thinking about this boy?”

Another turn of her head and she could see Nalo frowning down at her, hands on hips.“It was more like a bad soap opera than actual thought,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Get up,” the older Keeper instructed. “We need to talk.”

Her tone left no room for argument. It barely left room for vowels.

As Nalo made sure the hole was truly sealed, Claire got slowly to her feet then bent down and picked up the cat.“Thank you.”

He rubbed the top of his head against her chin.“Same old, same old.”

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“…and being without him is affecting the way you’re doing your job. Not to mention putting your life in danger. And what do you think would have happened if that train had killed a Keeper while you were under the influence of darker possibilities? I’ll tell you what, we’d have had a repeat of that whole Euro Disney thing!”

Claire shuddered.

“The powers that be clearly want the two of you together, or you wouldn’t be in such lousy shape without him.” Nalo handed her a glass of eggnog and set a saucer of it on the coffee table for Austin. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

“There’s rum in it.”

Austin lifted his head, a fleck of foam on his muzzle.“There’s no rum inmine.”

Both Keepers ignored him.

“Do you love the boy?”

A mouthful of eggnog came back out Claire’s nose. “He’s not a boy!”

“Pardon me, Miss Defensive, and use the napkin, not your sleeve. Do you love the man, then?”

“I just want what’s best for him.”

“How about you let him decide what’s best for him and you answer my question.” Nalo settled into a wing-back recliner and stared at Claire over the edge of her glass. “Do you love him?”

“Love.” She tried for nonchalance and failed dismally. “What is love anyway?”

“Claire…”

There was power in a name. In this particular instance, there was also a warning.

The depths of the eggnog held no answers although the rum made a couple of suggestions Claire ignored. Sighing, she set the empty glass down on the coffee table next to a crocheted Christmas tree.“Since he left, I’ve felt like there’s a part of me missing.”

“Close but not good enough. Do you love him?”

“I…”

“Yes or no.”

Yes or no? There had to be other options. When none presented themselves, she sighed.“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I love him.” The world stopped for a moment, and when it started up again, Claire felt a little light-headed. “Shouldn’t there be music or something?”

“The world stopped. That wasn’t enough? You want a sound track, too?”

“I guess not.”

“Good. Does he love you?”

“I don’t know.”

Austin looked up from the bottom of his saucer.“He does.”

“How do you know?” Claire demanded, leaning forward to stare into his face.

“He told me.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I’m calling you a cat.”

Austin thought about that for a moment.“Fair enough,” he conceded.

“It’s obvious you and Dean should be together,” Nalo declared, drawing the attention of both Claire and the cat. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Claire shook her head.“Keepers don’t…”

“Don’t tell me what Keepers don’t; I’ve been one a lot longer than you have. Keepers don’t deny the truth when it jumps up and bites them on the ass, that’s what Keepers don’t. If it helps, think of the space between you as an accident site you have to close.”

“But the danger.”

“Girl, don’t you think for a moment that Keepers have the only power. If you love him, you find that boy then you trust in the power of love to keep him safe. And if that cat doesn’t quit making gagging noises,” she added with a dark look at Austin, “I’m going to use him to line a pair of slippers.”

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“She didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.”

“I know.” Bedded down on Nalo’s couch for the night, Claire stared out the window, past the lights of the city at points farther east. Dean was out there, somewhere, and as much as it was going to cost her, she could think of only one way to find him.

Austin kneaded her hip, his claws not quite going all the way through the duvet.“So whatare you going to do about it?”

“Go home for Christmas.”

“Diana?”

“Diana.”

“And if you’re Summoned somewhere else?”

“Then I’ll know that Dean and I aren’t supposed to be together and I’ll be miserable and unhappy for the rest of my life.”

“That’s your entire plan?”

Claire sighed and stroked her fingers along his spine.“That’s it.”

“You know, you guys really need a union.”

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The Christmas dance was Diana’s first. She hadn’t planned on attending but when her parents had discovered what she’d done too late to have her undo it, they’d insisted she be there just in case. They’d said rather a great deal more as well, but she’d stopped listening to the lecture early on.

Standing against the wall of the gym, arms crossed, a cardboard cup of punch in one hand, she watched twinkling bits of light falling gently through the central hole in the crepe-paper pattern. It was working exactly as designed; the weave captured good feelings rising up from the crowd, filtered and purified them, then sprinkled them back down like metaphysical snowflakes through the center hole. And in spite of minor panic from the’rents about the dangers inherent in too much of a good thing, the inevitable counterbalance of teenage angst insured that the system didn’t spiral up and out of control.

It was probably going to be the first high school dance in history where everyone had a good time and no one hadtoo good a time.

As ordered, the pattern even looked like a snowflake from below.

She was remarkably pleased with herself.

Draining the cup, she set it down and walked across to where the senior basketball team were standing morosely by the wall. They were now zero and nineteen. The chess club was more popular.

“Joe, dance with me!”

He looked startled but took her hand and allowed her to lead him out onto the floor.

As the music started to slow, Diana reached into the possibilities and changed the CD before he could pull her close.

Everyonewas going to have a good time, but there were limits to even the most selfless charity work and Joehad missed his last five free throws.

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Just after one a.m., Diana slipped off boots and coat and padded upstairs in her socks, reaching just far enough into the possibilities to muffle the sound of her arrival. She didn’t actually have a curfew—there was a certain inane sound toyou can only save the world until ten on a school night—but she liked to keep the parental units guessing. Fully aware of this, they set certain metaphysical traps, which she easily deflected, and all parties remained secure in the knowledge that they were holding up their respective ends of the teenager/parent relationship, Keeper/Cousin variety.

Diana suspected her parents didn’t think of it that way, but as long as they were happy, she didn’t really mind.

She waited until she had her bedroom door closed behind her before she turned on the light.

“I need a favor.”

The possibilities muffled her startled shriek and Claire easily fielded the candle she threw.“Don’t you have somewhere to be Summoned to!”

“No.” Claire set the candle on the stack of paperbacks piled by the bed.

“No?”

“How loud was the music at that dance? No. I am, at the current time, not being Summoned anywhere.”

Her heartbeat beginning to return to a more normal rhythm, Diana crossed over to the beanbag chair, scooped Austin up into her arms, and settled them both, the cat on her lap.“Whoa. You do know what that means?”

“How many more years have I been doing this?” Arms crossed, Claire paced the eight steps to the wall and back. “It means I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to do what I’m doing.”

“You don’t look very happy about it. What are you supposed to be doing that’s got you so nervous?”

Dropping onto the end of the bed, Claire picked a tuft of fuzz off the folded Navaho blanket.“Like I said, I need a favor.”

“You’re supposed to ask me for a favor?”

“No. Ineed to ask you for a favor.”

“Me?”

“Do you see anyone else in here?” Claire demanded, nostrils pinched. “If I could do this any other way, I would, but I need a favor only you, my only sister, can provide.”

“Only me?” The grin became a smirk as she stroked a thoughtful hand down Austin’s back. “In all my life you have never come to me for counsel or help. You have never invited me to be a part of what you do. Now you come to me and say you need a favor.” She stroked the cat again. “Now youcall me sister.”

Austin stretched out a paw, and pushed against her lap.“Hey, Godfather, behind the ears.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“You’re sure you know the number?”

“Always.” Diana poked at the phone.

“That’s too many numbers!”

“Relax and tell me again how I was right and you were wrong.”

“Just dial.”

“I’ve dialed; it’s ringing.” The look on Claire’s face evoked an involuntary smile—which slipped as Claire stood motionless and stared at the receiver. “Hey? Are you going to take this thing from me or…too late. Hi, Dean.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Dean pushed himself into a sitting position on his cousin’s sofa bed. “Diana?” He slid on his glasses and glanced over at the VCR for the time. The piece of black electrical tape was no help at all. “How did you get this number?”

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. Someone who’s very, very sorry she sent you away and…ow! What’s your damage? It sure seemed like you didn’t want to…okay, okay, stop pinching!”

During the pause that followed, he dug for his watch. Two forty-one. a.m.

“Dean?”

Remember to breathe, he told himself as the room started to spin.“Claire?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Fingers gripping the plastic so tightly it creaked, Claire had a sudden flashback to the hotel room in Rochester.

“Howard?”

“Cheryl?”

And we all know how well that turned out. She swallowed, unable to actually say the words. If Dean had said something, anything, but he didn’t—although she could feel him waiting.

Diana rolled her eyes. Leaning forward, she caught her sister’s gaze and held it. “Tell him, Claire.” The she reached into the possibilities and added the magic word.“Please.”

Resistance was futile. The words spilled out before Claire could stop them.“Dean, I’m sorry. I was wrong to just arbitrarily decide we shouldn’t be together anymore. I should have told you about the danger and let you…” When Diana scowled, she wet her lips and made a quick correction. “…trusted you to make your own decisions. I want us to be together.”

“Why?”

“Why? I…um…Diana, if youplease me again, I’m going to smack you!” Having glared down her sister, she took a deep breath.

“If it helps, think of the space between you as an accident site you have to close.”

Moving the phone away from her mouth, she growled,“Would a little privacy be asking too much?”

Diana, secure in the certain knowledge that Claire owed her big time, snorted.“Well, duh.”

Austin ignored the question as it clearly did not apply to cats.

Neither response surprised her. She tucked the phone back up to her mouth and lowered her voice.“Dean, since you left, I’ve felt like there’s a part of me missing.”

She could still feel him waiting.

“Close but not good enough.”

“Look, I love you. Okay?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

She loved him. Over the thundering of his heart, Dean could hear music. It filled the apartment, thrummed in his blood, and just about made his ears bleed.

In the next room, his cousin banged on the ceiling.“It’s almost three o’clock in the freaking morning, butthead!”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Dean?” Claire frowned at the phone.

“What’s happening?” Diana demanded, reaching for the receiver.

Claire smacked her hand away.“I don’t know. It sounds like Bon Jovi.”

The music stopped.

“Dean?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

She loved him. The words echoed in the sudden silence.

She loved him.

Now what? Was he supposed to say he loved her, too, or would she think he was just saying it because she’d said it even though he did, and had known it since he drove away and left her standing all alone in that parking lot even though he hadn’t realized he’d known it until this very moment?

And then what?

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Dean?”

“What’s the matter?” Diana made another unsuccessful grab for the receiver.

“He’s not saying anything.”

“Give me the phone.”

Claire stared down at the cat.“What?”

“The phone, give it to me.” When she hesitated, he sighed. “Trust me, it’s a guy thing. You need to break this up into bite-sized pieces.”

As the silence from the other end of the line continued, she laid the phone down on the bed beside Austin who cocked his head so that his mouth was at the microphone and one ear pointed at the speaker.

“Dean, you still there?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

That wasn’t Claire. Where had Claire gone?

“Claire?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Austin’s tail tip flicked back and forth. “She’s here, but right now, we need some answers. Do you love her?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Dean sighed in relief. That, he didn’t have to think about. “Yes.”

“Do you want to be with her?”

“Yes.”

“Write down these directions.”

He shook his head to clear some of the adrenaline buzz and grabbed a pen off the end table beside the sofa bed. Paper. He had no paper. Pulling the fabric tight over his leg, he wrote the directions on the sheet, repeated them, and hung up.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_6]

“Well?” Claire demanded as Austin lifted his head. “What did he say?”

“He said yes. Hang this up, would you. If you’re thinking of what to get me for Christmas, I’m fairly certain I could manage one of those large-buttoned phones they have for seniors.”

“Austin.”

“Just think of the time you’d save if I could order my own food.”

“Austin!”

“What?”

Claire managed to avoid throttling him but only just.“He said yes, and?”

“And I expect he’s folding his underwear into his hockey bag even as we speak.”

“He folds his underwear?” Diana snickered.

“He folds everything,” Austin told her, fastidiously smoothing a bit of rumpled fur.

“Austin…” Claire ground the cat’s name out through clenched teeth. “…what does Dean’s underwear have to do withanything? And you…” She turned a warning glare on her sister. “…can just shut up and let him answer the question.”

“It has to do with packing.” When she continued to glower, Austin sighed. “Packing to come here. And you’re welcome,” he gasped as jubilant Claire scooped him up into her arms. “But I’m old, and you just drove a rib through my spleen.”

“Do cats have a spleen?”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“Sorry.” She set him back on the bed and, suddenly conscious of her sister’s smug expression, stiffened. “What?”

“Don’t you have appreciation to show to someone else? Someone who, oh, made the initial contact?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And I would have told him without your help.”

“Oh, sure. AndBabe would’ve been nominated for that best picture Oscar without my help.”

“Diana!”

“I was a lot younger then! And it’s not like it won…”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_6]

It was not possible to drive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Kingston, Ontario, in seventeen hours. For reasons unknown to mortal man—although most mortal women were aware of them as they involved asking for directions when trying to get out of Montreal—the trip from east to west took eighteen hours. Dean actually had to drive past Kingston through Toronto, to London, then north to Lucan. The whole trip took him twenty-threehours. He saw one police car parked at a doughnut shop. He saw no moose.

FOUR

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

“THAT’S HIS TRUCK. He’s here!”

“Claire…can’t breathe…”

“Sorry.” She loosened her grip on the cat, who squirmed out of her arms and stalked to the other end of the couch, tail lashing from side to side. Brushing drifts of cat hair off her sweater, she murmured, “I can’t believe how nervous I am.”

“I can’t believe how nerdy you are,” Diana sighed. “You love him, he loves you, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now haul ass out there and let him know he’s at the right house.”

“Keepers don’t…”

“What? Make spectacles of themselves with Bystanders in public?” Diana’s mimicry of her sister was cuttingly accurate. “If you wait until he comes up to the house, you’ll have to invite him in. If he comes in here, he’ll have to make nice with Mom and Dad. If, on the other hand, you meet out there, you can take him directly to your place and make nicer with each other. Your choice.”

Eyes locked on the figure getting out of the truck, Claire hesitated…

“You know Dad’ll want to show him the photo album.”

…and decided.

“Now haul ass out there and let him know he’s at the right house?” Austin snorted as he walked over to stand beside Diana at the open door. “I never knew you were such a romantic.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Fireworks! Claire thought with the small part of her brain still functioning. Then she realized it was just the Christmas lights on the front of the house reflecting in Dean’s glasses. He tasted like coffee and toothpaste. Or coffee-flavored toothpaste.

After a moment, she pulled her mouth far enough away from his to sigh,“You’re here.”

He smiled down at her, finding it just a little difficult to focus.“I’m here.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“I’m glad you called.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“I can’t hear them.”

“Lucky you,” Austin muttered, moving away from the open door. “If I have to hear any more, I’m going to hork up a hairball. That dialogue is so banal she should have run into his arms in slow motion.”

“There’s a foot of snow on the path,” Diana reminded him. She took another look. “Or rather there was.” The snow beneath Dean’s work boots and Claire’s running shoes had melted and the cleared area was spreading fast. Peering through fog created by the sudden, localized heat, she grinned and yelled, “Get a room!”

“Diana?”

“Mom.” Diana pulled the door closed as she turned. There were some things that shouldn’t be shared across the generations.Third Eye Blind and bicycle shorts topped the list, but watching Claire suck face with a hunka hunka burning love in the front yard followed close behind. Most of the time, Diana tried to be sensitive to parental feelings.“What can I do for you?”

“Was that Dean’s truck I heard?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Has Claire gone out to meet him?”

“Yes, she has.”

“Is she going to bring him inside to say hello to the rest of us?”

“I somehow doubt it.”

Martha Hansen studied her younger daughter’s expression. “I see. It’s like that, is it? Well, good.”

“Good?”

“Yes, good. I like Dean, and I hope he and Claire will find happiness together. Not many Keepers manage to find someone to share their lives with,” she added, shooting a pointed look at her younger daughter. “Most of you are such arrogant know-it-alls that you end up old and alone.”

“Yeah, yeah, if we end up old at all.” Diana waved off the warning. Since she had every intention of going out young in a blaze of glory, it was moot. “So you don’t mind about the hot monkey sex in the front yard?”

Martha’s smile grew slightly wistful. “Your father and I were like that when we first got together. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

“Eww, gross!” The list ofnot to be shared was hurriedly revised, parental coupling confidences now moved into the primary position.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Shouldn’t I go in and say hello to your parents?”

Dad’ll want to show him the photo album.

“No.”

Dean pulled back reluctantly, tracing a line of kisses up her face as he lifted his head.“Claire, it’s polite.”

He was never impolite. Claire didn’t think he could be. “If a little old lady showed up right now,” she murmured while nibbling on his chin, “would you help her across the street?”

“What little old lady?” Although cognitive thought was becoming increasingly difficult, he was fairly certain they hadn’t been talking about little old ladies.

“Any little old lady.”

Now he was confused. Separating his chin from her mouth with a soft sucking sound, he looked around, wondering where the fog had come from.“I don’t see a little old lady.”

