“Over my dead body!” Hastily I hurried into my shirt, outrage pouring out of every gesture. “You are the deranged one if you think I’m going to allow that!”

A soft voice drifted over the bar. “He could breathe fire on me any time.”

“You ogled my chest,” Constantine said, giving me a half smile. “It is only fair that I have the same opportunity. Or do you not believe in equal rights?”

“Don’t you even try that bullcrap on me,” I snapped and, with my shirt buttoned, tentatively touched my earlobe. It felt numb, but didn’t seem to be bleeding. “I’m as equal rights as they come, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a manipulation when I see one.”

“I’d love to have a gold tooth manipulated into my mouth.”

“Gary,” I said, turning my head to glare over at where the cage teetered perilously on the now drunken line of crates. “I appreciate that you lost a tooth, and I’m sorry about that, but really, Constantine and I are trying to have a serious discussion and—oh, hairy hellballs!”

It seemed like just the act of my looking at Gary spelled doom, for his cage suddenly lurched to the side, bounced twice on crates, and hit the floor with an audible crash, which was almost immediately followed by a fleshy splat.

Gary groaned pathetically.

I closed my eyes for a moment, asking Constantine, “Is he splashed all over the floor?”

“No.” I cracked open an eye to see Constantine watching with interest as the cage rolled a few feet, and ran into a chair that, with exquisite slowness, rocked a moment before toppling over onto the cage. “Well, he wasn’t. He might be now.”

A faint, ghostly voice emerged from the mess. “Ow. Oh, so much ow. I think my dose id broken.”

“It’s like one of those insanely complicated Rube Goldberg machines,” I commented, opening the other eye. “You okay, Gary?”

“Do,” he answered, and the cage shook with a little tremor. “Hurty.”

“You stay put,” Constantine said, moving off to lift the chair from Gary’s crushed cage.

“And you stop giving me orders. I don’t like it, and I don’t have to take it. Oh, dear, Gary, you are a mess.”

“I feel like a bess.” The head that looked up forlornly through the cage had a black eye, a nose that was bleeding freely, and a gaping hole where one of his front teeth had been.

“You poor thing. Hold tight, and we’ll get you fixed up. I just want to make sure that Constantine isn’t going to pass out from loss of blood first.”

Constantine put his hands on his hips and glared at me. “I am a wyvern! Wyverns do not bleed to death unless you decapitate them first, and that is difficult to do. The blood you see is nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” I leaned in and eyed the fast-drying lines of blood on his chest and belly. “On the contrary, it’s very something. I must have done something horribly wrong to make the curse revenge itself on you that way. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

“It will heal,” Constantine said without any concern for what must have been a very painful injury. He hoisted Gary’s cage up and propped it up on the bar. The cage was dented and twisted almost out of recognition, and immediately began to roll off the counter until Constantine pulled it into a rough approximation of its former shape. “Cease fussing over me, woman. I will survive this, although I assume it means the curse is not lifted, as we thought?”

“No,” I said sadly, still looking at his chest. It was almost as if the curse had seared itself into his flesh, but almost immediately began to heal over. The blood had dried and began to flake off as he moved, leaving behind an intricate pattern of reddened lines on his silky smooth skin. Even as I watched, the redness began to fade to a faint pink. “No, I’m afraid the curse is still there. Why, I have no idea—I must have done something wrong, taken some false turn in the Charming. But I swear to you I’ll figure it out. I don’t care how long it takes, or how many dragons we have to beat off… oh! Guillaume!”

“What about him?” Constantine buttoned his shirt and started pushing the crates back in front of the door.

“He didn’t come running. He could be hurt or something.” I hurried down the little hall to the office area, heading straight for the room with the safe. No one was there.

I checked the room across the hall, and was just about to check the remaining two rooms when I heard a thump from the room I’d just left, and voices. I peeked in the room only to see a man with his back to me, bending through an open window, obviously helping someone else into the room.

“Demons,” I whispered to myself, and was about to call for Constantine when I realized that would give the demons warning we knew they were here. I closed the door gently and dashed to the office, scanning the room wildly for something that would serve as a weapon.

There were no obvious swords or battle axes, or even a handgun, but there was a small wooden chair, and I hefted it and raced back to the hall, parking myself just outside the door with the chair hoisted over my head. My plan was to slam it down on the first demon, and then bolt while screaming like bloody hell for Constantine before the second one could grab me.

I took a deep, but silent, breath, and prayed to any gods I could think of to make the plan a success.

Seven

The door opened and a man emerged from the room just as Constantine, wondering what Bee was up to, wandered into the hallway.

He was just in time to see Bee start a downward swing with a heavy wooden chair. Constantine leaped forward, assuming the man was a demon, but just before reaching him, he realized the intruder was his godson, Kostya.

“No, Bee!” Constantine yelled at the same moment she obviously saw she’d made a mistake. It was too late for Kostya, however, since the bulk of the chair hit Kostya across the side of the head.

“Kostya! Mother of balls, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Is Aoife here?” Bee danced around the now-staggering Kostya, wringing her hands in despair.

Constantine grabbed his sagging godson, and hoisted him upward, propping him against the wall. He examined the gash on the side of Kostya’s face and gave him a brusque pat on the shoulder. “You’ll survive.”

Kostya started to slide down the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind.