Chapter Twenty-Two

SO, NATE’S HAD better days.

To be fair, today definitely had its highlights. The crowning jewel was the part where the guy he’s been steadily falling head-over-heels for came out in truly theatrical fashion to his entire secret society, all the while taking Nate along for the ride. Yeah, that had been something else, even if Nate can only remember half of it before the timeline got fuzzy and broken. Ravi had been incredible, leading Nate on the dance floor like an honest-to-goodness storybook prince, flashing that unguarded sunshine smile he’s only ever seen while in the tangle of bed sheets.

Nate focuses on that image, of Ravi handsome and happy in his gold-trimmed suit, instead of the current alternative, which is Ravi being dead, just over there, not too far from where they’d been dancing. Unmistakably dead, while literal demons ravage the earth, God-knows-what happening to all of Nate’s friends and family and the rest of the world and…

Yeah. He’s had better days.

Nate keeps his eyes averted even as he approaches Harry. She switches the urumi back into its disguised form and shoves the coin in her trouser pocket as if she can’t stand to touch it. He reaches out to give her a hug.

She stiff-arms him away, lips drawn tight and pale over clenched teeth. “Nobody be nice to me right now,” she barks out in an unmistakable order.

Wiping the sympathy from his expression, Nate steps back, palms out. His sister Nicolette is the same way. Able to soldier on through any hardship right up until the point that someone shows her the barest hint of kindness, then she crumples. Is Nicki even alive right now? Nate keeps his attention fixed in the here and now with considerable effort. “You got it, boss.” He tries to lick some moisture across desert-dry lips, forcibly keeping his eyes off…off the body.

Constance makes a dissatisfied sound in her throat. “Griswold, my knight. Watch over him. ’Tis…unseemly, to leave him with only a sword for his vigil.”

“Aye, mistress. T’would be mine honor.” Griswold curls up on Ravi’s chest, tail twining around his paws. His yellow eyes glow, keeping watch. Holding vigil.

Strangely, it is better. More seemly.

Nate takes a shaky breath before asking Harry, “What do you need?”

Instead of answering him, Harry wheels around and stalks toward Cayenne, gritting out over her shoulder, “Constance, do whatever you need to get ready for the spell.”

“Ah, would that I could, my niece.”

A small retinue of Trust members advances on them, makeshift weapons brandished. Constance takes a step back, her eyes darting toward exits.

The look on Ravi’s aunt’s face is not something Nate ever wants to see again. Pure, glacial murder. He hurries to step in front of Constance with his hands up, happy to provide a human buffer to any witch-hunter ire. “It’s okay, there’s a plan. I know this looks bad, but it’s temporary.”

Not slowing, Padme snarls with rage, “Get out of my way.”

Before Nate can respond, Harry stops in her tracks and spins to face the mob. “Stand the fuck down, Director. Like the Doc said, this is temporary. But not if you charge in and fuck everything up the way The Trust has been doing for the last however many decades. Your nephew, my fiancé, has a solid plan and we are sticking. The fuck. To it. Back off and let me do my job.” Clearly expecting obedience, Harry turns away and continues toward Cayenne.

Padme glares at Nate, then swings her gaze to the trapped chronomage. She drags in a breath, hands tight on the hilt of a long, thin sword, then looks at the body. The abject loss hits Nate like a gut punch, her face drawn into old, familiar grief.

Nate knows how she feels. He’s trying like hell not to think about it.

“Trust him,” he says softly.

Padme’s stare pierces into Nate. She looks like she’s aged decades in mere minutes. “Do what you need to do,” she grits out, and directs the rest of the survivors to set up a perimeter at the shattered windows.

Winged shadows darken the skies, some of them far too big to be mere imps. Nate’s busy mind wonders briefly about their chances at being attacked by harpies and other types of flying hellbeast. Maybe he’ll find time to write an article on demon biodiversity when this is done.

Harry prods at the ring encircling Cayenne with the toe of her shoe. “Okay, Red. Time of truth.”

Facing away, Cayenne slumps, arms wrapped tight around their ribs and hair fallen over their eyes. They don’t move to acknowledge her.

“Hey. You gonna fix this, or are you going to let him stay dead?”

They flinch. “You already have your blade in my jugular, Harry. There’s no need to slice any deeper.”

