“Probably a reason for that, Beck. You’re killing brain cells, and you don’t have that many to spare.”

  “Yeah, yeah, all you give me is grief, woman. Look, I gotta go. If you want, I can call you later.”

  “Not if you’re drunk.”

  There was a pause. “Yeah, better make it mornin’, then.” Another pause. “Okay, late afternoon. It’s gonna take time to get past the hangover.”

  “Have fun, Backwoods Boy.”

  “See ya later, Princess. Don’t forget those cookies.”

  Riley growled at the phone, then dropped it on the nightstand. She owed the mouthy Southern dude those oatmeal goodies. If she was nice, she’d wait until tomorrow afternoon to deliver them, allowing him time to get over his hangover.

  Or she could deliver them in the early morning and relish every minute of his head-splitting pain. With a mischievous grin, Riley headed toward the kitchen and the baking supplies.

  * * *

  To Beck’s amazement, Jackson could balance an empty pint glass on his forehead. Now he was working on a full one.

  “That takes talent,” Beck said in awe.

  “I sure don’t have it,” Elias said, his words slurred in deference to the beer in his system. “Was that Riley?”

  “Yeah, it was,” he said, smiling. “Rome isn’t gonna give her a bunch of crap about what happened, are they?”

  “Don’t know. Rosetti’s talking to Stewart right now, trying to work it out,” he said, angling his head toward the pair at a far table. “The priest will tell me once they’ve done their business.”

  Elias took a swig of his beer, then set his glass down with a pronounced thump. “About Justine,” he began. “I know you two have been together.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me. She likes to stir up trouble.” The captain’s face furrowed in thought. “If I’d known you were headed her way, I would have warned you, man-to-man, you know.”

  “So she wasn’t lyin’ when she said you two had a history.”

  “No, we were…” He edited whatever he was going to say. “Close a couple of years back. She nearly destroyed my career to get a scoop on a story. She’s beautiful, but she’s single-minded and doesn’t care who she hurts.”

  “I kinda noticed that.”

  “Are you two still…” the hunter asked.

  “No. Like you, it didn’t end pretty. She’s writin’ another article about me, diggin’ into my past. That just might cost me my job.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to head her off. She probably won’t listen, but I’ll try anyway,” Elias offered.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Father Rosetti made his way over to their table, clearly well lubricated. He pulled a chair out and dropped into it. The pint glass in his hand was empty.

  “So what’s the verdict?” Elias asked. “Is Riley staying here or going back with us?”

  “She’s staying in Atlanta. Stewart will keep an eye on her. He promises to take care of any trouble that might arise. I pray to God there isn’t any.”

  Beck heaved a sigh of relief.

  “This one has been rough one for all of us,” Elias allowed. “I can’t say that I ever want to see another Fallen in my life.”

  “Amen to that. This wasn’t what I expected when I asked to come on this mission,” Rosetti admitted. “I knew things were strange here, but…” He shifted the empty glass a few inches. “If I am wrong, a life is ruined. If I set one of Hell’s servants free, the world takes one step closer to eternal damnation. It’s a difficult call sometimes.”

  Maybe this guy isn’t such a hard-ass after all. “You do have a crappy job,” Beck observed.

  “I second that,” the captain said, raising his pint in salute.

  “I was convinced Riley Blackthorne was working for Hell,” Rosetti continued. “She was, but she also served Heaven when the time came. She has Lucifer’s mark on her, yet she kept us from total war. How do I reconcile that? Is she good or evil?”

  “What did Rome say?” Beck asked.

  “That’s she’s on the fence. I fear something happened between her and the Fallen, but I’m not sure exactly what. What did it cost her to free him?”

  Beck didn’t want to know that answer. To change the subject, he pointed at the priest’s glass. “Seems yer beer is empty, and so is mine. Another?”

  “Make it a pitcher,” Elias suggested. “I’ve some hunter tales to tell you. Some of the stuff we see … it’s unreal.”

