Dax wiped his hands on her dad’s old sweats and sat down on his end of the couch as if nothing had happened.

Bumper struggled in Eddy’s tight grasp, raking Eddy’s thighs with her sharp nails. Luckily Bumper couldn’t tear through Eddy’s heavy jeans, but before the dog freaked entirely, Eddy set her free. The stupid mutt jumped off the couch and raced to the fireplace. She sniffed the small pile of rubble that had once been Eddy’s beautifully carved stone owl, sneezed, and then trotted back to the couch as cocky as if she’d been the one to defeat the demon.

Bumper jumped on the couch between Eddy and Dax, but this time she rested her head on Dax’s thigh and gazed at him with pure adoration.

Eddy couldn’t blame the dog one bit. Even though she was still trembling and her heart pounded like a whole set of drums, she knew she stared at Dax the same way.

It was impossible not to.

Dark tendrils of thick, black hair clung to his forehead and jaw. His bare chest, bisected with the colorful snake tattoo, gleamed with a light sheen of perspiration from his efforts. The gray sweats hung low on his lean hips. He epitomized sex appeal and good looks, and to top it off, he’d just saved her from a completely impossible attack by a demon right here in her very own living room.

If she could believe what she’d just seen.

“Before we were so rudely interrupted…” He actually grinned at her.

She had to swallow twice before she found her voice. “Go on. Please. Don’t let me stop you.” She clasped her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. There had to be a logical reason for all this. Either that, or she was every bit as loony as old Mrs. Abernathy.

“You asked what would happen if things got out of balance.” He nodded toward the fireplace. “That’s a good example. It’s happening now. Demons are slipping into this dimension through a pathway that’s normally closed to them, a portal in the energy vortex that is your mountain.”

Not exactly what Eddy wanted to hear. “You’re kidding, right?” He didn’t look like he was kidding. In fact, he looked awfully serious for someone making a joke. “The vortex is all New Age folklore. No one around here really believes it exists, unless you count my father, who is the king of otherworldly theories, or the stores and companies catering to the tourists. The vortex is no more real than the Lemurians.”

“The what?” Dax frowned and stopped rubbing Bumper’s ears. Bumper growled and wagged her tail. Dax went back to rubbing.

Eddy couldn’t sit still any longer. She bounced to her feet and began pacing around the small living room. “Lemurians. They’re not real, unless you ask Dad.” She spun around and laughed. “He’s going to be thrilled when he finds out about you. Proof that some of his crazy theories are actually true.” Dax and the demons. It didn’t get any better.

“According to local lore, they’re a race of mystical beings—tall, beautiful people with strange powers who supposedly live inside Mount Shasta in rooms made of gold. Legend says they’re descendents of people from the lost continent of Lemuria that sank beneath the sea, that they had advanced science and technology thousands of years ago. They were even supposed to have flying machines, sort of like the old Atlantis myth.”

Dax shook his head. He twisted around in his seat so he could follow her erratic pacing. “Atlantis is no myth. It really existed, and its descendents are still around. I’ve never heard of Lemuria. I’ll need to look into it. The vortex, though, is definitely real. How do you think I got here?”

Eddy stopped in her tracks and stared at him, looking for a twitch, a smile, anything to tell her he was teasing.

He wasn’t.

She glanced at Willow. As if the sprite knew she was being watched, she flashed bright blue and just as quickly faded.

Okay. Point made. Eddy took a deep breath. “Why don’t you tell me exactly how you did get here. Just promise to ignore me if I look incredulous.”

Dax stared at her for a long, slow moment. Then he shook his head, and his gorgeous lips turned up in an unbelievably sexy grin. “Eddy Marks, I doubt I could ever ignore you…not for any reason.”

She felt it right between her thighs. A hot lick of heat that had no business firing her senses and making her muscles clench, especially after a hokey come-on like that. It took a tremendous amount of will to continue gazing directly into those smoldering eyes of his. Demon’s eyes. She had to remind herself that, for all his appeal, Dax not only was a stranger, but he’d also already admitted to being one of the bad guys.

“I’m waiting,” she said, planting her hands on her hips, ignoring his innuendo and her body’s traitorous response.

He still had that cocky grin plastered on his gorgeous face, but at least he had settled back against the couch. “I was a demon. An immortal in a world of evil. It suited me for a long time, and then it didn’t.” He shrugged. “For some reason, I began to question the life, the constant desire to cause pain, to kill.” He shook his head, shrugged. Gave her a self-deprecating grin. “I guess I learned the hard way. One does not question evil. I got tossed out of Abyss.”