“Look at me.” Harry waits until they finally do. “I’m going to tell Constance to take this circle down. What happens after that is up to you.”

Constance’s mouth curls up in doubt, but she pulls a small, forked twig from the depths of her tangled hair and snaps it in two. The plants surrounding Cayenne explode into fulsome blooms before all shifting into wispy seed puffs that drift like dandelions in autumn, no longer withering and growing in an endless loop.

With bated breath, they all watch Cayenne, poised for anything. Cayenne casts their gaze up toward the ceiling, pulls in a shaky breath, and disappears.

Nate stares in shock. “That fucking—”

“Wait,” Harry sighs. Sure enough, she’s barely done speaking when a short distance away, high up near the ceiling, a confusion of limbs and feathers pop into the air.

Valiance spreads her wings out to catch herself before she tumbles to the ground. Cayenne is less graceful, spilling onto their knees with a muttered curse. Val’s ashen hair has fallen from its braid. She’s got her maul in one hand, and gripped tight in the other is… Nate blinks. A cannonball. Smoking slightly.

Well, that’s likely to have caused some confused Civil War witness accounts he resolves to look up later.

After seeing Harry, Val droops her wings with relief. She gives her surroundings an appraising sweep, from the dark shadows flying outside the windows to the gently wafting seeds. The instant her gaze catches on the cat crouched protectively on Ravi’s still form, her fiery eyes flare azure with flame, wings bristling anew. The handle of her maul creaks in her grip, and she draws herself up to her full height, which in heels puts her well above Nate.

“Whoa! Hey, easy, big gal.” Harry waves her hands over her head like she’s trying to flag down a plane. “Eyes on me. Time travel bullshit soon incoming to fix all this.”

Val’s face twitches with a cavalcade of emotions too swift for Nate to parse. Her voice resonates more than usual. “Hear my vow. Once this is over, chronomancer, should you ever cross my path again, you will not survive the encounter.”

“Je t’entends parfaitement,” Cayenne says dully, getting to their feet. They look over to Constance. “I need…I need chalk. Candles. And something to portion out the chronal energy. I usually use pocket watches. Clocks.”

Nate appreciates Constance’s capable, professional demeanor as she promptly digs out some chalk from her bottomless handbag. It’s comforting to think that somebody here knows what the fuck they’re doing.

She tosses the chalk over. “Metaphorical representations, aye. I understand the theory.”

“You okay?”

Nate jumps at the sudden words spoken softly at his shoulder. “Jesus, Harry, wear a bell or something.”

She gives him one of those stretched-lip humorless smiles strangers give each other in cramped elevators. “Sorry.” Val is a silent sentinel at her side, wing feathers bristled high. All the three of them can do is watch as Constance assists Cayenne in tracing a large circle on the ground. Around the…the body.

“Doc… Nate. You okay?”

“Nope. Are you?”

“Nope.”

“I should have taken your advice.”

“Obviously. What advice is that?”

He has to swallow around the lump in his throat half a dozen times before he can answer. “I got my delicate himbo heart all tangled up in an impossible situation.”

Harry’s smile becomes several shades more genuine as she squeezes Nate’s shoulder. “Didn’t look so impossible from where I was standing, my dude.”

A terrible screech cuts through the air as an imp finds its way into the room, wings slashing through the air as it hovers, calling more of its brethren with loud cries. Val whips the cannonball at it like a fastball pitch. With a sickening crack and a cut-off wail, the imp sails off through the night into obscurity.

“More will follow,” the angel states. “I can keep them at bay.”

“You’re a peach. Enjoy the dance, big gal.”

Val hefts her maul, then she’s off over the heads of the Trust survivors, bludgeoning imps, and other horrors that approach the windows with a roar of righteous fury.

Harry claps Nate on the back. “Come on. Let’s see what we two normies can do to help.”

As they approach, Cayenne has an armful of men’s watches they pick through one by one, rubbing each watch between their fingers before stacking them all on one slender wrist. Probably best not to ask where they all came from.

“This isn’t going to work,” Cayenne says while shooting a glare at Constance, no lilting affectation to their speech. The Parisian accent sounds a little off, vowels sliding into a strange patois. “I wasn’t exaggerating about that. I’ve never taken more than one back with me in a single go. It’s likely impossible. And despite you picking up a few tricks, Glinda, you are no chronomage.”

