“Oww!”

“You deserve it.” Charmian glared at Lucas as she continued cleaning his wounds without mercy. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking there was a demon about to kill innocents. You know, it’s kind of my job to do the slicing and dicing.”

“Not when it’s fucking Narjin it’s not.” She continued eyeballing him, making him wince – even though she was perched on the bed behind him, he could still feel the gaze drilling into the back of his head. Lucas was such a good little soldier that he rarely incurred Charmian’s wrath; he’d almost forgotten how well she could ream you a new one. “You know he’s too much for you.”

“Well who else was going to do it?”

“You do remember that we’re all telepathic, right? Calling for back up is not difficult.”

“If he’s too much for me, he’s too much for Carmel and Zac.”

“And me?”

“Well you’re not…”

“I’m not what?” She asked menacingly. Possibly she was being too hard on the guy, but he’d nearly got himself captured. Immortal though they might be immune to pain they were not - and eternity was a hell of a long time to spend being tortured by demons.

“I just mean…” Lucas’s mind was racing frantically, begging itself to come up with a reasonable sounding end to that sentence which didn’t accuse her of having gone nuts and temporarily abandoned them. “You have a lot going on and you need to be with Nate getting the research, that’s all. I know it’s important that you get it done, and I thought I could handle it.”

Slightly mollified, Charmian crawled off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of Lucas, moving on from his back to his front. Narjin had done some evilly efficient work – Lucas’s chest and back were cut to ribbons, and clearly the blade had been tipped in something because they weren’t healing as fast as they ought to. That was all she needed, her best lieutenant out of action. A touch of guilt pushed at her stomach; she’d been very preoccupied, first with her temporary meltdown and then with all the book scouring she’d been doing. Nate was desperately trying to find something, anything to indicate what the significance of Justin might be to the demons and she was trying to help him cut down the workload. It also handily helped her avoid Justin. She knew he was asking questions and she had no desire to answer them. It was the one thing she’d never had to do in eight meetings of his soul – explain who she really was. And her team was suffering for it.

“You still should have called me. Duty first, you know that.”

“Should I? Are you in it boss?” He decided to be bold. “Nobody could blame you for being distracted, but you’re no good to us in the field if you are.”

Some leaders might get outraged by such a thing, but Charmian was chastened. Lucas rarely dared question her. They had become immortals mere centuries apart – by their standards, it was like being in the same grade at school. They’d come up in the ranks together, he’d been by her side through thick and thin and even when she had surprised everyone by turning out to be the better of the two he’d never complained or doubted that she should outrank him. If they’d been human people would probably have mistaken them for a couple in love, such was the loyalty and understanding between them. They weren’t – her heart belonged to another and Lucas was one of those immortals who probably never would fall in love, he was too dedicated to his calling. Yet the bond was unbreakable; had they been capable of dying, he would follow her to the death and she knew it.

All of it meant that if Lucas of all people was questioning her, she was in real trouble.

“Duty first,” she repeated. “Even when my love life is yet again causing chaos.”

Lucas sighed. “No luck at all?”

“None, I’m stumped. Is he still trying to escape every five minutes?”

“Less often, but still trying. You know, we’re getting to the point where we can’t hide him much longer without raising suspicions.”

“I know,” she replied grimly. “Still thinking on that little conundrum. How’s he taking the whole thing?”

Lucas privately thought that maybe she should ask Justin directly, but kept that to himself. “Better than I expected. He keeps bitching and making lots of snarky comments like he doesn’t believe us, but then he keeps asking questions too. I think he doesn’t want to believe it but at the same time knows he kind of has to like it or not. OWW!”

“Sorry.” She frowned on his behalf. “You know what he tipped his blade with? I’ve never seen this before.”

“No. Smelled of almonds.”

“I’ll get Nate to look into it; I know it won’t kill you but I don’t want this happening again. No point in you suffering.”

“And I’m no good to you if I’m all scratched up.”

“That was second on the list.”

It was as close as Charmian ever got to expressing her sisterly love for him, so Lucas gratefully took it. “So what are you going to tell Justin about all of this?” He refused to let her completely change the subject.

“Hell if I know.” Her lips pursed and her nose wrinkled pensively. “I can’t work out whether I’m best just coming out with it and expecting him to process the idea that we’re star crossed lovers or whether I should keep it business and stick to the guardian shit.”

“Do you think he’d trust us more?” Lucas asked. “I’m kinda worried that if we don’t get a little more co-operation out of him then putting him back in the real world could be a risk.”

“Well…” She thought as she dabbed at a particularly nasty cut grazing the top of his abs. “The Michael I know…” It was painful for her to say. “He’s not stupid, if he sees it’s for his benefit he’ll understand. I think we can convince him that it’s for his protection. Lord knows he won’t dare tell anybody for fear he’ll be called crazy, but we’re going to need him to do exactly what we tell him and that’s the part where I expect resistance.”

“Maybe that’s all the more reason for you to explain. I mean, the guy falls in love with you every lifetime, surely he’d believe you?”

Charmian smiled wistfully. Lucas had never been in love, not in his human or immortal life. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know. “They call it falling because it’s a process. You don’t just get informed one day that you’re destined to be with this one person you barely know. Even if he does have some feelings about it, trying to force it or play on it prematurely usually causes more shit than it helps.”

“I just… how do you do it?” It was a question he’d never asked before, but his growing frustration coupled with the spectacular kicking of his behind that day had left his usual restraint damaged. “I don’t understand how you can spend lifetime after lifetime in a relationship with this guy when all this stuff is going on and knowing that he’s probably gonna die.”

