The Second Summoning

THIRTEEN

“NOW BOARDING AT GATE RORG, VIA Rail train number gonta sev to Nootival, with stops at Gaplerg, Corbillslag, Pevilg, and Binkstain.”

“That’s us,” Diana declared, scooping the cat up off the bench as the station loudspeakers repeated the announcement in French.

“Hey, watch the whiskers,” Samuel protested as she stuffed him into the backpack she’d bought at the station shop, heaved him up onto one shoulder, and hurried toward the gate. He peered out through the open zipper at the back of her ear. “And I thought we were going to Kingston on the train to Montreal.”

“That’s right: Binkstain on the train to Nootival.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Just try to look like luggage, would you.”

The sudden blip of a police siren woke Austin out of a sound sleep. One moment he was lying between Claire and Dean with a paw thrown over his eyes, the next he was up over the seat back and into the depths of his cat carrier muttering, “You can’t prove it was me, anyone could have left that spleen on the carpet.”

“You’ve got to admire his reflexes,” Claire allowed, waving one hand through the contrail of cat hair.

“Do I, then?” Dean asked, gearing down and maneuvering the truck carefully to the narrow shoulder winter had left bracketing highway seven. “Sure. Okay, I guess.”

Claire shot him a questioning glance, noted the muscle jumping along his jaw, and the distinct “man about to face a firing squad” angle to his profile. “You’ve never been pulled over before, have you?”

“No.” He sighed and laid his forehead on the steering wheel.

It was a vaguely embarrassed no, but whether he was embarrassed because he’d been pulled over now or because he’d never been pulled over before, Claire couldn’t tell. Some guys might be bothered by reaching twenty-one without a speeding ticket—or more precisely the story of how they got the ticket—but would they be the same guys who were bothered by un-ironed underwear? “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it.” She twisted around within the confines of the seat belt. “There’s a demon out there; we haven’t time to jump through hoops for the OPP.”

“No.”

This, however, was a definite no. An inarguable no. She watched Dean’s chin rise as he rolled down the window and recognized his “taking responsibility” look.

“You don’t do the crime,” he announced, “if you can’t do the time.”

“What?”

“It’s the theme song from a seventies’ cop show.”

“You weren’t around in the seventies.”

“I saw it at my cousin’s. In Halifax. On the Seventies’ Cop Show Network. He has a satellite dish,” Dean added as Claire’s brows drew so far in they met over her nose. “Look, it’s not important, I just don’t want you messing with the cop’s head. I broke the law, so I’m after facing the consequences.”

“You were doing one hundred ten in an eighty. It’s not like you’ve been out robbing banks or clogging Internet access to I’ve-got-more-money-than-brains. com.” Over the years, Claire had fixed a number of tickets while catching rides with Bystanders. Once, she’d attempted to convince a Michigan State Trooper that ninety-seven miles an hour on I-90 through Detroit was a perfectly reasonable speed. Poking around in his head, she discovered she hadn’t been the first—or even the most convincing. “Dean, I’m sorry, but, as a Keeper, I have to say that getting rid of this demon has to be right at the top of our to-do list.”

“It is.”

“Good.”

“Right after this.”

“But…”

“Keepers police metaphysical crimes, right?” He caught up her hand and stared earnestly at her over her fingertips.

“Essentially, but…”

“How can I help you do your job, if I blow off this guy doing his?”

Her eyes widened.

“That’s not what I meant.” His glasses steamed up in the heat rising off his face. “It’s not. It wasn’t. Look, just let me deal with this. And then you can do what you want to make up the time.” The sound of heavy footsteps drew closer. “Claire?”

“Okay,” she muttered reluctantly. “But make it…”

“A quickie,” Austin snickered from the depths of the cat carrier.

As he turned toward the looming figure of the OPP constable, Dean shot a glance behind the seat that promised a discussion with the cat in the near future. Claire didn’t know why he bothered since Austin usually went to sleep right around the time Dean started talking about mutual respect, but she admired his persistence—futile though it might be. A cat’s idea of mutual respect had nothing about it any other species would recognize as mutual.

“License and registration, sir.”

The constable’s accent was pure Ontario and Claire felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Maybe it would be possible to get back on the road with a minimum of delay.

Dean struggled to get his wallet out of his back pocket, realized he was strapped in, and jammed his seat belt trying to open it. Pounding the release catch with one hand and yanking at the lap belt with the other, he flopped about, making it worse. With the theme song to “C*O*P*S” running through his head, he fought to keep from hyperventilating as he alternately pounded and yanked. He’d watched enough television to know that when the police thought they were being dicked around life got unpleasant for the perp.