Constance traverses the chalk circle with careful, intentional steps of her clunky boots. “And you are no witch. You have never before done magic with a proper practitioner, so you have no way of knowing what the impossibilities are. Any spell may be enhanced by enough willful minds bent upon it, and this room has nothing but willful minds within. Nathan, stand here if you would? Across from Harry.”

Cayenne mutters darkly under their breath, tosses a watch to Harry, then turns to Nate.

Nate can’t stand the sight of them. He has to count to ten just to unclench his fists from immutable knots at his sides.

“I took your suggestion.” Cayenne pulls a watch off their wrist and holds it out to him.

“You really shouldn’t talk to me,” Nate manages through clenched teeth, taking the watch and slipping it on.

He receives an annoyed roll of the eyes. Jesus, doesn’t this asshole have a single ounce of self-preservation? Does being the only constant in a universe they can control make Cayenne utterly incapable of seeing others as real people, unable to even conceive why Nate might be furious?

“I would have thought a professor would be more pleased that a humble student has taken his advice.”

“The only thing I’ve ever suggested was for you to fuck off. And to get therapy.”

“Ah. Well, you also mentioned that a good relationship should be built on trust and support. Something like that, anyway.” They glance toward the…the middle of the circle that Nate is avoiding looking at, and they shudder before pulling themself back together. “So, I took your advice, and tried that. I wanted to thank you for it.”

Nate can’t believe what he’s hearing, can barely absorb the implication. “I said honesty too.”

“Well,” they say with false brightness, “two out of three isn’t bad, oui? I was making it work. It was going so well.”

Where to even start with that? Jesus. “After Ravi told you he wanted you out of his life, you went back in time to take that decision away from him. Do you understand what that— No, you know what? Fuck you, Cayenne. Whatever you’re hoping to get out of this conversation, you’re not getting it. We’re not tools for your personal journey to self-actualization. Just bring him back,” he finishes, voice scratching and broken by the final word.

They gnaw their bottom lip. “Tell him—”

“Oh, fuck off, I’m not telling him anything for you.”

Cayenne huffs a frustrated breath. “You’re very difficult to talk to.”

“You mean I’m difficult to manipulate.”

They open their mouth, then close it. A nettled, defeated smile finds its way onto their face. “That is what I mean,” Cayenne nods, with something almost like respect. “Take good—”

Nate snarls, “I swear to every pantheon that exists, Cayenne, if you dare insinuate that you are graciously allowing him to see other people, you better make your next stop to the best dentist in history. You have no right.”

Cayenne swallows hard, eyes downcast. They press their lips together and slouch away. They fling a watch at Constance.

“Here. Gather your willful minds, then.”

Harry fiddles with the pearl of her ring. “How many people do you need, Constance?”

Constance bobs her head from one side to the other, as if weighing options, then ducks as Val soars overhead, grappling a howling multi-winged creature that looks like five different beasts crammed into one form. Nate has no idea what that one is. Some type of chimeric demon? After Val slams it into the wall a few times, it’s hard to tell from what’s left. Ugh. Maybe he should give vegetarianism a go.

“Methinks the more the better,” Constance decides, guiding Ikshana into place next to her. They cling to her arm for a moment before straightening with a bleary wince.

Harry joins Padme on the defensive line. “We’re going to need people to work the spell to jump back in time before this all goes down. It’s likely that anyone not involved with the spell will forget what happened in the future once we’re in the past—yeah, I know, grammar and time travel do not mix—so I want you, Jihan, and anyone else you pick to lend your…energies. Auras. Whatever.”

Padme disengages from her vigil at the window, leaving a handful of fighters slashing at any imps that dare draw close enough. Her striking face is devoid of expression, demeanor carefully controlled. “Ones whose accounts will be trusted by the consortium heads who have been slain in this branching of time, I gather. It shall be done, Chosen. You will need your angel, no doubt. Everyone not assisting with the spell will hold firm the perimeter.”

In short order, the circle is ringed by lit candles and a handful of people, each with their own chronally charged watch around their wrists. Val soon joins them, folding her wings away and catching the watch Harry tosses at her.