The snake tattoo crawling out of his waistband slowly writhed across his belly and chest. Mesmerized, Eddy blinked. She must be more exhausted than she’d realized.

The subtle motion stopped. The tattoo stayed put. She swallowed and raised her eyes. It was too unsettling to steal even the quickest glance at his body, when things like that happened. “Where does a demon go that’s worse than Hell?”

Dax ran his fingers lightly over his tattoo. Had he felt it move? He stared at her for a moment before he answered.

“Earth.”

Eddy blinked. “What? Life on Earth is worse than Abyss?”

“For a demon, yes. I might have been reborn here as a petty criminal, some kind of crook leading a useless life, causing other people grief, or worse. I could have become a dictator, a hired killer, a terrorist. Part of the balance of good and evil that keeps this world in line. Not a pleasant way to spend one’s time, especially when you’re beginning to question everything about the demon’s way.”

“So what happened?”

“I was still in the void, the space without substance that exists where the dimensions of Earth, Abyss, and Eden aren’t. I was unsure whether or not I even rated a rebirth after being cast out. It’s still not clear to me how, but a contingent from Eden managed to snag my soul out of the void.

“I vaguely recall a very one-sided discussion. Somehow they convinced me to take on the job of ridding Evergreen of the excess demons finding their way through the portal in your vortex before the balance could tip too far on the side of evil. Since I’d given up my demon body as well as the ability to manipulate inanimate objects when I was cast out of Abyss, the Edenites gave me a living avatar, this body. The snake tattoo holds my demonic powers of fire and ice for fighting demons. And they gave me Willow, of course, to feed me the energy I need to use my weapons. She’s actually a creature of Eden, and she draws her power from the air around her.”

“What exactly are you supposed to do?”

“My charge is to shut down the portal in the vortex between Earth and Abyss, and destroy any of the demons who’ve made it across the dimensions. Evergreen may be just one small town, but all of its citizens are at risk. If I fail, demonkind will continue to gain strength in this dimension. Other towns, other humans will be in danger. At the very worst, all three worlds could eventually fail with me. Of course, that’s not what Abyss wants. Their goal is to rule Earth, and maybe even Eden.”

“But why Evergreen? Like you said, it’s just a tiny little town.”

“Mount Shasta.” He shrugged as if it was entirely obvious.

Eddy frowned. “I still don’t…”

“The mountain is the vortex,” Dax said. “The source of power for the portal between Earth and Abyss. Evergreen is the closest community to the mountain and the portal that allows demonkind entrance to this dimension. Demons aren’t strong enough yet to move very far from the mountain—their link to Abyss—but with each day that passes, they gain strength in this dimension.”

He glanced away, and took a deep breath. When he turned back, Eddy could have sworn she saw a glint of green fire in his eyes. “If they prevail,” he said, “you will fully understand the meaning of Hell on Earth.”

She really, really couldn’t believe she was standing here in her own front room having this conversation. Her reporter’s instincts were screaming at her to grab her tape recorder, her feminine instincts were all aflutter, and her brain didn’t seem to want to function on any familiar level at all.

If it did, she wouldn’t be accepting this outlandish tale as truth. Shouldn’t she be questioning everything Dax said? Yeah, said a tiny voice in her head. Except that there’s this little blue fairy flying around and a garden gnome armed with a pitchfork, and the stone owl tried to fly and…

She paused at the back side of the couch, planted her hands on the curved top, and leaned closer to Dax. “How come I’ve never heard of Eden or Abyss? How come you guys know about us and each other, but we don’t know about you?”

He wound his fingers in Bumper’s curly coat, almost as if anchoring himself with the dog. “Absolute evil is always aware of absolute good, and vice versa. In a way, Eden and Abyss are two sides of the whole. Those of you Earthbound are too busy fearing both, so you make us the stuff of legend and religion. Christians have Heaven and Hell, Muslims have Jannah and Jahannam, Buddhists…well, you get the point. Every religion has its own name for Paradise balanced by some form of evil underworld.”

Damn. He had a plausible answer for everything. “So what did they offer you? What would make a demon agree to fight against his own kind?”

