I glanced at Chance for confirmation, and his expression revealed a shocked horror that told me our nutty new ally must’ve been right on the money. Shit. We might really have God’s Hand on our side. That scared me more than a simple maniac.

Heaven help us.

Oh, crap, it already had.

Close but No Cigar

None of us slept that night.

Hey, I defy anyone to sleep with the likes of Kel in close proximity. Even if I didn’t suspect he stabbed ice picks through people’s eyes, I would’ve found his intensity disturbing. And his eyes . . . well, on the surface, they glittered like frost, but if I gazed at them too long, the ice began to look like fire. Maybe I was as crazy as him, but I started to feel he actually might not be human.

Before we left, Chance redid the wards after a consultation with Booke. The Englishman gave us his phone number and promised to stand ready if we had questions for him. Despite the grimness of the situation, the idea of having a hermetic scholar on call amused me. Last thing, I fed Chuch and Eva some crushed ice, hoping that would tide them over until we returned. If we did.

“If you don’t hear from us within four hours,” I said to Booke, “call the authorities. Have them send paramedics to the house. Maybe modern medicine can save them where we fail. You have Chuch’s address?”

“Just a moment; let me fetch a pen.” Pause. “Very well, go on. I hope it won’t come to that,” he added, sounded worried.

“Me too. Wish us luck.”

“You have it,” Booke said. “He’s there by your side.”

True enough. We didn’t say good-bye. That might be a bad omen. I hung up and set the cordless handset back on its cradle to charge.

“Will you keep watch over them?” I asked Butch.

He barked twice.

“Oh, no. You can’t come with me.” The Chihuahua didn’t look convinced. In the end, I fed him, took him out to do his business, and then left him to play guard dog, whether he liked it or not. “If you hear anything suspicious, dial 911.”

Butch cocked his head at me. Sometimes I felt like he understood me completely, word for word. I needed to go home. Clearly the stress was making me nuts.

I got in the back of the Mustang because neither of us wanted Ferguson, or God’s Hand, or whatever he was, out of our line of sight. Part of me still couldn’t believe we hadn’t called the cops already. Talk about strange bedfellows. I listened to the men loading up the trunk; we’d cleaned out Chuch’s souvenirs from his former life. I hoped the weapons would be enough.

As we drove into the dawn, I heard a low litany in what sounded like Latin. Shifting sideways, I saw Kel’s mouth moving. His eyes were closed, his face uplifted.

“Is he praying?” I whispered.

Chance shrugged. “I guess. We can use all the help we can get.”

Ferguson said, “We shall prevail. Our mission is blessed.”

There didn’t seem to be a lot to say after that. I wouldn’t argue with a killer touched either by divinity or madness, but his certainty didn’t ease my jitters.

When Chance pulled into the drive on Halstead Creek Road, Ferguson climbed out. Though the gate was solid metal and should have required a remote, he powered it open with his bare hands. I listened to the groaning steel and shivered.

“It will be easier since it’s daylight,” Chance said quietly. “But it still won’t be a cakewalk. I don’t know what all this son of a bitch can bring to bear on us, so stay together and keep a sharp eye out.”

I nodded and then realized he probably couldn’t see me. “Understood.”

We followed the gravel path around to the barn that doubled as a hangar. There were several outbuildings nearby, and I could only guess at the purpose. The house itself had probably been built about ten or so years ago. The two-story structure looked well kept but not pristine, as blowing winds full of Texas dust took their toll on the stone. Oddly, it didn’t look as I imagined a warlock’s evil lair would. There were no brooding granite gargoyles, no creepy Victorian architecture. Maybe I’d seen too many movies.

The men climbed out and Ferguson pulled the seat forward for me. His expression made me want to piss myself in fear. I’d never seen that combination of ecstasy and acceptance before, like he knew he might die here and that excited him. I guess if you believe you’re God’s Hand, you’re eager to be reunited with him so he can reward you for all your good work. I shuddered as I crawled out from behind the seat.

“First objective,” Chance said. “We need to find the warlock’s focus charms and destroy them. He might not realize we know that’s the root of his power.”

“Since he’s expecting us, wouldn’t he keep them on him?” I asked.

Kel closed his eerie eyes as if listening and then informed us, “There’s a great evil in the upper stories. If we can reach them, it will hamper his ability to combat us.”

Big if.

I didn’t ask how he got that information because I just knew he would say God told him so or maybe one of the angels. What does it say about us that we’re taking him at his word? We passed through pearly streaks of predawn light while heading for the house.

“He’s sure to have them protected somehow,” I said.

They nodded in agreement, but we couldn’t change course; Chance and I because Chuch and Eva were counting on us. For Ferguson it was a different story, one I didn’t dwell on long.

