1
Grief is a tricky thing.
For over three long months, my husband has been lying motionless in a hospital bed, fed by nothing more than an intravenous tube, his body hooked up to all sorts of monitors, his mind lost to me.
His bruises have faded. His wounds have healed. And yet he’s still gone, trapped inside himself, and all I want to do is give in to the anguish and the fear. To drop to my knees and lose myself in tears and prayers as I try to wrap my fingers around the thin strands of hope that have begun to dissipate like so much mist.
That’s what I want to do, but I don’t. I can’t.
I’m a mom with two kids who need me. More than that, I know what the hospital staff doesn’t—that Stuart’s comatose state isn’t because of a problem in his brain or any physical trauma. His injuries are the mystical kind that happen when you throw yourself into the middle of a demonic ritual, determined to save your wife and daughter—not to mention the world—even if it means sacrificing yourself.
And it worked.
He kept the High Demon Lilith at bay, sending her back to lick her wounds in some Hell dimension. More important, he destroyed her plan to enter Allie.
He saved us.
And, considering the power Lilith could have wielded were she unbound and corporeal, it’s fair to say he saved the world.
But at what price?
That’s the question that haunted me as I sat on the edge of Stuart’s hospital bed, my heart so tight in my chest that I could barely breathe.
With a shaky exhale, I wiped away the tears that had begun to leak down my cheeks, wishing that the same doctors who could so easily pull off emergency heart surgery or cut out cancer had the power to fix him. So far, though, all we had heard wasWe just have to wait and seeover and over until all I wanted was to cry or pummel something.
No.The word came firm into my head, and I told myself to listen to it. Wewouldfigure this out. We had to.
“I love you, Stuart,” I said as I wrapped my hand around his limp fingers. “We’re going to get you back. We just have to figure out how. It might take a little time, but I promise we will, because we need you. I need you.”
I gave his fingers a little squeeze. “But you don’t have to wait for us. You can wake up any time. Please, Stuart,” I begged. “Please wake up. I don’t think I can do this without you. What if I mess everything up? I’m scared. Please, please come back to me.”
If this were a movie, he’d squeeze back as the music swelled. Then he’d open his eyes and his lips would curve up right before he said something deep and meaningful, but with an edge of sardonic humor.
This, however, isn’t a movie. It’s my life. And it’s one hell of a complicated one.
My name is Kate Connor, and I’m a newly promoted Level Six Demon Hunter forForza Scura, a secret arm of the Vatican tasked with fighting demons and other evil beasties that prey on our world.
Demons, however, aren’t what I’m scared of. Quite the opposite, actually.
“Stuart,” I whispered. “Please. What if I can’t handle it? What if I crash and burn and get them all killed? I’m a woman who can barely make cereal. How am I supposed to teach a bunch of kids?”
But he remained stubbornly silent, apparently as clueless about the answer as I was.
I needed to figure it out soon, though, because they were heading my way. Five teens coming to San Diablo to join the first class at the soon-to-openForzaWest Academy, with yours truly as the headmistress. It’s not an elite academic academy—trust me when I say that no one would want me heading up a school where calculus and philosophy are tops of the syllabus. Instead, it’s a school for training nascent Demon Hunters, including my daughter Allie. Which, frankly, brings up an entirely different level of angst.
“Okay,” I said, adding some cheer to my voice. “I get why you’re staying quiet, and you’re right. I need to believe in myself and my training. I need to remember that it’s not just me at the school. We have a great staff, and everyone is doing their part. I’m fine. You’re going to be fine. Allie’s—”
I stopped, pain shooting up my arm from where he’d squeezed my hand so hard it felt like my bones might shatter.
“Stuart?”
As he lightened his grip, his eyes opened, then rolled back until they were mostly white. “Allie.” His voice sounded cracked and broken, but it was strong, and my entire body went cold with the next words he said: “Be careful … Allie … isn’t….”
* * *
“Mom?”
My heart twisted, and I turned around to see Allie, my sixteen-year-old daughter, standing in the doorway, her forehead creased in a frown as she brushed a strand of recently-dyed pink hair away from her eyes. “Mom, what did he mean?”
