“I know.”
“And I don’t understand what happened the other day,” I complained. “I don’t understand how he spoke. I don’t understand why he spoke. If it’s just a regular coma, then—”
He put a finger over my lips to silence me, then he took my hand and led me out of the room. “He’s going to be fine. It’s going to work out.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do. I think the fact that he said something is a good sign. I think something is starting to happen. I don’t know what. I don’t know if it’s going to be good. I don’t know if it’s going to be helpful. But I know it will change things. And that’s something.”
“I guess….”
“You just need to go on believing that he’ll be okay. That we’ll all be okay. Until you know differently, that’s what we all have to believe.”
I nodded. We were standing outside his room now, the door open so we could keep an eye on him until Rita and Nancy got back. It probably wasn’t necessary. He was hooked up to equipment that monitored him, and if anything happened to his vitals, it was wired to ring throughout the mansion.
There was also an alarm button by the door and by his bed, so that if anyone was in there with him and something should happen, they could ring it and staff would come immediately. Not just medical staff, assuming we had them, which as of yet we only have Nancy, but also me, and anyone else who was in a position to hunt demons. Just in case.
I really didn’t want to think about what thejust in casecould be, but I couldn’t stop the acknowledgement that it could be a demon coming to attack Stuart. Or it could be Stuart waking up as a demon. Neither option would be pleasant, and as much as I might want to run in the other direction, the only thing I really could do was run towards Stuart and fight. That, at least, was one thing I knew how to do.
The thought triggered more angst, and I looked up at Eric. “Can I really do this? The school I mean?”
“You’re asking the wrong question, Katie-kins.”
I started to ask him what he meant, but I saw his expression, the way his eyes were soft on me, and I understood. I wasn’t alone. I rephrased my question. “Canwedo this?”
“Damn right we can. We are doing it.”
“Their lives are in our hands. All of these kids. Allie’s life.”
“We know what we’re doing,” he said. “We were the best back in the day, and you know it.”
I smiled at the arrogance in his voice. “We did make a good team.” I glanced into Stuart’s room, then drew in a breath. “We made a good team,” I repeated. “But how much of what we were was because of what you are?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He knew I was talking about the demon that had been bound inside him, put there by his parents in an abhorrent ritual.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That was buried deep inside at first, remember? It only came free when we had to escape through the Cardinal Fire.”
I shuddered, remembering that day. We’d been trapped, about to die at the hands of a powerful High Demon. No one survived Cardinal Fire, but Eric said that we could. And we did. Instead of killing us, the mystical fire burned away the prison in which the demonic essence inside of him had been trapped. So I suppose the demon saved us.
And that demon was also what allowed him to come back in David Long’s body after he’d been killed in San Francisco. He came back just the way demons do, sliding into a human form. If it weren’t for Demon Hunting, I would never have met my husband. And if it weren’t for demons, he could never have come back to me.
Sometimes I think the world makes no sense at all. And sometimes I think it makes exactly the sense that it’s supposed to. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“How did our lives get so complicated?” I asked.
His grin held a lifetime of amusement. “We’re Demon Hunters. What else could it be?”
I met his smile, and for a while we were just Kate and Eric.
Then he took my hands.
“Too complicated?” he asked, and I heard that extra something in his voice. Not about Demon Hunting. Not about the school. But about us.
And that’s not a question I can think about, much less answer.
“Everything’s complicated,” I told him, pulling my hands free. “Even something as simple as who we are.”
He laughed. “That’s not simple.”
