I saw the charms a few feet away, scattered on the ground, visible in the light from the streetlamps that lit the lakefront path. Amarantha scrambled for them, but I did what I did best.
I set them on fire.
There was a small explosion, a puff of red smoke as the spells dissipated into the air.
Amarantha fell to her knees, pulling on J.B.’s hair. I walked up behind her, clapped my hands on his face, and sent my power inside him. I chased her screaming through his blood, all the way to his heart.
She paused there, and squeezed. I could sense her smile.
J.B. coughed, his hand going to his chest.
“Enough,” I said, and sent more power inside his body. I needed to be careful. I could blast J.B. apart with the force of my magic, even as I was trying to save him.
Amarantha was a black shade on his heart, wrapping herself around and around him, smothering him.
I heard J.B. gasping. Brute force wasn’t working. I couldn’t blast my way out of this one.
I tried to think. Amarantha was a ghost. What could destroy a ghost?
Nothing, I thought hopelessly. You cannot, by definition, kill something that is already dead.
But perhaps I didn’t need to. Once an Agent, always an Agent.
Instead of blasting Amarantha out of J.B.’s body, I called her name.
Amarantha.
I put the force of my will behind it, like I did when I was separating a soul from its body with my Agent’s magic.
Come to me, I said, and she uncoiled like a reptile, releasing J.B.’s heart. I was the charmer and she the snake. I kept my focus on her, drawing her on, drawing her out.
A silver mist rose from J.B.’s skin, and Amarantha emerged, spellbound.
J.B. fell forward in the sand. I let Amarantha go.
I came to my knees beside him, turned him over. “J.B.? J.B.?”
He lay so still.
“J.B.!” I shouted, shaking him.
He coughed once, twice, and opened his eyes. “I liked the way you woke me up the last time better.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes.
“Are you crying?” he asked, reaching up to stroke my cheek.
“Nah,” I said. “I got sand in my eyes.”
I didn’t say that when Amarantha was squeezing his heart, I’d felt my own heart about to burst from grief. I didn’t say that for a moment I thought I’d lost him, too, like I’d lost Gabriel.
I looked around, realized Amarantha had escaped.
“Dammit,” I said. “I wanted to follow her and find out where she’s keeping her hidey-hole. She’s been working with Therion. She’s probably the one who enspelled the hospital for the vampires. She found Antares’ stash of magical stuff from his mother.”
J.B. sat up, rubbing his head. “That explains a lot. She gave me one hell of a headache. Hey, you have wings again. Fancy shiny ones. How did you get those.”
“It’s a long story,” I said. One I would never tell. You do not tell a man who has proposed to you that you got brand-spanking-new powers by being intimate with another man on your dining room floor.
I helped J.B. to his feet. “Do you remember anything from when she possessed you? Maybe the location of her secret base?”
He shook his head, wincing. “No. The last thing I remember I was in my office, reading a memo from Sokolov about you…”
He trailed off, staring at me. “A memo that said you had taken a soul from the other side of the Door and returned it to the living.”
“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “I didn’t have any choice.”
“You know, I seem to recall Nathaniel saying something similar about his role in the rebellion. And you were very adamant that there’s always a choice. So I’m sure that you could have made a better one,” J.B. said angrily.
“Not if you’re Lucifer’s Hound of the Hunt,” I said. “You were standing right there when he gave me the second-crappiest job I’ve ever had in my life. This was my choice—I could either fetch Evangeline and their unborn child under my own power, or I could wait for him to compel me to do it.”
It was hard to tell in the streetlight, but I think all the blood drained out of J.B.’s face. “Evangeline? You restored Evangeline?”
“Yes,” I said. “And yes, she’s pregnant.”
“I know she’s pregnant,” J.B. said. “We’ve been keeping tabs on Lucifer’s activities. You don’t think a conception beyond the Door would go unnoticed by the Agency, do you?”
Now it was my turn to be angry. “If you were keeping tabs on him, then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you stop him? I got a letter of warning just for accidentally straying into the land of the dead during a dream. Lucifer’s been doing a lot worse for months.”
“Do you really think the Agency is going to send Lucifer a letter of warning? They don’t want to attract his attention, and rightly so. He might decide to destroy the whole Agency on a whim.”
“But why didn’t you say anything to me about it?” I asked. “Don’t you think that information would have been useful to me, given that he is my grandfather?”
“We didn’t see any reason to say anything about it.”
“Who is ‘we’?” I said. “You and Sokolov? Are you guys buddies now?”
“No,” J.B. said. “There are other managers and executives besides Sokolov, you know. And he’s not very well liked generally, but he’s got powerful connections with the people who matter.”