“What do we need to do?” Harry’s gaze falls on Griswold, on where he lays, and her jawline goes stiff.

Planting her feet wide, Constance stretches out her hands with fingers faintly waving as if trailing through running water. “I shall guide our entwined wills toward the time wizard, but the intent is the important thing. Focus singularly on the intent to go back, to unravel the stream of time. Hammer thy will against the anvil of the world, that together we may forge our intent into being.”

“And they call me dramatic,” Cayenne mutters. They hug themself tight, fingertips digging into their forearms. They near Ravi’s body with steps so slow and labored it’s as if they move through a mire of mud.

Harry watches Cayenne with what Nate likes to call her detective face: tough, incisive, brooking no nonsense. “Seems like we’re slinging a lot of power your way with no real way for us to control how you’re directing it, Red. Be a prime time to fuck us over and go wherever you want.”

Cayenne doesn’t deign to look at her, folding down to their knees besides Ravi. “It certainly would be, wouldn’t it.” Blinking rapidly, Cayenne sucks in a lungful of air and places a hand on Ravi’s wrist.

Nate tries to do as Constance instructed and focus his intent, to think about the time stream, of undoing the demon apocalypse, but it’s no good. All he can think about is seeing Ravi’s eyes open again. Deep, rich, velvety brown, so thickly lashed that when Nate had first met Ravi, he thought for a second the guy was wearing eyeliner. Prettiest eyes Nate’s ever seen in his life.

All he can think about is Ravi laughing at some dumb joke Nate’s made, how every time he looked at Nate like he couldn’t quite believe it, like Nate was a gift Ravi never expected to receive. Nate can’t think of anything beyond seeing Ravi’s hard-won smile, a locked door full of hidden light that only comes spilling out when you find the key.

“C’est prêt,” Cayenne says thickly. “Ready.”

Constance’s voice cuts across like a blade of warning, “No one touches Hartnell. The demon is mine.” At their feet, candleflame flares up bright.

Cayenne cups Ravi’s face, tears streaming down their cheeks. Before the first one rolls off their chin and falls, the world shifts.

The watch on Nate’s wrist goes ice cold, almost painfully so, but that discomfort is nothing compared to the wrenching tug in the pit of his stomach. His guts have been dragged along ahead of him, the rest of his body rushing to catch up, careening through a formless void. His head reels, dizzier than he can ever remember being since he was a kid spinning on a tire swing.

It spins and spins, then Nate’s spun as far out as he can go, arm extended and music swelling. Dizziness fades. A hand tugs him back, and Nate follows, stepping in time with the music, ending up chest to chest with Ravi. Ravi, grinning and gorgeous and gloriously alive.

Ravi blinks a few times, taking in their surroundings. Good thing somebody is, because all Nate can do is watch him, only peripherally aware of the dance floor and all its spectators. Ravi’s lips curve into a wide, crooked grin.

“I guess it worked, huh?”

*

NATE SMILES SO brightly it occludes the storm outside, outshining even the chandeliers overhead. He grabs Ravi’s collar and tugs him into a colliding kiss, deep and true and full of promise.

“Please don’t do anything like that ever again,” Nate breathes against his lips.

Ravi frames Nate’s face in his hands. “I don’t intend to. I’ll apologize properly later. First, we have a demon to slay.” Reluctantly, he pulls back, only to startle at the sudden, baffling sound of applause.

Hard to say where it originated; perhaps from Callum and the other Harbridges, or from Jessika nudging the other Eatons into it, a ring of enthusiastic applause surrounds Ravi and Nate. People he’d never have expected to do so are clapping, smiling, toasting. Even Jihan Kataraju joins in after a roll of his eyes, to the apparent disbelief of his brothers.

Robert Hernandez once told Ravi, Just goes to show you, there’s probably love all around you that you’re just not seeing.

Ravi’s ears are hot coals. Swallowing a smile, he takes Nate’s hand and leads him off the dance floor to find the rest of the team. Nate follows, playing to the crowd with a shameless wink and irreverent salute. “We certainly slayed the audience.”

Weaving through suits and gowns that graciously part before them, Ravi halts for a moment. “Damn.”

“What? What is it?”

