Caroline waited with the rest of the group for the boys to do whatever it was they were doing in that room with Arturo. At this point, she didn’t think anything would have surprised her. But plenty delighted her. She’d never had more fun or felt more alive in her entire life than she had the past two months. It thrilled her deeply to see the boys use their newfound magic. It thrilled her even more deeply to see them truly start to work together.

Thea sat on the couch in the living room, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Celia paced from one side of the room to the other, her hands deep in the pockets of her high-waisted jeans. Caroline could tell that they were both worried about their men in there, doing whatever kind of telepathy kung fu they were doing.

Caroline was definitely worried about their boys. But she couldn’t help but be worried for Arturo as well. He was in so much pain, obviously. And she’d never been able to watch a living creature endure pain. It just wasn’t who she was. She knew better than to say anything about Arturo right now, though. It was best to just keep her mouth shut.

A very sweaty, exhausted-looking Jack stumbled through the archway of the living room and Thea shot to her feet.

“It’s alright,” Jack said, instantly soothing her worries. “We think we did it. Severed the tie between Arturo and the demon. Whether or not he’s going to survive it remains to be seen.”

Caroline shot to her feet and strode to Arturo’s room. She ran directly into Tre’s chest as she tried to push through the door. His shirt was sweaty and clinging to him in places. His two large hands clamped onto her shoulders. “Where are you going?”

“To check on Arturo.”

“He needs rest, Caroline. There’s nothing we can do right now. Besides, Martine is going to stay with him.”

Caroline peeked over Tre’s shoulder and, indeed, saw Martine mopping at Arturo’s pale forehead with a rag. She didn’t get more of a look than that original peek, though, because Tre continued that inexorable push at her shoulders, steering her backwards away from the room.

“Okay, okay,” Caroline said, turning to face front. “I won’t bother them. I’ll wait until I’m needed.”

Her shoulders slumped a little as Tre let her go. She didn’t stop walking until she was in the confines of her own room, the door closed behind her.

She was always in the way. Even when she wanted to be helping. Sometimes it seemed that she was in the way especially when she was trying to help. She hated that feeling. She’d spent so many years rambling around her house in Massachusetts, nothing to do but watch the cleaning ladies polish the immaculately designed furniture. Or watch the gardener weed the gorgeous flower gardens. Or spy on their housekeeper while she made three meals a day for them. Caroline had been of absolutely no use to anyone. Especially to her husband, Peter, who hadn’t even needed her for wifely reasons. He’d had other women for that.

“Ex-husband,” she whispered to herself. “Ex.”

She’d sent the signed papers in two weeks ago. She was no longer Mrs. Caroline Clifton. Now she was Ms. Caroline Clifton, thank you very much. She wondered what she’d do with her last name. She’d been a Clifton for eight years, it seemed strange to change it now.

She heard the group moving about the old, rickety farmhouse, probably about to prepare dinner. Caroline was tempted to go down and help, but she feared getting pushed away again, getting told that she wasn’t needed. So instead she padded over to the creaky double bed she’d been sleeping in. She flopped down and kicked off her neat little flats.

She loved this bedroom, with its intricate lace duvet and whitewashed walls. Everything was white on white in this guest room, except for the paintings on the walls, gray and blue misty shapes that perfectly captured the view of the mountain range outside her window. When Thea had shown Caroline to the room, she’d told her that her grandfather had painted those pictures.

This was her favorite of all the places they’d stayed so far. The air was dry and hot during the afternoons, cool at night. And the quiet, good Lord, the quiet! It was an alive sort of quiet, filled with ambient life. She loved it.

Her phone chirped on the nightstand and Caroline rolled over immediately. Another Tinder notification. Yay!

Ever since she’d signed her divorce papers, Caroline had been Tindering her ass off, and man, was it fun.

Though she’d been a dud of a wife, apparently she was viewed on Tinder as quite a catch, because she had pretty constant attention from the male species. She opened up the app and saw that she had unread messages from sixteen different men. Some of them were continued conversations that she’d already started and some of them were new.

With a little smile on her face, Caroline started texting back.

“Blech,” Caroline winced and immediately deleted two different sets of unsolicited dick pics. But c’est la vie! She moved right on and replied to the more gentlemanly men in the group. If she had to say so herself, she was getting pretty good at flirting.

Which was a huge relief to her because Peter had been pretty much immune to any attempts she’d made at flirting. Some days she could barely get him to look up from his phone, no matter what she did or said, no matter what she was, or wasn’t, wearing. It had supremely shaken her confidence.

Her phone buzzed in her hand and it was a number that she didn’t recognize. She thought nothing of answering.

“Hello?”

“Caroline.”

“Peter! Oh. Your number is different.” After so many months of silence, it was strange to hear his voice.

“Yeah. Listen, Caroline, my lawyer just contacted me. I thought I should let you know that everything went well. The papers are filed.”