He smiled. His eyes sort of unfocused as he gazed off into the distance. “Remember, I’d already been kicked out of Abyss. The Edenites offered me my own shot at Paradise, at life on Eden. The odds are against me, of course. I wasn’t a perfect demon, so it’s hard to imagine myself as a perfect human. You must prove to be pure, without any stain of evil on your soul, but it’s a greater chance than I had before.”

“What’s the alternative if you fail?”

“Besides the end of life as the three worlds know it?” He laughed softly, but Eddy had a feeling he wasn’t really joking. “Remember, this body of mine is borrowed. I was given the form of a man who died somewhere on Earth at some point in time—there’s little meaning to time in the void—when I accepted the Edenites’ proposal. This body will disappear at the end of my seven days. I, once again a demon, face eternity in the void, but this time without chance of rebirth of any kind. Nothing beyond memories forever of the pain and misery I knew on Abyss. Knowing I’d come just this close…” He held his thumb and forefinger a hairsbreadth apart. “This close to eternity in Paradise. I can’t imagine a more painful hell, knowing I’d come so close and yet failed. Worse than my life on Abyss, for all its agony.”

He raised his head and gazed directly into her eyes. Eddy felt his need, his desperate hope for that one slim chance at Paradise, and her heart sort of tumbled in her chest. If there was any way to help…

Bumper suddenly sat up and growled. Her curly hackles rose along her spine, and she stared over the top of the couch at the sliding glass door leading to the backyard.

Eddy and Dax both glanced from Bumper to Willow. The tiny creature pulsed in shades of blue, flitted away from her perch on the bookcase, and buzzed around the room. Each lamp she passed went out.

“What is it?”

Dax held a finger to his lips. “Grab Bumper. Don’t let go of her.”

Eddy nodded, though she doubted Dax saw her. The room was pitch dark without the lights. She wrapped her fingers around Bumper’s collar and fumbled for the leash on the table beside the couch. It took her a moment to find it in the dark, longer still to snap it to the dog’s collar for added insurance. Bumper might only weigh fifty pounds, but she was all muscle and sinew under that curly blond coat.

Eddy’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. She felt the shift of air currents as Dax slipped away and padded on bare feet toward the sliding glass door. He didn’t seem to have any problem seeing in the dark

She heard a strange sound in the garden, a clattering noise she couldn’t quite place. Bumper growled, but instead of lunging, she pressed tightly against Eddy’s leg. Eddy hunkered down with the couch between her and the door, and peeked over the top to see what was going on. Willow hovered beside Dax. Her faint glow was barely visible, reflecting off the glass door.

Dax shouted, “Eddy! Out of the way!”

He dove to one side as the plate glass shattered into a million pieces. A huge, bronze horse galloped into her front room. Its rider waved a deadly sword.

General Humphreys? No way!

Eddy screamed and grabbed Bumper. She lifted the dog’s fifty-pound body as if she didn’t weigh an ounce, hauled her across the room and around the corner, where they hid in the hallway that led to her bedroom.

Lights flashed. Dax shouted what had to be a curse in some language Eddy’d never heard. Her little house shook, and the smell of sulfur almost choked her. Banshee howls came from more than one direction, and she couldn’t stand it a minute longer.

Hanging on to Bumper, Eddy peeked around the corner. Dax stood in the far corner of the room next to the fireplace with his back to the wall. His arms were stretched out in front of his powerful body as he lit up the room, shooting blast after blast of fire at the bronze horse and rider.

The horse reared, and Eddy’s ceiling fan turned to toothpicks when the general’s sword caught the spinning blades. Dax fired another blast, and the top half of the general separated from the horse and tumbled to the floor.

It rose up, wobbling on its bronze torso, then pivoted on both arms and moved around beside the rearing horse, caging Dax in the corner.

The general’s legs remained in the saddle, raking the bronze flanks of the horse with sharp spurs. Half a dozen small stone statues—three cats, two squirrels, and one little deer with spreading antlers—scurried across the floor. Some carried garden tools and sticks; all of them headed for Dax and his bare feet.

Willow flitted from one side of the room to the other, gathering energy out of the air to throw to Dax.

Bumper tugged at the short leash, her snarls and barks adding to the din. Her powerful jaws dripped saliva; her razor sharp teeth clicked with each snap. In one brief flight of hysterical fancy, Eddy realized she looked like a killing machine in a Shirley Temple wig. With a quick prayer, she unhooked the dog’s leash, and Bumper launched herself into the melee.

