He’d caught me off guard. I shot around to face him.

He nodded. “The emissary has been inside him for weeks. Who better, after all? He knows more about you than anyone. Knows how you think. Your weaknesses. Your habits.”

“No one knows how I think.”

“But Earl Walker knows better than most. The beast inside him, the emissary, finally killed him yesterday and now has complete control of his body.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“Those things are bloody hard to kill once they’ve burrowed inside a human host. These aren’t your average demons.”

“I know that. I was there, remember? I saw what one did to your bitch wife.”

“Then why didn’t you know about Earl Walker?” he asked me.

I stopped.

He nodded. “I think your father let you see exactly as much as he wanted you to see. There’s still a lot you don’t know and a lot I can help with. I’m in, Reyes. Let me do what I do best, but first let me help with Charley. She’s my daughter. I have a right.”

There was no denying that Leland had been a good man when he was alive, but death did things to people. Their good nature didn’t always survive the trip into the supernatural world. I was beginning to think, however, that Leland’s did.

“I want reports every two hours,” I said, stuffing a handful of shirts into a duffel bag.

“You got it. But, Reyes, there’s a reason I told you all this.”

I gave him my full attention. “More good news, I assume?”

“Not really. I just find it odd that Charley ended up in Sleepy Hollow, New York, of all places.”

I shook off the dread clawing its way up my spine, and asked, “Why?”

“Because that’s where Earl Walker is now.”