“We’re divorced.” Her voice was quiet, not from pain or sadness, but more from the slow, strange acclimation to a new life. She was still getting used to all this. She was learning how to be divorced from Peter when they were living completely different lives. But talking to him on the phone and being divorced from him suddenly seemed like a completely different set of skills.

“Correct.” There was silence on the line for a minute. “Listen, I want to buy you out of the Swampscott house.”

“I—what?” She’d known that was a possibility, but to actually hear him say that he wanted to give her money to never return to the house she’d lived in for the last eight years was very strange indeed.

He cleared his throat. “I want to own it, Caroline. I want to live there.”

“By yourself.”

He cleared his throat. “With Courtney.”

“Courtney is your… girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“And you wanna live in the Swampscott house with her.”
“Yes.”

But you never wanted to live there with me. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Caroline had told herself that Peter used to stay so often in his condo in Boston proper because he hadn’t liked the drafty, modern glass monstrosity on the bluff any more than she had. The house was too cold and impersonal. To design-y, not homey. But turned out, he liked the house fine. It was her that he hadn’t wanted to live with. She took a long breath.

“Okay. Whatever you want to pay me for it is fine. It’s yours. I just… I don’t want to have to do anything on my end. Just take care of it.”

She knew he would. Peter was always taking care of things neatly and efficiently. Just not her. He never took care of her.

“Oh.” He was surprised by her immediate acquiescence about her place of residence. He cleared his throat. “Alright. I’ll get it straightened out with Gary over the next few weeks. And I’ll let you know when it’s all done.”

She didn’t know who Gary was, but she expected he was some lawyer or realtor or banker or someone she’d been introduced to before. She knew that asking Peter would irritate him, so she just hummed her agreement to the plan. He wouldn’t cheat her out of money. That much she knew.

He would never leave a paper trail of his antipathy toward her.

“Caroline,” he said slowly, like he was speaking to someone with a fresh head injury. “You’ll have to be out of the house as soon as possible. I’ll send movers over, they can even help you pack—”

“I’m already moved out.” Caroline gaped in surprise at the white-washed walls that surrounded her. Peter didn’t know that she’d moved out? That meant that he hadn’t even walked into the Swampscott house in months.

“You what?”

“Peter, I moved out two and a half months ago.” When she’d decided to follow the map to Northern Michigan, she’d completely moved out of the Swampscott house, putting some things in storage and giving away almost everything else. She hadn’t completely accepted her divorce at the time, but she’d known that she wouldn’t be returning to that house. She hadn’t even wanted to. She’d had enough cool east coast wind, steely gray views of the Atlantic to last her a lifetime. She wanted color in her life. She wanted warmth.

“Oh. Wow. You didn’t tell me.”

“Was I supposed to?” She was genuinely confused.

“No, I mean, I’m just surprised that you didn’t need my help to coordinate it.”

Caroline’s expression fell completely flat. He treated her like she had less than half a working brain and she didn’t like it. “It’s not that complicated.”

“Where’ve you been for the last two and a half months?”

The truth raced to the tip of her tongue. She was not a liar, never had been one, and she’d never been able to keep anything from Peter. But she swallowed hard. The words receded. She did not want to tell Peter about all of her new friends. About their adventures. About the type of person she could feel herself becoming. She did not want to hear Peter’s opinion on it. And she didn’t particularly want him keeping tabs on her. It stung that he hadn’t even cared to check in on her in two and a half months. And it stung even worse that he’d just assumed she’d stayed holed up in that depressing glass mansion, waiting for him and his girlfriend to kick her out. Yeah. This was firmly in the None of Peter’s Business file.

“Does it matter?”

He was quiet for a minute. She heard him clicking on a keyboard and then a quick exhalation of breath. “You changed your bank passwords.”

He’d just checked her bank accounts in an attempt to find out where she was spending money?! What an absolute jerk! He had no right! She wished she was tart and smart like Thea. She wished she could come up with a great, zinging insult.

Instead, she went full Caroline. “That’s true.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” His tone was that of an exasperated caretaker.

“No!” Depends on if you think being chased by a soul-sucking demon is trouble. “Peter, I’m fine. I’m living my life. I’m not going to bother you. I’m fine.”

“You’re with a man, aren’t you?”

Though she knew what he was asking, technically, she was on this adventure with three men, four now, including Arturo. She felt guilty thinking of misrepresenting Jack and Jean Luc as romantic interests of hers considering they were so firmly spoken for by her friends, but she didn’t think Tre would have too strong of an objection to this little white lie. So it was with his face in mind that she firmly answered. “Yes.”

“Jesus. Well. Didn’t think you were going to be living with another man so soon after our divorce. But I suppose that’s fine.”             

She said nothing.

“I’ll let you know when things with the house are finalized.”