“If you’d just relax…”

“Not now, Claire.” Just relax and it’ll happen. Just relax and don’t think so much. Just relax and let nature take its course. After two nights of Claire telling him to relax, that word in her voice got him so anxious he wanted to scream at her to shut up.

“I think your lady’s trying to say that the tension against the belt is causing the problem.”

“Oh.” He sagged back against the seat, pressed the release with his thumb, and pulled the belt free. Fully aware of Claire’s pointed stare, he got out his license and registration and handed them over.

“Newfoundland, eh?”

“I meant to get my plates switched—and my license,” he explained hurriedly, hoping it didn’t sound like he was making feeble excuses for breaking the law, “but I wasn’t certain I was staying.”

The constable bent down and peered at Claire. “I see. You know a Hugh McIssac?” he asked as he straightened.

“Oh, no…”

He bent again. “Ma’am?”

Claire reached into the possibilities.

Five minutes later, they were driving east at a careful eighty kilometers an hour having received a stern although truncated warning that had included no references to hockey.

“Is it warm in here, or is it me?” Austin asked, dropping down onto the seat.

Claire gathered him up onto her lap and shot a worried glance at Dean. He looked as though he’d been carved from flesh-colored marble, the only indication of his mood a certain flare to the one nostril she could actually see. If he doesn’t say something before we reach that pine tree, I’ll speak first.

The pine tree passed.

Okay, if he doesn’t say something between now and when we reach those blackthorn bushes by the side of the road, I’ll explain.

A lunantishee looked out of the bushes as they went by and stuck a long, mocking tongue out at Claire.

Fine, if he won’t talk to me by that next crossroad, he can just sit there. There’s no reason I should have to say anything. I was right. Because, after all, we’re just on our way to catch a demon and that’s so less important than a forty-five-minute discussion of a peewee game played back in 1979.

They crossed the crossroad.

Austin sighed. “So,” he said, squirming around to face Dean, “who was Hugh McIssac?”

“A guy.” Dean’s teeth were locked so tightly together the words barely emerged, but innate politeness forced him to answer a direct question.

“A guy you knew back in St. John’s?”

“Yes.”

“Play hockey with him?”

“No.”

Claire felt the burn rush up her cheeks at the clipped negative. Oops. There’d be no way to make this up to him. A sound caught somewhere between an apology and a whimper forced its way past her teeth.

Dean glanced at her and sighed.

“Against,” he added grudgingly.

“Aha!”

“Oh, nice way to smooth things over,” Austin muttered.

“So, if I hadn’t stepped in, we would have been there another half an hour!”

Dean shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“Because this would have been the time you cut the conversation short?”

“Yes!”

Claire folded her arms.

“Well, maybe.”

She snorted.

“Okay, probably not. But that’s not the point,” he told her indignantly, slowing slightly to let a minivan pass. “You said you’d let me deal with it.”

“I didn’t change any of the police stuff. He had no intention of giving you a ticket.”

“I’ll never know that for sure, will I?”

“And there’s nothing worse than girding your loins for a battle you don’t need to fight,” Austin interjected, climbing off Claire’s lap and stretching out on the seat.

“You girded your loins?” Claire stared across the cat at Dean.

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t even know what that means!” He sighed hard enough to momentarily frost the inside of the windshield. “I just wanted to handle it myself.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Yes, I trust you. But you’re some high-handed at times!”

“I’m a Keeper! And I’ll have you know I’m no more high-handed than it takes to do my job. If you’d rather talk hockey than make love…”

“What?”

“We find the demon, I banish the demon, we find a private corner; isn’t that the plan? Unless you don’t want…Why are you pulling over? Dean?”

He put the truck into neutral, stepped down the parking brake, and pulled on the hazards. Then he turned to face her, one hand braced on her headrest, the other on the dash. “I want to make love to you. I want to make love to you so badly it’s all I can think about. When I’m eating, when I’m driving, when I’m looking at you, when I’m not looking at you, when I’m talking about demons, when I’m talking about hockey—I’m still thinking about making love to you.”

“And this is what you’re thinking about when you’re talking to me?” Austin demanded, rising up into the space between them. When Dean answered in the affirmative, he sighed and dropped back down again. “Well, that’s really going to put a damper on future conversations.”

Reaching out, Dean stroked the back of his fingers over Claire’s cheek. “But I’m only thinking about making love to you because I can’t actually make love to you. If I could, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about hockey, I’d be…”

“Okay, that’s enough. The cat does not need to know the details.”