  Beck expected the priest to shut that down, but instead Rosetti nodded his approval. Get a few beers under the guy’s belt and he was pretty decent.

  “Okay, then I’ll tell you some trapper ones. We’ll see who’s the best liar,” Beck replied.

  “That would be me,” Elias shot back. “But we’ll have the good father be the judge.”

  “Yer on, dude.”

  FORTY

  Riley was up before dawn, unable to sleep. After carefully applying her makeup to cover the bruises and choosing exactly what she wanted to wear to visit Beck—she wanted her trapper guy to see her in something other than ripped and stained clothes—she headed to an unlikely place. This time Ori was calling her in a different way.

  The sun was just beginning to rise when she reached the mausoleum. In the distance was the far-off rumble of thunder, hinting that today was going to be more wet than sunny. Kneeling in front of her parents’ graves, she uttered a brief prayer for her dad and her mom. Then she retrieved the chamois pouch from her pocket. Inside the pouch was the dirt she’d collected from her father’s grave after his body had been stolen. It was to remind her that she couldn’t trust anyone.

  But I can trust people. Ayden, Mort, Stewart, Beck, and Peter. They’d all come through for her. She upended the bag and let the soil fall back to earth because it no longer held any meaning for her.

  Riley opened the double doors and retrieved the red rose the angel had given her. It took only a little hunting to find the spot where Ori had fallen to earth—his brilliant blue blood still caked the leaves. She inhaled the rose’s scent one last time, then placed it where he’d last been. Plucking a single petal, she tucked it into the pouch for remembrance of their night together. Then she selected one of the smaller blue-stained leaves and put it in with the rose petal.

  If she prayed that Ori survive, and it came true, she’d have a horrific debt to pay for eternity. If he was dead, his loss would be with her until her last breath.

  “I’ll live with whatever happens,” she whispered.

  Because sometimes it was best not to fight your fate.

  A short time later, Riley left the graveyard behind. Another task called her as urgently as this one: It was time to hear the truth about her father’s sacrifice.

  * * *

  Riley sat next to Mortimer on the stone bench in his garden, her backpack on the ground between her feet.

  She’d hoped he’d launch into the explanation about her father and why he’d taken Ozy’s place in the circle, but the summoner didn’t take the bait.

  “Tell me all of it, Mort. No more secrets.”

  In lieu of a reply, the summoner rose and walked to the fountain, where he bent forward to let the water trickle over his fingers. It seemed to relax him.

  “I’ll tell you what I know and what I think happened.” He flicked the water away. “Lord Ozymandias has been summoning demons to gain hidden knowledge. He made a mistake with one of his spells, and Sartael took advantage of it, manifesting in the place of an Archdemon. The Archangel gave him a choice—do what Sartael ordered or he would be carted to Hell and tortured for eternity.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Ozymandias told me.”

  “What? When?” she demanded.

  “His lordship was on my doorstep last night at dusk,” Mort said. “He acted as if he hadn’t attacked my house or stolen your father.”

  Or helped Sartael push the world to the brink of war.

  “Did he apologize?”

  “Of course not,” Mort replied, “but he insisted on telling me his story. He claimed it was so I might not make the same mistakes as I grew in power. I think it was more to assuage his conscience.”

  “I don’t think he has one,” Riley retorted.

  “Perhaps he does now.” Mort straightened up, brushing his wet fingers against his pants. “He seemed … humbled. He said that Sartael instructed him how to alter the demons, and with each additional spell layer he incorporated, Ozymandias knew this was heading to a bad end. When your father died, he tried to summon him, hoping that a master trapper might know how to break his servitude to a Fallen angel.”

  It all fell into place. “But Lucifer summoned my dad first. He knew what Sartael was up to.”

  “Indeed. When your father disappeared, Ozymandias panicked. He knew that Sartael was intent on destroying the city, if not the entire world, so he stole your father from me. Which was why Paul came to me in the first place.”

  “Because you were no match for Ozy?”