“Thereis no little old lady.” Claire made a mental note to be more specific in the future. “I was just making the point that there’s a time and a place for everything, and this is not the time to be with my parents.” She glanced down.

Dean’s cheeks flushed crimson. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from his jeans. “Claire, I…” Then the length of her thigh brushed against his, and he made a sort of choking noise deep in his throat as he bent his mouth back to hers.

“I have my own apartment over the garage,” she murmured against his lips. “It’s not actually part of my parents’ house. Technically, we can go directly up there without being rude.”

“Claire…”

“If we go up there now, I can give you your Christmas present.”

“Christmas isn’t until tomorrow,” he protested weakly.

Twisting free of his grip, she slid her hands up under his sweater until she could feel his heart slamming against his ribs so hard that the muscle sheathing them shivered under the impact. She shivered a bit herself and murmured,“Do youreally want to wait?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Way to go, Dean! He’s carrying her up the stairs. Ouch, that had to hurt. Hit her head on the side of the garage.” Shaking her own head in sympathy, Diana shifted position slightly to get a better angle on the scene. “She seems to be okay—they’re carrying on. Probably has so many endorphins in her system she can’t feel a thing.”

“Diana!” Her mother twitched the curtains out of her grip. “That’s quite enough of that!”

The garage having just cut off her line of sight, Diana shrugged and stepped away from the window, raising both hands in exaggerated surrender.“Not a problem, Mom, your wish is my command.”

“Good.” Martha tucked a strand of graying hair back behind her ear and folded her arms. “Then let me make that wish just a little more specific—no more spying on your sister, period. No hidden microphones. No web cams. No scrying in any form; no mirrors, no bowls of water, and especially noentrails. I need those giblets for the gravy. You will leave Claire and Dean alone while they…”

Diana’s eyebrows rose to touch her hairline.

“Yes, well, just never mind what they’re doing. They’re adults, and it’s none of your business. Or mine or your father’s,” she added before Diana could speak. “When you’re out on your own, we will extend the same courtesy to you, so there’s no need to look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like your life is a never-ending battle against personal oppression. You’re seventeen, Claire’s twenty-seven.”

“And Dean’s twenty-one.”

“Which means?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’m happy she’s happy. I’m happy they’re happy. I’m happyyou’re happy. But, all things considered, you might want to have the fire department on standby.”

“The fire departmentis on standby,” her mother pointed out dryly. “Or have you forgotten what happened last Christmas when the star of Bethlehem went supernova.”

Diana had long since stopped protesting that they’d have won the Christmas lighting contest had the fire department simply damped down the cr?che like she’d asked them to instead of putting the whole thing out because her parents always answered with irrelevancies. The roof had been perfectly safe. Essentially safe. Slightly scorched…

A short time later, having been forced to eat a piece of fruitcake and talk to Aunt Corinne on the phone, she straightened up from the wall that separated her room from Claire’s apartment, set the empty glass down on her desk, and sighed. “That works on television.”

“So does David Duchovny but he’s got just as slim a connection to the real world,” Austin reminded her, eye narrowed as he watched her push a handful of pencils one at a time, into a mug. “I thought your mother told you to leave them alone.”

“She didn’t specifically say no eavesdropping.” Picking a pair of sweatpants off the floor, Diana poked her finger through a ragged hole in the knee.

“She didn’t specifically tell you not to feed the cat, but I notice you’ve managed to resist.”

“You just ate some fruitcake.”

“Your point?”

“Do cats evenlike fruitcake?”

“Does anyone?”

She threw the sweatpants into the laundry basket and dropped into her desk chair, spinning herself petulantly around and around.“You’re being awfully understanding considering that Claire’s shut you out, too—afterwe got them together.”

“If you think I’m interested in watching talking monkey sex,” Austin snorted, “think again.”

“That’shot monkey sex.”

“You’re all talking monkeys from where I sit. And I’ve seen that friction thing; it never really changes.”

A six-car passenger train roared across the room and into a tunnel.

“Okay,” he said thoughtfully when the noise had died. “That was different.”

“Diana!”

Waving away the lingering scent of burning diesel, Diana opened her bedroom door, fingers hooked in the trim as she leaned out into the hall.“Yeah, Dad?”

“What the bloody blue blazes was that?”

“I think it was a euphemism.” The vibrations had knocked askew a set of family photographs hanging on the wall across from her. A previously serious portrait of Claire had developed a distinctly cheesy grin. “Or maybe a metaphor.”

“Well, don’t do it again!”

“It wasn’t me!” She closed the door, not quite slamming it, and walked to the bed. “Why does he always assume it’s me?” she demanded, scooping Austin up into her arms.

“It alwaysis you.”

“Not this time.”

“Natural mistake, though. Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Trust me. Three, two, one…”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The possibilities opened.

Wide.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Holy shit!” One hand pressed against the glass, Brent Carmichael turned away from the window and stared at the half dozen firefighters standing behind him. Behind them, the cards they’d abandoned lay spread out on the table. “Did you see that?”

“I’m still seeing it,” one of the others muttered trying to blink away afterimages.

“It came from the direction of the Hansen place.”

Someone whimpered.

The silence stretched past the point where it could be comfortably broken and then went on a little longer. Finally, the shift senior, a man with eighteen years experience and two citations for bravery, cleared his throat.“I didn’t see anything,” he said.

A mumbled chorus of,“Neither did I,” followed the collective sigh of relief.

“But…” Brent looked out into the darkness of Christmas Eve, at the starlit beauty of the velvet sky above, at the strings of brightly colored Christmas lights innocently mirroring that beauty below, and remembered other visits to the Hansen house. Or tried to. Most of the memories were fuzzy—and not warm and fuzzy either, but fuzzy like trying to pull in the WB without either a satellite dish or cable, picture skewed, one word in seven actually audible. And the harder he tried, the less he could remember.

Except for the incident with the burning bush. That, he couldn’t forget.

Denial became the only logical option.

Happy to have that settled, he turned back to the game.“What moron just chose Charmander against Pikachu?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The light should have dissipated.

Should have.

Didn’t.

Instead, it found itself in an empty, cavernous room in a large, two-story brick building. Caught by the power woven into the snowflake pattern, it rose up through the crepe-paper streamers toward the ceiling, was filtered and purified, and poured back through the center hole.

More now than merely a glorious possibility, it hovered for a moment above center court, then, following the pull of need, it passed through the window, and out into the night.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Lena thoughtfully flicked her lighter on and off. She’d already taken the batteries out of the smoke detector in the hall, but after a certain point that became moot and her father would come charging down into her room demanding to know if she was trying to burn down the house.

There were six candles burning under her angel poster, nine among the angel figurines on her dresser, three votive candles in angel candle holders, and one in a souvenir Backstreet Boys mug on the bedside table.

Close to the limit.

One more, she decided, and started searching through the stubs of melted wax for something worth burning. Nothing. Unfortunately, thatone more had gone from being an option to being a necessity during the search. Slowly, she turned to her bookshelf.

The angel standing beside her CD player was an old-fashioned figure about a foot high in long flowing robes and wings. He was even carrying a harp. His gold halo circled a pristine white wick.

Heart pounding, Lena approached with the lighter. This had been her very first angel, plucked out from between a broken Easy-Bake oven and a stack of macram? coasters at a neighborhood yard sale.Oh, please, she thought as the flame touched the wick.Let this sacrifice be enough to make it happen!

There was no need to be more specific about what it was.It was always the same thing. She’d wished for it on a thousand stars, her last three birthday cakes, the wishbones of four turkeys, Christmas and Thanksgiving, and with a penny in every body of water she passed. The school custodian had fished enough pennies out of the toilets in the girls’ washrooms that he’d treated himself to a package of non-Board of Education toilet paper—the kind that couldn’t be fed through a laser printer.

The wick darkened, a bit of wax melted on the top of the golden head, and then the flame roared up high enough to scorch the ceiling, filling Lena’s basement bedroom with light.

The light moved slowly away from the candle, into the center of the room.

“It’s an angel,” Lena cried, eyes watering, eyebrows slightly singed.

And because she believed, it was.

The light took form.

And substance.

And became everything a not quite seventeen-year-old girl wanted in an angel.

In the moment of making, the door flew open and a large, dark-haired man, waving one hand in front of his face to clear the smoke, burst into the room.“Lena! How many times have I told you…?” His eyes widened, and his bellow became a roar. “What the devil are you doing in my daughter’s room?”

Lena knew that angels were sexless, but her father didn’t know that the beautiful young man with the bicolored hair was an angel, and his belief in what he was seeing was as strong as hers.

The last little bit of substance formed out of a father’s fears.

And, all things considered, it wasn’t actually that little.

His expression a cross between confusion and panic, the angel ducked the first blow, slipped under an outstretched hand, and ran for the bedroom door. He would have made it except that he hit a bit of unexpected anatomy on the edge of a chair and the sudden pain dropped him to his knees. The second blow connected.

Lying on the floor, hands clasped between his legs, he stared blearily up at the angry man standing above him, and wondered just what exactly was going on.

He wasn’t the only one.

“What do you mean, he had no clothes when he got here?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Diana, heavily shielded and doing her best impersonation of nothing at all, waited in the triangle of deep shadow behind the love seat, determined that this would be the year. From where she crouched, eyes grown used to the dark could see the entire fireplace—top to bottom, side to side—and, beyond it, the lower curve of the Christmas tree. On the mantel, beside the cards, was a glass of milk and three cookies. Homemade chocolate chip cookies, with the chips still soft from the oven. Only the best bait would slow him down.

She’d almost caught him a couple of times, but something had always distracted her at the crucial moment. When she was younger, she’d wanted to see him just for the sake of seeing him. Now, after so many failures, it had become a point of pride.

The instant camera she held had been in her stocking three years ago. She suspected he was taunting her.

A sudden clatter up on the roof brought a pleased smile—earlier in the day, she’d cleared away the snow that might muffle the first sounds of her quarry’s arrival.

A bit of soot fell from the chimney onto the hearth.

Show time.

Then something slammed against her shields and exploded into a rainbow of metaphysical light.

Blinded by the brilliant yellows and reds and greens, Diana stood, tipped a lamp over with her shoulder, caught it before it hit the floor, and stumbled out from behind the love seat. She could hear nothing over the thrumming of frustrated possibilities but when one hand brushed for an instant against fur trim, she took three quick pictures with the other.

Then the moment passed, and she could both see and hear.

The milk glass was empty, the cookies were gone. The stockings bulged.

Austin was lying on the hearth, a brand new calico square stuffed with catnip under one front paw.“Aren’t you getting a little old for this?” he sniffed.

“Isn’t he?” Blinking away the last of the afterimages, Diana dropped onto the sofa with a frustrated groan. “He’s never donethat before.” Bending forward, she scooped the developing evidence up off the rug. “At least I…”

A familiar black-and-white face stared up at her from all three photographs.

Leaping up beside her, Austin nodded toward the middle picture.“Could I get a copy of this? You’ve caught my best side.”

It was the self-satisfied“Ho Ho Ho” drifting down the chimney that really hurt.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Head pillowed on Dean’s chest, Claire half woke to a sudden metaphysical prod. Still wrapped in a warm cocoon of exhaustion and fulfillment, slightly smug from having lived up to the expectations of all parties involved, she shunted it off into the barricade she’d set up years before when Diana had decided privacy was a relative term and then went back to sleep.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Every year, at the moment Christmas Eve became Christmas Day, a miracle was said to occur—animals were given a chance to speak.

In a cream-colored bungalow just outside Sandusky, Ohio, a small gray tabby with a white tip on her tail woke, stretched, and walked up the length of the body under the covers until she could poke a paw into a half-opened mouth.

Midnight. And the miracle.

“Hey. Wake up and feed me.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Father Nicholas Harris stood in the open doorway of St. Patrick’s, shaking hands and wishing his parishioners would just go home. He loved celebrating the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve—it was one of the few masses in the year where the verb celebrate actually seemed to apply—but he’d been up early after a late night, and he was so tired he actually thought he’d seen the silhouettes of flying reindeer and a heavily laden sleigh cross the high arc of the window over the door during the second soloist’s somewhat shrill but enthusiastic rendition of “The Holly and the Ivy.”

“Father Nick, I’d like you to meet my sister Doris and her family.…”

He smiled, shook hands with a dozen strangers, declined his fourth invitation to Christmas dinner, and tried not to think of what the open door and the December night were doing to his heating bill. Finally, the end was in sight, only two more hands to shake.

“Father…”

One of Frank Giorno’s hands enclosed his in an unbreakable grip while the other grabbed a bit of jacket and dragged a young man forward.

“…this punk who showed up naked in my daughter’s bedroom believes he’s an angel, so I brought him to you.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

He didn’t know why he was in a small book-lined room, but since no one was yelling at him, or shaking him, or hitting him, things were looking up. Adjusting bits he wasn’t used to having pressure on, he studied the man behind the desk, recognized him as another servant of the light, and hoped that Lena’s father had been right during all the shouting and that this was where he was supposed to be.

Trying not to fidget under the searchlight intensity of his unwanted guest’s gaze, Father Harris shuffled a few irrelevant papers around and wondered irritably why Frank Giorno hadn’t just called the police. He had to be in denial about finding the young man in his daughter’s room. Granted the boy deserved points for originality in a bad situation, but what angel ever had bleached blond tips on short dark brown hair? Or managed to slouch in such a convincingly adolescent way? Or looked quite so confused? The boy’s eyes were…

…were…

Gold flecks in velvet brown brightened, merged, and became a window into…

…into…

Father Harris rubbed at his own eyes. He was far too tired to do any kind of counseling when he was not only seeing things but smelling grilled cheese sandwiches—his favorite food. Far, far too tired to wait for a stubborn teenager to speak first. “What’s your name, son?”

Name? Did he have a name? Everything had been named in the beginning so it was entirely possible. He started from the top, hoping something would sound familiar. There were only 301,655,722 angels after all, he’d have to reach it eventually.

“Son, your name?”

Startled, he grabbed one at random.“Samuel?”

“Are you asking?”

“No.” It had become his name. Whether it had been his name before was immaterial—he hoped.

“Samuel what?”

Was there more? He didn’t think so. “Just Samuel.”

Father Nicholas sighed. At this rate they’d still be sitting in his office on New Year’s. “What are you on, Samuel?”

That was easier. He glanced down.“Laminate.” When the priest made an unhappy face, he took a closer look. “Laminate flooring, in medium oak, three ninety-nine a square foot, twenty-year warranty.”

“No…”

“No?”

Something in the young man’s expression insisted that the question be answered, as asked. “Well, yes. How did you know?”

He shrugged matter-of-factly.“I have higher knowledge.” It was in the original specifications; higher knowledge, mobility, great hair, and he was supposed to have brought a message, although he didn’t actually know what the message was. Lena Giorno’s shaping had been a little vague about everything except the great hair. That, she’d been quite definite about.

“Higher knowledge about flooring?”

“Yes.” He waited for the priest to ask about other topics, but Father Harris only sighed again and ran a hand back through his hair.

“Okay, Samuel. Let’s start over. What did you take?”

He straightened, appalled at the question.“Nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I swear to…you know.” One finger pointed toward the ceiling. “These clothes were given to me.” He glanced down at the front of his sweatshirt then back up again. “I don’t even know who Regis Philbin is.”

“Well, you’re probably the only person in North America who doesn’t,” the priest muttered. Then, raising his voice, he added, “Why were you in Lena Giorno’s bedroom?”

“She called me.”

“On the phone?”

“On a candle.”

“She called you on a candle?”

“Yes.”

Knowing Lena as he did, Father Harris took a shot in the dark.“An angel candle?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re an angel?”

“Yes.”

Feeling as if he’d just won a game of twenty questions, Father Nicholas sank back in his chair. “You’re an angel because Lena wanted you to be an angel?”

Samuel nodded, happy that someone finally understood.“Yes. But her father expected me to be something else, so…” He spread his hands and looked down the length of his body. “…things got confused.”

“I’m sure they did.”

“I have genitalia, and I don’t know what to do with it. Them.”

“Genitalia?”

“You know, a…”

A hurriedly raised hand cut off the details.“I know.”

“It’s making everything…strange.”

Now that was a complaint the priest had heard before. While he’d never heard it put quite that way, a good ninety-nine percent of the teenage counseling he did involved raging hormones. It felt so good to be back on familiar ground, he thought he might as well start off with a few stock platitudes. “If you want to maintain your self-respect, it’s important to fight the temptations of the flesh.”

“Okay. But what do I do with them during the battle?”

And the familiar ground shifted. More tired than he could ever remember being, Father Harris rubbed at his temples and muttered,“Try tucking left.”

Fabric rustled.