“Sorry, nothing important. Just a shame that demon sword didn’t come back with me.” He spots Val, and once they lock eyes, she jerks her chin toward the kitchen door behind the champagne fountain, so Ravi diverts their path to converge with hers.

Nate snorts a laugh, squeezing Ravi’s hand. “Tell ya what, sunshine, I’ll get you a cool sword for Diwali. Hey, d’you think Constance and Ikshana got zapped back to mid-bang?”

Ravi barks out a laugh before clapping a palm over his mouth. “Baap re, Nate!”

“Sorry, sorry. Serious demon-killing, apocalypse-averting time.” Nate schools his expression into mock severity. It lasts all of two seconds before dissolving into another brilliant smile. “I’m just so happy you’re okay.”

As he looks up at Nate, Ravi’s heart feels like a falcon ready to soar. Before he can respond, a hand clamps down on Ravi’s shoulder and spins him around. Instinctively he squares up, prepared to fend off the attack, but finds himself instead accosted in a rib-crushing hug, blinking down at the blue-black crown of his aunt’s head.

“You foolish, reckless boy!” After a frozen second, Padme pushes herself upright, spine straightening. “It was exceedingly unwise to leave all our fates up to the unpredictable whims of someone so dangerous, Ravi. When Mason has been dealt with, we are going to discuss acceptable measures of risk.”

“I…I’m sorry to have worried you, Mausi.”

Her sniff is a little watery. “Yes, well. Oont ke muh mein jeera.” A cumin seed in the mouth of a camel; his apology is grossly insufficient.

He keeps to the task at hand. “Eyes on Mason? On Harry?”

Padme lifts her chin, brisk and businesslike. “Indeed. She’s keeping him busy. Only a handful of us here remember what happened or shall still be to happen. The Trust stands ready to support the Chosen and her team in any way she deems fit.”

Ravi gathers his aunt in his arms. She goes stiff for an instant, but then tucks her head under his chin and squeezes him back. When they part, she doesn’t meet his eyes. Instead, Padme glares at Nate with all the intensity of an eagle diving down on its quivering prey.

“And you, Professor Corbin. We are going to have a talk about your intentions with my nephew.”

“Yeah, that’ll be nice,” Nate answers easily, leaning his shoulder into Ravi’s. “Dinner at my place? I’ll cook.”

This marks the third time in his entire life that Ravi has seen his aunt on her back foot. There’s only an extended pause and a twitch of her brows, but to Ravi it’s clear as day that she’s as impressed with Nate’s lack of fear as she is surprised. Ravi barely smothers a besotted grin.

“I suppose a nice Indian boy wasn’t good enough for you, bhanja? I look forward to that dinner,” she sniffs, then gracefully turns on her heel.

They arrive at the rendezvous with no further delays. Val, arms crossed, waits beside the door to the kitchen, as calm and implacable as ever.

“A bold move,” she says by way of greeting. “An invigorating battle. I am relieved that we shall doubtless fight together in many more to come, Ravi Abhiramnew.”

“Uh oh, full name,” Nate warns. “In my household, that always meant you were going to be read the riot act.”

“This is not untrue,” Val agrees, eyes briefly flashing.

Ravi clears his throat, eager to steer the conversation off himself. “Where’s Constance?”

“Within the kitchen. It appears she has deemed concluding her sexual congress with the seer to be of equal or greater importance than defeating her nemesis.”

“Living her best life,” Nate says fondly. He startles a little, looking down at his ankle. “Oh, right, invisible cat. Hey, Griswold, nice to not see you.”

Griswold’s strident voice emits from ankle-height. “Didst thou all witness how I laid tooth and claw to yon demon cur?”

“A valiant attack,” Val nods. “I am currently keeping the demon in my sights, do not fear. I’d be at Harry’s side now, if it wouldn’t tip off the demon and send it into hiding.”

The door opens and a bright-eyed Constance sidles out. She grins. “Here again to spy, thou vexing little voyeurs?”

“No,” Ravi protests, flushing dark, but Constance just laughs merrily and taps him on the nose.

“I jest. You will have to tell me later what it was like being dead! Did you meet the Wandering Lady?”

“Don’t remember it. How’s Ikshana? Unharmed?”