  “Yes. Your father offered his lordship a way out: If Ozymandias did exactly as Lucifer required, he would walk away unscathed.”

  “While my dad got disintegrated,” Riley retorted. “That sucks.”

  “It was Paul’s choice to serve as a conduit to diffuse the spell,” Mort explained. “He knew it would destroy him, but he felt it was the best way to pay off his debt to the trappers and to Lucifer.”

  Riley felt the aching tug of loss once more. “He looked so peaceful, like it wasn’t hurting him or anything. Is that possible?”

  “He wasn’t in pain. Ozymandias made sure of that,” Mort said gently.

  Not all of this had come from the Dark Lord. That left only two possible sources, and since Lucifer wouldn’t drop by for tea …

  “When did Dad tell you about this?”

  Mort’s eyebrows rose in admiration. “Your father was fairly incoherent until right before I left for the graveyard. Then he shook off Ozymandias’s spell like it was nothing. I think he had Lucifer’s help with that.”

  The necromancer returned to the bench, settling in next to her. “Paul told me what he knew and what role I had to play. His biggest concern was that you were kept safe.”

  Once again, Heaven and Hell had played them like master puppeteers.

  “If Ayden hadn’t repulsed the spell when it rebounded, we would have died,” she pointed out.

  “I mentioned that to Ozymandias, but he said that he’d carefully adjusted the rebound to exactly what we could handle.”

  “That’s bull,” she said. “No one can judge magic that carefully. It’s not that precise.”

  Mort studied her with renewed interest. “I see you learned a few things during your apprenticeship.”

  “What? I…” He was offering her a compliment. “I’m happy being a trapper.”

  “For the moment. Bear in mind that you have the ability to wrangle magic as well as you do demons.”

  Not going there. “Why didn’t my dad tell me what he was going to do?”

  “He didn’t you want to worry. You know how he was about you.” Mort extracted her demon-claw pendant from his pants pocket. “It was inside the book of spells. It didn’t touch the ground, which is why it’s still in one piece.”

  Riley took it from him, supremely pleased it had survived. A silver ring hung on the chain, one with a distinctive pattern of ovals cut into the metal. She’d know it anywhere. It was her father’s wedding ring.

  “Paul gave it to me before the battle,” the summoner explained. “He knew it wouldn’t survive the spell’s destruction.”

  Dad thought of everything. Riley touched it fondly. “Mom’s still wearing hers. We could have gotten money for it, but it didn’t seem right.” She pulled the pendant over her head, tucking it under her shirt. The demon claw felt cold against her skin, but the ring was warm, like one of her father’s embraces.

  The ring and the note were all were all she had left of Paul Blackthorne. No, that wasn’t quite right: Her heart still held all the sweet memories of their years together. No matter what, those were immortal, beyond the reach of any demon or angel.

  FORTY-ONE

  Despite his head-splitting hangover, Beck found himself in a good mood. Things were finally falling in place: The Vatican wasn’t going to mess with Riley as long as Stewart kept an eye on her, and they were doing a really fine job of squashing rumors about exactly what had gone down in the cemetery. The Holy Water was the real deal again, the undead demons were ash, and Paul was out of Lucifer’s clutches.

  He still had the trip to south Georgia to face, along with Sadie’s death. That’d be hard, but once he’d done right by her, given her a good funeral and cleaned out the old house, he could turn his back on Sadlersville and his past. He could start planning for the future and determine exactly where Paul’s daughter fit in all that.

  “Yeah, things are lookin’ up.”

  A series of sharp raps on his front door jarred Beck out of his thoughts. He ran a hand through his hair to smooth it, then hurried to open the door. He’d been looking forward to seeing Riley since last night, and it wasn’t just because of the cookies.

  “Hey, about time you—” he began.

  The woman on the doorstep wasn’t the one he wanted. Justine stood with both hands on her hips, clad in tight jeans and a crisp white shirt. Her green eyes were on fire.

  He moved into the doorway to keep her out of his house. “What do ya want?”