“Alright.”

“Goodbye, Caroline.”

“Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and stared at its black screen. As if she’d summoned them up from the depths of a dark ocean, push notifications lit up her phone one by one, like wiggling, glittering fish. She wiped at the tears in her eyes and tossed her phone aside.

 

***

 

“How’s he doing?” Jean Luc asked Caroline that night as she came to sit heavily at the dinner table, her bottom lip worrying between her teeth. She’d been with Arturo for the last half an hour, mopping his forehead and murmuring to him, trying to get him to eat some broth.

Tre thought that it showed exactly how good a guy Jean Luc was that he even gave a shit whether or not Arturo lived or died.

Tre stabbed at his food and tried to wipe the annoyed expression off his face.

Caroline sighed. “He’s okay. Still feverish. But he talked a little bit.”

“Talked?” Thea said in surprise. That showed a huge improvement in his health. “What did he say?”

Caroline blushed deeply, dropping her chin so that her hair fell forward. “He called me an angel.”

Tre’s fork screeched against his plate as he stabbed at his chicken. What the absolute fuck? This guy isn’t well enough to barely open his eyes and he’s already hitting on Caroline? Tre immediately added it to his growing list of reasons to hate Arturo.

Martine’s eyebrows shot up as well. “That’s good news.”

“Depends on your point of view,” Tre grumbled.

Jack laughed humorlessly. “Couldn’t agree more, son.” He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on the table. “Anyone else feel like we’ve gone through to another dimension or something? One where we’ve got our Sweet Sweet playing nursemaid to the devil?” He nodded at Caroline.

“He’s not the devil!” Caroline insisted. But then she smiled at Jack. “But thanks for calling me Sweet Sweet.”

“Anytime,” he winked at her.

“Caroline, the only reason you have a soft spot for Arturo is because you’re, like, the only one he hasn’t personally attacked,” Thea reasoned.

“No,” Caroline said, shaking her head. “He hasn’t personally attacked Martine yet either.”

“In this century,” Martine said.

“What?” Celia’s head whipped around, her silver hair catching the light. She choked on some water and Jean Luc worriedly patted her back with one of his humongous paws. “You mean you’ve battled Arturo before?”

“I told you that I’ve battled this demon for generations. Arturo has been his right-hand man for at least 300 years.” Martine swung those light green eyes around the group. “I figured you had reasoned it out that Arturo and I had fought many times before.”

“Yeah.” Tre set his fork down and leaned back. “I think all of this is just a lot to take in, Martine. As soon as we got comfortable being all together on this journey, suddenly, a wrench gets thrown in and there’s a new guy. And he’s been trying to kill us for months. And he’s been trying to kill you for centuries. I just—it’s making me jumpy.”
“You should be jumpy,” a voice said from the doorway and, as if Arturo had choreographed it himself, every single person at the table jumped ten inches off their chairs as they swung around to him.

He’d sweated through his T-shirt and his face was pale, his lips chapped, his black hair pasted across his forehead. Even so, he was almost chillingly handsome. It was as if he’d been designed to lure the eye straight to him. He sagged against the doorway and breathed hard.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed!” Caroline said, jumping up from the table and rounding the corner toward him.

Tre’s hand shot out immediately, without thought, and he caught her around the waist, tugged her back toward him. Caroline, off balance, tumbled into Tre’s lap. She turned and looked at him incredulously.

“Why’d you grab me?” Her caramel honey eyes were wide and three inches from his face. Tre shivered involuntarily as he realized that that curtain of warmth over his back was where some of her long hair had fallen forward over his shoulder.

“Because he didn’t like the sight of you running toward the devil, angel.” Arturo’s voice had a wry turn to it, but he was breathless and wincing against some internal pain.

“You’re not the devil! Jeez Louise. How many times do I have to explain this?” Caroline asked in exasperation. But she stopped attempting to struggle out of Tre’s arms when Martine rose and gripped Arturo by the elbow, leading him firmly to an open chair. She wasn’t gentle, but she wasn’t cruel either.

“Quite the entrance,” Martine said, one eyebrow raised, as she strode to the window and leaned a shoulder against the wall.

“You know me,” Arturo said through a grunt as he leaned forward onto his knees. He was obviously fighting pain. “Always a flair for the dramatic.”

“That was more than dramatics,” Martine snapped. Every head in the group swiveled toward her. “You meant that. That we ‘should be jumpy’. You meant it for Tre specifically.”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, West,” Arturo sniped, using Martine’s last name. The group’s heads swiveled back toward him.

Martine didn’t sigh or sag, but they were all familiar enough with her to notice the pursing of her lips, the wilting of some small hope she’d been carrying. Martine straightened and came toward the group. She was ever mindful of Arturo’s eyes on her and cursed him for seeing this moment. She knew he’d see straight to the heart of her insecurities, as was his particular talent.

