You’re also my Beloved, and these demons are after me. It’s my duty and right to protect you from them. Now, get the hell out of there so I can protect you.

She sighed even as she made a quick assessment. Although there were a pair of them, they were fifth-class demons, far from harmless but easily handled, even in a situation where she would have to protect the film team from exposure to beings of an Otherworld nature.

“I asked them here,” she said quickly in response to Miles’s question, moving toward the demons, using her body to shield the fact that she was drawing a protection ward on herself. “They’re some… erm… people I work with.”

One of the demons, the shorter of the two, squinted at her. “It’s a Beloved,” the demon told its partner. “The Dark One must be here.”

“Did he have a Beloved?” the first demon asked. “He didn’t the last time we saw him, did he?”

Beloved?

“Could be he did and hid her from us,” the second answered.

“I don’t remember her.”

“Noelle, I’m sorry, but we can’t have your friends on set,” Teresa said, giving her an apologetic glance.

The short demon shrugged. “Who cares, so long as we find him?”

Noelle!

“Oh, look!” Noelle interrupted, staring with wide eyes at nothing and pointing down a narrow side hall. “It’s Nosty! Is that a box he’s holding? A bound box? The kind treasure is kept in?”

“Treasure?” Miles slid a suspicious, narrow-eyed look at the others in the room before laughing heartily. “Ha ha ha. Treasure! Such a clichéd notion, one that naturally doesn’t exist, but perhaps the spirit of the monk Nostredame has something importance to share with me. Er… the audience. I will go and ascertain just what that might be.”

I demand that you answer me, woman.

I love you, Gray.

Bah! I’m turning around right now and will be there in five minutes. You are not to speak to the demons.

“You’d better go with him,” Noelle suggested to Raleigh. “You might get Nosty on film this time.”

“Oooh, that’s true,” Teresa said, and with a meaningful nod toward the two demons heading toward Noelle, she ran after Raleigh.

Did you dump your father off at the vet?

Not yet, but I’m going to, just as soon as I get you to safety.

Really, Gray… Noelle spun around to face the demons just before they reached her, slapping them both with lightning-quick binding wards. I think we need to talk some more about this plan of yours to have your father neutered.

It’s the least I can do, he growled. I can’t kill him, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let him roam around on his own, causing who knows what sort of havoc. At least this way, I’ll have some satisfaction.

“A Guardian.” The taller demon snarled, its face contorting with rage. “The Beloved is a Guardian!”

Punitive gelding is never the answer, she pointed out with what she felt was perfect sense. “You are correct. Would you like to tell me your names so that we can do this quickly, or are you going to make me drag it out, causing you untold torment?”

The demons looked disconcerted for a moment, before the smaller one snarled an imprecation that was not only obscene in its nature but also physically impossible.

She sighed. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, but if that’s the way you want it…”

Three minutes later, Teresa returned to the hall. “Noelle, I really think—oh.” She blinked and worried her lower lip at the sight that greeted her. “What… er… what is going on?”

“Oh, hullo again. Well, as it turns out, the two men who dropped by were troublemakers, and not my friends as I thought. They came here to disrupt the filming, but you needn’t worry. I have everything under control. One of them has already departed. I was just persuading this fellow to do the same.” Noelle smiled again, wondering if she should dare try a little mind push on Teresa to make her forget she’d ever seen the demon hanging there, cursing and all but frothing at the mouth in its anger. The problem was, she’d never been very good at making people do things, so she preferred to avoid such situations. “But I suppose this is one of those times,” she said softly with a sigh to herself.

“Troublemaker or not, don’t you think it’s a little harsh hanging him by his feet?” Teresa asked, stepping quickly to the side when the demon lashed out toward her.

Noelle moved between the demon and Teresa, glaring at it even as she quickly drew a second restraining ward on it. “Actually, I don’t, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to explain the whole situation to you, so instead, I think you should go check on Miles.”

“Explain what?”

“Nothing,” Noelle said, turning back to her friend with a calm smile and a concentrated mental push. “There’s nothing happening here. Go see if Miles needs you.”

“Miles?” Teresa looked confused.

“He may need something, and you know how he gets if you’re not dancing attendance on him.” Noelle gave her another mental push, praying that would do the job.

