“Then that’s what we’ll do. Nora, can you see my bag anywhere? We need to call the vet’s office and let them know we’ll be bringing Jim in.”

Nora picked her way across the debris to me, blood seeping from a couple of cuts on her arms. She started to search the area, froze, then spun around and faced where the nave used to be. The twisted metal and wood and stone were now reduced to nothing more than a gaping hole that spread from the floor up part of a back wall. Tipene and Gabriel were carrying Maata, smeared with blood and dust, to the nearest pew. Drake shouted orders to Kostya and István, the dragons calling back and forth as they investigated the ruined part of the chapel.

“Ash?” Jim’s breathing was raspy and labored. “Don’t tell anyone, but I think I’m a little bit scared. You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

“No, I won’t leave you,” I told it, my tears making little wet marks on its filthy coat. “You don’t have to be scared. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Aisling, we have a problem,” Nora said quietly, still staring toward the nave.

Jim hiccuped a couple of times, its eyes rolling back in its head.

Anguish overwhelmed me as I watched him fight. I knew in my head that it was a demon, not a dog, but my heart told me that my friend was dying before my eyes.

“Noooo!” I wailed, as its body twitched, then went limp. “Goddamn it Jim, I order you to not die!”

“Aisling, you must come with me.”

Nora’s voice pierced my sobbing as I clutched Jim’s head, bawling into its neck.

“Jim’s dead,” I managed to get out, my body racked with grief so profound, I thought it would consume me.

“Aisling!” A sharp stinging blow to my face brought me out of the grief for a moment. I stared at Nora in stark disbelief. “Jim isn’t dead. It can’t die. You can summon it again once it picks a new form. Aisling, think! Jim is a demon! They cannot die! Its body is broken, that’s all.”

I looked down at the furry black form and saw the truth of what she was saying. The body wasn’t all of Jim…it was the outer shell, nothing more.

“We must go. Drake! Do not go in there! Something terrible has happened,” Nora urged.

“Jim is going to be so pissed,” I said slowly, allowing Nora to pull me to my feet. As I spoke the words, rage filled me, rage at whoever would do something so heinous as to arrange for a bomb to go off where innocent people and demons could be harmed.

Fire broke out around me.

“Come,” Nora said, taking my hand and urging me down the aisle toward the gaping hole. “We are needed.”

Her words penetrated the dense fog of my fury. I stumbled down the aisle after her, mentally squelching the fires I had inadvertently lit. “Needed? How?”

“Can’t you feel it?” she asked, skirting where Gabriel was working over Maata.

“Is she going to be OK?” I asked him, cringing at the sight of Maata’s injuries.

“Yes. Dragons are strong,” he said, giving me a weak smile. “Maata is the strongest of us all.”

I nodded and followed after Nora as she skirted a pile of debris and stepped over what remained of a mostly destroyed wall.

“What are you doing here?” Drake asked, crouched at the hole in the floor. He was clearly planning on jumping down into it. “I told you to stay back where it was safe.”

“In about thirty seconds, this church is going to be filled with imps, demons, and who knows what else,” Nora said, taking off her stained suit jacket.

His eyes widened as his gaze moved to me.

“Jim was crushed by one of the benches,” I told him, tears still sticky on my cheeks.

“You will get it back,” he said, before turning to Nora. “A portal has opened?”

“Yes. A very old one, by the feel of it. I will need Aisling to help me seal it.”

“It’s too dangerous. Kostya is down there now. He says there is an old crypt below the chapel.”

“I can’t do this alone,” Nora said, rummaging in her bag. She pulled out a small pink flashlight that she tucked into her shirt pocket before squatting on the edge of the hole.

“But…oh, god, Nora, there wasn’t time to tell you. I can’t help you,” I wailed, my heart breaking even more. “I wish to god I could, but I can’t!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I know you’ve not sealed a portal on your own before, but—”

“No, it’s not that!” I looked at Drake, his lovely eyes blurred as my own filled with tears again. “I would help you if I could, but I’m not a Guardian anymore!”

“You’re what?” she asked, shaking her head abruptly. “We do not have time for this. There are only a few minutes before the seal on that portal is breached, and then all hell will break loose. Literally!”

“I disavowed being a Guardian!” I yelled, clutching her arm and shaking it so she’d understand. “That was the sacrifice that Bael demanded. Don’t you see? I’m not a Guardian anymore! I can’t help you!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! No one can make you stop being a Guardian. It’s something you’re born to do! Vows have nothing to do with it.”

I thought my head would explode with astonishment. “They…can’t? Then why would Bael—”

“He’s a demon lord,” she snapped, swinging her legs over the edge.

Drake jumped down into the hole. It was about twelve feet deep, but he called up for her to ease herself down to his grasp.

“But…”

“If you aren’t a Guardian, how did you know the bomb was here? You sensed it long before I did, Aisling. You were born a Guardian, and you’ll be a Guardian to the end of your days. Now please, I do not have the abilities you have. You must help me!”

The truth washed over me in a cold wave, leaving me scrambling after her. Drake stood on a stone tomb, grabbing my legs as I slid myself down into the hole.

“I do not like this,” he said, helping me down off the tomb and onto a debris-covered floor.

“I have a torch,” Nora said. “This way, Aisling!”

I touched a small cut on his cheek. “I know. But I can’t leave Nora alone. I am a Guardian, after all.”