Fine. I surrender. I don’t know what he’s on, but I’m going to let him sleep it off. In the morning, when we’re both coherent, I’ll find out just who he is and what I should do with him.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Next morning…

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Merry Christmas, Dean.” Hurrying across the living room to take his free hand in hers, Martha Hansen reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

“Mrs. Hansen…”

“Martha. We’re glad you could join us.”

Holding his other hand, Claire smiled up at him.“Told you.”

“You told him what, Claire?”

She switched the smile to her mother.“That he had no reason to be nervous.”

“It wasn’t your mother…” Dean began in a low voice, but Claire cut him off before he could finish, adjusting her grip to drag him across the room.

“Dad? This is Dean.”

John Hansen balanced his mug on the arm of the sofa, stood, and shook Dean’s hand. “I’m pleased to finally meet you, son. The rest of the family has had only good things to say.”

“Not quite true.I told you I thought he had a lot of nerve telling me how to behave and that, even though he may be woogie, I couldn’t see what Claire saw in him. OW!” Diana glared across the room at her sister.

“Context, dear,” her mother admonished. “You’d almost got him sacrificed. And, Claire, you know better than to use the possibilities like that.”

“Which is why I threw a hazelnut.”

“I apologize; your aim is improving.”

“What about me?” Diana demanded, dropping down on the floor by the Christmas tree.

“You should also apologize. Dean’s a guest in this house, and you’re being deliberately provoking.”

All three women turned to look at Dean, whose ears darkened from scarlet to crimson.“That’s okay. It’s…uh…I mean…”

“Dean?”

He turned toward Claire’s father wearing the same desperately hopeful expression as a Buffalo Bills fan during NFL playoffs. “Yes, sir?”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on, the pot’s in the kitchen. We’ll go get some for everyone.” Detaching Claire’s hand from Dean’s arm, he drew the younger man out of the living room, saying, “I have this sudden urge to build a workshop. You’ve got no idea how great it is to have a little more testosterone in this house.”

“Like some of us had a choice about that,” Austin snorted from the top of the recliner as they passed.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Dean had been a little unsure of what to expect when he walked into the Hansens’ living room with Claire that morning. After all, everyone in the room would know exactly how they’d spent the night. He didn’t regret any of it—although his memory of times five and six had grown a little hazy—and he felt as though things were now back on track, that he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing with his life.

But he could see how things might be awkward.

It didn’t help that both Claire’s parents were Cousins, less powerful than Keepers but still among those who helped keep the metaphysical balance. Dean had learned from experience how painful an unbalanced metaphysical could be.

He was fairly certain Mrs. Hansen had liked him when they’d met back at the guesthouse, but Mr. Hansen was a total unknown. Following the older man into the kitchen, he searched for the right thing to say. Found himself saying, “I really love your daughter, sir.”

“John.”

“Sorry?”

“If you’re going to be a part of Claire’s life, and all signs seem to indicate you are, you might as well call me John.”

“Yes, sir. John. Signs?”

“You know…” He set down the coffeepot and waved his hands around in the universal symbol for spookiness. “…signs: bright lights in the sky, heart-shaped frost patterns on the windows, K-Tel’s love songs of the ’70s mysteriously cued up on the CD player.”

“I see.”

“Really?”

“No, sir. But I know how I feel and I know how Claire feels, and that’s what matters.”

Claire looked more like her father than her mother, Dean realized as the older man’s mouth curled into a familiar smile and he clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Give me a minute to finish up here, and we’ll get back to the ladies.”

“Women,” corrected a bit of empty air over the sink.

John raised a hand and there was a muffled,“Ow!” from the other room. “And don’t ever expect any privacy,” he sighed.

“No, sir.”

Glancing around the kitchen, Dean noted the juvenile artwork framed and hung in the breakfast nook, the souvenir tea towel stamped with the ubiquitousMy daughter closed a hole to Hell and all I got was this lousy tea towel, the simmering pot of giblets, the mess.…His eyes narrowed. The early morning stuffing of the turkey had left bread crumbs and less easily identifiable debris scattered along six feet of counter. It looked as though the turkey had put up a fight. And very nearly won. He picked up the dishcloth without thinking and by the time the tray of coffee was ready, the counter was spotless.

As John handed Dean the tray, he nodded approvingly.“If you ever stop loving Claire, feel free to keep coming around.”

“With a little scouring powder, I could get those stains out of the sink.”

“Later, son.”

Back in the living room, Dean had barely handed the tray in turn to Martha when Claire stuffed a large, lumpy, striped sock into his hands. It took him a moment to realize what it was.“There’s a stocking for me?”

“Hey, the big guy doesn’t make mistakes.” Diana smashed a chocolate orange apart against the side of the fireplace. “Five people in the house, five filled stockings.”

“The big guy?”

“Santa. St. Nick. Father Christmas.”

“Is real…” And then he remembered the sound of Hell arguing with itself. “…ly efficient.”

Claire patted his arm as he sat.“Nice recovery.”

“Thank you.”

A couple of hours later, after the stockings were emptied and presents had been unwrapped and exclaimed over and rather too much chocolate had been eaten for the time of day, Claire took a long swallow of lukewarm coffee and sank back against Dean’s arm. “This has been the best Christmas ever. It’s been…” She cocked her head and frowned. “…quiet.”

Diana looked up, started to protest, paused, and nodded.“Too quiet,” she agreed.

Austin dove under the couch.

“Do you feel any kind of a Summons at all?”

“No. You?”

“No. Not since last night. I felt the prod and…Of the Summons, you deviant!”

Diana raised both hands.“Hey. Didn’t say anything.”

“Isaw your face.”

“We’ll deal with Diana’s face later, Claire,” their mother sighed. “Right now, what happened last night?”

Claire chewed her lower lip, trying to remember.“It woke me and I…oh, no. I shunted it into the privacy barrier. It must still be there.”

Martha Hansen shook her head.“Claire, I realize you were a little preoccupied last night, but that was very irresponsible of you. Release it at once.” As Claire reached into the possibilities, she added a worried, “Let’s just hope it wasn’t urgen…”

Every light on the Christmas tree exploded, and as brightly colored shrapnel ricocheted off hastily erected shields, the angel on the top of the tree broke into a loud chorus of“Day Dream Believer.”

“That,” Austin observed from under the couch, “doesn’t sound good.”

FIVE

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

“CLAIRE!”

It was a voice that required a response regardless of circumstances. A voice that could be heard across a crowded shopping mall, that could blow past headphones, and could cut right through indifference. Had Hannibal used it on his elephants, he’d have not only made it across the Alps and conquered Rome but he’d have done it with clean dishes and folded laundry.

Claire recognized it in spite of the Summons careening around inside her skull like roller derby on fast forward.“Mom?”

“Uncross your eyes, dear. You don’t want your face to freeze like that.”

After a long moment, Claire figured out just where her eyes were attached to her face, and a moment after that she got them working again as a set. Gradually, the multiple images of her mother merged and nodded approvingly.

Worry lines pleating his forehead, Dean leaned into her line of sight.“Claire, are you okay?”

“I…I can’t feel my fingers.”

“Sorry.” He loosened his grip. “What happened?”

Shaking the circulation back into her hand, she sat up.“It was a Summons.Is a Summons.”

“Do Summonses usually…?” His gesture took in the fine patina of broken glass that covered the carpet three feet out from the Christmas tree creating a perfect reproduction of “The Last Supper” with the Teletubbies replacing four of the Apostles.

“No.”

“Thought not.”

Tinky Winky appeared to be arguing with St. James.

Gripping Claire’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, Martha turned her daughter’s face up into the light. “Your pupils are dilated, and your pulse is racing.”

“Mom, I’m fine. The Summons has blown off its stored energy and is settling down to same old same old. Give me a minute or two and I’ll have totally recovered.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Straightening, she folded her arms and frowned. “What were you thinking? How could you have trapped a Summons in a privacy barrier!”

“How could she?” John repeated thoughtfully before his elder daughter could muster a defense. “That’s a good question. It shouldn’t have been possible, not even for Claire.”

Martha turned to face her husband, brows lifting as she reconsidered all the implications.“Do you think the resolution of the situation with Dean has actually added to her power?”

“It’s possible. I’d like to run some tests.”

“But it could have just been the timing. I doubt that she deliberately tapped into the sexual energies.”

“True, and an accidental surge would be harder to reproduce under measurable conditions, but…”

“Excuse me?”

Both Cousins turned.

Claire was on her feet, arms folded.“No one is running any tests.”

“But…”

“No, Dad; I have a Summons to answer. And I only knocked it aside because it felt like Diana.”

All heads turned.

Diana pulled a candy cane out of her mouth and shrugged.“I don’t know what she’s talking about. I had better things to do last night than…wait a minute. Santa!”

Her father sighed.“Diana, are you suggesting that Santa was spying on Claire and Dean?”

“No!” And then less emphatically. “Although there is that whole sees you when you’re sleeping, sees you when you’re awake schtick, which I strongly suspect is not entirely legal.”

“Diana.”

“And he does know,” she added, “if you’ve been naughty or nice. Or specifically in this case, if Claire’s been naughty or nice.”

“Diana!”

“Okay. Something hit my shields just as Santa showed up. I figured it for his annual distraction and flipped it…”

“To me.” Claire nodded. It was all beginning to make sense. “When I felt your touch, I leapt to an understandable conclusion…”

“Hey!”

“…and trapped it in the barrier.”

“So!” Diana bounced to her feet. “This is really my Summons.”

“Are you feeling it now?”

“What difference does that make? It hit me first.”

“Perhaps…”

“Perhaps?”

Claire ignored her protest.“…but it hit me last and besides, from the intensity of the thing we’re practically on top of the site. I can run out, close the hole, and be home before the turkey comes out of the oven.”

“And don’t you think highly of yourself,” Diana snorted. “You think because you can find it, you can close it. You’ve forgotten what it’s like around here.”

“I’ve forgotten more than you know.” Claire tossed a superior smile across the room.

Diana tossed it back.

When the smoke cleared, Martha had her right hand clamped on Claire’s left shoulder and her left on Diana’s right. “Both of you answer it.”

“But…”

“No buts. While I’m willing to regard your childish behavior as an inevitable result of the amount of sugar ingested this morning, I am not willing to see it continue. You are both far too old for this.”

“But…”

“What did I say about buts?” She turned them toward the door. “Claire, try to make it a learning experience for your sister. Diana, try to learn something. Dean, I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to drive them. As long as you’re here, I suspect no other transportation will make itself available.”

Trying to hide a smile, Dean murmured an agreement.

“Austin, are you going or staying?”

A black-and-white head poked out from under the front of the couch and raked a green-gold gaze over the tableau in the doorway.“Let me see, stuffed into the cold cab of an ancient truck with tag teams of young love and sibling rivalry or lying around a warm kitchen on the off chance that someone will take pity on a starving cat and give him a piece of turkey. Gee, tough choice.”

“You’re not starving,” Claire told him, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not stupid either. Have a nice time.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Diana, stop shoving.”

“Oh, yeah, like you care. You’re practically on his lap. Moving that stick shift ought to be interesting.”

Thankful that he’d taken the time to back in—reverse would have approached contributing to the delinquency of a minor—Dean slid the truck into gear, eased forward, and jerked to a stop at the end of the driveway.

A lime-green hatchback roared past, the driver’s gaze turned toward the Hansens’ house, whites showing all around the edges of his eyes.

Diana waved jauntily.

“Diana!” Claire reached into the possibilities just in time to keep the small car from going into the ditch as it disappeared around a curve on two wheels. “You know how nervous Mr. Odbeck is, why did you do that?”

“Couldn’t resist.”

“Try harder. We need to go left, Dean.”

“I don’t know about nervous,” Dean observed as he pulled out, “but he was driving way too fast for the road condition, and he wasn’t watching where he was going.”

“That’s because Diana keeps things interesting around here.”

“Interesting how?”

“Strange lights, weird noises, walking trees, geothermal explosions.”

“Hey, that geothermal thing only happened once,” Diana protested. “And I took care of it almost immediately.”

Almost. Dean considered that as he brought the truck up to the speed limit and had a pretty fair idea of why Mr. Odbeck was so nervous.“Is that what you meant when you told Claire she’s forgotten what it’s like around here?”

“It’s not her,” Claire told him, “it’s the area.”

“He asked me.”

“Sorry. Turn right at that crossroads up ahead.”

“The area?” he prompted, gearing down for the turn and trying unsuccessfully not to think about the warm thigh he couldn’t avoid rubbing.

“Is he blushing? Ow!” Diana rubbed her side and shifted until she was up as tight against the passenger side door as she could go. “Mom’s right, you’re too skinny. That elbow’s like a…a…”

“Hockey stick?”

“The area,” Claire said pointedly—Dean realized a little too late that was not a blank he should have helped fill—“is covered by a really thin bit of barrier.”

“The fabric of reality is T-shirt material where it should be rubberized canvas. Your mother told me that back in Kingston,” he added when the silence insisted he continue. “She told me that’s why they’re here, her and your father, because stuff seeps.”

Diana snickered as she exhaled on the window and began drawing a pattern in the condensation.“Jeez, Claire, and I thoughtyour explanations were lame.”

“At least I haven’t turned the McConnells’ fence posts into giant candy canes.”

“Oops.” She erased the pattern with her sleeve and reached into the possibilities.

Claire squinted into the rearview mirror.“Now they’re dancing.”

“It’s not my fault! It’s Christmas. There’s so much peace and joy around it’s messing everything up!” This time when she reached, she twisted. “There, those are fence posts.”

“Definitively,” Claire agreed. “You do know you’ve anchored them in the barysphere?”

“At least they’re not dancing.”

“Yes, but…”

“Why don’t you finish telling Dean why closing this site may not be a piece of fruitcake. Not literally fruitcake,” she amended, catching sight of Dean’s profile. “Although fruitcakes have punched holes through to the dark side in the past.”

“You’re not helping,” Dean pointed out, and turned left following Claire’s silent direction. “There’s a hole in the T-shirt fabric…”

“…and because the fabric’s so thin you can’t just pinch the edges together nor will it take anything but the most delicate of patches. It can be tricky, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with.”

Driving left-handed, he caught Claire’s fingers and brought them to his lips. “I never doubted you for a moment.”

She smiled and rubbed her cheek against the shoulder of his jacket.“And why’s that?”

“I’ve seen you in action.”

“Oh, barf.” When two pairs of narrowed eyes glanced her way, Diana shrugged. “Austin’s not here. Someone had to say it.”

“True enough.” Claire straightened as Dean murmured an agreement. “Stop there, at the gray brick house.”

As Dean brought the truck to a stop, Diana squinted at the mailbox through a sudden swirl of snow.“Giorno.”

“You know them?”

“I go to school with a Lena Giorno. She’s a year behind me, though. I’ve never been to her house.”

Seat belt unfastened, Claire turned slowly on the seat, feeling the summons pulling at her.“Well, you’re about to.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Mr. Giorno, hi, Merry Christmas. I’m Diana, a friend of Lena’s, and this is my sister Claire.”

Even standing out of the line of fire, Claire could feel the charm Diana was throwing at the glowering man in the doorway. The air between them practically sparkled, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect—the glower never changed, and he remained standing squarely in the doorway as though defending the house against all comers.

“Francis! We can’t afford to heat the whole world! Close the door!” Mrs. Giorno’s shout carried with it the distinct odor of burned turkey.

“Don’t you start!” He turned his head just far enough to bellow his response back over his shoulder. “I’ll close it when I’m good and ready to close it! Lena,” he said, facing the porch again, “is not going out. Maybe when she’s thirty, I’ll let her out, but not until. You kids shut up in there!”

The background shrieking changed pitch.

A little worried about all the head swiveling, Diana cranked it up a notch.“We didn’t want Lena to come out, Mr. Giorno. We were kind of hoping we could come in and see her.”

“I don’t…”

“Please.”

His expression changed so quickly it looked as though his cheeks had melted.“Of course you can come in. Girls like you should not be left standing on the porch unwanted. You’re good, nice girls. Good girls. My Lena’s a good girl.” He sniffed lugubriously and rubbed the palm of one hand over his eyes. “You come in.” The now damp hand gestured expansively as he moved out of the way. “You come in, you talk to my girl, and you find out why she should break her father’s heart. Come.” He squeezed Diana’s shoulder as she passed and beckoned to Claire. “Come.”

It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the living room and the debris field had spread through the rest of the house. That it was Christmas Day in a house with three children, two teenagers, a cat, and a pair of neurotic gerbils might have been explanation enough another time, butthis time, neither day nor demographic came close to explaining the level of chaos. The Christmas tree was on its side, half the lights still on, the cat—wearing a smug smile and a half-eaten candy cane stuck to its fur—curled up in the broken branches. Nonfunctioning toys and run-down batteries were scattered throughout, two AAs had been hammered into the drywall of the hall as though someone at the end of their rope had tried every battery inthe economy-sized package and these were the last two and they still didn’t work. The gas molecule racing around turned out to be the five-year-old with a stripe shaved down the center of his head.