The small statues scattered, though one squirrel wasn’t quite fast enough. Bumper caught it between her jaws, shook her head, and snapped the thing in two. The dark mist inside floated toward the ceiling.

Dax hit it with a burst of fire, and the mist disappeared in a sizzle of white steam. Then he quickly fired on two of the stone cats, destroying them along with their demons. Bumper had gotten the last squirrel and was chasing down the stone deer, barking nonstop. She dodged the deer’s antlers and the slashing bronze hooves of the horse, but her frenetic attack effectively took everyone’s concentration off Dax.

No one seemed aware of Eddy at all.

She grabbed a wooden chair and raced into the front room, raised it over her head, and clobbered the top half of the general across the back. The chair shattered on contact, but the demon-powered statue toppled to the ground, where Dax hit him with a burst of icy wind.

The bronze froze and splintered. As black mist poured out of the cracks, the icy blast caught it, and frozen drops clattered to the ground where Dax steamed them out of existence with a shot of fire.

Empowered by her success and Bumper’s effective attack, Eddy grabbed another chair and swung at the rearing horse’s back legs. This chair shattered as well, but the horse dropped to all four feet and turned toward Eddy.

Its jaws opened wide, and she saw row upon row of sharp, silvery teeth where teeth shouldn’t be. The horse’s eyes glowed an eerie yellow, and she realized the broken chair legs she held were no defense at all.

Bumper must have sensed her danger. She snapped the spine of the stone deer she’d attacked and charged the horse. Instead of going for the throat, Bumper sank her teeth into the right rear leg, up high, just beside the horse’s belly.

Animated by the demon inside, the bronze seemed to have the texture of plastic, and there was nothing Bumper liked more than her plastic chew toys. Hanging by her powerful jaws, hind legs scrabbling for purchase on the tattered carpet beneath her feet, Bumper finally threw the bronze beast off balance.

Dax zapped the last of the stone cats and its resident demon with fire, then spun in place and hit the fallen horse with a shot of freezing air. This time, when the bronze cracked, two misty creatures escaped. He caught each of them in a flaming arc, burning them until the black mist turned to steam and evaporated in the suddenly quiet room.

Still growling, Bumper backed away from the fallen statue, and leaned against Eddy’s shaking knees. Eddy’s lungs ached with each tortured breath.

Dax reached out and caught Willow out of the air before she could tumble to the ground. Eddy sensed the tiny sprite’s utter and complete exhaustion.

She’d given everything she had to Dax.

Eddy’d given everything she had, period. Including her home. She flipped on the only lamp still standing.

The small living room was littered with crumbled stone and large chunks of metal. Black scorch marks disfigured the walls, and Dax’s fire had burned holes in the carpet. The ceiling fan still spun, but only one blade remained. The air reeked of sulfur. Broken glass was everywhere, destruction complete.

Explaining this one to the insurance company was going to be a bitch. Eddy leaned over, rested her hands on her knees, and struggled to get her ragged breathing under control.

Then she heard the wail of sirens in the distance. “Dax. You need to get out of here,” she gasped. “The police are on their way. Where can you go?”

“Wherever you go, Eddy Marks.”

She jerked her head up and gaped at him.

He held his big hands out, palms up. Willow sat in his left palm with her wings drooping and her head hanging low, but she was safe. Eddy stared at the hands protecting the tiny sprite—the same hands that shot fire and ice at marauding demons. The same hands that had stroked Bumper’s curly head with such gentleness.

“I could not have done this without you and Bumper,” he said simply. “I need both of you.” Dax glanced at the tiny figure in the palm of his hand. “And Willow, of course. I will always need Willow. You have to come with me, Eddy. It’s too important. I can’t do this by myself. I need you.”

He held his right hand out to her. “Besides, the demons know where you live. They’ll return. You’re not safe here. I will not leave you unprotected.”

Eddy stared at his hand. Glanced at the snake tattoo that had come back to life and seemed to ripple across his entire torso. Then she looked down at Bumper. She was parked on her butt between the two of them, but with her doggy gaze fixed firmly on Dax and her curly tail going like a high-speed metronome. Eddy laughed. None of this made sense. The sirens were coming closer. Her house was ruined. Dax had a huge grin on his face, like he was having the time of his life.

And so am I.

Hadn’t she just complained to Ginny that nothing exciting ever happened? Eddy gazed at the destruction that had once been her perfect little living room. Then she raised her head and grinned at Dax. “And you’re saying I’ll be safe with you, a guy who’s admitted he’s a demon?”

