Needless to say, it wasn’t long until we were climbing back into the car. Amazing how lack of conversation can make a meal pass quickly.

  “Ready to go home?” I asked Lucy and Doc.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said.

  I nodded, put the car into reverse, and backed from the parking lot.

  Tabby kept quiet. This was turning out to be a fun day. I should have known not to be optimistic. Maybe one day I’d know better.

  #

  When we got home, Tabby went upstairs. Fine. She could be that way. I did have better crap to do than spend the day being all pissed off. Frankly, now she was the one being childish, though I wasn’t stupid enough to tell her that.

  I settled on the couch and watched TV with Lucy and Doc for a while. Nothing like mind-numbing entertainment to help me block out everything else. Maybe that’s why Lucy liked watching TV so much. It was something to think about.

  About an hour later, Tabby came downstairs. Her hair was wet. She sat on the couch beside me, grabbed my arm, and wrapped it around her. Maybe I was misjudging her again. I needed to stop assuming shit and just take in the facts.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She snuggled into my chest. “Are you going to check on your trip tomorrow?”

  I stroked her hair. “I’ll power up the email tonight before I go to bed to see if I got a reply yet.”

  “Okay,” she replied.

  Lucy spun away from the TV and looked at us for a minute, then she went back to the TV.

  “Everything okay, Lucy?” I asked.

  She spun toward me. “Yeah. I’m just kind of bored.”

  She didn’t admit that often, so I knew it was really bad. Time to try to fix it. “Anything you’d like to do?”

  “Can we play a game?” she asked.

  I smiled. “We can play any game you want.”

  She scooted closer on the floor. Tabby sat up.

  “Any game?” Lucy asked.

  From the mischievous look on her face, it was starting to seem like not so good of an idea.

  “What do you have in mind?” Tabby asked her.

  “We all can tell a story about something that scared us most. The one that is the scariest wins.”

  Okay, now I wasn’t liking that at all. One, Lucy had made a deal with the Devil, even if it was loosely formed. Two, after dealing with the demonic this long, there was no way I was going to vocalize what scared me most. So I was caught. Did I tell her no and make her choose another game? Or did I lie? It was a conundrum.

  Technically, I could lie about the thing that scared me most, but that wouldn’t be fair to Lucy. Plus, I didn’t lie lightly. It was one of my pet peeves.

  “What if we choose whether to tell a scary story or a funny story?” Tabby asked.

  Leave it to Tabby to step in. I wanted to hug her so hard.

  “Okay,” Lucy said.

  I could tell she wasn’t happy about it by how rigid her body went, but she didn’t vocalize it. Maybe the poor kid was happy we agreed to play a game with her at all. Kind of sad. We needed to include Lucy more instead of having her tag along. This sudden parenthood business wasn’t doing any of us any favors.

  Doc cleared his throat. He’d been sitting in the chair on the other side of the sofa. Lucy and Tabby gaped at him. Kind of amazing he could get them to listen by clearing his throat. Me? I was chopped liver. I guessed you had to have a presence or something.

  “I think there’s a reason Miss Lucy wants to know what you’re afraid of,” he said.

  Okay. I’d bite. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. “Okay, Lucy. Are you afraid of something?”

  She nodded her head very slowly.

  Sometimes getting information from her was like pulling the teeth out of a cat. “Okay. What are you afraid of?”

  She adjusted and sat cross-legged. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  It was really fucking sweet. I nodded at Tabby and looked back at Lucy. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  Lucy blinked. “What about when they decide where I’m going?”

  There was no way I could see her either place unless I was dead too. And there wasn’t anything I could do about that. It was out of my hands to make any decisions with that much importance behind them. I didn’t want to lie to her, so I presented it in the only way I could. “Lucy, all we can do is the best we can. Who even knows when we’ll have to worry about that. It might be a very long time.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  That was all it took. I thought it was going to be a hell of a lot harder than that. “Next time, just tell us if something is upsetting you, okay?”

  She got up, ran over to me, and hugged me. I felt a slight bit of pressure this time. Maybe all the stress was getting to her too. I wished there was some way to make all of this a lot easier on everybody.

  “I love you,” she said.

  I smiled into where her hair would be. “Love you too, kiddo.”

  #

  Later that night, I peered at the iPad. Still no word from the Order. Hell, it was possible I wouldn’t even be told until the last minute. With the way they’d done everything else, it wasn’t out of the question. Yet, I wasn’t too worried. It was on their dime after all. If it had been coming out of my pocket, I’d have been throwing a shit storm.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Tabby. She seemed to be staring off into space.

  “Thinking,” she said.

  Okay. Now I was interested. There was a lot of stuff I loved about Tabby and a big one was her brain. “About what?”

  “Coffee.”

  Jesus Christ. Here I thought she was having some sort of major epiphany. I rolled my eyes. She had this unhealthy obsession with those crappuccino things. “You know those are bad for you, right?”

  She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Like bacon isn’t?”

  I laughed. “Hey, bacon is wonder-food.”

  She laughed back at me. “If you say so.”