Without taking her eyes off Dean, Claire picked Austin up and dropped him behind the seat. Then she snapped off her belt and slid forward. After a moment she sucked Dean’s lower lip away from his teeth and, when the suction finally broke, murmured into the swollen flesh, “Shall we find that demon, then?”

Dean’s answer was essentially inarticulate.

Austin opted to stay out of the discussion entirely.

“Would you please stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Rubbing my car. It’s…”

“Turning you on?”

“…distracting me. I keep seeing peripheral movement, I think someone’s about to make a lane change, and it’s always you. It isn’t easy driving this car in this weather in this traffic, and I’d appreciate just a little…HEY! YOU WANNA STOP VISUALIZING WORLD PEACE AND START VISUALIZING YOUR TURN SIGNALS!…consideration.”

Byleth blinked, looked from Leslie/Deter to the SUV that had just drifted across three lanes of fast-moving traffic and back to Leslie/Deter again. “He didn’t hear you.”

“I know. But it makes me feel better. Helps me drive.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just a way of releasing…TRY LEASING A CAR YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, MORON!”

The car in question braked hard, swerved left, then right, then hit a patch of ice, turned a complete three hundred and sixty degrees and settled safely on the shoulder. A half a kilometer of brakes squealed, dozens of steering wheels were cranked, sudden moisture caused two seat warmers to short out, and then it was over.

Byleth smiled. “He heard you that time.”

Fingers white around the steering wheel, Leslie/Deter stared wide-eyed out at the surrounding traffic still moving miraculously to the east and beginning to pick up speed. “God saved us all.”

“You think?”

“He reached down His hand to keep His children safe.”

“No.” Byleth frowned and shook her head. “I’d have noticed that.”

“You can’t deny that was a miracle.”

“Hey! I can deny anything I want,” she snarled, folding her arms and slumping down in the seat.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Leslie/ Deter sighed and squared his shoulders. “You know, you’re not as tough as you think you are.”

Byleth glared at him past the lock of hair bisecting her face, her expression as much disbelief as anger. “You have no idea how tough I am.”

“You think you’re bad.”

“I am bad!”

“You think it’s cool to be all dark and dangerous.”

“Hello? Hell to Leslie!” One navy-tipped fingernail poked him hard in the shoulder. “I am dark and dangerous.”

“I know why you do it.”

“Oh, please…”

“It keeps people from getting close to you. Keeps you from getting hurt.”

“I don’t get hurt. I do the hurting.”

“Essentially the same thing.”

“If you think that having red hot pokers stuffed up your ass is the same as stuffing those same pokers up someone else’s ass, you’re dopier than I thought. And that’s almost scary.” Beginning to wonder why she hadn’t considered the implications of being stuck in a car with a God-pimp for three hours, Byleth unhooked her seat belt and twisted around until she faced the driver, her eyes onyx from lid to lid. “Leslie, look at me.”

“Not now, Byleth. I’m trying to keep the car on the road.”

“I said, look at me.”

“And I said, not now!” A glance in the rearview mirror showed the front grille of a transport and not much else. “Unless you really want to end this little journey upside down in the ditch.”

She thought about that for a moment, her eyes lightening. “Well, no.”

“Good.” He leaned back, downshifted, pulled into the passing lane, and, engine roaring, shifted back into overdrive. They screamed past traffic and dropped speed only when they’d cleared the clump and had moved back into the right-hand lane.

Byleth closed her mouth with a snap. “That was so kewl.”

Bright spots of color appeared on pale cheeks. “Thanks.”

“Do it again!”

“Sure, next time I have to pass something.”

“What? Like a kidney stone? Do it now!”

“No.” Glancing over at her, his eyes widened. “Byleth! Do up your seatbelt!”

“Because you’ll get a ninety-six-dollar fine and lose three points if the cops pull us over?” she sneered, her hands as far away from the belt as possible while still attached to her body.

“Because you’ll get hurt if anything happens.”

“Won’t your god protect me?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Tell me about it,” she snorted.

He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to.”

“I want you to know I’m only doing this up because I have to get to Kingston in one piece,” Byleth told him as she dragged the shoulder belt down over her jacket, and shoved the clasp together as hard as she could. “I’m sure not doing it because you told me to. And I so totally don’t believe you care if I get hurt.”

“I do care.”

“Why?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Probably,” she snapped, sinking down into the depths of the bucket seat, knees braced against the dash.