The irony lay in the fact that we were about to commit any number of crimes to get at this bastard, the least of which would be breaking and entering. Not surprisingly the doors were locked. Kel circled the building checking for a mundane security system, and then turned up silently beside us, shaking his head.

“He has a different kind of alarm in place.”

We crouched near the front windows, undecided. The prospect of untold magickal consequences didn’t appear to disturb Ferguson, but then what did? I’d never seen any real emotion on the man’s face other than divine purpose and conviction. Maybe he believed God would protect him, but I wasn’t so sure about Chance and me.

“Let’s call Booke,” I whispered. “He’s been practicing the astral thing—that’s how he was able to identify the warlock’s tell. Maybe he can do something for us here. We won’t be able to see him or contact him once he joins us in spirit form, but I think it’d be smart to take all the help we can get.”

“You think he’d do that for us?” Chance bit his lip, undecided, and I wanted to brush the tumbled hair away from his face. I didn’t. “It could be dangerous, even for an astral body. We don’t know what guardians lurk around this place.”

That possibility made me twitch, as if unseen eyes watched us and reported our every move. Booke could make up his own mind, I thought. I would outline the dangers, and he could choose whether to help. None of us knew enough about magick to deconstruct an alarm, though, so when we went in, we’d set it off, if Booke didn’t come through.

I dialed the international calling code and then the rest of his number. He picked up on the first ring, sounding hushed but anxious. “Corine? Is everything all right?”

Since he already knew what had happened to Chuch and Eva, I thought that was a remarkably British question. “Well, no worse than it was anyway. We have a proposition to offer you. If you help out using that astral thing and do what you can with the magickal traps, we’ll parcel up any artifacts that you see and want. Ship them to you in Stoke for your collection. Then again, you’d have to be crazy to say yes. I mean, it’s pretty risky. And not everybody is into stuff the way I am. I could be bought for a really nice lamp—”

“You want me to come now? I’m just a scholar, you know. I’ve only studied these things in the abstract.” I’d surprised him. I heard it in his voice.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s dangerous. I understand. Can you offer any advice then? We don’t know anything about magickal alarms.”

“Typically, they summon a guardian or the master himself,” Booke told me. “I . . . yes. I do have some advice. Don’t move from where you are until I ring you back. I’ll see what I can do.”

Ridiculous. I wished we’d thought of this before we left home. My knees throbbed from kneeling, so I sat down behind the hedge. I checked to make sure I’d set the phone to vibrate. That would be perfect, if my J.Lo ringtone alerted the whole compound.

Perhaps ten minutes later, the phone gave me a tingle in my right pocket. I answered with a whispered, “Booke? Are you all right?”

“I did it,” he said. “You’re clear. Break a window quietly and he’ll be none the wiser. I also found the room where he keeps his foci. It’s in the attic, up the stairs and behind a false wall. It was such a rush to apply something I’ve only read about—”

I hated to interrupt him, but the clock was running. “We’ll talk more about it later, okay? Thanks so much.”

“Corine, wait—”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I took the liberty of scouting for you as well. In the far building, the hangar, he’s keeping prisoners. They appear to be young women, stored in crates like animals. All their auras looked weak. This fight could turn into an abattoir if you aren’t careful.”

Shit.

“Thank you. We needed to know that.”

After disconnecting, I relayed the information to Chance and Ferguson, although I wasn’t sure he cared if innocent bystanders died for God’s glory.

“It just keeps getting better,” Chance muttered.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. My whole body ached from lack of sleep and last night’s attack, and a headache whispered at my temples. If I didn’t rest soon, it would flare into a full migraine. “Do we go after his charms and risk his killing those people to feed his power? Or free the people and risk his unleashing his full strength on us?”

“Neither,” Ferguson said. “You two go after the hostages. I’ll destroy his foci. Get them out of here, though. They can’t be close enough for him to strike when we hit him.”

“Why hasn’t he sensed us?” That had been gnawing at me. “If he did yesterday—”

“I’ve fixed my luck on it,” Chance said quietly. “That’s all I can do. We need to be quick, though. I can’t concentrate like this forever. It . . . hurts.” As he said that, a single drop of blood trickled from his nose.

“That’s it then. Go, Ferguson. We’ll take care of the prisoners. You do your part.”

Without a word, Kel produced a cutting tool and went to work on the window. We turned and headed for the far building. Set at the end of the landing strip, the hangar looked as though it had been built to house a small plane, perhaps a little storage as well.

“What’re we going to do?” I whispered. “This is a crappy rescue.”

“Maybe there’s a truck. We’ll just drive them out of here and set them free.”