Ecco paced behind Niall. “You were a death-dealer before too. We read it in your file.”
“A thanatologist.” The snap in her eyes held enough hazel fire that any violet was redundant. “We offer comfort and guidance at the end of life.”
Archer tried to reconcile that fierce glare with the imagined hush of a deathbed vigil. As if wondering the same, Ecco scratched his head. “So guide the poor suffering demons into oblivion at the point of a gun, or a knife, or poisoned blow darts.”
Zane stepped in front of Ecco and settled himself a few cushions away from Sera. “Don’t sweat the details yet. You don’t even know what your demon can do.”
She glanced at him. “So, how long did it take you to resign yourself to killing ferales?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? I still want to be the next Jimi Hendrix.”
She gave him an answering smile. “But duty and a demon called?”
His merry expression faded. “Duty called, all right, but instead of going to Vietnam, I headed for the border. Got caught in a poacher’s snare just this side and lay there for a week with my leg half cut off at the knee. Demon came to me looking like my draft officer. For some reason, I thought I only had to serve a year.”
She grew still. “Vietnam? How old are you?”
The bleakness spread, until the callow smoothness of his face looked no longer young but worn to nothing. “When was I called up? Seventy-two? This other war has made me forget.”
In the silence, the sound of Zane rubbing at his jeans over the long-ago wounded leg rasped irritatingly. Out of all the gathered men, not a one breathed. Archer, fighting down his own memories, wondered if he should take a poll for pitching Zane over the balcony.
“Zane was the last to join us, before you,” Niall said quietly. “Perhaps that other life still stings a bit, but it fades.”
Sera frowned. “I don’t want to give up my life.”
“In some ways, you already had. Which is one reason the demon chose you. Just as Zane left everything to flee to Canada, so your accident separated you from what passed before.”
“But I have family, friends.” Sera’s voice rose a half step, a plaintive note.
“You won’t for long,” Ecco muttered.
Archer figured he could expand the pitching over the balcony poll to include Ecco.
A stark expression tightened Sera’s face, as if the rug had been pulled out from under her, along with the floor and the earth itself, leaving her to stare into a yawning abyss—or not so much into, as up from, since she was at the bottom now.
He couldn’t tell her she wasn’t lost, that he’d save her. She’d know it for a lie. But he found himself straightening from his post beside the column and stepping down into the room. “As Zane said, she doesn’t know what her demon can do. Maybe she’ll be like Bookie, working on the sidelines.” He looked around for the absent historian. “Until she has balanced her demon, she’s of no use to the league, with no reason to cut all her ties at once.”
Niall frowned. “Since the teshuva’s crossing, the Veil has been in flux and tenebrae activity through the roof. We need every man—every woman—we can get.”
“Do we?” The curt question from the back of the room turned a few heads.
Archer noted who seemed unsurprised by the question.
Niall asked, “You think there aren’t enough demons to go around, Jonah?”
The tawny-haired fighter’s quick wits matched his brawn, but he stood inflexible now. Jonah never blabbed like Zane, but Archer had pieced together the story of how he’d picked up his demon like a particularly nasty and incurable case of malaria while serving as a missionary in Africa.
Jonah’s expression pinched tight. “Bad enough we’re seeing demons in daylight. Must we also face them in”—he glanced at Sera—“in our fair flowers of womanhood?”
She snorted, then turned it into a cough. Archer managed to keep his own lips from twitching.
Niall shot her a reproachful glance. “We might not understand this change in standard operating procedure yet. But the mission remains, people. Fight evil and save our souls.” The reven at his temple was a bleak reminder as he turned slowly. “All of us.”
Archer stirred. “The war will not end today, regardless.”
Niall nodded reluctantly. The smile he finally turned on Sera was strained. “I must seem heartless to you. A passage through the Veil usually riles up the horde-tenebrae only until the demon is bound in flesh.” He scrubbed one hand over his face. “Usually. Anyway, our resources are strained at the moment.”
Archer crossed his arms over his chest. “So that’s why everyone’s hanging out in the clubhouse this morning.”
An ozone scent spiked in the room as a few dozen demons stirred toward ascension in their irate talyan. He figured he’d better be ready to pull himself back over the balcony rail.
He held his hand out to Sera. “It’s been a long night for everyone. And there’s plenty more of those to come. I’ll take you home.” As he said “home,” he realized he was thinking of his loft.
Zane stood up. “We prepared a room downstairs for you, Sera.” He said her name gingerly, as if it were glass.
She smiled at him but shook her head. “I’ve been gone seems like forever. I want to go back to my own place.”
She slanted a glance at Archer, as if she’d heard “home” in his thoughts.
Niall stood as well. “Ecco and Zane will go too. With the lesser demons out in force, your teshuva’s trailing energies could prove too tempting a target. As Jonah mentioned, daylight is no guarantee of quiet anymore. We’ll talk again when you are rested.”
The other talyan, even Jonah, said their good nights in a low murmur of voices. Archer wondered how many would take her image to bed with them. He felt the curl of the annihilator in him, though he hadn’t called on the demon, and this time he kept his hands to himself as he followed Sera to the elevator.
Crossing town in one of Niall’s ubiquitous black sedans, he almost wished he’d let Ecco drive so he could have held silent watch over Sera in the backseat instead of listening to her and Zane talk softly behind him.
“Did I sound like an idiot back there?” Zane asked. “Sometimes I think the demon got lost in the woods and only picked me because there was no one else around.”
“Do demons get lost? This last demon had a whole city to choose from, and it picked me.”
Zane snickered a little. “If only our demons had gotten lost in the woods while picking other fair flowers.”
Sera groaned. “God, how archaic was that? Jonah, right? I suppose he’s been down in the belly of the whale a long time.”
Zane’s laughter cut out. “Too long. A lot gets stripped away.”
“Sorry,” Sera said. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“No, geez. My demon’s supposed to be the jokester. Jonah’s not a bad guy. Just set in his ways. Who’d guess fighting evil incarnate would even have a standard operating procedure?”
“And now I’ve mucked it up.”
“Well, you being here is freaking out the lesser demons, which must be good for us.”
“Yeah, I’m great at freaking out demons,” she muttered. Archer swore he felt a hazel gaze boring into his skull, but he didn’t look around. “Is it too late to be the next Janis Joplin instead? ‘C’mon, take another little piece of my soul now, baby. . . .’ ”
Archer stiffened at the throaty, sultry imitation coming from the backseat.
Zane chuckled. “Not bad. I’ll do ‘Purple haze, all in my eyes.’ ” He was silent a moment. “I wish—”
Before he could say more, or, worse, sing it—and damn it, hadn’t thirty-five years of death and destruction taught the boy not to bother wishing for anything?—Ecco whirled, throwing one elbow over the seat back.