“Lena’s downstairs in her room,” her father told them, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and blowing his nose on the bit that wasn’t covered in melted marshmallow Santa. “Go. Talk to her.”

Diana glanced at Claire from the corner of her eye. When Claire nodded, she smiled.“Thank you, Mr. Giorno.”

“No, thankyou.”

As they started down the stairs, he turned away, hand over his face and shoulders shaking.

“I didn’t mean to make him cry,” Diana murmured, as the two Keepers picked a careful path down through the mess.

“You didn’t. The energy seeping from the site is warping the possibilities. Can’t you feel the fine patina of darkness?”

“Yeah, but I figured it was smoke from the turkey. Or maybe the Christmas tree—it seems to be smoldering in spots.” As they stepped down onto the painted concrete floor, she looked expectantly toward her sister. “Well?”

There were two bedrooms and a bathroom to their right. Laundry room, furnace room, and wine-making equipment to their left.

Following the Summons, Claire turned right.

The door to the front bedroom was shut. Claire knocked.

“Go away! Ihate you!”

“Wow.” Diana took half a step back. “She really does hate us.”

“What do you expect? She’s in there with the site. You try,” Claire suggested when her second knock brought no response at all.

“Lena? It’s me, Diana. From the decorating committee, remember?” She jiggled the knob. The door was locked. “Let me in.”

“No!”

It was one of the most definitive“no’s” Diana had ever heard, and she’d heard her fair share. “You sure it’s in there?”

Claire nodded.

“Then it’ll take more than a cheap lock to keep us out.” Diana reached into the possibilities. The door came off in her hand. “Okay.” She staggered back under its weight. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You never do,” Claire sighed, “but that’s not important now. Look.”

“Oh, man, I knew she was into angels, but this is just too much.”

“Not that. Look down.”

The hole had opened just off the corner of Lena’s bed; a dark, ugly, metaphysical blemish on the pale pink carpet.

Lena lifted a blotchy face from her pillow and glared out into the basement.“Put that doorback! I amnot coming out! I don’t carewhat my father says!”

“Look, Lena, you don’t have to come out. We’re not here to…” Realizing a little late that she wasn’t going to get into the room while holding the door, Diana leaned it against the opposite wall and stepped over the threshold. “We’re here for you.” Skirting the hole, she circled around to the far side of the bed and sat down. “We want to help.”

“Youcan’t help me.”

As she turned her head toward Diana, Claire came into the room, knelt by the hole, and used her fingertip to brush a symbol against the nap of the carpet.

“No one can help me,” Lena continued, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand. “My father took my angel away!”

Wondering how she could tell there was an angel missing given the number remaining in the room, Diana patted her shoulder in a comforting sort of a way.“Well, you’ve got more…”

“No! He was areal angel. He came out of the light last night when I lit my candle! And I don’tcare if you believe me.”

“I believe you. Did your father happen to hit this angel?” Claire asked in such a matter-of-fact tone that Diana swiveled around on the bed to stare at her.

“Yes. He justbarged in like he does, all mad, and when he saw him, he like totally lost it and he hit him and took him away, and I amnever speaking to him again.”

“Where did your father take the angel, Lena?”

“To the priest! I so totallyhate him!”

“The priest or your father?”

“Both of them!”

“Diana.” Bending, Claire traced another symbol, then hurriedly erased it as a bit of the carpet melted. “I think Lena would feel better if she got some sleep.”

“No! I don’twant to…”

Diana adjusted Lena’s head on the pillow, then turned back to her sister. “Are you suggesting that Lena actually got visited by a real angel?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. You heard her: a Bystander can’t lie to a Keeper.”

“But they can lie to themselves. Lena once honestly believed she saw an image of Leonardo DiCaprio in a bowl of butterscotch pudding, throwing the female half of the ninth grade into hysterics for the remainder of lunch.”

“Really?”

Diana nodded.“It wasn’t pretty.”

“Well, this time she isn’t lying to anyone, herself or us.” Claire sat back on her heels and waved a hand around the room. “There’s distinct residue under the darkness. It’s obvious once you know to check for it.”

“Oh, yeah. Obvious angel residue. That’s something you don’t hear everyday.”

“Diana, this is serious.”

“Okay, I’m being serious.” Picking up the Backstreet Boys mug, she made a face and put it down again. “Question is, why would an angel appear to Lena? Obsession isn’t enough to open the possibilities that wide. You think it was sent with a message?”

“Can’t have or it would have vanished once the message was delivered, and she said that her father took it away.”

“Maybe it got taken away before the message got delivered.”

“No, it would never have allowed that to happen. A message from the light gets delivered, regardless. An angry father would’ve stood about as much chance facing down a determined angel as he would have facing down a runaway transport with pretty much the same result. Here’s a better question:how could the possibilities have opened that wide without me noticing?”

“That’s easy. If they opened last night, you were busy.” Eyes narrowed, Diana grinned suddenly. “Are you blushing?”

“No.” Claire didn’t even try to make the denial sound convincing. Given the heat of her cheeks, there didn’t seem to be much point. “So why didn’t you notice?”

“Beats me. Must’ve gotten lost in that whole peace-and-joy stuff. You know what it’s like around this time of the year.”

“True enough.”

“And since it was from the upper end of things, it’s not really our problem anyway.”

“True again.” She traced a third symbol, and the noise level upstairs began to fall off. “That’s put a temporary cover over the site, but I’m going to need details to actually seal it.”

“Like?”

“Like why would a basically decent man take a swing at a messenger of the light.”

“Is that what opened the hole?”

“Diana, Mr. Giorno punched an angel; what do you think?”

“Just checking.” Leaning forward, Diana brushed a bit of thick, dark hair back off of Lena’s face and softly called her name. “Don’t wake up,” she instructed when the sleeping girl began to stir, “just tell me, without getting angry, why your father hit the angel.”

“He was naked.”

“Your father?” Given the amount of hair curling up through the opening of Mr. Giorno’s collar and right down to his knuckles, that was an image Diana quickly banished.

“Not my father. The angel.”

“The angel was naked?”

“Uh-huh.” She smiled slightly. “I saw his thing.”

“Lena, angels don’t have things.”

“I knowthat.” Even asleep she managed the emphasis. “But he did. I think…” Her brow furrowed. “I think my father gave it to him. It was big.”

“And your basis of comparison would be?”

“Diana!”

Without turning, she flapped a hand at her sister to shut off further protests.“You can get back to me later on that, Lena. Right now, you drift off again and I’ll call you if I need you.”

“O…” A long sigh. “…kay.”

After checking to see that she’d gone deep again, Diana stood and spread her arms triumphantly, modifying the gesture somewhat to catch the cherub she’d knocked off a shelf. “Ta dah. Her father burst into her room as Lena’s obsession was manifesting a naked angel, jumped to the fatherly conclusion, and slugged the guy.”

Claire rolled her eyes and added a little more power as the cover shifted.“Only a teenager would manifest a naked angel.”

“Get over it. You manifested a naked Dean all last night.”

“That’s not the…”

“And ignored a Summons—this Summons—while you were doing it. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done the same thing under similar circumstances. All I’m saying is that you have no cause to be pointing the finger at someone else’s hormones.”

After a long moment, during which several high-pitched voices could be heard insisting that they hadn’t touched the gravy and they didn’t know what was floating in it, Claire sighed. “Okay. You have a point. And since he might have had clothing had things not been interrupted and since her father seems to have added the…uh…thing…”

Diana snorted.“You know, Claire, if you’re playing with one, you really should be able to name it.”

This was more than Claire could take from a sister ten years younger.“Good,” she snapped, “because I was thinking of calling it Floyd!” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth and snapped her teeth closed just a little too late to catch them. From the way Diana’s eyes lit up, she knew she’d be paying for that comment for the rest of her natural life. And possibly longer. “Let’s just get back to work,” she suggested sharply, her tone a preemptive strike. “I’ll seal this. You clear the hatred out of your friend.”

“Sure.”

“Diana…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

“That wasn’t…” When Diana lifted an eyebrow in exact mimicry of Claire’s best sardonic expression, Claire had to laugh, in spite of what would be inevitable later. “…what I meant, as you very well knew.”

“Yeah. But I’ll still be careful.” She sat back down on the edge of the bed and gently turned Lena’s face toward her. “Although the urge to do something about her decorating is extreme.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“…but did you ever stop to think that perhaps they didn’t want quite so many chestnuts in the stuffing?” Claire asked as they picked their way up the icy front path to the truck.

Diana shrugged.“Beats what was in there before I fixed it. Andthat, by the way, is why you should never keep the litter box in the kitchen.”

Things were back to normal in the Giorno household. Tree and dinner had been restored, gifts repaired, the cat appeased, and family tensions resolved. The site it had involved considerably more cleanup than a Keeper would normally perform, but—as Diana pointed out just before the cat knocked the tree over again with no help at all from the dark possibilities—itwas Christmas.

Dean jerked awake when Claire opened the passenger door.“Everything fixed, then?”

“Everything we could fix,” she acknowledged as she kicked the snow off her boots and slid over beside him. “Sorry it took so long.”

“That’s all right. Your thing kept the truck warm.”

“Her thing?” Diana snickered, climbing in. “Got a name for it?”

“Ignore her,” Claire advised, hoping Dean would assume her ears were red from the cold.

From the look in his eyes, he didn’t.

He glanced at Diana, then back at her, but only said,“Where to now?”

“Back to pick up our stuff and then south, we’ve got another Summons.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Another Summons?” Martha Hansen set the roasting pan on the stove top and lifted an indignant Austin down off the counter before she turned to face her daughters. “Do you think it concerns the angel?”

“Unlikely. Mr. Giorno took him to Father Harris over at St. Patrick’s, so that should be the last we see of him.”

“Him?”

Claire shot a look at Diana, saw she had a mouthful of dill pickle, and reluctantly continued.“Apparently, he somehow acquired gender during the manifestation.”

“Gender?”

Diana swallowed and snickered.“Means just what you think, Mom.”

“Oh, the poor boy! He must be so confused.”

“Confused? Surprised maybe,” Diana allowed, perching on the corner of the kitchen table and tossing a hot roll from hand to hand. “But it’s not like they’re that difficult to operate. It’s pretty much point and click.” She glanced around the suddenly silent kitchen. “You know, metaphorically speaking. Okay,” she sighed, “they don’t actually click, but you’ve got to admit they point.” Catching her parents exchanging a meaningful look over the mashed potatoes, she tossed the roll to Dean and spread her hands. “What?”

“We’ll talk later,” Martha said tightly. “Right now,” she turned to Claire and gathered her into her arms, “you’d better get going.”

Austin’s head snapped up from where he was investigating a bit of spilled grease. “Excuse me? I have been waiting five hours for that bird to come out of the oven; that Summons can just wait for twenty more minutes.”

“We don’t know how long it’s been waiting already,” Claire reminded him as she crossed the kitchen to hug her father. “Things got a little stacked up, remember?”

“So I should suffer?”

Martha bent and stroked his head.“Don’t worry, I’ll pack up a box of food while Claire and Dean are getting their things together.”

“You know that this is your second Summons this morning,” Diana complained, sliding to her feet as Claire stopped in front of her. “You’ve had two today and I’ve had none. How unfair is that?”

“You’re not on active duty yet.”

“But I’m on vacation. And I’m so available.”

“And if something opens up that’s serious enough to need you, you’ll be Summoned. Just like you were when I needed you in Kingston.” Reaching out, Claire touched her sister on the cheek. “Everything’ll change once school’s over in June. I know it’s hard when there’s so many more important things you feel you should be doing, but you’ll get through it. I did.”

“Don’t patronize me.” The answering shove rocked Claire on her feet. “And don’t forget your presents. And be careful. And let Dean help. Really help, not just hang around and pick up after you.”

“I will.”

“I doubt it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good enough.” She stepped back. “Well; go.”

About to turn for the door, Dean found himself pulled into a motherly embrace. He hesitated for a moment, then he returned it and was curiously reluctant to let go when Martha pulled away. Although his mother had died when he was a baby, he’d always felt her love in his life. He’d had no memory of ever feeling her arms, though. Until now.

As though she could sense his reluctance, Martha reached up and touched his cheek.“I’m very glad that you and Claire have found each other, Dean McIssac. You’re a good man; strong, steady…”

“Mom,” Diana interrupted, sitting back on the edge of the table and picking up another roll, “Claire’s trying to answer a Summons. This isn’t the time to write Dean’s eulogy.”

He shot a questioning glance at the younger Keeper.“Eulogy?”

“You’ll be fine.” Martha patted his arm.

“I know.” He shifted his weight. “I just wondered what eulogy meant.”

“Obituary.”

“Oh.”

She patted his arm again.“You’ll be fine.”

“Sure.”

“As long as he’s ready for what he’s dealing with,” John Hansen reflected, putting down the carving knife and wiping his fingers on a dish towel.

One hand still outstretched and hovering over Dean’s sleeve, Martha turned toward her husband. “Won’t it be what he’sbeen dealing with?”

“That’s not a certainty. Thing’s have changed between them. Probably for the better, but he’ll be in some unusual positions for a Bystander.”

Dean’s ears were suddenly so hot he was afraid they’d ignited. Unusual positions? How had Claire’s father found out about…then he realized he’d misunderstood.

“Well, they’re not going to run into anything he can’t handle,” Martha declared. “I can’t imagine anything worse than what he’s already faced in the Elysian Fields Guest House.”

“I can.”

“Austin, be quiet.” Claire bent, scooped up the cat, and handed him to Dean.

“Hey! Support the back legs!” Hooking his front claws into a flannel collar, Austin heaved himself into a more comfortable position as Dean adjusted his grip. “I’m old. I don’t dangle.”

“Sorry.”

“Dangling! Honestly.”

Claire smoothed the ridge of fur along his spine.“Let it go, Austin.”

“He was holding a roll. I have crumbs in my tail.”

“I’ll brush them out as soon as we’re on the road.” She hooked two fingers in behind the faded blue of Dean’s waistband and tugged him toward the door. “Say goodbye, Dean.”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

At least he made the cat laugh.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

It isn’t fair. Diana ran the vacuum at the bits of broken glass and felt a sulky satisfaction as Laa Laa and Saint Matthew disappeared.I should be out changing the world like Claire—not going to stupid school. Stupid, useless waste of time. A swath of clean carpet appeared, bisecting Jesus and Po.I’m so tired of Claire getting to do everything first. Got to get her ears pierced first, got to graduate from high school first, got to travel to a tropical island and narrowly avoid having the entire place follow Atlantis to the bottom first.No, wait, that was me. And in the end, the whole thing had been nothing more than a damp misunderstanding.

The head of the vacuum cleaner was too broad to reach the last few pieces of glass. Realizing that she needed an attachment, Diana bounced it impotently against the hearth instead.My life sucks. Claire gets a Summons. Lena gets an angel. What do I get? A bunch of burst lights.

And let’s not forget Claire also gets Dean. And Floyd. Snickering to herself, she started on Dipsy and St. Peter.A memorable Christmas Eve for all three of them. Which may not be what I want from life, it’s just…

…just…

Something lingered at the edge of memory, almost but not quite dredged up by her train of thought. Absently running the vacuum over the same bit of carpet, she started working back.

Christmas Eve.

Claire gets Dean.

Burst lights.

Lena gets angel.

She stepped on the switch and shut the vacuum off and could just barely hear Dean’s truck starting up over the sudden pounding of her heart.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Her mother hurried into the front hall as she yanked open the door.“If you’re going out to the truck, take this with you.”

The smell of turkey rising from the box made questions about contents redundant. She snatched it up without breaking stride.

“Diana, your boots!”

“No time! I’ve got to catch Claire before she leaves.” As Claire would say, Keepers didn’t keep vital information from other Keepers. Which was not to say that Diana ever actually listened to what Claire said or had any intention of telling her what had actually happened to thatBest of John Denver CD. Box tucked under one arm, she sprinted forward.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Yes!” Austin jumped up onto the top of the seat where he had an unimpeded view through the back window. “Here comes the food!”

Claire twisted around until she could see Diana racing down the front path.“How can you tell what she’s carrying from here?”

“I’m a cat.”

A vein began throbbing on Claire’s forehead. “Why do I even ask?”

Wondering that himself, Dean rolled down the window as Diana hit an icy patch and slid to a sudden impact against his door.

“I know where the angel came from,” she announced before anyone in the truck could speak. “I was right, Lena’s obsessions didn’t open the possibilities, and I was also right about you being distracted.”

“What are you talking about?”

Diana grinned, passed the box to Dean, and poked the forefinger on her right hand through a circle made by the thumb and forefinger on her left.“You opened the hole and Lena’s desire to see an angel was strong enough to define what came through.”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “Even if we did open the possibilities…”

“You did.”

