He started to walk out, but I put my arm across the doorway to block him. He looked down at me, his deep mocha gaze shimmering angrily.

“You’re wrong,” I said, matter-of-fact. “You, Mr. Farrow, are far from perfect.”

I dropped my arm and turned from him. Partly because I needed a shower really bad and partly because there was a grain – just a grain – of truth to what he’d said.

16

Never underestimate the power of termites.

— BUMPER STICKER

I showered and then made a cup of Satan’s blood as Osh took his turn. I was exhausted, but the sun was in full swing, and I had things to do. Cookie came over and made herself a cup, too.

“Every inch of my body is sore,” she said. “And my head is going to fall off at any moment.”

“I’m really sore, too,” I said, playing along.

“No, you’re not. He busted you, didn’t he?” she said, taking one look at me as I sulked behind my mug.

“Yes. He followed us out there.”

“Seriously?” she asked, sitting on Osh’s bed. “And he didn’t help?”

“Right? But that’s not all. He said I’m a horrible god.”

She gasped. “He didn’t.”

“He did.”

“Well, we all have to be horrible at something, sweetheart. Take me, for example. I’m horrible at selling vacuum cleaners.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“True. I rock at selling vacuum cleaners. And you have a house to dispossess. Chop, chop.”

After I got dressed, I searched Reyes’s apartment for him, but to no avail. I stepped back into my own pad to see Osh dressed and wearing his top hat like he was going places.

He stood. “Rey’aziel had to go check on things at the bar. He asked me to escort you today.”

The sting was quick and brutal. I fought to suppress it. “Okay,” I said, wondering if Osh was like Reyes and me. If he could feel emotion.

Either way, we ended up going to the Amityville house together. In absolute silence. Maybe he could feel emotion. We crossed the Rio Grande at eight thirty and found the house with relative ease about ten minutes later. Sadly, it looked nothing like the real Amityville house. And it certainly didn’t look possessed.

Father Glenn stood out front, waiting for us.

“Where’s the family?” I asked as I climbed out of Misery.

“Work. Kids are at school.” He shook my hand and nodded to Osh, who stood close behind me.

“It looks so normal,” I said, and the father chuckled.

“That’s what I said. It seems very interested in meeting you.”

“Wonderful. Shall we?” I asked Osh. I’d of course packed Zeus, but if there was a real demon inside, I could easily get rid of it with my light, or my inner glow, as I liked to call it. I’d done it before.

Osh nodded and followed me to the door.

“It’s open,” Father Glenn called out. “I want you to get a feel for the place before I join you.”

“’Kay. Thanks.” I wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

“It has a dark aura,” Osh said quietly.

I slowed my step. “That’s bad?”

He nodded. “Houses don’t have auras.”

“Oh. So, yeah, bad.” Probably an angry demon.

He went inside with me, but just in case, as we crossed the threshold, I summoned an even angrier demon. “Rey’aziel,” I whispered.

“I’m here,” he said at my ear. Of course he would already be there, watching over me incorporeally. I felt his heat slide along my skin, the scorching sensation oddly comforting.

As we searched for the room Father Glenn told us about, the one with the most activity, I asked Osh, “How do you do that? How do you see auras? I’ve done it, but I can’t do it every day. And I’m the grim reaper, for heaven’s sake.”

“It took a while for me to learn it, too. You were made to see the departed, to focus on them. Maybe that’s why the auras of the living are unimportant to you.”

“They’re not unimportant.”

“Just a thought.”

“So, how did you learn?”

“First, you have to realize human sight is different from our own. We see a thousand times the number of colors that they do.”

“Seriously? Okay.”

“Then you have to adjust. To see things from more than one plane at a time.”

“And how do you do that?”

“You catch fire.”

I stopped and turned to him. “You what?”

He lifted a shoulder. “That’s the only way to describe it. When I was first learning, it felt like I would catch fire. Then I could see every color the sun had to offer. And every nuance of every color. Every gradation in between until the shades between black and white were in the millions.”

“Yes. That,” I said, pointing to him. “I want to do that.”

“Push inside yourself until it feels like you catch fire. And hurry, because it’s here.”

I whirled around, looking but not seeing. “I don’t understand. I’ve seen demons a dozen times. Why can’t I see it?”

“You’ve seen them when they’ve allowed you to. You need to see them with or without their permission. And, yeah, I’d hurry.”

My adrenaline kicked in, my gaze darting from corner to corner in a narrow hall. The wood floorboards creaked with every movement. I did what Osh said and concentrated. Tried to catch fire. A spark of heat flared to life inside me and grew, spreading until it consumed every inch I had to offer, until it blurred and shifted my vision from what I saw as a human to what I saw as a supernatural entity. And slowly a figure took shape in the darkened corridor.