The suggestion in Constance’s wicked smile is enough to make Ravi blush anew. “Quite well, I should think. Give the poor dear a moment to recover. Where is that cowardly churl of a demon?”

“Harry’s got him occupied.” Nate jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “You’re gonna have to tell me about this Wandering Lady thing later, that’s a new one to me.”

“Isn’t ‘later’ a beautiful word?” Constance leans down to pet the presumably arched spine of her unseen cat. “Ravi. How are you faring? A harrowing eve for us all, but you have borne the brunt of it.”

The alternate memories aren’t gone; more like faded, distant enough that it feels a little like a dream, or like it happened to someone else. Photographs with the color drained from them.

“I’m okay,” Ravi assures her. “Let’s kill your demon.”

“Aye! Valiance, have you any angelic knowledge of weapons that will rend a demon prince asunder? Preferably one that you could bring hence to my hand. Or mayhaps I could borrow thine maul? All those tomes, all that research and studying, and I have not yet uncovered what Hartnell’s weakness be.”

“I would lend you my maul, but it would not be a holy weapon in your hand. Likewise, only the Chosen can wield the urumi as anything more than a simple blade.”

“Harry can just slip the urumi into his pocket or something,” Nate chimes. Everyone stares at him. “According to Turkish accounts from the ninth century, the then-Chosen was able to take down a minor deity after it swallowed the noodle sword, and when the Chosen—”

“Vrishin,” Ravi adds, easily envisioning Nate poring over old books, glasses sliding down his nose.

“Vrishin Abhiramnew, that’s the guy, thanks, babe. So, Vrishin trapped this rampaging blood god in a river and it just up and drowned. Now, there’s enough data out there about that type of supernatural being to suggest it should not be drownable. So! What can we conclude?” Nate raises a single professorial finger in the air, both eyebrows echoing the gesture. “If just touching the urumi can weaken an actual god enough to kill it with a little thing like lack of oxygen, I’d say your chances are excellent that a demon prince won’t fare any better.”

Val claps Constance between the shoulder blades, nearly pitching her forward. “Excellent news. Your cousin may be avenged by your own hand. Choose your weapon, my friend.”

Constance’s eyes sparkle.

*

RAVI TEXTS HARRY a brief sketch of the plan, and she sends back a thumbs-up. He walks with Nate, their shoulders brushing. As they pass partygoers, he receives tiny, somber nods from the handful of Trusties who remember the other timeline, all standing ready to follow his lead.

“You doing okay, sunshine?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” Ravi flashes a smile. “I’m glad we got to finish our dance.”

Nate’s dimples make an appearance. “Me too. Though you still haven’t told me what jaan means.”

“Oh.” Ravi clears his throat. Sudden nerves flutter up in his belly in a way they hadn’t a second ago, when he’d merely been ready to face down an archdemon. “It’s Hindi. Or Urdu. Both. Lots of desi people use a variation of it.”

“If you don’t want to tell me…”

“No, I…I do.” Ravi pulse quickens. “It can be used casually like English uses babe, honey, sweetheart. Things like that. Direct translation is love or life. It’s, um. It’s usually used informally to refer to a girlfriend or boyfriend.”

Nate’s eyes widen, a rosy flush creeping up his cheeks. “Usually?”

Ravi gazes into Nate’s eyes, earth meeting sky. “It grows with intimacy. Over time, the meaning can become more literal. It’s a word that does a lot of heavy lifting.”

“Jaan.” Nate rolls the word on his tongue. “I like it.” His fingers brush Ravi’s hand.

“The pair of you are so saccharine sweet thou shalt melt in a rainstorm,” comes Constance’s amused voice behind them.

Nate chuckles. “Hush, you. I’m trying to get swept off my feet, here.”

“I’ll sweep you anywhere you like after this demon is dead.” Ravi is certain his ears have gone floridly dark.

“Why, Agent Abhiramnew! Whatever will your fiancée say?” Nate teases warmly.

“Probably, ‘hell yeah, get some.’”

“Oh my God, she would.” Nate wrangles his laughter under control as they circle a decorative pillar.

In an alcove surrounded by potted ferns, Harry and Mason stand closely in conversation, Harry laying a hand on his elbow. The demon smiles, handsome and confident, solely focused on Harry’s attentions.