“He means,” Martine said, coming to stand next to Tre. She looked as if she were about to lay a hand on his shoulder, but instead that hand fluttered back to her waist. Arturo’s eyes watched every gesture with avid interest. “That you should be jumpy, Tre, because you’re most likely the next in line for the demon’s attentions, with Arturo’s help or not.”
“Oh no!” Caroline twisted on Tre’s lap and threw her arms around his neck, burying her warm face in his shoulder.

Tre couldn’t help but smile at her sweet little reaction. It had been a really long time since anyone had cared that much. Actually, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever had anyone care about him as much as Caroline did. And that was just her baseline. How she went through life. His arms automatically banded around her and he tipped her head back.

“Caroline, love, this isn’t exactly a huge shocker. He went after Jack then Jean Luc. I figured I’d be next.”

Arturo’s eyes bounced from the placement of Tre’s hands on Caroline’s back to the smile at the corner of Tre’s lips that he was trying so hard to stifle.

Caroline twisted again, this time toward Arturo. “What can we do to protect Tre?”             

Arturo’s brow furrowed immediately. “Protect him?”
“Did she stutter?” Thea asked hotly, tossing her fork down with a clang and crossing her arms over her chest as she faced Arturo.

Arturo chuckled. “I’ll never understand you. All it takes is the sacrifice of one and the rest of you would be free of this.”

“By sacrifice of one, you mean Tre’s soul?” Celia scoffed. “Yeah. Hard pass.”

“How about we sacrifice you and call it a day?” Thea asked, vitriolic sugar in her voice.

Arturo finally turned his black eyes to her, appraising her. Jack stiffened next to his woman. “You know,” Arturo said lazily, “it’s always the fiery ones that are so much fun to break. It felt good to make you crawl for it, Thea Redgrave.”

Thea rose and threw herself toward Arturo, hatred in her eyes. Jack, too, lunged toward the snickering, dark shape of Arturo hunched on the chair. The rest of the group had halfway risen when Martine shouted.

She was positioned between Arturo and the group, knives drawn, but who she’d drawn them against remained a mystery. “Enough! You’d do better than to let this swine goad you,” she said as she pointed at Arturo, her eyes on Thea and Jack.

“Swine?” Arturo mouthed behind her, one hand over his heart and mock pain in his eyes.

“And you…” Martine turned around, her dagger pointed straight at him.

“That was not nice,” Caroline said, rising up and tugging free of Tre. She strode up to Martine’s shoulder, standing next to her, though she was at least five inches shorter. Caroline glared at Arturo. “There’s no need to be that rude. This isn’t easy for any of us.”             

Arturo looked at Caroline in something that seemed to be genuine surprise before his face wiped clean again. “I’m not asking to be here.” He looked as if he were choking on his own words. “If you’d kindly let me free…”

The three men felt Arturo tug at the mental bonds they’d laid over him. He didn’t thrash against them the way he had before, but he was certainly testing the strength, the flexibility of them. His lip curled.

“Nah,” Jack drawled, his composure regained. “We’ve got you right where we want you.”

The group watched as a furious venom seemed to rise in Arturo’s expression. It was hot and feral. He seemed to almost swell with it.

“You need to go to your room,” Caroline asserted, breaking the spell and drawing Arturo’s eyes toward her. A certain lightness flickered over his features before his typical glower took up residence again.

“Whatever you say, angel.”

Caroline took him by one arm and Martine took him by the other, helping his trembling body rise and painstakingly make his way back to his room.

“What a delightful houseguest,” Tre said, his voice in a completely flat monotone. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “I hate this.”

“I know,” Jean Luc agreed. “But we’ve got him good and trapped. Between the three of us, he won’t be able to leave to return to the demon and we’ll know if he’s planning something. We can read the guy’s emotions for God’s sake.”

“Can we?” Tre asked, letting his glasses drop back into place. “Because I wasn’t reading much.”

“It’s just a solid wall of venom,” Jack agreed. “But it’s emotion. If there’s a break in that wall, we’ll feel it.”

“I don’t like his interest in Caroline,” Celia said carefully.

Tre was instantly awash in relief that someone else had said it, felt that way too.

“He’s just fucking with us,” Thea said, her arms crossed over her chest and leaning her chair back on two legs. “He knows that Caroline is the heart of the group so he’s paying attention to her to make us all nervous.”
“You think she’s the heart of the group?” Tre asked in surprise. He certainly had a soft spot for her, you’d have to be part reptile not to feel something sweet for her, but he hadn’t thought that everyone felt that way.

“Duh,” Celia said. Jean Luc and Jack both nodded in agreement.

“Huh.” Tre looked at the empty doorway where the three had just disappeared and rose up.

But Caroline bounced back through the door and he sat down, more at ease now that she was back where he could see her.