She looked down at the cat.“Excuse me?”

“Way open. Way, way open.” He scratched his shoulder. “It was pretty impressive actually.”

“So much for all those safe sex lectures, eh?”

“Get stuffed. And stop making that disgusting gesture. It wasn’t like that.”

“Was it like this?” Diana barely had time to change the position of her fingers before Dean reached out and enclosed both her hands in one of his.

“No,” he said quietly, ears scarlet. “It wasn’t like that either.”

Suddenly feeling both embarrassed and mean and not much liking the feeling, Diana pulled free. Teasing Dean was somehow not the same as teasing Claire.But I’m not apologizing. I mean, if he can’t take a joke…“Look, I saw it, too, what Austin saw, but I never connected it with Lena because that kind of thing always dissipates after, giving everyone in the immediate area a happy.”

“It should have dissipated,” Claire agreed. Her eyes narrowed as she read her sister’s body language. “Why didn’t it?”

“My bad. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Okay, jeez. Totally. I made this decoration for the school’s Christmas dance that would gather up all the good feelings and spit them back out intensified to make more good feelings, and I think I made the attraction too strong…”

“Quel surprise,” Austin muttered.

“…and it pulled in the light, giving it sort of a proto-form that kept it together until it got to Lena.”

“Where it became an angel.” Claire sighed. “Well, it could have been worse. He probably returned to the light as soon as his head cleared from that punch.”

“You think?”

“All the background information we have suggests angels can come and go through the barrier as they please. If you were him and you’d had the welcome he’d had, wouldn’t you go back where you came from? Now, as nice as it is to have those questions answered,” she continued when Diana nodded, “the hole created by reaction to the angel’s appearance has been sealed, and I’ve got other work to do.”

“But…”

“Merry Christmas, and I’ll try to stay in touch.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“We really made an angel, then?” Dean asked as he turned out onto the road.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Seems a little…”

“Light on the sausage stuffing.” Austin lifted his head out of the box, his eye gleaming indignantly. “there’s barely enough here for two people, let alone three.”

“First of all, you’re not a people, you’re a cat.” Sliding one hand under his chest, Claire lifted him onto her lap. “Second, if you’ve stuck your litter-poo paw in the sweet potatoes, Iwill hurt you. Third…” She stroked a finger down the back of Dean’s thigh. “…I think we could’ve made an angel without Diana’s or Lena’s help.”

It took him a moment, then he grinned, caught up her hand, and brought it to his lips.“Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you two planning on continuing this sort of behavior?” Austin demanded from Claire’s lap. “Because I’m old, you know, and I don’t think my insulin levels are up to it.”

Claire pulled her hand away from Dean’s mouth and smoothed down a lifted line of fur. “Someone’s jealous.”

“Of him?” The cat snorted and dropped his head down on his paws. “Oh, please.”

“You sure?”

“Cats don’t get jealous.”

“Really?”

“They get even.”

“Austin.”

“I’m kidding.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Diana stood in the driveway until Dean’s truck disappeared from view, and then walked back to the house kicking at clumps of snow.

…as nice as it is to have those questions answered…

Nice.

There were times when she just wanted to take Claire by the ears and shake loose that more-Keeper-than-thou attitude of hers.

She’s always thought the sun shines out of her butt…

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Having carefully negotiated a tight curve, Dean glanced over at Claire and smiled. He loved the way the light shone up and through the chestnut highlights in her hair, how it made her eyes seem dark and mysterious, how it.…Hang on.“Where’s that light coming from?”

Claire sighed.“Just drive.”

SIX

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

ALITTLE OVER AN HOUR after leaving the Hansen house, Dean turned off York Street and stopped the truck in the parking lot of the London bus terminal.“Here, then?”

“Here.”

“Inside?”

“No, over there.” She pointed to a bus parked at the back of the lot, barely visible between the blowing snow and the fading daylight.

Dean put the truck in gear and moved slowly forward. Given the holiday, the terminal hadn’t seen a lot of traffic, so the parking lot, unplowed since morning, lay under a mostly unbroken blanket of snow. About three meters from the bus, he felt the steering wheel jerk in his hand and then begin to spin with that horrible, loose feeling that could only mean all four tires had no traction at all. He fought the skid, thought he had it, lost it again, and shouted, “Brace for impact!” just as the truck stopped with its passenger door a mere two inches from the front fender of the bus.

“Brace for impact?” Austin asked, removing his claws from Claire’s jeans. “Do you even knowhow to swear?”

Heart pounding, Dean shut off the engine.“What good would swearing do?”

“Since you have to ask, probably none at…hey! What did I say earlier about dangling?” he demanded as Claire lifted him off her lap.

“Sorry.” Brow furrowed, she rolled down her window and peered at the bus fender.

“Excuse me! Old cat in a draft!”

“Austin, be quiet. Dean, I’m going to have to get out your side.” She rolled up the window and reached under the cat to undo her seat belt. “We’re so close to the hole, I’m not sure you can safely move the truck. We’ve got a cascade going on here,” she added, sliding across, under the steering wheel, and out into the parking lot. As Dean struggled to hold the door against the wind, she leaned back into the cab. “Are you coming?”

“Is it summer yet?”

An icy wind blew pellets of snow down under her collar.“Not exactly.”

Austin settled down, folding his front paws under his ruff.“Then I’m staying inside.”

“All right. I’ll reset the possibilities to keep you warm.”

“Thank you. Although if you don’t close that door,” he added pointedly, “it won’t make much difference.”

Claire stepped back and nodded to Dean who, in spite of the wind, managed to close the door without slamming it.“You know anyone else would’ve just let it go.”

“I’m not anyone else.”

He had an arm on either side of her, gloved hands braced against the truck, and his smile was, if not suggestive, open to suggestion. Since they’d blocked the hole, effectively rendering it harmless, Claire figured it couldn’t hurt to take a short break. Besides, Austin was locked away behind glass and steel, making it too good an opportunity to miss.

When they pulled apart a moment later, an eight-meter circle of parking lot had been cleared of snow. The asphalt directly underfoot steamed gently.

“Is that going to happen every time?” Dean asked a little shakily, following Claire around to the bus.

“I honestly don’t know.” Her lips felt bruised and all her clothing felt way too tight. “How about we stop for the night once I get this hole closed?”

Dean glanced at his watch.“It’s ten after four.”

“It’s getting dark.”

He looked up at the sky and down at Claire.“I saw a hotel just up the road.”

“So did I.” Dropping to her knees by the bus fender, she pulled off her glove and, holding a finger an inch or so off the chrome, traced a triple gouge in the metal.

“That’s it, then?” Dean asked behind her. “It’s some small.”

“A cascade doesn’t have to be very big. The driver probably clipped a car on the way out of the parking lot—because clipping a moving car would have caused an actual accident—didn’t stop, opened a hole, and flashed nasty possibilities all hither and yon on the bus route, probably causing a number of minor fender benders all day, which kept the hole from closing. Hence, cascade. It’s kind of like if every one of those minor fender benders had picked off the scab.”

Dean winced.“I wasn’t after asking. But how do you know the driver didn’t stop?”

“Driver stops, no hole.” Reaching into the possibilities, she pressed her thumb hard against one end of the first gouge. The metal rippled. The gouge disappeared. Twice more and the hole was closed. “I expect I’ll be closing a few holes this thing inspired,” she said as Dean helped her straighten up. “Sign says London-Toronto but since we’re still in London, it was clearly London-Toronto and back.” Pulling her glove on, she noticed a new glow of adoration in his expression. “What?”

“You’ve never mentioned you do bodywork.”

“I can rustproof, too.”

“You can?”

She grinned up at him.“No, sorry. I just wanted to see your eyes light…Oh!”

“New Summons?”

“No…”

“No?”

“No. It’s something else. Something close.”

“So much for quitting early.” He was disappointed, of course, but the cold had pretty much taken care of the actual incentive.

“No.” Claire started across the parking lot. “Really close.”

When she reached the sidewalk, she paused and turned right.“Whatever it is, it’s inside the bus terminal.”

The door was locked. The sign said,“TERMINAL CLOSES 4PM CHRISTMAS DAY.”

“I guess that’s it until tomorrow, then.” Dean polished a few fingerprints off the glass and turned away. “Look, there’s the hotel.” A little confused, he watched Claire pull off her glove—not the reaction he’d been expecting. “What?”

“I guess this has never come up…” Reaching into the possibilities, she opened the door.

“Claire! That’s breaking and entering!”

“I didn’t break, so it’s just entering.” She grabbed two handfuls of his coat and shoved him inside. “Move. Life is so much easier if we don’t have to explain to Bystanders.”

“But this is illegal!” he protested as the door closed behind them. When she stepped forward without answering, he grabbed her arm. “The mat!”

She jerked back and looked down.“What?”

“Wipe your feet.”

Claire considered a couple of possible responses. Then she wiped her feet.

Half a dozen paces inside the terminal, she dropped down to one knee and pressed the spread fingers of her right hand against the tiles.“This isn’t good.”

“I’d say it’s some disgusting,” Dean growled, kneeling beside her. “How can anyone leave their floors in this condition.”

“Dean…”

“Sorry. I expect you found something else that isn’t good?”

Claire lifted her hand. The pads of her fingers sparkled.“Angel residue.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Merry Christmas. You’ve reached the Hansen residence. No one feels like taking your call, so at the beep…”

“Not now, Diana, we’ve got a problem. I’m at a pay phone in the London bus terminal, and you’ll never guess what I’ve found.”

Phone jammed between ear and shoulder, Diana slid a platter of leftover turkey into the fridge.“Buses?”

“Angel residue.”

“That would’ve been my next guess.”

“Right. It seems like Lena’s visitor hasn’t gone home.”

“Unless he’s taking the bus.” She reached into the possibilities, opened a pocket on the second shelf, and shoved in the cranberry sauce, half a bowl of sweet potatoes, and an old margarine container now full of gravy. “You know, kind of a ’this bus is bound for glory’ thing. Say, how come you’re not using the cell phone you got for Christmas? No long distance charges and the battery’s good until the end of days. When you’re standing at the start of the Apocalypse, you’ll still have enough juice to call 911.”

“And tell them what?”

“I dunno. Run?”

“I’m not using the cell phone because I left it in the truck. And I need you to go talk to Father Harris at St. Pat’s. He’s the last person who we know saw the angel. Maybe he knows where it’s—he’s—headed. I’ve got another Summons on the way out of town, and since I just closed a cascade, I expect to have a whole string of them all the way to Toronto, so I’ll call you once we’re settled for the night.”

“No need. I’ll e-mail anything I find out.” As her sister started to protect, Diana rolled her eyes. “Claire, let’s make an effort to join the twentieth century before we’re too far into the twenty-first, okay? Later.”

Hanging up and heading for her coat and boots, she wondered what it was that made Keepers—herself excluded, of course—so resistant to technology. “Only took them a hundred years to get the hang of the telephone,” she muttered, digging for mittens. “And Austin’s probably more comfortable with it than Claire is.…”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Austin, what are you doing with that phone?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” Claire demanded as she slid back into the truck.

“I mean that there isn’t a Chinese food place in the city that’ll deliver to a parking lot.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

After a last-minute discussion concerning the dishes and how they weren’t being done, Diana walked out to the road, flagged down a conveniently passing neighbor, and got a ride into Lucan. Fifteen minutes later, still vehemently apologizing for the results of the sudden stop, she got out at St. Patrick’s and hurried up the shoveled walk to the priest’s house, staying as far from the yellow brick church as possible. Strange things happened when Keepers went into churches and, in an age when Broadway show tunes coming from the mouths of stained-glass apostles weren’t considered so much miraculous as irritating, Diana felt it was safest not to tempt fate—again.

Strangely, Protestant Churches were safer, although locals still talked about the Friendship United bake sale when four-and-twenty blackbirds were found baked into three different pies. Claire, who’d been fifteen and already an adult to Diana’s five-year-old eyes, had been both horrified and embarrassed, but Diana remembered their mother as being rather philosophical about the whole thing. There were, after all, any number of nursery rhymes that would’ve been worse.Although not for the blackbirds, she reflected, carefully stepping over a large crack in the sidewalk.

There were no synagogues or mosques in the immediate area and by the time she started being Summoned away, she was old enough to understand why she had to keep her distance. The incident at that Shinto shrine had been an unfortunate accident.

Okay, two unfortunate accidents, she amended climbing the steps to the front door.Although I still say if you don’t actually want your prayers answered, you shouldn’t…“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Verner. Is Father Harris in?”

The priest’s housekeeper frowned, as though recognition would be assisted by the knitting of her prominent brows. “Is it important? His Christmas dinner is almost ready.”

“We ate earlier.”

“He didn’t.”

“I only need a few minutes.”

“I don’t think…”

A tweak of the possibilities.

“…that vill be a problem.” The heels of her sensible shoes clicked together. “Come in. Vait in his office, I vill go get him. You haf an emergency. You need his help. How can he sit and do nothing vhen he is needed? I vill pull him from his chair if I must. Pull him from his chair and drag him back here to you.” She didn’t quite salute.

A little too much tweak, Diana reflected as the housekeeper turned on one heel and marched away. She made a slight adjustment before Mrs. Verner decided to invade Poland.

The small, dark-paneled, book-lined office came with a claustrophobic feeling that was equally the fault of its size, the faux gothic decorating, and the number of faded leather-bound books. Diana couldn’t decide if the painting over the desk—a three-legged figure standing on multicolored waves against an almost painfully green background—made the room seem smaller or let in the only light. Or both.

“It’s Saint Patrick banishing the snakes from Ireland,” announced a quiet voice behind her. “It was painted by one of my parishioners.”

“Probably one who donated beacoup de cash to the rebuilding fund,” Diana observed as she turned.

Father Harris took an involuntary step back, the sudden memory of St. Jerome belting out“Everything’s Coming up Roses” propelling his feet. He didn’t know why he was thinking about stained-glass and show tunes, but for a great many reasons he couldn’t maintain a grip on, he was quite certain he needed a drink.

Diana smiled at him reassuringly.“Lena Giorno tells me her father brought an angel to you last night.”

“A young man whothought he was an angel,” the priest corrected. He was fairly certain the girl’s smile was supposed to be reassuring, but it was making him a little nervous.

“You don’t think he’s an angel?”

“I very much doubt an angel would appear in such a way in the bedroom of a teenager girl.”

“You mean naked?”

“That’s hardly a suitable topic for you and me to discuss.” Taking a deep breath, he folded his arms and gave her the best “stern authority figure” glare he could manage under the circumstances. “And now, young lady, if you don’t mind my asking, what is your name and what is your connection to young Samuel?”

Diana’s smile broadened. “Samuel,” she repeated under her breath. “Should’ve known better than to give out his name.” Refocusing on Father Harris—whose expression had slipped closer to “confused elder trying to make sense of the young and failing miserably”—she asked, “Did he stay here last night?”

“Yes, but he was gone this morning. Now, see here young lady…”

“May Iplease see where he slept?”

About to demand that she answer his earlier question concerning who she was and what she wanted, Father Harris found himself stepping back into the foyer and leading the way up the stairs.

The alleged angel had slept in a small room at the end of the hall. It held a single bed, a bedside table, a dresser, and what was probably another picture of Saint Patrick. This one was a poster, stuck to the wall with those little balls of blue sticky stuff that invariably soaked oil through the paper. The elderly saint had only two legs in this picture, was wearing church vestments, and was, once again, banishing snakes.

“I don’t know what you thought you’d find.” The priest folded his arms, determined to make a stand. This was his house and…

A phone rang.

Downstairs.

It continued to ring. And ring.

“Please, don’t mind me,” Diana told him. “I’ll just stay up here a moment longer.”

He was halfway back to his office before he wondered why Mrs. Verner hadn’t answered the phone.

Diana reached into the possibilities as she stepped up to the poster.

The saint blinked twice and focused on her face.“And what’ll it be, then, Keeper?”

“I need some information about the guy who stayed here last night.”

The lines across the saint’s forehead deepened. “Oh, and you haven’t noticed that I’m up to my ankles in snakes here; what is it that makes you think I was paying any attention?”

“Well, I…”

“You wouldn’t be having a beer on you, would you?” A short but powerful kick knocked a snake right out of the picture.

“Why would a saint want a beer?”

“I’m an Irish saint, and you can pardon me for being a stereotype, but I was originally painted five hundred years ago and I’m a wee bit dry. Now, what was your question again?”

“Do you know where the guy who stayed here last night went when he left this morning?”

“The angel?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea. But I’m telling you, Keeper, there was something funny about that boy.” He shook his head in disgust, halo wobbling a bit with the motion. “Who ever heard of a confused angel, eh? In my day, angels had no emotions, they did what they were sent down to do and then they went home. Is this like to be some New Age thing?”

