Saul had never fired a rifle, but Adam assured us that he could teach him how with minimal effort. There is no physical activity that demons aren’t better at than humans, and Adam guaranteed that even with his inexperience, Saul would hit anything he aimed at. But I still would have felt a hell of a lot more comfortable if Adam were the shooter.

After that, all we had to do was work out the time and place. Adam would begin searching for the perfect location tomorrow. Which meant that once again, all the rest of us could do was wait.

Brian and I were both too worn out to continue our earlier argument—thank God—but there was a chilly silence between us as we got ready for bed, and there was no affectionate cuddling. He was brooding, and I was just too damn tired to deal with it.

FOR THE FIRST FEW MOMENTS AFTER I WOKE UP THE next morning, I lay in my bed in blissful ignorance. The fuzz of sleep kept my mind free of any inconvenient thoughts, and I just snuggled into the covers and considered allowing myself to drift back to sleep.

But when I tried to relax, I remembered the upcoming duel between Lugh and Dougal—the duel on which the fate of two worlds depended. The memory forced back the last vestiges of sleep, and I pushed myself into a sitting position. Brian’s side of the bed was empty. I rubbed at my gritty eyes and looked at the bedside clock. It was nearly eleven. He must have gone in to work this morning, as usual. I’m not sure I could have managed it under the circumstances, but then I’d never been as career-driven as Brian. I hoped the fact that he didn’t wake me before he left didn’t mean he was still mad at me.

I’d woken up less than five minutes ago, and already I was in major grouch mode. Probably just as well that Brian wasn’t around, or I might have picked a fight with him just to work off my frustrations. My nerves were buzzing with anxiety and good old-fashioned fear.

Perhaps coffee wasn’t the best idea when I was so on edge I could barely sit still, but I feared I might spontaneously combust without it. I drank way more than was good for me and found myself pacing my living room as if it were a cage.

I was absurdly grateful when Andy emerged from his room. Yeah, we’d been getting on each other’s nerves, but I needed a distraction from my worries.

“Did Raphael behave himself last night?” I asked my brother as I poured him a cup of coffee. He hadn’t seemed any worse for wear when Raphael moved back into Tommy, but I’d decided then that I’d rather wait for a private moment to make sure he was all right.

Andy gratefully took the coffee I offered him and took a sip before speaking. “He was Raphael,” he said, but he didn’t sound particularly bitter when he said it. “But he was right. I’m kinda used to him, and we managed to tiptoe around each other without throwing off too many sparks.”

I felt my brows lift at that. “Raphael doesn’t seem to tiptoe much.” I remembered him laying on the brutal guilt trip last night, and tried not to imagine what it must have been like for Andy to have had that in his head for ten years.

Andy smiled a bit. “No, not his strong suit. Mostly we just both kept our metaphorical mouths shut so we didn’t have anything to fight about.”

“That was a brave thing you did,” I said, looking into my coffee instead of at Andy’s face. “Allowing Raphael back into you to protect Dom.” I raised my head, and it was Andy’s turn to stare at his coffee. Guess neither one of us was real comfortable with this touchy-feely stuff.

Andy licked his lips, and I couldn’t tell if it was a nervous gesture or if he was just thinking. “It’s so easy for me to think the worst of him. Whenever he suggests something, my instant reaction is to not want to do it. And when he tells me something, I assume it’s a lie or that he’s wrong or that he’s somehow trying to manipulate me.” He grimaced. “Don’t you dare tell him I said this, but every once in a while, he gets one right. If I’d let him take Dominic to spare myself …” He shook his head.

“That’s not the kind of man I want to be.”

He took another sip of coffee. Not knowing what else to say, I did, too.

“I became a host because I wanted to do some good in this world,” Andy said. “When I let Raphael take Tommy …” He shook his head and swallowed hard. “I couldn’t help wanting Raphael out of my head, and logically, I know it was only human. But I felt like I could never … consider myself one of the good guys again.”

“Well, shit, Andy. You’ve always been one of the good guys.”

He smiled at me, and I thought there was a little more light in his eyes than there had been in the last few months. “Little sisters are required to think their big brothers are heroes, so your opinion doesn’t count for much.”

I gave him a mock scowl. “Well, big brothers are required to be assholes, so you’re doing your fraternal duty.”

He tried to cuff me on the side of my head, but I managed to evade him. And I didn’t even spill my coffee. Go me!

Then the moment of levity faded, and the smile disappeared from Andy’s face. But even without the smile, I thought he looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Maybe—just maybe—he was considering the possibility of respecting himself again. I couldn’t exactly thank Raphael for that—

since it was Raphael who’d almost broken Andy’s spirit in the first place—but I was glad for it, nonetheless.

Late that afternoon, Adam called to let me know he’d found a location he thought would work well for the duel. He came to pick me up around six, with Saul and Raphael in tow. I wasn’t excited to share a car with the terrible twosome, but we needed Saul to check the location out and make sure he had a place he’d be comfortable watching from. And we needed Raphael’s devious mind to make sure we didn’t overlook any potential pitfalls. I doubt I would have been invited to go myself, except Lugh was adamant that he needed to see the place to give it his personal stamp of approval. Since he was the one who’d be risking his life—at least, risking his life the most—I supposed it was a fair request.

It wasn’t the most relaxed of car rides. Saul rode shotgun, and I got to share the backseat with Raphael. They were relatively civilized, and they only stuck verbal pins in each other four or five times during the long drive to the location Adam had selected. But at least they didn’t get into a brawl in the car.

There was nowhere within the city limits we could have the isolation we needed to hold this duel. But as it turned out, Adam had found a place already guaranteed to be an effective demon-killing field. It was an industrial-sized farm out in the Brandywine Valley. The farm had once been owned by Jeremy Wyatt, who had at the time been the leader of God’s Wrath. He’d also been possessed by one of Dougal’s demons.

The last time I’d been there, it had been a working farm, and Lugh and I had been destined to be burned at the stake—which in this instance was a basketball hoop set into a concrete court behind a large barn. But the night had ended with Wyatt and all his fanatical followers dead, and it looked like the farm had died with them. Locked gates featuring a “for sale” sign blocked the driveway, but the fields and buildings beyond screamed of neglect. It didn’t look like anyone had been in a hurry to buy the place out.

There isn’t much that can stop a demon from going where he wants to. Saul got out and broke the lock on the gates, then Adam drove through. We left the gates closed behind us. Unless someone were to get out and examine the gate, no one would be able to tell we’d come through it. Not that it seemed likely anyone would be looking

I tried my hardest not to flash back to my last trip out here, tried not to remember the horror of the fate that had awaited me at the end of the drive. But it’s damn hard to forget about the threat of being burned alive. I cast a sidelong glance at Raphael, wondering what his memories were like. He must have been pretty distressed during that drive himself, since it was looking at the time as if all his plans to keep Lugh safe were going to fail. But he hadn’t let a bit of what he was really feeling show back then, and he wasn’t showing it now.