Samuel poked a paw out through the top of the backpack and tapped Diana lightly on the chin. “What’s wrong?”

“Summons,” she whispered. Although the train was crowded with post-Christmas travelers, they had a double seat to themselves—mostly because of the disgustingly realistic stain the possibilities had provided. She’d draped her jacket strategically, but talking to luggage would still attract Bystander attention.

“Okay.” A quick shoulder lick to gather his thoughts and he had a plan. “Here’s what we’ll do: you deal with the Summons, and I’ll go to Kingston and save the demon from your sister.”

He looked perfectly serious. Or at least as serious as an orange cat in a green backpack could look.

“And just supposing I was insane enough to agree to that—how?”

“I’ll think of something. I’m a cat.”

“You’re an angel shaped like a cat,” Diana reminded him pointedly.

“That’s what I meant, I’m an angel.”

“Right. Fortunately, the Summons is on the train. I can deal.” She stood, left her jacket lying where it fell and, turning reluctantly in place, attempted to pin down the feeling. It wasn’t that she minded being Summoned, it was what Keepers did, after all, but since her wallet had been distinctly short of lineage money, and she’d had to spend her Christmas money to buy the train ticket, it didn’t seem exactly fair. Either she was saving the demon on her own time, or she was working—which was it to be? “There! Is that the washroom,” she added, smiling broadly down at the middle-aged man whose attention had been jerked away from his paper.

He shot her the look those over forty reserved for those under twenty and returned to a review of Archie and Jughead, the holiday’s breakout movie. Diana hadn’t seen it, but she strongly suspected George Clooney had been miscast.

The sound of claws in upholstery brought her shuffle toward the aisle to a sudden stop.

“Where are you going?” she muttered, bending so that her face was millimeters from the angel’s, pushing him back under her jacket.

“With you.”

“Why? You won’t be able to do anything. I won’t be long. Just stay here.”

Samuel thought about it for a moment. “No.”

“Why not?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “I don’t want to.”

“Fine.” Grabbing the straps, Diana swung cat and carrier up onto her shoulder, enjoying the muffled, “Oof!” rather more than she should have.

As it turned out, the accident site was in the washroom. Unfortunately, so was someone else. There were four people already waiting in line and judging by their expressions, not to mention the fidgeting, they’d been waiting for a while. Hoping she wasn’t too late, that seeping darkness hadn’t claimed a victim, Diana reached into the possibilities just far enough for safety—not quite far enough for voyeurism.

She couldn’t quite prevent the astounded sputter.

The motherly woman in line in front of her half turned. “Are you all right?”

“Choked on spit. Hate it when that happens.”

“I see.” Still looking concerned, although her focus had shifted from concern for to concern about, she turned away.

The possibilities had shown two people in the bathroom. They’d already been there longer than they’d intended, and it seemed like they were going to be there for quite a while yet. Darkness had no intention of allowing a quickie, not when a delay would leave everyone involved so frustrated. Few things resembled a lynch mob quite as much as people waiting for a toilet.

As though Diana’s thoughts had been her cue, the first person in line, an elderly woman with deep angry lines dragging down the corners of her mouth, stepped forward and banged impatiently on the door.

Which broke the rhythm and looked to delay things even further.

There seemed to be only one logical thing to do.

A few moments later, the couple emerged looking too totally satiated to be embarrassed by the amount of noise the finale had generated. Muttering in disgust, the elderly woman pushed past them, slammed the door, and shot the “occupied” slide home with such force it echoed throughout the car like a gunshot.

Moving Samuel to her other shoulder, Diana followed the line forward, jerking to a stop at the sound of a happy moan from inside the bathroom, closely followed by a muffled “Oh, yes. Yes! YES!” from the cubicle in the next car. Blushing scarlet, she reached back into the possibilities. She’d only intended to bring the original couple to a conjugal conclusion, not everyone who had to relieve themselves between Toronto and Montreal.

Although VIA was trying to get more people to ride the train.…

Diana caught herself on the edge of the toilet as the train lurched around a corner, barely managing to keep her head from cracking against the outer wall.

“Better wash your hands when you finish,” Samuel observed from the sink. “You wouldn’t believe what this place is covered with.”

“I can guess.”

Hooking a paw around a tap, he braced himself as the car rocked from side to side. “No surprise really, I mean, how can a guy aim when he’s being flung around the room.”

“How about sitting down?”

“Not manly. Don’t put your hand there!”