  I shrugged. No way was I going to back down from that one. Meat had nutritional content. Besides, my father had eaten it every day of his life along with his morning oatmeal and his cholesterol was great.

  “What are we going to do tomorrow?” Tabby asked.

  I noticed how she was slyly trying to change the subject, but I chose not to call her on it. “Well, I think I’d better check the airline rules and crap so I can make sure I have everything I need, just in case they tell me at the last minute.”

  She flopped over on her side, facing me. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Thank you so much for your faith in me.” Sometimes I wondered if she thought I deserved to walk upright.

  She smacked me on the arm. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  I grinned at her. “We still need to find a box or something for el rod-o.”

  “Any ideas?”

  My brain bounced around about fourteen different items at once. Most of them from old movies I’d seen. “We could go old-school Mafia-style and get a violin case.”

  Tabby laughed. “You are interesting, you know that?”

  I chuckled. “You have to admit, that would be interesting to go through security with. Here’s a violin case. They put it through the x-ray machine and it is not a violin. So they open the case for further examination and–dum dum dum–find a stick!”

  She shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  I shrugged. “Keep me around, I guess.”

  “Turn off the light,” she said and reached toward me.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  #

  The next morning, I didn’t wake up until eleven. Part of me was happy for the sleep. The other part was afraid that I’d wasted too much of the day. I needed to start setting an alarm or something so I wouldn’t waste so much damn time. Not having regular hours was fucking up my system. The old body needed more rest.

  I got up out of bed, grabbed a quick shower, and then lumbered downstairs.

  I heard nothing, which was odd. Usually, the TV was on and I could hear voices.

  I peeked into the living room and the place was spotless. It was so wrong. I knew Tabby had to have been the one picking up. It sure as hell hadn’t been my lazy ass. When I’d been by myself, the house had been lucky to get cleaned like once a week.

  I went into the kitchen. The only evidence that anyone had been there was the dishcloth draped over the sink. It was wet. At least I knew they hadn’t been gone that long.

  I stared out the window.

  Tabby was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the backyard. Her eyes were closed and she was in what I called her “meditation pose.” Lucy was copying the same pose, but the only difference was that she was hovering in mid-air. Doc was leaning against a tree, watching them. Probably a good thing that very few people could see them. Otherwise, our street would become the haven for rash car crashes in the area. That, or misinformed Goths trying to connect with their inner supernatural. Were there even Goths anymore?

  I opened the back door and walked over to Doc. The grass felt cool against my feet.

  “How are they?” I asked him.

  “Okay, for now. They decided you needed some rest.”

  I laughed. Maybe I’d been crankier than I realized. “They did, did they?”

  Doc chuckled. “Mentioned something about you being entirely too grumpy.”

  Suddenly I felt something warm and furry land on my foot. I looked down and Isaac stared up at me. That damn cat.

  “Guess this is your version of man time?” I asked him. He meowed back.

  I looked back up at Tabby. Her eyes were still closed and it was almost as if the sunlight was bursting from the highlights in her hair. Damn, she was beautiful like that. With the sun glowing around her, I could almost see her special powers.

  “You got yourself a mighty fine filly,” Doc said.

  I blushed. It was ridiculous, but I did. “Yeah. She’s something else.”

  Doc grunted. “Better take good care of her.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Hell, I’d been doing better this time than I had before. We didn’t fight as much. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was older, or if I had mellowed out any. Or, maybe, Tabby and I just had the ability to deal with each other better.

  “Jimmy!” Lucy floated across the yard toward me.

  I waved. “Hey, there.”

  “Tabby’s been teaching me to…to…medi-something.”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. She was so damn cute sometimes. “I see.”

  “Remember what I said about rule #1?” Tabby asked. Her eyes were still closed. The corners of her mouth were quivering like she was trying not to laugh. I wondered how long it was going to be until she gave up.

  Lucy stilled. “Be very, very quiet.”

  Tabby opened her eyes and grinned. “That’s right.”

  I snickered. It was so great watching them interact. I could almost imagine Tabby actually being Lucy’s mom.

  Tabby put her finger in front of her lips, got up from the ground, and walked over to the rest of us.

  “Finally decided to get up, did ya?” she asked me.

  I laughed. “Guess so. I haven’t slept that well in a while.”

  It was true. Maybe we all needed to talk about crap more instead of jumping in and trying to fix everything. And I knew I was one of the worst culprits of this, but we all needed to take a step back.

  She nodded. “That’s why I let you sleep.”

  I plucked a strand of her hair out of her face. “Want to grab some lunch, then hit the antique shops?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “What are we going there for?” Lucy asked.

  I glanced at her. “To find a protective case for the rod.”

  She stood on the ground and stopped hovering. “I promise I’ll never touch it again.”

  Her lips were quivering, and I could almost see tears forming in her eyes.

  Dammit. Either she was too sensitive, or I was a fucking idiot. Frankly, the jury was still out. I needed a manual or something. “No! We know you didn’t mean it. It was an accident. We’re just going to get a box for it so that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  Her eyes were so large, looking at me like that. “Really?”