“I don’t know.”

Another snake ventured too close and was punted off to the left.“There’s going to be trouble, you mark my words. An angel without a purpose is like a…a…”

“A religion with no connection to the real world?”

“Who asked you?”

“Did he use the bed?”

“Aye, he laid himself down although I can’t say I know why since he doesn’t have to sleep. Good old-fashioned angels, they didn’t lay down. Have you heard he’s got himself a…” His hand pumped the air by his crotch.…

…which wasn’t a gesture Diana thought she’d ever see a saint make. “I heard.”

“And what’s the idea behind that, I ask you? You listen to me, Keeper; angels today, they have no…”

Figuring she couldn’t really be rude to a metaphysical construct, Diana cut him off in mid rant. It looked like he was winding up for another kick, and she was starting to feel a little sorry for the snakes.

The hand of Mrs. Verner was apparent in the precision of the bed making—sheets and blankets tucked so tightly in they disdained a mere bouncing of quarters and were ready instead to host a touring company ofRiverdance. Not expecting much, Diana checked for anything that might have been left behind—it was, after all, a day when miracles had already happened. Skimming the surface with her palm, she drew a two-toned hair from under the edge of the pillow but nothing else.

“Have you finished?”

The hair went into her pocket as she turned toward the priest.“Yes. Thank you. He didn’t tell you where he was heading?”

“He didn’t tell me he was going to leave,” Father Harris answered shortly. At the bottom of the stairs he turned to face her. “I want you to know that if you kids are mixed up in drugs…”

“Drugs?”

“Yes, drugs. Nothing that boy said last night made any sense.”

“Unless everything he said was the truth.” Widening her eyes and cocking her head to one side, Diana gazed up at the priest. “Don’t you believe in angels, Father Harris?”

“Angels?”

“Yes.”

“His Holiness the Pope has argued for the existence of angelic spirits, and therefore the official position of the Catholic Church is that they are insubstantial.”

“Okay. And you personally?”

“I, personally, remain uncertain. However,” he continued, cutting off her incipient protest with an upraised finger, “I am sure that young Samuel was, and is, no angel.”

“Why?”

“He had…” The priest’s gesture was considerably less explicit than the saint’s.

“An upset stomach? A basketball?”

“GENITALIA!”

Which pretty much ended the conversation.

Standing on the porch, Diana watched her breath plume out and came to a decision.

In the church, St. Margaret began singing“Climb Every Mountain.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Uh, Claire, your head’s kind of…”

“Pointy and striped? Don’t worry, it’s just hat head.” She tossed the toque behind the seat and ran her fingers up through her hair, dislodging most of the red and white. “When Diana was ten, she decided to make everyone’s Christmas present and this was mine. I know it looks dorky, but it’s really warm and it’s getting cold out there.”

“Getting cold?” Austin pressed against Dean’s thigh and glared up at her. “Getting? I’m warning you, don’t touch me again with any part of your body or any one of your garments.”

“Look, I’m very sorry that the edge of my jacket brushed against your ear.”

“The frozen edge of your jacket.” He flicked the ear in question. “And I accept your apology only because I seem to be getting some feeling back.”

“Did you get the hole closed okay?” Dean asked as Claire fastened her seat belt. He told himself he watched only to be sure she was secured before he began driving, that it had nothing to do with the way the belt pressed the fabric down between her breasts. Unfortunately, he was a terrible liarand he didn’t believe himself for a moment.

“No problems. It looked like one of those big off-road vehicles actually went off the road, and the driver had no idea of how to use the four-wheel drive because he’d only bought the car to prove his was bigger.”

“And you could tellthat from the hole?”

She flashed him a grin.“I extrapolated a little, there really wasn’t much there. I probably only got Summoned because it was on the shoulder of a major highway and could have caused accidents. And, of course, the more accidents it caused, the bigger it’d get. You know.”

He didn’t, but he was beginning to get the idea. Shifting into first, he pulled carefully back out onto the 401. “Can I ask you something?”

“Seven. But none of them meant anything to her.”

“Austin!”

“And Jacques was dead, so maybe he shouldn’t…”

Claire grabbed a piece of turkey out of the box behind the seat and stuffed it in the cat’s mouth.

“That wasn’t actually the question,” Dean admitted.

“And it certainly wasn’t the answer.” It was almost dark, and the dashboard lights left Dean’s face in shadow. She wished she knew what he was thinking. She could know what he was thinking, if she asked in the right way. She only had to say, “Please tell me what you’re thinking, Dean.”

It slipped out before she could stop it.

“The headlights look a little dim; I’d better clean them next time we stop.”

That was it?

“And, Claire? Don’t do that.”

“That? Oh. Right. Sorry. It’s just…”

“You’re used to having your own way with Bystanders.”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Okay, yes.” She slumped down in the seat. “So what was your question?”

“How could Lena create an angel? I thought angels just were.”

“The light just is, but where angels are concerned, you can’t separate the observer from the observed. Every angel ever reported has been shaped by the person doing the reporting—by what they believe, by what they need. If you need an angel to be grand and glorious, it is. Or warm and comforting. Or any other combination of adjectives. Wise and wonderful. Bright and beautiful. Great and small…”

“At the same time?”

“Probably not. Thing is, they usually deliver the message they were sent with and disappear.”

“Message?”

“Oh, you know: Be nice to each other. Fear not, there is a supreme good and it hasn’t forgotten you. Don’t cross that bridge. Stop the train.”

“Feed the cat.” He looked up to see both Claire and Dean staring down at him. “Hey, it could happen.”

“Anyway,” Claire continued as Dean turned his attention back to the road, “message delivered, the angel goes home. This one seems to be hanging around.”

“Why?”

“No message,” Austin told them, climbing onto Claire’s lap. “You two opened wide the possibilities, Diana made possible probable, and her little friend defined it—but it has no actual reason for being here. It’s going to be looking for a reason.” He pushed Claire’s thigh muscles into a more comfortable shape. “But let’s look at the bright side. At least she isn’t Jewish, and it isn’t Hanukkah. Old Testament angels were usually armed with flaming swords.”

“I’d rather have flaming swords,” Claire sighed. “It’d be easier to find. Given the stuff Lena had in her bedroom, we’re probably talking a New Age kind of angel; human appearing, frighteningly powerful, smug and sweetly sanctimonious busybody.”

“Kind of like a jed…”

Her palm covered the cat’s mouth. “We don’t have enough problems?” she demanded. “You want to add trademark infringement?”

“What I don’t understand,” Dean interjected before someone lost a finger, “is how an angel can be a bad thing.”

“This kind of angel isn’t, not in and of itself—ignoring for the moment the way they always think they know what’s best for perfect strangers.” She paused, and when it became apparent Austin was not going to add a comment, went on. “But I can’t help thinking that much good walking around in one solid clump is well, bad.”

“Good is bad?”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“And a remarkably inept metaphor it is, too,” Austin sighed.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Dean said,“So what do we do?”

“We hope Father Harris tells Diana where the angel went and that he went with a purpose so that, purpose fulfilled, he’ll go home. If not, we hope someone convinces him to go home before…”

“Before what?”

“I don’t know.” She stroked Austin’s back and stared out at a set of headlights approaching on the other side of the median. “But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s about to go very, very wrong.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_6]

The darkness that had been seeping through the tiny hole in the woods behind J. Henry and Sons Auto Repair since just before midnight Christmas Eve struggled to keep itself together. While adding a constant stream of low-grade evil to the world might have been an admirable end result in times past, this time, it had a plan. It didn’t know patience, patience being a virtue, but it did know that rushing things now would only bring disaster—which it wasn’t actually against as long as it was the stimulant rather than the recipient. Had anyone suggested it was being subtle, it would have been appalled. Sneaky, however, it would cop to.

It had been maintaining this isolated little hole for some time, carefully, without changing anything about it, unable to use it but keeping it open when it might have sealed on its own—just in case. The hole was too small to Summon a Keeper, and because it was in the woods behind a closed garage outside a small town no one ever came to on a road that didn’t actually go anywhere, it was unlikely that either Keeper or Cousin would ever stumble over it by accident.

When the other end of the possibilities had opened and shifted the balance so dramatically, it saw its chance. It allowed the change in pressure to squirt it up through the hole and the concentration of the light to help keep it together.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Physics as metaphysics.

It grew steadily, secure in the knowledge that the nearest Keeper was too far away to stop it.

But, because inactivity would make them suspicious, it indulged itself with a little misdirection.

In the parts of the world that had just celebrated Christmas, holes created by family expectations widened and the first strike capabilities of parents against unmarried adult children became apparent.

In other parts of the world, low levels of annoyance at the attention paid to exuberant consumerism cranked up a notch, and several places burned Santa in effigy. The people of Effigy, a small village in the interior of Turkey, took the day off.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Somewhere else, a man picked up a pen, stared at it blankly for a moment and, shuddering slightly, signed his name, renewing“Barney” for another season. But thatmight have been a completely unrelated incident.

SEVEN

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

ANXIOUS TO GET AT WHATEVER IT WAS he was supposed to be doing, Samuel had slipped out before dawn.

Dawn. The first light of day. The rising of the sun. The sun. A relatively stable ball of burning hydrogen approximately 150 million kilometers away. Higher knowledge hadn’t mentioned anything about how early it happened.

He yawned and scratched, then walked to the road, stepped over a snowbank, and stood looking around at the world—or as much of it as he could see from the sidewalk in front of St. Patrick’s. It wasn’t what he’d expected. It was quieter for one thing, with no evidence of the constant battle between good and evil supposedly going on in every heart. He’d expected turmoil, people crying out for any help he could give. He hadn’t expected his nose hair to freeze.

Actually, until he’d traced the tight, icy feeling to its source, he hadn’t known hehad nose hair.

Wondering why anyone would voluntarily live in such temperatures, he started walking down the road.

Lena Giorno had called him because she wanted to see an angel. She’d seen him. Over. Done. Ta dah. Frank Giorno had wanted him out of his daughter’s bedroom and in clothing. Both taken care of—with some unnecessary violence in Samuel’s opinion, but no one had asked him. Father Harris, a fellow servant of the light, didn’t need him, and, although he hadn’t said it out loud, had practically been screaming at him to go away.

He hadn’t gone far, but he’d gone.

So what now? He had to be here for a reason.

His sense of self had grown overnight, but he was still having a little trouble with the vague components of Lena’s initial parameters. The whole higher knowledge thing seemed a bit spotty and, so far, not very useful. He understood mobility; he only had to want to go somewhere to be there except that he didn’t know where he wanted to go. His hairwas great. No argument.

And apparently, he was supposed to have come with a message. If he had, he’d misplaced it. Oh sure, he could come up with a few off the top of his head—Love thy Neighbor, Cherish the Children, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Check Your Tire Pressure—but they were so commonplace—not to mention common sense—they seemed almost trite.

I don’t know what I’m doing here.

I don’t know how to rejoin the light.

And while I know where I am, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.

If higher knowledge hadn’t informed him that he was wiser and more evolved, he’d have to say the whole situation sucked. Big time.

Okay. I deliver messages. I’m some kind of nonunion, spiritual postal guy. Samuel looked around at a village of empty streets and dark houses.So everything’ll be cool as soon as I can tell someone something.

Although why anyone would want things cooler, he had no idea, and he didn’t even want to guess how a situation could draw something in by creating a partial vacuum.

Unfortunately, the only people currently awake behind the barricades of drawn curtains were young children and the parents of young children. The kids were—well, he supposed hysterical was as accurate a description as any. As for their parents, they didn’t so much need him to pass on a spiritual message as they needed another three hours of sleep and the batteries that hadn’t been included.

He was giving some serious thought to returning to Lena’s room and having her fill in a few details when he heard a vehicle approaching. Turning, he watched the 5.2 liter, 230-horsepower, V-8 SUV come closer with no clear idea of why he suddenly found engine statistics so fascinating. He was wondering how it handled on curves when the surrounding cloud of desperation captured his attention. Someone in that vehicle was about to crack.

Was he supposed to fix cracks?

So now I’m doing spiritual plastering? Which wasn’t as funny as he’d hoped it would be. He took a deep breath and dried suddenly damp palms against his thighs, wondering why he seemed to be leaking.Still, a guy’s got to start somewhere…

And so far, this seemed to be the only game in town.

The vehicle was exactly twenty feet, seven and three-eighths inches away when he stepped in front of it. When it stopped, it was exactly three-eighths of an inch away. An exhausted looking man and an equally exhausted looking woman were sitting openmouthed in the front seats. Brian and Linda Pearson. He flashed them both an enthusiastic thumbs up figuring that, hey, it couldn’t hurt.

“Are you out of your mind?” Face flushed, Brian leaned out the driver’s window. “I could have killed you!”

He seemed a bit upset. Samuel smiled reassuringly. Never let the mortals sense insecurity. He wasn’t sure if that was higher knowledge, common sense, or some kind of basic survival instinct but he figured he’d go with it regardless. “I have a message for you.”

“Get the fuck out of my way!”

“No.”

“No?” His volume rose impressively.

“No. I need to tell you that no matter how it seems, your kids aren’t deliberately trying to drive you crazy. You just need more patience.” Smile slipping slightly, he added, “And a breath mint.”

“You’re insane!”

“Am not!” He felt his jaw jut out and his weight shift forward onto the balls of his feet. Where was that coming from? Lowering his voice, he fought the urge to challenge Brian Pearson to a fight, saying only a little belligerently, “I’m an angel.”

Exhaustion warring with denial, Brian’s bloodshot eyes widened as they were met and held. “Oh my G…”

Samuel raised a hand and cut him off, glancing around to be sure no one had overheard.“Don’t even suggest that. Didn’t you hear what happened to the last guy who tried to move up?” Whistling a descending scale, he pantomimed a fall from grace. The sound of an explosion at the end was purely extemporary but impossible to resist.

Dragging Brian back into the van, her gaze never leaving Samuel’s face, Linda whispered something in her husband’s ear.

He shook his head and glanced back over his shoulder.“We can’t.”

She whispered something else.

Unfortunately, higher knowledge didn’t seem to extend to eavesdropping.

Leaning back out the window, Brian tried a wobbly smile.“Would you like a ride into London?”

Would he? London, England, seemed a bit far and he was fairly certain the Atlantic Ocean was in the way, so they probably meant London, Ontario, about an hour’s drive down highway four.

“Sure.”

“Good. Get in.”

By the time he’d walked around to the passenger side, Linda had opened the back door. Her expression a curious mix of hope and guilt, she wished him a Merry Christmas and indicated he should climb inside. The second set of seats had been removed and an identical pair of seven-year-old twins, Celeste and Selinka, had been belted into opposite corners of the three seats running across the back of the SUV. If there’d been any more room between them and their parents, they’d have been outside the vehicle completely.

“Hey,” he said as he folded himself into the middle seat and fumbled for the seat belt. “My name’s Samuel, and I’m an angel. I’m here…”

“’Cause Mommy said to Daddy you can distract us,” announced Selinka.

“So Daddy can drive more safely,” added Celeste.

“Mommy doesn’t really believe you’re an angel. She’s desperate.”

“She said she’s ready to ’cept help from the devil himself.”

“Really?”

Up front, Linda’s shoulders stiffened, lending credence to the comment.

Samuel found his own shoulders stiffening in response.“You shouldn’t, you know, repeat that.”

“Why?” Celeste demanded, eyes narrowing.

“Because if an angel can be here, then so can a devil.”

“You’re stupid,” sniffed Selinka. “And your hair looks dumb. Why do you smell like cotton candy?”

“He smells like strawberry ice cream.”

“Does not!”

“Does too!”

“Why can’t I smell like both?”

Celeste leaned around him.“You’re right,” she told her sister. “He is stupid.”

Then they started singing.

“There was a farmer had a dog…”

At first it was cute.

“Let’s all sing,” Samuel suggested, leaning forward as far as the seat belt allowed. Singing was a good thing; he had a vague idea that angels did a lot of it. “The family that sings together…uh…” Wings together? Pings together? Then he realized that no once could hear him over the high-pitched little voices filling the enclosed vehicle with sound.

“B ;I ;N ;G ;O, ;B ;I ;N ;G ;O, ;B ;I ;N ;G ;O…”

It went on and on and on, just below the threshold of pain.

“Make it stop,” moaned their father, beating his forehead against the steering wheel as the SUV began to pick up speed.

Short of gagging them, Samuel couldn’t figure out how to stop them. Nothing he said from well reasoned argument to childish pleas made any impression. After the fourth verse, gagging them was beginning to seem like a valid option. Finally, ears ringing in the sudden silence, he forced the corners of his mouth up into a smile and swept it over both girls. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we do something that doesn’t make any noise?”

They exchanged a suspicious glance.

“Like what?” asked Selinka.

