“That the best you can do, lady?” one of the gang bangers sneered. He swung his barbed chain insolently.

“Go, Tess. Go! I’ve got the girls,” Gollum shouted behind me.

“How’d he get here?”

The magic of the chat room. Your boyfriends got caught up in the swirl, Scrap replied. He sounded tired already and he hadn’t even tasted blood.

Without thinking further than taking down the guy with the lethal chain, I launched forward in a flying leap.

I landed less than gracefully in the middle of a gang of three. We all went down like I’d bowled a strike.

But I was on top.

I came up swinging the blade, right, left, low, high. Twist and spin, catch a swinging chain on the tines. Wind them tight and pull. The dark-haired boy didn’t want to let go.

I twisted out of reach as I spun him past me, face first into the blacktop. Another raised his gun, a stubby little thing with a huge magazine of bullets.

Oops.

Allie chopped his wrist with the grip of her weapon. He dropped it. Then she grabbed and twisted his arm up behind him.

She was fully occupied holding his writhing body, keeping him out of the action. Why had she even bothered with her gun?

Another boy with a knife slid up behind her. He caught my blade between the shoulders. He slumped to the ground in a pool of his own blood.

The tattoo on his wrist pulsed red with black undertones.

“That important?” I asked as I removed the tines of the Celestial Blade from his rib cage.

Demon protection, Scrap gasped. Or was that a slurp as he tasted the blood. He’d earn a wart or two from this encounter.

The boy writhed. His wound closed. The bleeding stopped. He dragged himself to his knees sluggishly. He stalled there waiting to regain enough strength to heave himself upward. He waited a long time.

“But they aren’t demons themselves. Therefore, they are vulnerable!” I whacked another gang member behind the knees and kicked the butt of the crouching boy. He hit the pavement nose first.

Blood spurted.

He screamed.

The boys paused.

We were no longer easy prey.

As I watched them watch me, a blackberry vine full of nasty little thorns snaked out of nowhere and wound around the ankles of the boy farthest back in the pack. Then it tightened.

His yowl as he tumbled to the ground sent the rest of them scurrying for cover. Any cover.

But there wasn’t any in the nearly deserted parking lot. Flashing blue and red lights followed by wailing sirens caught them at the corner.

Six officers bailed out, weapons drawn, menace filling their posture.

“I think there’s Chinese food in Sean’s car. Full of MSG,” I whispered to Scrap. “Disappear and gorge yourself.”

In an eye blink, my weapon collapsed in on itself and faded to invisibility, leaving me to answer a lot of questions from authorities who didn’t understand the true meaning of demons on the loose.

Goddess, how my leg hurt from the ill-planned leap into the fray. No more adrenaline. No more strength.

I sank to the curb, head propped on my hands, and waited.

“Hm?” I looked up through a fog of weariness. The activity around me didn’t keep my attention. For such a short fight, I shouldn’t be this tired.

My leg ached terribly. I don’t think I could stand up if I tried.

Gollum came down to my level, sitting beside me, stretching his long legs straight out in front of him. “I’ve got to take the girls home. They’ve talked to the police, all innocence, and told them, ‘These guys just attacked us out of nowhere, tried to grab our packages.’ That’s all they know and they are sticking to it. I think they’ve done this before.”

“Oh.”

“I’m taking our daughters back to your place. I’ll show them how to lock the door and dead bolt it, how to call you in an emergency. Then I have to get back to Julia. Sean and Allie are still here. They’ll see you get home.”

“Okay.” I roused a little. The reminder of his wife felt like a slap in the face. “Thank you, Gollum. Thanks for everything.” I dismissed him. I had to or I’d begin the self-destructive grief all over again.

“You too.” He kissed the top of my head, squeezed my shoulders, and stood up.

I wrapped my arms around myself, instantly chilled by his absence. “Slow down and drive careful,” I called after him.

“Of course. I have precious cargo.”

He passed beyond my focus distance.

Allie replaced him on the curb beside me. “How do you want to explain the knife wounds?” she asked very quietly.

“They had knives. I took one away from them and used it to defend my daughters and their godmother?” I flashed her a grin, a little energy and enthusiasm banishing the fog.

“Is that how we’re playing this?”

“Got the birth certificates to prove it.”

“Okay.” She sounded skeptical.

And then a policeman with a notebook in hand was in front of us, looming and trying to intimidate us both.

