Though I did find it interesting that as many of the Devil’s children were after me. Ares had wasted most of my time. Granted, I’d known him as Vespa for the most part, and still thought of him that way, but his father had been the one to expose his true motive. I still had to thank him for teaching me something though—don’t get cocky. Investigate everything. And ask all the questions. I wasn’t about to make those mistakes again. At least I learned something, which was probably counter-productive to what they had intended.

  “You ready?” Tabby asked from the kitchen doorway.

  “Yep.” I glanced at Doc and Lucy. “You guys be good while we’re gone.”

  Doc nodded. Lucy ignored me.

  I let Tabby go first. I closed and locked the door behind us. I had a feeling that this was going to be an interesting evening.

  #

  Tabby insisted on driving. I think she was afraid I’d have a fit or something, but I was honestly starting to feel better. Maybe the Devil had done something to me to lessen the effects. It was possible. He didn’t seem to want me taken over by one of his sons, and that’s exactly what Leviathan had tried to do. He’d tried to possess me. Good thing I was as goofy as I was.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Tabby asked.

  I patted her hand. “I’m fine, so okay per se. Takes more than a Devil visit to take me out.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “You think Lucy is going to be okay?” I asked. What happened to me didn’t matter so much now that the crisis was over. Time to go back to thinking about what was important.

  “Of course.”

  It kind of made me uncomfortable that she was so nonchalant about it. “How do you know?”

  Tabby glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Because she has to be. What good would it do her to be a mess forever? Even we don’t know how long she’ll be in limbo.”

  She did have a point, but Lucy was still six. She always would be. Spirits didn’t age. “Yeah…Just been trying to figure out how to make it better for her.”

  Tabby pulled into the parking lot of the pizza place. It was this little mom and pop shop that would even put prosciutto on it if you asked for it. It cost a lot extra, though, so we usually skipped that part.

  “That’s what we’re doing right now,” Tabby said.

  “It seems like so little.” And it was. It was a fucking pizza for Christ’s sake, and that was all we were doing to make a kid happy. It verged on ridiculous.

  She sighed. “To us, maybe, but to her, we’re giving her everything we have the ability to give. For a child that’s more than enough.”

  Sometimes she was so damn smart. I needed to stop overthinking things.

  “Stay here,” she said and started crawling out of the car.

  “Come on; I can at least pay for pizza.” I was starting to feel a little worthless.

  She finished getting out and leaned into the car to look at me. “Nope. Jimmy, let me take care of you for once.”

  I sighed. “Oh, all right.”

  She grinned and closed the door.

  This was going to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

  #

  Back at home, Tabby did at least let me carry the pies into the house. I guessed I’d proven to her that I wasn’t going to fall down every two seconds. I let her open the door for me and I walked inside.

  Doc and Lucy were back to watching TV. I needed to come up with some stuff that would get Lucy away from the TV. It wasn’t healthy.

  “Get the plates,” I told Tabby as she passed me. She saluted.

  “Smartass,” I said.

  I walked into the living room and set the pizzas on the floor. Lucy crawled over near the pies. The TV was on yet another bad horror film.

  Doc floated down from his perch on the recliner.

  Tabby came in and sat on the floor, plates in hand. I lumbered to the floor and felt my knee pop. I was getting too old for this. If I kept this up, I could see myself in a wheelchair doing exorcisms and swatting at demons with my cane. I was destined to be crotchety.

  I opened the box and put a slice on a paper plate Tabby handed me. Then, I set it on the floor in front of Lucy. This was the moment of truth.

  “Okay, kid. Give it a try,” I said. It was going to be weird as shit, but whatever. Weird had been the norm around here for a long time.

  She stood up and positioned herself right overtop the plate. At first, she seemed kind of confused. Then, suddenly, her eyes lit up with light. “I can smell it!”

  Tabby, Doc, and I all clapped. Ectoplasmic tears of joy ran down Lucy’s face.

  “Congratulations, kid,” I said. It was bizarre, but who cared.

  She darted across and grabbed me in a huge hug. I could feel her denser now. More real. It was nice to feel that again. I’d missed it.

  “Thank you, Jimmy,” she said.

  I smiled. “You’re welcome, Lucy.”

  Thank heaven for small favors.

  Chapter Nine

  FLY LIKE A BIRD

  WHEN WE WENT upstairs to bed, the first thing I did was turn on the iPad. I’d almost gotten out of the habit of checking it and that was probably a bad thing. Especially since there was a note waiting for me. Whoops.

  Mr. Holiday,

  Please review the following visa forms to make sure that they are correct. We will be making all reservations for you. Relax.

  Fr. Martin

  At least, it was an answer this time. Maybe they were getting used to me and my way of doing stuff. Although this was also a new guy. I was starting to wonder if their secretarial staff cycled around that much or if I was being considered a “special snowflake.”

  “Tabby?” I asked.

  She popped her head from the bathroom door. “What?”

  “Do you have any experience with visa forms?” It was something out of my league. I’d never done anything outside of the country besides vacation.

  “Credit cards?” she asked.