She looked heavenward for a moment and then her eyes came back to meet his, looking sad. “When you love somebody that much, you don’t really get a choice.”

“Then love stinks.”

“Even the humans have worked that one out.” She shook her head. “Okay, I think that’s about as much as I can do except have Nate identify the poison.”

Lucas flexed his arms, groaning a little as it pulled at his various cuts. “How long do you think I’m down?”

She eyed him critically. “Between when you came in and how you are now… I’d say for every minute it’d usually take you to heal it’s taking more like fifteen, maybe twenty. You’ll probably be fine by morning, clearly this stuff’s only meant to disable us short term.”

“Sometimes short term is enough,” he replied gravely, looking at her with concern flickering behind his brown eyes. She knew what he meant – with the massive surge in demon activity, having one of them down for even an hour could be disastrous. Then with that thought came another…

“Hey…” her mind was whirring rapidly. “Maybe that’s the point.”

“Well duh.” He gave her a ‘no shit’ expression.

“No, I mean bigger picture. All these weird demon occurrences, acting oddly, more of the big bads up top, Carmel coming across a serial when we all know they don’t get food from serials… what if all this has no other purpose but to distract us and keep up busy?”

Lucas nodded slowly. “Like one big diversion.”

“Exactly like one big diversion.”

“For what?” That was the obvious next question. “Justin? I mean, it’d make sense. Would we have really noticed yet one more entertainer getting bitchy or going off the rails with all this other shit going on if we hadn’t caught them out by accident? It’s pure dumb luck that we even discovered who he was in the first place, and that Micah and Katherine happened to catch them stalking him.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied grimly. “I’m starting to think there’s no such thing as a coincidence.”

“Should we…” He hesitated, not liking what he was about to say any more than she would. “Is it time to call Michael?”

He didn’t mean Justin, although confusingly Justin’s alter ego had also been called Michael. Michael was the immortal they all answered to, avenger supreme – what the humans would have called an archangel. So supreme, in fact, that he didn’t do any actual avenging; he was the general, he made the plans and they followed them. He was a scary man who didn’t like being summoned – he called you, not the other way around. He’d probably be livid at them if he heard there were screw ups or that they weren’t in full control of the situation, and the Justin/Michael saga had already tested his very limited patience over the years. It was testament to how screwed she thought they were that she even considered the idea.

“Not yet. I want a name to give him before we do that. Somebody’s pulling these strings.”

“Anton?” Lucas offered.  “We all thought it was strange they let him back out of his cage.”

“Hmm…” She pondered that idea. Her instinct was to dismiss it – she’d beaten Anton easily enough in the past, he’d never caused her much trouble. Then again, if Anton was anything he was devious. Maybe she should be safe rather than sorry. “I don’t think so, but we won’t scratch him off the suspect list yet. Carmel?”

As she had spoken her name she had sent a mental call, and rapidly she appeared beside her. “Yes Charmian?” Then she caught sight of her colleague. “Damn, dude, what happened to you?”

“Narjin, ass kicking, yadda yadda yadda.” Lucas waved an indifferent hand.

Charmian quickly interrupted. “Mel, you seen Anton around lately?”

“Not since we tortured his sorry ass.”

“How did he seem to you guys?”

Carmel’s head tipped to her left as she considered it. “Slimy and weak as usual. Didn’t take a whole lot of breaking.”

Briefly Charmian considered that assessment. “You wonder if it was too easy?”

Her head rapidly straightened up, neck making a slight click as it did so. “You think he wanted us to hear all that?”

“I don’t know.” Charmian shook her head. “I just know these demons are trying to wrong foot us and I don’t like it. Do we have any reason to think that he lied?”

“No, everything he said seems to have mapped out so far.”

“And oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths,” Lucas said sardonically.

“The Globe, 1606,” Carmel quickly remembered. They’d been in London at that time having some fun with demons attempting to start off another plague. Once they’d got the job done, they’d rewarded themselves with one of the earliest showings of Macbeth – though sadly they couldn’t lay claim to having seen the very first.

“Good memory. Point being, you know the creep would think nothing of lying by omission.”

Charmian finally stood back up, folding her arms as she did so and glowering. “I think it’s about time we started keeping a closer eye on our dear friend Anton. Draw him back out of the woodwork.”

Once again, Lucas hesitated to speak. If she hadn’t liked the Michael idea, she was really going to hate this one. “Umm, I have a suggestion.”

“Yes?”

“Justin.”

“No.” The speed at which she answered was impressive.

“I hate to say it, but it makes sense Char.” Carmel was no happier about making the proposal than Lucas had been. “You first bumped into both of them at the same party; Anton was probably there for him. Whether he’s the major player or just a lackey, if Anton really does have anything to do with this then he’s going to want to get at Justin first chance he sees.”

“Justin’s not ready to leave here.”

“Then maybe we better get him ready.”

“He doesn’t trust us; Anton will play him like a cheap guitar.”

“Then maybe it’s time you actually talk to him.”

That was a step too far, and Charmian angrily flounced out of the room. Lucas raised his eyebrow at Carmel and pulled a face. “Nice going.”

Carmel turned on her heel and headed for the door herself. “Well somebody had to say it and it wasn’t going to be you, wuss.”

Sighing, Lucas flopped back on the bed and wondered, not for the first time, whether he would have been better off not accepting his ascension and living out his mortal life. Sure, he’d have died a penniless peasant who would be long forgotten by history, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with all these women for eternity.