“A fallen demon, Eddy. Too good for Hell.”

“Well, in that case, what can I possibly be worried about?”

Still laughing for God knew what reason, she grabbed her purse off the floor, checked to make sure her cell phone was inside, and snapped the leash back on Bumper. “I sure hope you know where we’re going.”

Dax grabbed her hand, pulled her close, and shocked her to her toes with a quick kiss. “I do now. We’re headed straight up the mountain. I’m going to need more help than one skinny girl and a curly-headed dog. We’re going to find the Lemurians.”

Oh, crap. She felt laughter burbling up again and bit it off before she gave in to complete hysterics.

Eddy’s brain slipped into overdrive. She put on clean socks and laced up her hiking boots. Her jeans and tank top would have to do—the police cars were pulling up across the street and she didn’t want to get caught in the house. They went out the back through the broken glass door. She worried about Dax’s bare feet and the glass all over the carpet, but he and Bumper both got out of the house without cutting themselves.

A block away, she grabbed Dax’s hand. “Before we head up the mountain, you need boots and a shirt. We’re going to my father’s house first. It’s not far.”

“He knows of the Lemurians?”

“He thinks he does.” She tugged Bumper’s leash, and they slipped down an alley. Exhausted from the battle, Willow rode along perched on Eddy’s shoulder. Carrying the sprite with her felt absolutely perfect. Eddy loved seeing the pale blue glow that was barely visible in her peripheral vision.

Somehow, knowing Willow was there was reassuring. She wasn’t losing her mind at all. Dax was real. The demons were real, and this really was happening.

Not that it was good. No, if what Dax said could happen actually did, it was going to be awful, but just knowing that these creatures existed, that she wasn’t absolutely crazy, was somehow life affirming.

Dad was going to love it.

Her childhood home was dark, but she spotted lights on in her father’s workshop out back. Since her mother’s death, her dad spent most of his time in the shop, puttering with his model trains or building birdhouses.

It had become a neighborhood joke how Ed Marks had singlehandedly turned this part of town into the bird high-rent district with his fancy designs. There wasn’t a tree without at least one of his birdhouses for blocks around, but tonight, from the noise coming out of the shop, it sounded as if he was busy with his model trains. He’d spent years on the layout, a perfect miniature scale model of Mount Shasta and the surrounding towns.

McCloud, Edgewood, Weed, the town of Mt. Shasta. Their own little community of Evergreen. All to scale, all perfect. “Dad? Are you in there?” Eddy stood just outside the door and tapped lightly.

She remembered years ago, when her mom was still alive and her dad much younger, that he’d been as big and powerful-looking as Dax. The mature man who opened the door wasn’t at all frail, despite a slight limp from his bad hip, but the physical bulk of hard-worked muscle and youthful strength was gone. He was still tall, but leaner now, with deep grooves in his cheeks from years of smiles, and his once dark hair was shot with gray.

“Eddy! Sweetheart, what are you doing out so late? Come on in. And…?” He stared sharply at Dax, standing beside Eddy with bare feet and bare chest. After a quick appraisal, including a second glance at the sweats Eddy had borrowed from him a few days before, he opened the door wide.

Bumper wriggled all over until Ed leaned down and ruffled her curly head. “Brought home another stray I see.” He paused a moment and picked some glass splinters out of the dog’s thick fur and then shot another sharp look at Dax. Then he glanced at Eddy and led them over to a group of tall stools beside the model-train layout.

“Okay. What’s up?”

The look he gave Eddy reminded her of the first time she’d brought a date home in high school. “Dad, this is Dax.” She reached up to her shoulder and cupped Willow in her palm. Then she held the glowing ball of light in front of her. Willow stood up and spread her tiny wings.

Ed sat down—hard—on the closest stool.

“This is Willow…. And Dad? I have a whole lot of really weird and wild stuff I have to tell you.”

Dax liked Eddy’s father immediately. The man remained calm in spite of the story his daughter told. He asked intelligent questions, seemed relieved that no one had been hurt during the attack on her home, and offered to go over and repair the damage.

Then he took them inside Eddy’s childhood home, opened a large cabinet, dug around for a thick file, and dropped it into Dax’s hands. “Can you read English?”

Dax stared at the papers in his hands. “I don’t know if I can read at all.” He flipped open the first page and stared at the black marks running in straight rows from side to side. Willow made a quick buzz across the pages, and the printed symbols suddenly made perfect sense. He raised his head and grinned at Eddy’s father. “Yes, it appears I can.”