  “No, immigration stuff.” I sighed. Nothing like paperwork to put a damper on things. I’d known it was coming, but I’d been avoiding thinking about it like the plague. And I’d been kind of preoccupied.

  She stepped out of the bathroom. “No, not really. Why?”

  “The Order sent the forms that I have to have filed to stay in Italy for the length of the course.”

  She shrugged. “Oh. Well, print them out and we'll find someone to look at them tomorrow.”

  Leave it to her to simplify everything and make it seem manageable. I needed to calm the fuck down. “Good idea.”

  I forwarded the email to my usual address. I had no way of accessing my Order email any way except on the iPad, and since I'd never figured out how to link my tablet up to the printer, emailing the file was a lot easier. And I had to admit, I was sort of lazy. It was easier to climb the stairs than fuck with networking.

  I got up, ran downstairs, and started booting up my laptop. The spirits were in their usual spots: Doc in the chair and Lucy on the floor in front of the TV.

  “Everything all right?” Doc asked.

  “Yep. Got some paper from the Order I gotta print out,” I said.

  He grunted and went back to watching TV. Lucy was focused on some old 1980’s sitcom. I could handle that a lot better than her unhealthy obsession with scary movies. It wasn’t that I had a thing against scary movies, or even against kids watching them. It was that she’d lived through enough horror, so why add to it? But if she liked them, and wasn’t afraid of them, there wasn’t much else for me to do. Maybe she was just a weird kid. Hell, I certainly wasn’t anything you could call normal.

  I got the files printed and flipped everything off. Then I went back upstairs.

  Tabby was in bed, flipping through a magazine. She glanced up when I entered the room.

  “That could have waited until tomorrow, you know,” she said.

  I nodded. “Technically, yes. But if I didn’t get it done, I would drive myself crazy thinking about it all night.”

  She shook her head. “You really are an odd duck.”

  I laughed. “And you’re normal?”

  She smacked me with her magazine. “Normaler than you.”

  I crawled into bed, put my hands behind my head, and lay down. “It’s weird how fast your life can change.”

  Tabby stared at me. “If we’d be honest, we were destined for this, though.”

  I couldn’t deny that. My life was steamrolling ahead and I wasn’t sure when it was going to stop. “Ever think about what it would have been like if we’d never split up the first time?”

  She put down her magazine and glanced toward me. “We probably would hate each other.”

  Thinking back to how it was…she was right. I hadn’t been willing to believe in her, not her religion anyway. Now, I had a hell of a lot more open mind. Encountering the demonic had a tendency to do that.

  I leaned over and switched off the lamp on my side of the bed.

  “It’s only ten,” Tabby said.

  “Go ahead and stay up. I’m tired.”

  I felt her adjust in the bed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m just tired. Can I go to sleep?”

  She sighed. “Go ahead.”

  #

  I almost expected to have a weird sort of dream, but there were none. I got up and looked at my cell phone. It was after seven. At least I hadn’t slept the day away. I needed to do something about my stress level though. And, well, the crap my brain picked to worry about wasn’t helping either.

  I glanced over and Tabby was still snoring softly. No sense in waking her up. She deserved to sleep in once in a while. Especially with my crazy ass driving her up the wall.

  I crept out of bed and made my way downstairs.

  Lucy was perched at the dining room table. Isaac sat near the doorway to the kitchen. I was honestly surprised that she wasn’t watching TV. I didn’t know where Doc had wandered off to.

  “Where’s Doc?” I asked.

  “When he heard you get up, he said he had to go take care of something,” she said.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t like I owned Doc or anything. He was with us because he wanted to be, not because I had any hold on him. Still, I felt a little uneasy not knowing what all the man was involved in, even thought I was probably better off not knowing. He’d promised to keep an eye on Lucy for me. Granted, I hadn’t been awake all that long, but I would have rather he waited until I was downstairs. Oh well.

  “Lucy, what do you want to do today?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe just have a normal day.”

  I plopped down beside her. One thing was sure: she was going to have to come with me to Italy. I wasn’t sure if this meant Doc, too, but I had a feeling I could only be away from her for so long before the bad stuff happened. If that was worse than what happened when I was with her, then I didn’t know what I would do. She would have to get used to hanging out with me again.

  “How do you feel about going away with me?” I asked.

  Her eyes got big. “Go where?”

  “The Order wants me to take exorcist classes. And the only school is in Italy.” I watched her expression very closely. She didn’t seem upset or anything.

  “Is Tabby coming?” she asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “She will be staying here.”

  Lucy’s face kind of drooped. Damn. Had I thought about it earlier, I might have been able to do something, but I never would have guessed that Tabby staying home would be a problem.

  “Can Doc come?” she asked. Her face was a little brighter.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

  It was true. I had no idea if his ghost was somehow tied to somewhere and had a certain reach or not. I knew he’d said something about recharging once in a while, but I wasn’t entirely sure if he meant what I thought he did. I had read a couple of ghost-hunting books where the entities followed the people, but I couldn’t remember if any moved that far away and still had experiences. It was one more thing to add to the list of stuff I needed to research. Good thing that, as far as I knew, I’d be a marker for life. So there should be plenty of time for research.