“It had better be fun,” added Celeste.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He could number the hairs on both girls’ heads (three billion two hundred and twelve and three billion two hundred and fourteen) but when it came down to it, that wasn’t even remotely useful. Unless…“I don’t suppose you’d want to count each other’s hair?”

Which was about when he discovered that a nonviolent, geared to age level, designed to promote social development electronic game could raise one heck of a bump when thrown at close range.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“I’m feeling guilty about this,” Brian Pearson murmured to his wife. “Are you sure he’s going to be all right?”

“He offered to help.”

“Actually, hon, he said he had a message for us.”

“Same thing.”

“Not quite.”

“Well, it’s a moving car,” she pointed out philosophically, gnawing on her last fingernail. “He can’t get out.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“We’re going to London to see our Granny,” announced Selinka.

“Do you have a Granny?” asked Celeste.

Good question. He ran through the order of angels above him; archangels, principalities, powers, dominions, thrones, cherubim, seraphim…“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I guess it’s because I’m an angel.”

The twin on the right narrowed her eyes and stared up at him.“Lemme see your wings.”

“What?”

“If you’re supposed to be an angel, lemme see your wings.”

Samuel spread his hands and tried an ingratiating smile.“I don’t have wings.”

“Why?”

“I’m not that kind of an angel.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the kind of angel that doesn’t have wings.”

“Why?”

“If you’re an angel, you’re supposed to have wings.” Her voice began to rise in both volume and pitch. “Big, white, fluffy wings!”

The smile slipped.“Well, I don’t.”

“Why?”

Why? He had no idea. But going back for that long talk with Lena was beginning to seem like a plan.“I have running shoes,” he offered.

Small heads bent forward to have a look.

“They’re not brand name,” said the twin who seemed to be running this part of the interrogation. “No swatches.”

“Does that matter?” Was he wearing the wrong stuff? “What’s a swatch?”

She folded her arms.“Dork.”

“Wouldn’t you girls like to have a nap?” Over the sound of their laughter, he thought he heard their mother whimper. “You know, if you were quiet, your parents would be really happy.”

“They would?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The twin on the left, taking her turn, poked him imperiously in the side.“Light up your head.”

“What?”

“Light up your head! Like on TV.”

“I don’t…”

“Then you’re not an angel.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” Just barely resisting the urge to grab her and shake her, he let a little of the light show.

“Ha, ha, made you light!”

An ethnically diverse, anatomically correct baby doll swung in from the other side by one foot, the molded plastic head completing its downswing in just the wrong spot.

The light went out.

His eyes were still watering when the SUV stopped at the corner of York and Talbot Streets and he stumbled out into a snowbank. Maybe Brian Pearsondid need to know his kids weren’t deliberately driving him crazy, but as the twins had survived for seven whole years, he could only conclude that both parents already had the patience of a saint. Each. He’d been with the twins for just over an hour and against all predisposition, he wanted to strangle them. He couldn’t imagine what seven years would be like. And he was no longer entirely certain that Brian Pearson wasn’t right.

The girls, not at all upset by the yelling he’d done, crowded to the window, and blew him kisses.

“Aren’t they angelic,” sighed their mother without much conviction.

“Not exactly,” Samuel told her, clinging to the door until he could get his balance. “But if it helps, I don’t think they’re actually demonic.”

She turned her head enough to meet his gaze.“You’re not sure?”

“Uh.” He took another look and heard the voice of memory say,Because if an angel can be here, then so can a devil. Or two.“No. Sorry.”

“Well, you’ve been a lot of help.”

He’d have been more reassured if she hadn’t sounded so sarcastic. Shoving his hands in his pockets as the SUV drove away, he sighed and muttered, “That could’ve gone better.”

Pushing through the narrow break in the knee-high snowbank that bracketed the street, he stumbled onto the sidewalk and took a moment to try and dig snow out of his shoes with his finger. Apparently, it was a well-known fact that angels left no footprints. Twisting around, he checked and, sure enough, he’d left no mark in the snow. Although there had to be a reason for it, he’d have happily traded footprints for dry feet. Were angels even supposed to have wet feet? At least he wasn’t cold. At leastthat was working.

Nothing else seemed to be.

Maybe he just needed practice.

Straightening, he looked around. So this was London. Fotown. The Forest City. The Jungle City. Georgiana on the Ditch. Apparently, the 340,000 people who lived here had the most cars per capita in Canada. So? Where was everybody? All he could see were snow-covered, empty streets.

Looking east, a sign outside the deserted Convention Center wished everyone a Merry Christmas. A gust of wind whistling down the tracks blew a fan of snow off the top of the bank that nearly hid the train station.

Behind him, a car door slammed.

He turned in time to see a taxi drive away and an elderly woman struggling to drag a brown vinyl suitcase toward the bus station. Her name was Edna Grey, she had a weak heart, and she was on her way to Windsor to spend Christmas Day with her daughter. Maybe he didn’t have a message because hewas the message. Maybe he was supposed to show, not tell. Hurrying over, he lifted the suitcase easily out of the elderly woman’s grasp.

“Stop! Thief! Stop!”

“Hey! Ow! I’m just trying to help!”

Edna Grey glared out at him from under the edge of a red knit hat, the strap of her purse clutched in both mittened hands.“Help yourself to my stuff!”

“No, help you carry your stuff.” As she lifted the purse again, he dropped the suitcase and backed out of range, rubbing his elbow. “What’ve you got in that thing, bricks?”

Her eyes narrowed.“Maybe.”

“Could you chill, Mrs. Grey. I’m just trying to do something nice for you.” He knew he sounded defensive, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. And he had no idea why he wanted her to lower her body temperature.

“How did you know my name? You’ve been stalking me, haven’t you?”

Stalking. The following and observing of another person, usually with the intent to do harm.

“No!” He stepped forward then retreated again as the purse came up. “I can’t do harm. I’m an angel.”

“You look like a punk.” A vehement exhalation through her nose, sprayed the immediate area with a fine patina of moisture.

“I do?”

“Well, you sure don’t look like no angel.”

He didn’t? “I don’t?”

“You look,” she repeated, “like a punk.”

Frank Giorno had called him a punk as well. He couldn’t understand why since punk had pretty much ended with the ’80s. A quick check found nose and ears still free of safety pins. “I could light up my head.” That seemed to be what angels did.

“You could set your shorts on fire for all I care. Now get out of my way, I gotta catch a bus.”

“But…”

“Move!”

His feet moved before the barked command actually made it to his brain. He stood and watched as she dragged her suitcase the remaining twenty-two feet, six and three-quarter inches to the bus station door. Nothing else moved for as far as he could see and the only sound he could hear was the rasp of cheap vinyl against concrete.

At the door, she paused, and turned.“Well?” she demanded.

Higher knowledge seemed at a loss.

“Get over here and open the door.”

“But I thought…”

“And while you were thinking, did you think about how a woman of my age could manage a big heavy suitcase and a door?”

“Uh…”

“No. You didn’t. The world has gone to hell in a handcart since they canceledBowling for Dollars.”

Propelled by her glare, he ran for the door and hauled it open. Then, a bit at a loss, he followed her inside.

She shifted her grip on her purse.“Now where are you going?”

He didn’t know. “With you?”

“Try again.” She squinted up at the board. “Only other bus leaving this morning’s going to Toronto.”

“I should go to Toronto?”

“Why should I care where you go?” Grabbing her suitcase, she began backing across the room, keeping him locked in a suspicious glare.

“Fine.” Edna Grey might not need his help, but in a city of three million, someone would. He’d go there and he’d help people and he’d finally figure out just what he was supposed to be doing, and when he’d done it he’d go back to the light and demand to know just what they thought they were doing sending him into the world without instructions. Well, maybe not demand. Ask.

Politely.

But for now…

The bus station flickered twice, then came back into focus.

Why wasn’t he in Toronto? Wanting to be in Toronto should have put him there, but something seemed to be holding him in place. It felt as though he was trying to drag an enormous weight…

And then he realized.

“Oh, come on, that’s a couple of ounces, tops!” A little embarrassed by the way his voice echoed against six different types of tile, Samuel looked up to see Edna Grey staring at him, wide-eyed, one mittened hand clutching her chest. While he watched, she toppled slowly to the ground.

“Mrs. Grey?” He landed on his knees beside her. “Mrs. Grey, what’s wrong?”

“Heart…” Her voice sounded like crinkling tissue paper.

“Hey, don’t do this, you’re not supposed to die now!” Reaching out, he spread the fingers of his right hand an inch above the apex of her bosom, spent a moment stopping his mind from repeating the word bosom over and over for no good reason, then asked himself just what exactly he thought he was doing.

I’m helping. It’s her heart.

Were hearts supposed to flutter like a gas pump straining at an empty tank?

He laid his left hand against his own chest.

Apparently not.

So?

Was this the message he was here to deliver?

A pulse of light moved from his hand to her heart and he felt an inexplicable urge to yell,“Clear!” Somehow, he resisted. Her heart stopped fluttering, paused, found a new rhythm, and began beating strongly once again.

“Mrs. Grey?” Feeling a little dizzy, Samuel leaned forward and peered into her face. “Can you hear me?”

“What? I’m old, so I’m deaf?”

“Uh, no.” Maybe he should loosen her clothing.

She smacked his hand away.“What happened?”

“You had a heart attack.”

Planting both palms against the floor, she pushed herself into a sitting position.“Well, are you surprised? You were there, then you weren’t there, then you were there again.”

“You saw that?”

“What? I’m old, so I’m blind?”

“Uh, no.”

“And why does the whole room smell of pine?”

“I think that’s the stuff they use on the floor.”

“Or some cat’s been pissing in the corner.” Spotting the startled face of the bus station attendant peering over the ticket counter, her eyes narrowed. “And just what are you looking at, Missy? Good thing I didn’t have to wait for her help,” she muttered, “I’d be lying here until New Year’s.”

“Mrs. Grey? Do you want to stand up?”

“No. I’d rather sit here in a puddle of slush.”

About to take her hand, Samuel sat back on his heels.“Uh, okay.”

Muttering under her breath, she grabbed his shoulder and hauled herself to her feet.“So, what were you doing?” she demanded as he stood. “Here you are, here you aren’t—I have a weak heart, you know.”

“Had,” he corrected helpfully. “I fixed it.”

“You fixed it all right. Now answer the question: What were you doing?”

“I was trying to go to Toronto. But nothing happened.” His shoulders slumped.

“You really are an angel?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So, what’s the message?”

“Well, uh, you see, it’s like this, I uh…”

One foot tapped impatiently.“Angels are the messengers of God. So, what’s the message? Is it Armageddon?”

He checked his pockets. Still no messages.“I’m pretty sure it’s not Armageddon.”

“Pretty sure?” She seemed disappointed.

“Actually, I’m beginning to think I’m, you know, not that kind of an angel.”

“Oh. Then what kind of an angel are you?”

“Just, uh, the kind that…”

“The kind that pops in and out any where they want? Giving poor, helpless grandmothers heart attacks?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young man. You can show a little respect for my age.”

“What? You’re old, so I should respect you?” It slipped out before he could stop it. For some weird reason his mouth seemed to have functioned without his brain being involved.

But Edna Grey only straightened her hat.“Yes,” she said, “that’s it exactly. So why couldn’t you pop?”

“It’s this form. It has…” Mouth open to explain about the genitalia, Samuel met a rheumy gaze, looked deep, and decided he didn’t want to go there. Or anywhere near there actually. “It’s not…I mean, it doesn’t…It’s sort of defining me. It’s keeping me from doing things, and I can’t get rid of it.”

“Tell me about it.”

His constant low level of confusion geared up a notch.“About what?”

“Be old, boy, if you want to be defined by your form.” She sighed, a short, sharp, angry sound. “Old bones, old blood, old body, they keep you from doing most things, and you sure as hell can’t get rid of them. But you know what’s worse?” A mittened finger poked his chest. “The way other people think you can’t do what you’ve always done ’cause you’re old—whether you can or not.” Her hand dropped back to her side. “Don’t get old, boy. And don’t let other people tell you what you can or cannot do.”

“I can’t get old,” he told her. “And I can’t get to Toronto either.”

“Oh, yeah, can’t get old, can’t get to Toronto; that’s a real similar comparison, that is.” Bending, she scooped her purse up off the floor. “Apples and oranges as my sainted mother used to say.”

“Actually she wasn’t.”

Edna Grey shot him an irritated glare as she straightened.“Wasn’t what?”

“Sainted.”

“I certainly hope not.”

“But you said…”

“Never mind what I said. And if you want to get to Toronto so badly, buy a bus ticket.”

“I need a bus ticket to go to Toronto?”

“If you’re going by bus, you do.”

A quick rummage through his pockets produced a cardboard square.“One of these?”

Her brows drew in.“Where did you get that?”

He shrugged.“Need provides.”

“Because you’re an angel?”

“I guess.”

The intercom sputtered to life and spat incomprehensible wordage into the station.

“Your bus is boarding on platform 3.” Samuel pushed her suitcase toward her, carefully, making no sudden moves. His elbow still hurt from the first assault.

“You understand that?”

He nodded again.

“Well, if I didn’t believe you were an angel before, I sure would now. Understanding the gooblety goop that comes out of those speakers would take nothing less than direct intervention from God. Just wait until I tell that Elsa I met a real angel. Her and the way she’s always talking about how she once met Don Ho.”

“Mrs. Grey, your bus!”

“Right.” Lifting the suitcase easily, she stomped off toward the buses, muttering. “Just wait till I tell my daughter I met a real angel. She’s never even met Don Ho.”

He waited until he saw her make her laborious way up the bus steps, refusing to let go of her suitcase, and sighed.“You’re welcome.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Look, kid, I don’t care what you think you are and how little sleep you think I’ve had and how much you think I need to drive safely, but if you don’t sit down, I’m going to kick your ass off this bus.”

“But I have a ticket.”

Barry Bryant sighed and rotated the heel of his left hand around his temple.“I don’t care. The harpy behind the ticket counter has already told me I look like hell, so I don’t need your two cents’ worth.”

Samuel leaned forward.“You don’t, you know.”

“I don’t what?”

“Look like Hell.”

“Sit. Down.”

A soldier of the light knew when to obey a direct order. Samuel sat down beside the only person on the bus.“Hi, Nedra.”

“Do I know you?”

“I’m an angel. I’m here to help.”

She stared deep into his eyes, watched the gold flecks overwhelm the brown, lighting up the immediate area in a soft luminescence, and said,“Get lost.”

“Get lost?”

“Yes.” For some strange reason, after a perfectly equitable Christmas Eve, her parents had sent her on her way feeling guilty about their lack of grandchildren. She was facing a twelve-hour shift in a hospital that could pay millions for one piece of high-tech equipment but couldn’t afford toorder new bedpans, and she was in no mood to deal with someone who smelled like canned ravioli, a food her rising cholesterol level no longer allowed her to eat. “Get lost.”

“I can’t,” he admitted, glancing around at the confined space.

“Try.”

“But…”

“Now.”

He’d just settled himself as far from Nedra as possible when the driver climbed on board and glared in his direction. “What?”

Lip curled, Barry dropped into the driver’s seat. He’d got to bed at about three, got up again at six, and knew damned well he shouldn’t be driving. The last thing he needed at the beginning of a run to Toronto and back on a snow-slicked highway was some smart-ass teenager pointing that out. Of course it wasn’t safe. He knew it wasn’t safe. What did he look like, an idiot? But what was he supposed to do? Cancel the run? Call another driver in on Christmas Day? Fat chance. He had to do it, so he was going to do it, and there was nothing more to be said. Besides, it was double time and a half, and he wasn’t giving up that kind of cash.

Head pounding, he rammed the bus into gear.“And I don’t feel guilty about it either,” he growled.

“Yeah, you do.”

Barry whirled around. There was no way he could have heard the protest or been heard in turn from the back of the bus.I am not hearing things. Shoulders hunched, he eased off the brake and headed for the road.I’m fine.

The only other vehicle in the parking lot belonged to the cow behind the counter who’d probably report him and then he’d get suspended and lose as much as he was making today—so why was he even bothering?

He swung out just a little wide and the bus brushed against the fender of her car like an elephant brushing against a paper screen.

As they pulled out onto York Street, Samuel twisted in his seat and stared back at the crumpled chrome, wondering if he should do something.He knew he shouldn’t have done that, but he did it anyway. What gives? It was like nothing Samuel’d ever come in contact with before. It was…

Free will. His eyes widened, and he squirmed around to stare at the back of the driver’s head. When given a choice between good and evil, humans could freely choose to do evil, and sometimes they did. Okay, admittedly on a scale of one to ten where one was deliberately hitting a parked car and ten was committing genocide, this was closer to, well, one, but still. Free will. In action.

After that, the trip to Toronto was uneventful.

Although there did seem to be a number of off-road vehicles suddenly driving off the road.