“Eww. You’re not helping.” She erased the signature a Cousin had left behind and straightened. “It’s not a big hole, but it’s been here for so long it may take a while to close it down. I’ll have to keep coming back—do it a bit at a time.”

“You’re going to attract attention,” he pointed out, climbing into the backpack so she could wash her hands.

“As if. People don’t watch other people heading for the bathroom.”

“You think she’d try adult diapers or something.”

“Yeah. Adult diapers.”

Just past Coburg, heading into the bathroom for the seventh and hopefully final trip, Diana leaned down and smiled sweetly at the two young men who’d made their observation about adult diapers in carrying voices. “I’m on my period,” she purred for their ears only.

They leaned away from her, appalled.

“Lots of heavy bleeding.”

The blond turned green, his gold eyebrow piercing standing out in stark contrast to his new skin tone.

“Clotting even.”

The brunet swallowed three times in quick succession and clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Sloughing off big chunks of uterine lining.”

They exchanged identical expressions of horror.

“One more word out of either of you,” she promised, “and I’ll go into detail.”

“Was that nice?” Samuel asked, emerging from the backpack as the bathroom door closed. “I mean, they were just being guys.”

“Yeah, well, I am not an angel.”

He sighed and shook his head. “You’re not even a cat.”

“Look, it’s easy, stop the truck or I ruin the upholstery. Your choice.”

Claire rolled her eyes as Dean began looking for a place to pull over. “You went to the bathroom less than fifty kilometers ago.”

“And now I have to go again.”

“Austin, we’re in a hurry!”

“So am I.”

Since the truck was now stopped, there didn’t seem to be any reason to continue the argument. Opening her door, she watched Austin leap to the ground and disappear behind a young spruce.

After three minutes on the dashboard clock, she opened the door again and called, “Austin? Are you all right?”

“I’m old,” his disembodied voice reminded her. “It takes a while.”

“Be careful.” She closed the door and sighed.

“Worried about him?” Dean asked gently, brushing a few snowflakes off her hair.

“A little.”

“Seemed like some sigh for a little worry.”

Noting the sudden spray of snow from behind the spruce, Claire glanced over at the clock and sighed again. “I just can’t help thinking that there’s got to be a more efficient way to fight darkness. There’s a demon loose in the world and we’re waiting at the side of the road for a cat to pee.”

The certain knowledge that they were not going to be eating in his car gave Leslie/Deter the strength to hold his table against all comers. He looked up from two number fours, one supersized, a coffee, and a hot chocolate as Byleth approached, limping slightly, and demanded, “Are you all right?”

Byleth adjusted her jacket, smoothed her hair back into place, and shrugged. “I had to fight through a busload of old ladies to get to a stall.”

Above the line of the black turtleneck, Leslie/Deter’s pale face blanched paler still and he glanced toward the women’s washroom as though he expected to see a blue-haired horde emerge brandishing American-made toaster ovens. “You didn’t wait your turn?”

“As if. I’d still be in there.” She looked around the rest stop, noting the lineup of elderly men at all three of the fast food outlets. “I know the baby boom is aging, but this is nuts.”

“They’re on their way home from a holiday trip to Casino Rama.”

“You can tell that from looking?”

Byleth could feel him tottering on the edge of a lie, but in the end he shook his head. “No. It said so on their bus.”

“Oh. Well, when I unleash Hell, old people will be among the first to go—because they don’t run as fast,” she explained when he made a strangled, wordless protest. “I mean, even demons with no actual legs can move faster than some old fart using a walker.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.” He checked to make sure no one had overheard before squaring his shoulders under the black leather trench coat and meeting her…

…staring past her left ear. “I don’t like it.”

“Because of the God thing?”

“Yeah. Because of the God thing.” His stance softened as he slid her food across the table. “It isn’t funny.”

She grinned at him over a mouthful of fries. “I wasn’t joking.”

“Byleth.”

“Leslie. You know what I don’t get,” she continued. “You drive a really cool car, you’ve got that high-priced sort of Goth meets ’N Sync look going, you’re neither boxers or briefs so what is it with you and God? It’s like, so geeky. You don’t really believe you have a personal relationship with the big kahuna, do you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She put down her burger and took a closer look. He really did. It was…unexpected. And disconcerting. Pushing her hair back off her face, she glared at him from under lowered brows. “In my experience, a so-called personal relationship with God mostly involves criticism of lifestyle choices.”

“Lifestyle choices?”

Her eyes went onyx. “I’m a demon.”

