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either.
    “Anything you need.”
    “Anthony is using the soft approach. Sometimes, you need to be slapped upside the head to snap out of the funk.” Moira paused. “He might benefit from time at St. Michael’s. He needs to get away from here. I suggested it to Anthony, and it was the only time he didn’t bite my head off, so we might be able to convince Juan to go.”
    “You want to send him to Italy? Why not Montana, this Olivet place?”
    “Because Olivet is training warriors. They’d break him. Trust me on this. It’s not a place to go when you’re on the edge. St. Michael’s—they can fix him if he can be fixed.” And that was the million-dollar question.
    “I don’t know what to do,” Skye muttered. “You know, I won’t be able to do anything when I lose the election.”
    “ When you lose?” Moira said. “Aren’t you being Negative Nellie.”
    “Crime has tripled since the massacre at the mission. Do you realize that in the ten and a half months before the massacre last November, there were only three homicides? Two were domestic, one was a drug dispute. From mid-November to the end of the year, fifteen people died, one a cop. And since January first? Less than five months into the year? Triple our homicide rate of last year. At this rate, we’ll be wading through bodies by Christmas. Not to mention vandalism, assault and battery, theft, sexual assault—basically, every crime catalogued by the FBI is hitting my town hard.”
    Moira wished she could say something to make Skye feel better, but she had nothing.
    “It sucks. But if you lose the election, and that ass-wad gets in? It’s not going to change anything.”
    “Yes it will,” Skye said, turning up a long, narrow driveway. “It’ll change everything. Because he’ll deport you, launch an investigation into Anthony and Rafe, and fire everyone who’s helped me keep a lid on the shit that’s going on here.”
    “When he sees his first demon, he’ll be toast.”
    “This isn’t funny!”
    “I’m not laughing.”
    “Fuck,” Skye said. She slammed the truck into park in front of closed garage doors.
    “Yeah,” Moira agreed. “Skye, if I thought me leaving would have any benefit, I’d already be gone. But Santa Louisa is a portal to Hell, and that’s not going to change until we capture the Seven and send them back from where they came.” She touched Skye’s arm. Moira cared about the cop, and that caring was going to hurt both of them.
    “I’ll be okay,” Skye finally said.
    “I know you will.”
    Attachments. Attachments were going to get them all killed.
     
    #
     
    Bertrand lived in an expensive house with an expensive view in the hills overlooking the ocean. This afternoon, the fog had rolled in early, wrapping the house in a damp, white mist. First week of May and it was still chilly. It reminded Moira of home. Of Ireland. Of better times. Times before she’d learned she was being trained to serve as liaison to the Underworld. Which would, of course, mean she’d be dead. Sort of a prerequisite for the job.
    She stood outside the house and tried to relax. Skye, Rafe, and Hank hung back and watched. She had to step closer to the house, away from Rafe’s over-protectiveness, in order to better discern what Bertrand had been up to. Her emotional—almost empathic connection—to Rafe made her extra-sensative to his emotions, which could cloud her judgment or make it harder to weed through the layers of magic and spells.
    This sensing magic shtick made Moira feel like she was a circus act. Not even someone with a circus, which might have some fun to it, but more a parlor trick. “Watch the former witch use her spidey sense!”
    Moira didn’t quite know what to prepare for. Bertrand was a magician, but he was nowhere near the level of Fiona and the rest of her inner circle. Moira suspected Fiona had needed Bertrand because of his position at the hospital and proximity to Rafe, so brought him into the fold, but Moira