“I suppose I should.” Hesitantly, Teresa started to cross the hall.

Noelle wasted no time in spinning around to pin back the demon with a stern look, and she quickly spoke the words necessary to banish it back to its master.

The demon’s scream of frustration as it was returned to Abaddon echoed off the vaulted ceiling at the exact moment that Gray, with a spitting and furious Johannes in his arms, dashed into the hall. “Noelle!”

“Hullo,” she said, love swelling inside until it threatened to burst out of her. She was just so incredibly happy, she felt like singing a grand opera or something suitably epic.

“Are you all right?” Gray swore when Johannes sank his teeth deep into his hand before leaping from his arms and hightailing it for the door, which had been left open. Gray ignored the cat as he studied her face, his concern swamping her and making her feeling even happier.

“Of course I am. The you-know-whats are gone.” Noelle nodded toward Teresa, who was standing with a confused look on her face in the hallway that led off the main room.

“A temporary situation, since they’ll simply tell Amaymon where I am.” Gray’s expression was as flinty as… well, flint. “We’ll have to leave immediately.”

“Do I smell demon smoke?” Nostredame hove into view, looking around the room before his gaze settled on Gray. “Ah. That would explain the smoke. Is everything all right?”

“No. Go away,” Gray said curtly.

“Well!” Nosty said with an injured sniff. “It doesn’t take an anvil to strike me on the head to know when I’m not wanted.”

“Gray’s a little upset because he doesn’t like Guardians,” Noelle explained.

“That’s not the slightest bit true!” Gray protested. “Quite the contrary. I approve of Guardians, as a whole. I believe they provide a valuable service. I like, nay, I cherish Guardians and clasp them to the bosom of my… er… bosom.”

“I love how he talks,” Noelle told Nosty in a confidential tone. “It’s like watching someone on the telly.”

“I do not talk like a mortal actor!”

“It’s all that time he spent on his own,” Nosty agreed, waggling his forefinger in a circle. “Made him a bit squirrel-brained.”

Gray glared at the ghost, saying with great menace, “Either make yourself useful by finding where Johannes has run off to, or I’ll make sure that you are bound to the privy for the rest of your unnatural life.”

Nosty’s eyes widened. “I’m more than happy to help you and the charming Noelle, of course. I’ve always prided myself on my helpfulness where it concerns your family. If you recall the time when you had abandoned the Abbey, I was the one who kept up interest in it by appearing at opportune moments to the locals, so I’m quite happy to help now when you need me—”

“Go find Johannes and bring him back here!” Gray bellowed, pointing dramatically at the front doors, open to allow sunlight to stream into the dusty depths of the hall.

Noelle eyed him as he turned toward her and strode the few remaining feet to where she stood in the center of the hall. His frown grew at the sight of the circle drawn in the dust on the floor. “You have every appearance of someone who is about to lecture me for doing my job, but I know you won’t do that, because you are aware that I would never tell you how to do your job, and thus, you’d give me the same respect.”

“Taking care of you is my job!”

Noelle thought about that for a few seconds. “I’m not sure if that is flattering or annoying. On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that you want to protect me, because no one has ever wanted to do that before, and it’s kind of a nice feeling. But on the other hand, I am a Guardian, and handling demons is what I do. I think all things considered, I’m going to stick to being flattered.”

Gray had taken a deep breath preparatory to what was obviously going to be a pithy response when movement caught his eye. He tilted his head toward Teresa and asked, What is she doing just standing there staring at the wall?

I tried to mind-push her, but I think all it did was confuse her. She was supposed to leave the room, but my mind pushes have never been what they should be, so she wandered off to the entrance over there and looked really confused by everything. She’ll snap out of it shortly, I imagine. My mind pushes never last.

It’s neither here nor there to me. What I wish to discuss is the fact that you disregarded my demand that you wait for me to help take care of the demons.

“Smoke,” Teresa said, looking around with a puzzled expression.

I sniffed. The hall was still redolent of the demon smoke generated by the banishing of the demons. “As I told you, it’s my job. If you held all Guardians to the bosom of your bosom as you said you do, you should be happy that I’m one and can quite competently perform my job. Do you smell something?”