  “Elias called me this morning. He told me that if I wrote my article about you, he would make it very hard to renew my Vatican press pass. Do you have any notion of what that means?”

  It appeared that the hunter’s captain had gotten a little too heavy-handed.

  “It means ya need to back off,” Beck said. “There are better stories out there than me.”

  “That is not the case. In fact, the more I dig, I know this will be the best story I have ever written.”

  “Justine, ya do not want to go there,” he warned.

  “Or what? You will strike me like you did your mother when you didn’t get your way?”

  His mind whirled at the accusation. “I never hit Sadie. Who told ya that?”

  “She did. Since you were not willing to talk about your life, I drove to Sadlersville. Your mother was very happy to tell me all about her delinquent son. About the knife fights, all the girls, and the alcohol and drugs.”

  “Ya … don’t know Sadie. She’ll lie when it suits her.”

  “It wasn’t just her, Beck.” Justine’s eyes narrowed. “I was told the only reason you didn’t go to prison was because of the county sheriff. That you were exiled to Atlanta because you were in a knife fight with some man whose wife you slept with.”

  Ah, damn. She really has been diggin’. As long as she doesn’t go any further …

  “That’s in the past, Justine. Just like us. Let it go.” Beck began to close the door, but she jammed a tiny booted foot in the way.

  “I am not finished,” she said. A recorder appeared in her right hand, and she clicked it on. “For the record, Mr. Beck, tell me what really happened during that camping trip to the swamp when you were fifteen? What happened to those other boys? Why were you the only one to come back alive? ”

  Oh, dear God, she knows. “Ya cannot write about that.”

  Justine’s eyes narrowed. “Like you urged Elias to ruin my career? Funny how it’s important when it’s all about you.”

  “What do you want?” he said. “What will it take to keep ya quiet?”

  Justine’s smile showed more teeth than usual. “The truth.”

  “This is about Riley, isn’t it? Yer jealous of her.”

  The smiled widened. “I am not jealous of some child. My job is to present the facts so people will judge what is true and what are lies. Your story is important, and I will tell it no matter who tries to stop me.”

  If she had been a man, Beck would taken him down, but he had no leverage over Justine Armando. She would write the story, and his world would collapse.

  “Please, don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Ya’ll destroy my life.”

  “That is not my concern.” She clicked off the tape recorder and headed for her car. “Thank you, Beck,” she called out. “You have been a most entertaining subject. Good in bed and good for the bank account!”

  “Ya go to Hell, ya red-haired demon!” he shouted.

  Justine just laughed at him.

  Beck rammed the door shut even before she pulled out of the drive in the fancy rental car.

  “She can’t do this!” he said, pounding a fist into the wall.

  Justine was paying him back for dumping her, no matter what she said. It was his own damned fault. If he’d never touched her … If he hadn’t been jealous about that damned angel, none of this would have happened.

  Once that article was in print, the media would dredge up all the horrors of that trip into the swamp. It’d been a Saturday night in late December: He and a couple of other guys had taken some whisky and drugs into Okefenokee Swamp to party. When it was all over, he was the only survivor. They never found the bodies.

  Riley …

  She would be caught in the middle of this hurricane. Would she believe he was a killer? Even those who said they thought he was innocent had that accusing look. He never wanted to see that doubt in her eyes, not like he had with the others.

  When he’d been in the Army, on patrol, one of the men in his squad had thrown himself on a grenade. The soldier did it without thinking, reacting instinctively, willing to die to save the others. This wasn’t much different.

  Beck knew what he had to do to protect Paul’s daughter. He just didn’t know if he had the courage.

  * * *

  Riley had expected to find her favorite trapper guy curled up on his couch, bemoaning his Olympic-grade headache. Instead, she found a green sports car backing out of his driveway. As it flew by her, she caught a glimpse of red hair.

  “What is she doing here?”

  It appeared that her timing was good: Backwoods Boy was in need of a sympathetic ear and lots of yummy oatmeal cookies.