  “Yup. Besides, we have to keep it safe, don’t we?”

  She nodded again.

  I waved my hand toward the back door. “Okay, everybody inside. Let’s get ready for the road trip.”

  They followed me like a herd of geese.

  #

  I was getting tired of driving, but hopefully, after this trip, I wouldn’t be doing any traveling until I had to leave for Italy. If everyone wanted to do something, we’d do it closer to home. That, or I’d have Tabby drive, though I would imagine even she was getting tired of spending so much time in the car.

  I don’t know what possessed me to go to antique stores. One—who knew there were this many in southern West Virginia? I lived right on the border, right past Bluefield into Virginia. Not much was there on the Virginia side, so West Virginia it was. Two—everything was overpriced. And three—no one had any violin cases. I was ready to give up. I should have gone to the local music store, but I hadn’t been thinking. And apparently, Tabby hadn’t either. I wasn’t blaming her or anything. It was just something we both normally would have caught. I think we both needed some more rest.

  We were sitting in the car outside the last store. Doc and Lucy were in the back seat as usual. They’d stopped going into the stores after the third one. I didn’t blame them. This sucked lime-green donkey balls. I didn’t even mention the music store. Frankly, I didn’t want to pay two hundred dollars for a good hard case.

  I glanced at Tabby. “Got any other ideas?”

  She leaned against the headrest. “Does it have to be a violin case?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really. Just would have been cool.” Hell, at this point I would take something made out of duct tape. Well, not really, but I was tired.

  “Well, all you want is something that can be secure, right?” Tabby asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She stared out the window for a minute, and then suddenly turned to look at me. “What about a gun case?”

  I paused. It was a pretty good idea. You could get them in various sizes. People would know whatever was inside was dangerous. Better yet, the hard cases locked.

  “Any idea how much they cost?” I asked.

  “Around a hundred dollars for a good one,” Tabby said. She adjusted herself in the seat.

  That was better than the violin. I put the car in gear. “Okay. Sporting goods store here we come.”

  I didn’t go to one all the way down there. I drove us back home first. No sense in waiting to get rid of the long drive when we had sporting goods shops close to the house. It was Virginia, after all. Hunting was huge here.

  Once I got there, Doc and Lucy stayed where they were. In fact, Tabby did too. That shocked me.

  “You aren’t coming in with me?” I asked Tabby.

  She shook her head. “I’m feeling kind of tired.”

  Welcome to the club. But whatever. It wasn’t like this wasn’t something I could do myself. “Okay. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  I closed the car door and walked into the store. It was your usual chain sporting-goods store. Helpful clerks standing here and there—mostly looking bored. I didn’t bother taking any of them away from their cell phones. It took me a little bit to find the cases. But soon I found what we needed. It was a hard black case with silver metal clasps. It was designed to let you carry your gun broken down. It was a little wide, but the length left enough room on each end to keep the rod safe. Best of all, it was on sale.

  The clerk didn’t even look at me twice on the way out. She was more interested in staring at the clock. After a while, I could imagine how mind-numbing her job was. Made me thankful for the one I had—and that’s kind of sad.

  I walked out the store and held up the bag. I was about to show Tabby the prize when I realized she seemed a little too still. Oh, shit.

  I ran over to the car and threw open the door. It was like everything alive had been sucked out of the car. Even the air inside it smelled stale. Doc gaped at me and tried to speak, but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. His mouth moved, but nothing was coming out. Not good.

  Next thing I knew, everything went black. And the bag with the case in it? It was gone from my hand.

  #

  “You didn’t think it would be so easy, did you?”

  The voice was tenor. Not bad and not good. Just there. I opened my eyes. The place I was in felt wrong. Like it was a little too hot. The walls were a red color. I wasn’t sure if this could get more cliché or not. I was starting to feel like Scrooge felt in that 1970’s musical.

  I looked around. Standing over me was the man himself. Big Red wore flowing black robes that seemed to undulate between lightness and darkness. Just one problem. The voice wasn’t exactly how I remembered Big Red’s to be. That was a big problem. Something was off.

  “What did I think was going to be easy?” I asked him.

  “Your debt.”

  Now I was confused. I had made no deal with him at all. In fact, I hadn’t done anything. Plus, he’d said himself that Lucy didn’t owe him anything, so this wasn’t making any sense.

  “I believe you are mistaken,” I said.

  He laughed. Heartily. “How easily you mortals forget.”

  I sat up on the floor. My head was spinning. This seemed like Big Red, but his mannerisms were different. His voice was different. Either the man I knew as Big Red was a hoax, or this one was. I suspected the latter.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Now, why would I tell an exorcist my real name?” he said.

  Big Red wouldn’t have worried about it. When he’d been around me, he’d shown no fear at all. Well, that’s because he was a bucky badass and didn’t have anything to prove. This idiot…yeah.

  “Well, that makes a lot of sense,” I said. “You might as well drop the façade. I know you aren’t who you are pretending to be.”

 

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