Allie flashed him her ID—her resignation from the force wasn’t official for another two weeks—and stood up. Cop to cop. Cut us some slack as a professional courtesy.

“Those gang tattoos are new. You seen them back east?” the officer asked her when he’d finished taking our statements.

“They consider themselves demon protected,” I piped up. “I don’t know an official name for them.”

“Multiracial and multi ethnic. Unusual.” The cop shook his head. “They got enough marijuana on them and in their vehicle to put them away for a long time without the added charges of assault and battery, attempted robbery, and possession of illegal weapons.” He shook his head and made a few more notes.

“I’ve never seen any of these guys before. I thought I knew all the gangs in the area. You hurt them bad. Maybe they’ll think twice about staking out territory in this town.” He wandered off to supervise the loading of two lightly injured and one nearly dead into appropriate vehicles. The uninjured had been bundled off to jail sometime ago.

I noticed Sean handling IVs for the guy who fell to a blackberry vine and broke his nose.

Once the ambulance doors closed, he joined Allie and me on the curb. “Is this why you end up in my ER so often?” he asked casually.

I had to think a moment.

“Unlikely,” Allie snorted.

“Oh?” Sean cocked an eyebrow.

“You saw how she tackled those guys with a weak leg. She’s graceful and self-assured. She only gets hurt by mundane things.”

“Oh?” This time I questioned the statement. “I didn’t feel graceful when I landed on top of the pig pile.” My hand massaged my aching calf absently. Sean stripped off his bloody surgical gloves and took over the job. He did a better job.

“The point is, you landed on top and knocked three guys out of the action in one blow,” Allie insisted.

“Actually, she’s only mostly right,” I sighed. “I’ve been almost self-destructive in the last year, trying to kill my grief with action, getting overtired and careless. But the last time was in pursuit of a demon.”

“From what I read in your book, the Celestial Blade only manifests in the presence of a demon or tremendous evil. Which were these gang bangers?” Sean asked. He wadded up the soiled gloves and tossed them into a nearby trash can basketball style. Then he resumed his massage.

“Both. The tats on their wrists didn’t originate in this world,” I said cautiously.

“That explains some things,” he mused.

“Like?”

“Like some victims I’ve seen in the ER screaming about black tattoos on their attackers that glowed red with the fires of hell.”

“The otherworlds are bleeding into this one, more and more. I’m surprised everyone hasn’t figured out that demons walk among us on a daily basis,” Allie said. “God, I want to go home and have this day be over.” She lay back on the sidewalk.

The store had closed and only security lights cast baleful shadows on her face.

“The populace at large is very good at denying the obvious,” Sean said. He stood up and offered me a hand. “I think I’ve still got Chinese food back at your condo. You up for a mundane drive home?”

I laughed. “What? You didn’t enjoy a trip through purgatory?” I let him pull me to my feet, bringing me very close to him. Allie got up on her own, dusting off her jeans.

“Is that what you call it?” Sean let his hand linger on my back as he escorted us toward my little hybrid car, the only civilian vehicle left in the parking lot. I leaned into him, just a little. Time to move on. Time to give up on my fantasies of a life with Gollum. He’d always have to go home to take care of his wife.

“Scrap calls it the chat room,” Allie added fishing for her set of keys. “Hey, what happened to all the stuff we bought?” She looked around for signs of plastic bags, full or empty.

“Gollum took them with the girls,” I said.

“So, how often do you have to do this?” Sean asked on a smile.

“Not as often as you might think,” I hedged. “Depends on who’s in town and how aggressive they are.” I eyed him cautiously. This could be the beginning of something special or the end before we got started.

“I can see life with you wouldn’t be boring.”

“Most of the time it is. I hole up in my office for days writing and thinking and researching and thinking.”

“Well, I have to say, that after the initial disorientation I had fun. When do we go after the bad guys again? And I really should do a full work-up on the girls so I have a base line if they ever get sick or hurt. And has anyone done an MRI on your brain since you had the imp flu? And ...”

I shut him up by pulling his face down to my level and planting my mouth firmly on his.

He stilled in surprise, then drew me tight within the circle of his arms. A little thrill curled my toes. His mouth softened on mine, became more mobile.

We deepened the kiss, relishing the tingles and pressure and the joy of beginning something new and wonderful.

Even if I was settling for second best, I’d never let him know that.