Leslie/Deter’s gaze skittered off hers, wandered the room for a moment, then slowly returned. His hands were trembling, but he swallowed and looked deep into the unrelieved black. “You don’t have to be,” he said.

And he believed that, too.

Byleth shoved her chair back hard enough to scrape the hard rubber legs across the tile floor with a noise that mixed fingernails on blackboards with the scream of a jammed fan belt. Half the people in the room winced, the rest put a hand to their better ear and shouted, “What?”

“Come on.” She snatched her diet cola up off the table. “This isn’t getting us any closer to Kingston.”

Claire began to get fidgety as the main street of Marmora disappeared behind them.

“Are you all right?” Dean asked, reaching out to capture her hand.

“I don’t know. Something’s nagging.”

He eased off on the gas. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Oh, sure,” Austin muttered, stepping indignantly across her lap, “but when the cat has to pee, there’s no sympathy.”

“It’s not my bladder, Austin, it’s the Summons.”

“I knew that.”

“Of course you did.” Pulling free from Dean’s grip, she stroked her fingers along the brilliant white expanse of stomach fur, the familiar motion and answering purr smoothing out her agitation.

“Claire?”

“Right, the Summons. We need to turn south. Now.”

Dean looked past her to the snow-covered fields and copses of naked trees passing on the south side of the highway. “Now?”

“Not exactly now. But as soon as you can.” Claire drew the Ontario Map Book out of the glove compartment, found highway seven, followed it to Marmora and beyond. “There.” Her fingernail tapped an intersection of two red lines. “Turn off on number 62 to Belleville.”

“That where we’re headed?”

“No, we have to go farther east, but that’s where we’ll pick up the 401.”

“What’s east of Belleville?”

Claire ran her finger along the double line. “There’s Napanee,” she told them, continuing to check the route, “but I don’t think that’s the…”

“Place?” Austin prodded rolling up onto his feet. Head to one side, he looked from Keeper to map and then followed a thin line of gray up to where it spread out against and disappeared against the gray upholstery on the inside of the roof. “What’s that smoking under your finger?”

“Kingston.” She closed the book with a snap.

“Kingston?” Dean repeated.

Claire met his eyes and nodded.

Austin sat down again. “At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You know what I love about trains? When they stop between stations for stupid reasons, you can’t get off.”

Curled up in the depths of the open backpack, Samuel yawned. “Why would you love that about trains?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I knew that.”

“Sure you did.” Diana glared out the window at the cars moving by on the highway, one empty, snow-covered field away—her left foot tapping against the floor, right fingers splayed out on the window. “I could have walked over there and got another ride by now, but, oh, no, that’d be against the rules. If I’d been Summoned to Kingston, I could fix whatever the stupid problem is, but only attempting to prevent a gross injustice isn’t reason enough. This is so lame.”

“It’s important you follow the rules.”

She snorted. “That’s something I never thought I’d hear a cat say.”

“I meant you specifically.”

“Oh, ha! I guess angels don’t mind wasting time, the time we could be using to get there first and set a trap.” Her right foot took over the beat from her left. “This so totally sucks.” The weight of a Bystander’s regard pulled her head up. The blond young man she’d previously terrorized was standing in the aisle staring down at her. “What?”

“Are you talking to your backpack?” he asked, leaning forward.

Diana closed the flap on the top of the big pocket. “Are you operating on more than two brain cells?”

“I just thought you had a…” He dropped his voice below the level of the ambient noise. “…cat.”

“And what if I do?”

Glancing around, as though he were about to hand over state secrets, he shoved a piece of beef jerky toward her, managed half a smile, hurried away. Frowning, she reopened the pack and offered Samuel the jerky.

“Did you let him leave?” he demanded, hooking it out of her fingers.

“I don’t think he’ll tell anyone.”

“That’s not the point,” he protested. “The point is, there’s always more than one piece in a package of beef jerky.”

“Maybe I should just go offer myself to him to keep you from starving.” Before he could answer, the train lunged about five feet forward, then began picking up speed in a less vertebrae-separating manner. “Finally! If that demon’s raised Hell before we get there, I’m sending a nasty letter to the smoking ruins of the VIA Rail head office.”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll show them.”

“So is there some place you want me to drop you off or what?” Leslie/Deter asked, as the car squealed its way around the tight exit ramp at Division Street. “If you’re on your own, we have a mission in Kingston.”

“I so don’t care. Besides I know exactly where I’m going.”

“Might be nice if the driver knew.”

“Lower Union Street. Just off King.” Byleth wet her lips in anticipation. “Place called the Elysian Fields Guest House.”