  “Jimmy?” Tabby asked from upstairs.

  “Yeah?”

  “Want to go out for breakfast?”

  “Sure.” I was getting tired of eating out, but I didn’t feel like cooking either. So laziness won.

  Lucy crawled off the chair and sat in front of the TV.

  I went upstairs to grab a shower. I still didn’t know how Lucy felt about the whole thing. She hadn’t told me. But then, I hadn’t given her the chance, either. I was going to have to be more thoughtful when it came to her.

  #

  “You got everything?” Tabby asked next to the front door. Doc still hadn’t returned. Lucy was standing next to Tabby.

  “I think so,” I said. Surely we could make it to breakfast and back without any bad shit happening. At least I hoped it would be that way. I needed a spiritual bodyguard.

  “Even your papers?”

  “Oh, shit.” I swear, I was starting to wonder how I even functioned when Tabby wasn’t around. I probably was more alert because it was always my own ass in a sling.

  I went over to the desk, grabbed them, and shoved them in a folder. “Now, can we go?”

  My stomach was starting to make enough noise that I thought it was going to eat itself. The pull of food was strong.

  Tabby opened the door and we all piled into the car.

  “Where do you want to get breakfast?” I asked.

  “IHOP,” Tabby said.

  I was surprised she let me behind the wheel, but I guessed I must have seemed normal enough now. “What do you want, Lucy?”

  “I can have something in the restaurant?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Not many people can see you anyway. You tell me what you want and I’ll order it.”

  “Yay!” She was grinning so wide I thought her mouth might split.

  Tabby glanced over at me and smiled. I nodded back. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad parent after all.

  #

  We didn’t make it back to the house until around noon. We’d taken my papers over to the university to talk to their travel coordinator. She said everything was in order. I was glad to have at least that part done. Now, all I had to do was reply to the email. It was nice to have something simple work out. All it had taken me was a little time.

  As soon as I got close to the front door, I knew something was wrong. I heard Isaac yowling. My brain went to the idea that some sort of demon was in our house again. Or someone was trying to hurt him, like what happened in Arizona. I looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing. I was going to have to use my fists and hope for the best.

  I threw open the door and saw nothing. I heard Isaac’s yowling, but I couldn’t see him. That wasn’t good.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” Tabby ran past me and up the stairs. At the top, there was a little bit of railing where the steps angled around. Isaac had his head stuck between the railing and the wall.

  I let loose the breath I’d been holding. It was sad that I was relieved that his distress was from a normal problem. I still felt sorry for him, but the lack of the supernatural was a welcome surprise.

  “Dammit,” Tabby said. She reached for Isaac’s head and he tried to bite her.

  “A little help would be nice,” she called down the stairs.

  I dropped the keys onto the table and walked up. Time for me to come to the rescue. I hoped I was up to the challenge.

  He was wedged all right. “How in the hell did you do this?” I asked him.

  He made an angry chirp at me.

  “He was chasing a cricket earlier,” Doc said.

  I looked up. He walked toward me from the room that was going to be Lucy’s. Shame he couldn’t have prevented the damn cat from doing something this stupid, but oh well.

  I turned my attention back to Isaac. “Okay. Let me help you.”

  Isaac stilled.

  At least he listened. I gently took hold of his head. “Now, move with my hands. Don’t struggle.” I twisted his head sideways and pushed it through. Isaac shook himself and sauntered off. He didn’t even stop to thank me. Cats.

  “I swear, that cat,” Tabby said.

  “What are you talking about? I thought we had another demon.” There was a pause where laughter would normally be inserted, but neither one of us felt like laughing. Things were getting way too strained. We went back downstairs.

  “Is Isaac okay?” Lucy asked. She was still in her usual spot.

  “Yep. Just got himself caught in the railing,” I said.

  Lucy shook her head. Doc came down the stairs and Lucy squealed. Again, I had to remind myself how old she was, but damn. I was not used to squeals in my house.

  “Doc, where did you go, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked.

  “Had to recharge. Nothing interesting,” he replied.

  I didn’t poke further. I had a feeling that there was more to it than that. I imagined part of it he didn’t want Lucy to know. The other part, well, it technically wasn’t any of my business. Perhaps, in the future, he’d let me in on his secret. But it seemed awfully quick for him to go and come back if he really was recharging.

  “Don’t you have an email to write?” Tabby asked.

  Good thing she was keeping me on schedule or I would have been totally screwed. “Yeah. Right.”

  I left them all to whatever it was they were going to do, went upstairs, and flipped on the iPad. A bright red alert popped up. I tapped on it and a video played. A video of me dumping Lucy’s skin at Walmart. Fuck. Suddenly, I was staring at another priest. This dude had gray hair.

  “So, Mr. Holiday,” he said. “What is this?”

  I didn’t even want to think about how long he’d been sitting there, waiting for me to turn the thing on. It was not a good feeling. My asshole was so tight I didn’t think anyone could even drive a nail into it.

 

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