He flipped through page after page, reading stories about the ancient continent of Lemuria, how it had sunk beneath the waves, but not before the inhabitants were able to reach safety on Mount Shasta. According to Ed Marks’ research, the Lemurians now inhabited the inner caves and secret valleys of the mountain. They had once been known as demon fighters, powerful warriors able to best the demon hordes of ancient times in epic battles that had changed the course of history through many dimensions. Supposedly they had powers mere humans barely understood.

Powers that just might tip the balance between success and failure. All Dax had to do was find people who, according to Eddy, didn’t exist.

But, if he believed her father, they did…. And hadn’t Ed believed in demons and will-o’-the-wisps?

Dax raised his head as Eddy and her father walked back into the room.

“We made some sandwiches.” Eddy sat down beside him and stuck a plate in his hands. “What about Willow?”

Dax shook his head. “She exists on energy, as I once did. As a demon, I only ate my enemies to keep them from coming back to fight again.” He took a bite, chewed a few times, and paused. “This is my first meal as a human. It’s good.”

Eddy and her father exchanged an unfathomable look and then burst out laughing. Eddy leaned over and kissed Ed on the cheek. “You win, Dad.”

Ed slapped his knee and laughed again. “Dax, my boy, you have managed to give me the creditability I’ve always lacked in my poor, pragmatic daughter’s eyes. Thank you.”

Dax merely smiled around a huge bite of his sandwich.

“Dax, the police stopped by here a little bit ago while you were going through the file. They wanted to let Dad know what had happened to my house and make sure I was okay. I didn’t tell them anything about the demons or you, and we let them think the mess was from vandals.”

Dax nodded. “Probably for the best.” He glanced down at Bumper, who stared back at him with soulful eyes. Without a second thought, he tore off a bite of his sandwich and gave it to the dog.

Bumper’s curly tail thumped the floor.

Dax glanced at Eddy, but she was talking with her father. He looked back at the dog, grinned and slipped her another bite.

Then Dax turned and watched Willow as she perched on Ed Marks’ shoulder. Her blue glow looked strong and healthy, and he could tell she was loving every minute of attention Eddy’s father gave her. Dax turned away from the tiny sprite and looked at Eddy. He studied the long, narrow line of her slim back beneath the cotton tee she wore, and his body tightened. His heart seemed to flip in his chest before settling back into a strong, steady beat. He relished the warm glow of contentment he felt merely from being near her.

Energy surged through his body. He felt strong. Whole. The pain from his demon tattoo faded into the background.

Right now, at this moment, he experienced a sense of peace he’d never once imagined.

The invasion of Evergreen was well under way, and he had less than a week to help put things back into balance. Failure was not an option, and with the demon’s tattoo burning across his torso, he would be fighting a constant battle against pain as well as the one against the clock.

But he had Eddy by his side, a powerful ally in Willow, and a loyal companion in Bumper. He had purpose, a destination, even the beginnings of a plan that might actually work.

For the first time in his immortal existence, Dax truly understood what goodness felt like.

Understood it, and loved it. If, when this mission ended, he still missed his shot at Eden and must be cast into the void, these were the memories he would take with him. Memories of Eddy and her father, of Willow and Bumper…memories strong enough and good enough to last forever.

For now, though his borrowed body was fed, it desperately needed rest. Dax glanced at Eddy just as she yawned and knew she was exhausted as well. Sunrise was only a few hours away. Time to rest and then begin their journey up the mountain.

He needed to remind himself to think like a human. Demonkind were more active in the darkest hours. They’d be safer traveling out in the open in the light of day. Once inside the mountain, until they contacted the Lemurians, there would be no place that was safe, not as long as they followed the pathway to the portal where the demons were slipping into this dimension.

He would think no more of demons tonight.

Ed showed Dax to the guest room a few moments later. It was next to the room where Eddy would sleep. Close, but not quite close enough.

The thought brought a smile to his lips. Eddy Marks was a surprise he’d not expected during his week on Earth. This body’s reaction to her presence was a gift, one he ached to explore.

Tomorrow. After he’d recharged with sleep.

With that thought in mind, Dax stretched out at a crosswise angle to fit his full length on the double bed, and closed his eyes. He drifted off with thoughts of Eddy in his mind, and Willow curled up on the pillow beside his head.