Samuel would have enjoyed the ride had he not continued to slide down the angle forced into ancient seats by thousands of previous passengers, catching himself on his inseam. He had no idea why anyone would put such a torture device right over so much soft tissue, but by the time the bus reached Hamilton he was certain the Prince of Darkness himself had been involved.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Toronto had the turmoil he’d been expecting earlier. Samuel stepped out of the Elizabeth Street Bus Terminal and stared. Everything seemed overdone. There were just too many buildings, too much concrete, too much dirt—but not too many people given that it was nearly noon on Christmas Day.

“Hey man, you look lost.”

Samuel glanced down at his feet—he hadn’t known snow came in that color—then up at the twenty-something blond man, with the inch of dark roots, now standing beside him. “No. I’m right here.”

“Hey, that’s funny.” The smile and accompanying laugh was a lie. He wore a black trench coat, open over black jeans, black boots and a black turtleneck. It was supposed to look cool, or possibly kewl, but Samuel got the impression kewl had moved on. This guy hadn’t. “You just get to the city?”

“Yeah.”

“You got a place to stay?”

“Do I need a place to stay?” Was he staying?

“You going to try and make it on the streets?”

“I was going to stay on the sidewalks.”

“Like I said, a funny guy.” The outstretched hand ended in black fingernails. Definitely left behind by kewl. “I’m Deter.”

“Deter?” Higher knowledge finally provided information that wasn’t a fashion tip. “Isn’t your name Leslie?”

The hazel eyes widened, the hand dropped, and Leslie/Deter shot a glance back over his shoulder at two snickering men about his own age.“No, you’re wrong, man. It’s Deter.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I understand why you changed it.”

“I didn’t change it.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did. It was Leslie Frances Calhoon. Now it’s Deter Calhoon.”

“Leslie Frances?” howled one of the two laughing men.

“Shut up!” He whirled back around to shake a finger under Samuel’s nose. “And you shut up, too!”

“Okay.”

“Do I know you?”

In his existence to this point, Samuel had met eight people, not counting Nedra who he didn’t think he should count because she’d made it fairly clear she hadn’t wanted to meet him. “No.”

“So stop calling me Leslie!”

“Okay.”

“You don’t have a place to stay?”

Was he staying?“No.”

“Fine. So you’re coming with us.”

“No.”

“So you’re going to stay on the street, on the sidewalk, whatever. Fine. Here.” Breathing heavily through his nose, Leslie/Deter thrust a pamphlet into Samuel’s hand. “Greenstreet Mission. We’re doing a Christmas dinner. You can get a meal and hear the word of God.”

Samuel smiled in relief. This, finally, he understood.“Which word?”

“What?”

“Well, God’s said a lot of words, you know, and a word likeit orthe wouldn’t be worth hearing again but it’s always fun listening to Him try to say aluminum.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What you were talking about.”

Leslie/Deter glared over flaring nostrils.“I was talking about the word of God.”

“Which word?”

He snatched the pamphlet out of Samuel’s hand. “Forget it.”

“But…”

“No. Just stay away!” The black trench coat swirled impressively as he stomped back to his snickering friends and shoved them both into motion.

Wondering what he’d said, Samuel lifted a hand in farewell. There didn’t seem to be much point in offering to help with the pamphlets. “’Bye, Leslie.”

If Leslie/Deter had a response, it was probably just as well that the renewed howls of laughter from his companions drowned it out.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Because the hole was so small, it had taken over twelve hours to push enough substance through. Toward the end, as the light and dark in the world moved closer to balance, it should have gotten more difficult, but there was now such a vast amount of enthusiastic darkness pushing from below that care had to be taken. Tipping the balance the other way would do no good at all. Since, technically, doing no good at all was itsraison d’?tre, the contradiction was making it feel more than a little twitchy.

It didn’t even want to get into the problem of keeping it all together without actually achieving consciousness too early. Without a physical body it was both disoriented and exhausted. It had never had such a bad day. Which was sort of a good thing. Except that good things were bad. If it’d had a head, it would’ve had one hell of a headache.

Literally.

It could feel good and evil leveling out. Balance being restored. It pulled itself together, the shadow that had lain over the frozen hollow since midnight growing darker, acquiring form.

Then, as all things were equal—or all the things it was concerned with at any rate—it closed the hole and looked around.

“I’M BAck.”

It coughed and tried again.

“I’M back. I’m back.” It just kept getting worse. “What the Hell is going on here?”

Attempting a perfect balance, it had allowed the weight on the other side of the scale to define the shape it would wear. Becoming its perfect opposite. Impossible for one to be found as long as the other existed. It would cheerfully use the light to further its own ends. Well, maybe not cheerfully. Cynically.

It seemed to be a young female. Late teens. Long dark hair. Fairly large breasts. She looked down. Everything seemed to be there.

Three things were immediately clear.

One. She appeared to be a natural blonde, which explained the uniform black of the hair. Bad dye job.

Two. Demons, like angels, were sexless. The actions of incubi and succubi were more in the order of a mind-fuck than anything sweaty. But…

…since she had a set, he had a set.

Three. Given gender, and she certainly seemed to have been given that, something had gotten significantly screwed up somewhere.

She’d have been happier about that were it not for the sudden rush of emotions. Every possible emotion. She was up, she was down, she was happy, she was sad, she was royally pissed off…

Which was the one she decided to go with.

EIGHT

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

FROM THE BUS TERMINAL, Samuel walked over to Yonge Street and up two blocks to Gerrard, staring in amazement at the amount of stuff on display in the windows of the closed stores. The stereo system dominating a small electronics shop drew him close to the glass—five disk CD changer, digital tuner with forty presets, six-mode preset equalizer, dual full-logic cassette decks, extra bass—and he found himself wondering covetously about sub-woofers and wattage. From deep within came the knowledge that if it came to it, he’d buy that stereo before he bought groceries.

Then he noticed the leather shop next door. Stereo forgotten, he took two long side steps and stared wide-eyed at the mannequin barely dressed in a red leather corset, black leather panties, and stiletto-heeled thigh boots.

Which was when the unexpected happened.

He backed up so quickly he slammed into a newspaper box.

His genitalia were functioning without him!

It was like, like they had a mind of their own.

Well, notthey exactly…

Beginning to panic, he stared down at the tent in his pants and wondered what he was supposed to do.

Fortunately, the panic seemed to be taking care of the problem.

A few minutes later, heart pounding, gaze directed carefully at the sidewalk, he started walking again, faith in his physical integrity shaken. What would have happened had it not been a holiday? Had he actually been able to go into the store and…

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Brakes squealed. A door panel brushed his knee. The deep red 1986 Horizon stopped. Backed up. The window opened.

“You’ve got the red, asshole!” the driver screamed, then gunned the motor and roared away.

Samuel had no idea they came in other colors. Or, for that matter, what color they usually were. And how had the driver known? Were any other bits of his body likely to surprise him?

Eleven seconds later, the first pigeon settled on his head, claws digging through his hair and into his scalp. When it finally lost the fight to keep its perch, it slid off to land with a thud on his right shoulder. It was mostly white with a few gray markings and the distinct attitude that it had arrived where it was supposed to be.

The second pigeon went directly to his other shoulder.

The rest fought for less prime locations and, for the most part, had to content themselves with huddling close around his feet.

He spoke fluent pigeon—which wasn’t really difficult as the entire pigeon vocabulary pretty much consisted of: “Food!” “Danger!” and “Betcha I can hit that guy in the Armani suit.”—but nothing he said made any difference. They were where they felt they ought to be. Case closed. When he started walking again, they lifted off with an indignant flapping of wings. When he stopped, they landed. He kept walking.

At College Street, he flipped a mental coin and turned right.

The sedan traveling southbound missed him by seven centimeters. The pickup traveling north missed him by three. The driver of the pickup taught him a number of new words. The pigeons knew them already.

The east side of Yonge—where College Street became Carlton Street—seemed to lead into a more residential area. That had to be good. People equaled problems and sooner or later, if he was right about being the message not merely the medium, he’dhave to fix the problem that would let him go home.

By the time he reached the park across from Homewood Avenue, he was traveling in a shifting cloud of fat bodies and feathers. Visibility was bad, the footing was getting a little tricky, and the surrounding air had begun to smell strongly of motor oil and old French fries. He clearly had to get rid of his escort.

He flailed his arms.

He used the new words, rearranging them into a number of different patterns.

Nothing worked.

Climbing up and over a snowbank, he brushed off the end of a bench and flopped down onto the cleared spot.

The pigeons settled happily.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

His vision slightly impaired by a fan of tail feathers, Samuel watched a police car make a tight U-turn across Carlton Street and pull up more or less in front of him. The driver’s name was Police Constable Jack Brooks, his partner, Police Constable Marri Margaret Patton. They sat and stared for a full minute. He could feel their mood lightening as they studied him, and he knew he should be glad he’d added a little joy to their day but, preoccupied by the sudden warmthdribbling down behind his left ear, he found he didn’t much care.

Finally, they got out of the car and waded through the snow toward him, valiantly but unsuccessfully attempting to suppress snickers.

“Are you, uh, all right under there?”

Samuel sighed and spat out a feather.“Sure,” he answered shortly.

“Have you tried standing up?”

He stood. Wings flapped. He could see PC Patton’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying above the noise. He sat down again. The pigeons settled.

After a moment of near hysterical laughter, the police settled as well.

Fighting to catch his breath, PC Brooks managed to gasp,“Are you feeding them?”

“As if.” If he was feeding them, he could stop. And they’d leave. “They want to be with me ’cause I’m an angel.”

“An angel?”

“Yeah; I guess it’s that dove thing.”

“These are pigeons.”

“Same old.”

As three birds squabbled over position, PC Brooks got his first unobstructed look at facial features and knocked five years off his original estimate of the young man’s age. “What’s your name, son?”

“Samuel.”

“Samuel what?”

“Just Samuel.”

“And you’re an angel?”

“Yes.”

“If you’re an angel, where are your wings?” Beside him, he heard his partner smother a snort.

Samuel sighed and spit out another feather.“I’m not that kind of angel.” Without much enthusiasm, he added, “But Ican make my head light up.”

“Maybe next time.” Frowning slightly, PC Brooks took a closer look, found his gaze met and held, found himself watching the gold flecks in the brown eyes swirl into soft luminescence. He blinked and forced himself to look away. “What are you on, Samuel?”

“Concrete and fiberglass.”

“Uh-huh. Look, son, it’s Christmas Day, why don’t you go home.”

“I can’t!”

The pigeons took flight, circled once, and settled again.

PC Patton took her partner by the sleeve and dragged him a few steps away.“It’s not against the law to be covered in pigeons,” she reminded him, grinning broadly.

“I know.”

“Neither is it against the law to impersonate an angel.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Whatever he’s on…”

“Concrete and fiberglass.”

“…he’s not a danger to himself or society, and he’s probably fairly warm under there.”

“But it’s Christmas.”

So it was. She sighed, watched her breath blossom in the frosty air, and turned back toward the bench.“Why don’t you get in the car and we’ll take you somewhere you can get some Christmas dinner.”

“Can the pigeons come?”

“No.”

That was the best news he’d heard in a while.

The pigeons, who recognized the police as Nice Dark Targets, refused to cooperate.

Samuel finally backed up about twenty feet, raced forward, and flung himself into the back of the squad car, giving PC Patton about six seconds to slam the door before the birds caught up. When the first bird hit the window, she almost peed herself, she was laughing so hard.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_6]

Darkness had emerged just outside Waverton for a reason. The tiny town was not only far enough off the beaten track that a Keeper wouldn’t stumble on it by accident, it was fairly close to the bloated population base along the Canada/U.S. border—there was a limited amount of trouble that could be caused without active human participation and darkness didn’t like to waste time. Parts of central Russia, Africa, and Nevada also fit the geographic criteria, but appearing in any of those areas would have been redundant at best.

She found a pair of denim overalls, black canvas sneakers, and a nylon jacket in what had been the office of J. Henry and Sons Auto Repair. While appreciative of the chaos she could cause walking around naked, keeping a lower profile seemed the smarter move. The outfit wasn’t stylish, but it was serviceable.

Although to her surprise, shewas a little concerned that the overalls made her look fat.

Which soon became a minor problem.

Once in the world, she should have been able to move instantaneously from place to place, but something seemed to be stopping her. It didn’t take long to figure out what. While walking the four and half kilometers into town, she decided that staying as far away from the light as possible was no longer an option; her new plan involved finding him and kicking his holier than thou butt around the block a few times.What had he been thinking?

Actually, given which set he’d gotten, she had a pretty good idea of what he’d been thinking.

“Men,” she’d snarled at a hydro pole, left forearm tucked under her breasts to stop the painful bouncing. “They’re all alike.”

The power went off in half the county.

Which made her feel only half better.

She’d planned on finding a ride south as soon as she got to Waverton, twisting the weak and pitiful will of some poor mortal to her bidding. Unfortunately, there was no one around; the only thing moving on Main Street was the random blinking of a string of Christmas lights hung in the window of one of the closed businesses. She could have shot a cannon off in any direction and not hit a soul. Andif she’d had a cannon, shewould have shot it off.

As she didn’t…

The bank on the corner burst into black-tipped flame.

Rummaging about in her pocket, she pulled out a marshmallow.

Need provides.

Twenty minutes later, the scene seethed with people—volunteer firefighters, both constables from the local OPP detachment, and most of the remaining population.

Now that’s more like it. Bonus points for pulling a Keeper up into the middle of nowhere to close this hole opened by arson, leaving more populated areas unprotected. Jostled by the crowd, she snarled and drove her heel as hard as she could down on the nearest toe.

“Ouch. Excuse me.”

Confused, she turned and glared into soft brown eyes bracketed between a dark pink hat and a pale pink scarf.“Why are you apologizing? You’re the victim.”

“No one has to be a victim, dear.” The older woman frowned slightly, her gaze sliding from dyed hair to running shoes and back up again. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Strangers were universally suspect when something went wrong. Settling her weight on one hip, she folded her arms.“No, I’m not.”

“Are you alone?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the tendril of darkness seeping out of the hole, watched one of the firefighters“accidentally” turn the hose on another, and she smiled. “Mostly.” Once accused of setting the fire, she’d be able to cause all sorts of havoc. She’d be able to turn their anger at her onto other targets, counter-accusing once she had the attention of the crowd. Maybe the good townspeople would like to know about Mr. Tannison, the bank manager.

“A stranger,” the woman repeated thoughtfully, the flames reflecting in both halves of her bifocals. “And all alone.”

Here it comes, she thought.

“How did you get here? We’re not exactly in the center of things.” Her eyes widened. “You’ve run away, haven’t you?”

“No, I…”

“All alone. In a strange place. And on Christmas, too.” Pink-mittened hands clasped over a formidable bosom. “Where were you running away to?”

“The city…”

“Of course, the city.” Her sigh plumed out silver-white. “But for right now, you have nowhere to go for Christmas dinner, do you?”

“I don’t eat.”

“That’s what I thought.”

And the strange thing was, thatwas what she thought. Which made less than no sense.

“My name is Eva Porter, and you’re going to join my husband and I for turkey and all the trimmings. I won’t take no for an answer.” A pink wave toward the burning bank. “That’s my husband by the tanker truck.”

“You want me to join you for dinner?”

“That’s right.”

“You don’t know me.”

“You don’t knowme.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Eva Porter was way outside her experience. “Are you going to torture me?” That would at least explain the invitation.

“Goodness, no.”

“You only want to feed me?”

“That’s right.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that I’m a demon? Darkness given human form?”

Eva’s smile slipped.

Before she could enjoy the expected reaction, wool-covered fingers gently lifted her chin and looked her right in the eye.

“I don’t know who told you such a thing…”

“No one had to tell me.”

“…but you are a beautiful young woman.”

“I am?” She caught herself feeling good about that and hurriedly squashed the feeling.

“Yes, you are. What’s your name?”

“Uh…” She pulled one at random from the possibilities. “Byleth.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“It is?” It wasn’t supposed to be. This had gone quite far enough. “Listen, lady, I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“That. What you think.” The pale gray of her eyes began darkening like tarnished silver. “I set that fire! I desired flames—and there they were.”

Eva frowned.“What are you on, Byleth?”

She glanced down, totally confused.“Packed snow and concrete.”

“And those shoes are just canvas, aren’t they? Your poor toes must be frozen.”

They hadn’t been. But now…

“And a nylon jacket isn’t enough for this weather. It’s below zero out here. Just look at the ice forming on those hoses.”

She looked. Her teeth began to chatter.“Okay, but I’m just going with you to get warm.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“That’s right. I don’t.” Hugging herself in a valiant effort to contain body heat, Byleth followed the confusing mortal down Main Street. Ignite the bank. Open a hole. Allow a little darkness into the world. All that had gone by the book. But reassured, warmed, and fed? Not to mention apologized to?