Ravi resolves to look into recovering Javier Mason’s body, if Hartnell left any of it. The man’s a hero of The Trust and deserves full honors.

“Oh, hi, guys!” Harry gives the pair of them a cheerful wave. She smiles too brightly, swaying as if she’s overindulged on champagne. Or perhaps drunk too much from the small stainless-steel flask she furtively hands back to Mason.

Mason plasters a big, polite smile on his rugged face, tucking the flask inside a breast pocket. “I’ve been keeping your charming bride-to-be entertained, as requested.”

While he’s distracted, Harry drops her tipsy affectation and slips the coin-shaped urumi into Mason’s tuxedo pocket. She keeps one hand wrapped around his elbow.

“Kind of you,” Ravi says with a smile of his own. It feels more like a baring of teeth, but it seems to be good enough to keep Mason none the wiser.

“Have you been introduced to Nate?” Harry asks. “Javier Mason, this is Professor Nathaniel Corbin. He keeps us up to speed on monster lore. You know, where to stab stuff, what to stab it with.”

“Ah, important work,” Mason says with an approving nod and a friendly grin. “I bet your know-how has routed some pretty tough customers.”

Harry continues as if Mason hadn’t spoken. “And of course, you already know Constance Shaw.”

Ravi and Nate part, and Constance drops her invisibility spell, Griswold hissing at her feet, striped tail held high.

“We meet again, Heart’s Final Knell,” Constance says.

“You!” Hartnell’s smile becomes a snarl.

He flinches at the dig of Harry’s fingers. Val saunters into view, sunglasses discarded, blue-white flame chiseling her features. The demon’s eyes dart wildly as he realizes too late he’s been flanked on every side.

“That whoreson time wizard fucked up again,” he growls, then his face splits into an oily smile. “Surely, we can come to a deal. There’s no reason our antagonistic past has to dictate our futures, now does it?”

Constance grins sweetly. “Past, present, or future, there’s nowhere you could go where I wouldn’t seek to end you, demon.”

Something about that rings a little bell for Ravi, a suspicion of a revelation that he shelves to the back of his mind to inspect later.

Constance opens her little gold handbag and pulls out a leather-wrapped hilt. She continues drawing it forth, past the cross guard and on and on into a long, long blade, until she has gripped in both hands a hefty, gleaming broadsword.

“Do you recognize it, demon? This is the blade my cousin Able forged by his own hand, the very blade he sank into your heart when we had you at long last trapped. The blade you tore from your chest and slew him with.” She lifts it aloft, tightening her grip.

“A mere blade against a Prince of Hell?” Hartnell sneers. “It did not kill me then, thou trollop, but by all means, why don’t you give it another go? These witch-hunters already have you in their sights. I cannot wait to wear your skin, witch. Go ahead and—”

“Such incessant prattle.” Constance rolls her eyes and plunges the broadsword straight through him.

Smugness turns to flabbergasted dismay as Hartnell looks down at his cloven chest, the sword exiting neatly through his back with a wet, grinding hiss. His mouth flaps open, speech trying to form. But Constance twists the blade until its hilt is horizontal, and any last words the demon might have had are lost in a gurgle.

The body crumples backward, sliding off Constance’s red-slick broadsword and hitting the ground with a thud. A rising clamor starts up among the nearby crowd. To all appearances, a well-known and highly regarded Branch Director just got stabbed by one of the Chosen’s entourage. Harry and the others break off to confront the crowd, and no doubt Ravi will have to help explain the situation in another moment, but for now he hangs back with Constance. It’s been a big night for the entire team, to say the least, but especially for the two of them.

“You okay?” he asks, a weather eye on the corpse in case Hartnell prepared any tricks, but looks like the urumi did its job well. Behind them, mingled voices argue and bicker, a loudening din that Harry cuts through with a well-placed counterpoint.

Hackles raised, Griswold spits at the demon, strutting at his mistress’s feet. “Fie, churl! To oblivion with thee!”

Constance stares at her fallen foe as the body begins to blacken into ash and bone, bloodied broadsword loose in her hand. “Ravi. Have you heard it said that vengeance is never worth the cost? That revenge is but a hollow and joyless victory?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

She looks up, beaming. “Absolute tosh. I feel better than I have in ages.”