“NO!” Claire reached out but caught only a single light.
Teetering as the room continued to spin, Diana stared at her sister in astonishment. “I thought that’s what you wanted him to do?”
“He doesn’t know that! He doesn’t know Dean’s down there. Jacques has still got connections to her, she could’ve dragged him down.”
“So what do we do now?”
Claire gritted her teeth, clenched her fist around the single piece of Jacques she’d managed to save, and dug in. “We wait.”
“Wait?” Diana’s voice rose nearly an octave. “For how long?”
“Until we can’t wait any…” All of a sudden, Claire could feel a familiar twisted touch groping up toward the pentagram. “She’s using her name to pull herself free. Link with me!”
“No! I’ll be stuck with you, holding that thing, and there’ll be two Keepers lost because you can’t let Dean go. Because you feel guilty about how he felt about you when you didn’t feel the same for him and turned to Jacques, who you can’t possibly have a future with instead.”
“Diana! This is no time for relationship therapy!”
“You’ve lost them both. Let them go before she starts this whole thing all over again.”
Her connection to her name had strengthened. The sound of triumphant laughter boiled up over the edges of the pit.
“I’m not leaving them there!”
Diana laid her hand on her sister’s arm and to Claire’s surprise her voice was gentle as she said, “You’re a Keeper. Seal the s…son of a bitch.”
Down in the pit something that had once been Mrs. Abrams’ Baby barked as Dean rose up into the furnace room surrounded by a cloud of tiny lights. When both his feet were on the ground, and before either Claire or Diana could get their mouths shut to say anything, he opened his left hand.
Two lights few out.
Claire peeled her fingers back off her palm. The final light spun up into the air.
Jacques rematerialized.
Dean coughed once and stumbled forward. Together, Claire and Diana eased him down onto the bottom step, then Claire turned back toward the pit.
She could feel Sara clawing her way up her name, closer and closer to the edge of the possibilities. Holding tightly to the seal, Claire broke all the remaining links but Sara’s.
The building shook as the pentagram, etched into solid rock, slid toward the center of itself. The inner edges disappeared. Flickering through the visible spectrum and one or two colors beyond, hundred-year-old words of summoning poured into the hole.
“Claire!” Stretched out like smoke in a wind, Jacques streamed toward Hell, caught in the binding.
Even if there was time, unraveling the binding would free Sara’s name.
“I don’t think so…” Wielding power like a sword, Diana slashed through the pattern where Jacques was caught.
Not subtle, but effective.
As the points flipped up and over, Claire broke her name free.
CURSES, FOILED AGAI…
The unmarked bedrock of the furnace room floor steamed gently.
Diana let out a breath she couldn’t remember holding. “Wow.”
Dean jerked to his feet as Claire swayed. “You okay?”
Actually, she had no idea how she was, but okay would do for the moment. “Sure. What about you?”
He frowned. Until Jacques had appeared out of the darkness, he’d stood on the slope leading upward toward the glow of what were probably the fires of the damned and had known he’d been forgotten. Sure, Hell was busy with Sara, but still…“I hesitated,” he said.
Claire felt her lip curl. “Get over it. You were willing to die to save the world. You’re a terrific person!”
“You mean that?”
She cupped his face between her palms and moved close enough that he could see her clearly without his glasses. “Yes. I have never meant anything more in my life.”
Keepers lied quite easily to bystanders; but he believed her. The load of guilt lifted off his shoulders. “Thanks.” Pulling free, he took a step back. “There’s something I need to do.”
“Ow!” Diana rubbed the spot where Dean had applied the side of his work boot. “What did you kick me for?”
His silence said it all.
“Oh. Never mind.”
“You’ve done a wonderful job, Claire, but are you certain you don’t want me to come to Kingston and check things out?”
“Quite certain, Mom. The site is closed.” Claire had put the furnace room through every test she could think of, and she’d even allowed Diana to come up with a few. To all intents and purposes, there’d never been a hole to Hell. Or an Aunt Sara. “Dean drove Diana to the train station. She’ll stay with friends in Toronto tonight and head home first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s the plan.” Martha Hansen sounded doubtful.
“Don’t worry, she gave me her word she’d go straight home.”
“Claire Beth Hansen! Did you put a geas on your sister?”
Claire grinned. “Yes.”
“Good. But how on earth did you manage it?”
“I agreed with her when she opened her defense with ‘all’s well that ends well,’ and while she was still reeling in disbelief I slipped it by.”
“You agreed with her?”
Her grin broadening, Claire explained. “I had every intention of tearing a strip off her for being so adolescently arrogant, thinking she could wake Sara without consequences, but then I realized that she was right. Keepers go where they’re needed. The two of us in combination were needed to close down the site, so it’s entirely possible that everything that happened was intended to happen. Diana, me, Dean, Jacques; even Hell had a hand in its own demise by squeezing a Hell Hound through the tiny window of opportunity between Sara’s original capture and her power being used to temporarily seal the site.”
The phone remained silent.
“Mom?”
“If Diana’s reckless disregard for consequence was necessary to help save the world, she’s going to be impossible to live with.” Claire very nearly felt her mother’s sigh. “Still, I expect your father and I can come up with a few things to say to her when she gets home.” Sara’s choice of sacrifice had not been elaborated on, but parents were perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions. “You said that Dean was driving her to the station; how is he? Is it safe for him to drive?”
“He’s fine, Mom. Really. He was a willing sacrifice, completely ignorant of what that meant, and he believed that in falling he’d burn in Hell forever. With that kind of karma, he could’ve just walked through the possibilities to the light. If Jacques hadn’t found him so quickly and brought him back to the basement, I expect he’d have started tidying the place up.”
“What do you mean, he had no doubt he’d burn in Hell forever? He’s been living next to the site for almost a year completely unaffected.”
She’d been hoping she’d slipped that by. “There was an incident.” Leaving out the bits that Diana would be sure to embellish on later, Claire explained about the elevator and Faith’s boyfriend. “He hesitated.”
On the other end of the phone, Martha snorted. “Oh, for…”
“That’s what I said. But this whole sacrifice thing grounded him again. He’s as good as new.”
“I see.” The pause spoke volumes. “What happens now?”
Claire chose to misunderstand. “Now, I expect I’ll be summoned somewhere else. Austin says I’ll be able to leave by tomorrow, that help is on the way.”
“Claire…”
“He’s down to his last life, you know. But he says he’s not worried.”
“Very well. If that’s the way you want it. Give Austin our love.”
An uncomfortable moment later, Claire hung up and sighed.
What happens now?
Jacques was waiting in her sitting room. He had to know she’d be leaving—that she couldn’t stay and he couldn’t come with her.