Glen’s hands had involuntarily curled into fists and his molars were clenched shut so tight he felt like he had lockjaw. “Deliverance. What are our options?”
“I don’t know! Nothing like this has ever happened before. Maybe there’s a reason why we don’t carry inferior…”
“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT FINISHING THAT SENTENCE! THIS IS NO TIME FOR BETTER-THAN-YOU BULLSHIT!”
“Okay.”
“Options. THINK!” Deliverance stared straight ahead, frozen. Nothing was forthcoming. “Can you retrace your route and find him?”
“No. The passes aren’t stationary. They’re like… I don’t know, tides? They move around. He could be any one of a thousand places.”
“So how do you propose we find him?”
The demon was fidgeting from side to side like a child who’d been caught doing something very naughty. “Search party?”
Glen was infuriated and looked it, but did his best to keep a handle on the emotion. “Search party. Okay. Good. Good. Who are you going to get to search?”
“Friends?”
“I’m very glad to hear you have friends, demon. You need to get started on that pronto, but first you’ve got to let Litha know what’s going on.”
Deliverance was shaking his head from side to side violently. “No.”
“That is NOT an option. She has to know and she has to know now. For one thing, she’s going to want to help look for him. Have her bring Rosie here. We’ll look after her.” The demon didn’t respond. “You’re wasting valuable time. Man up and go tell your daughter you lost her husband.” Still no reaction. “If you’re waiting for me to offer to go with you…?” Glen finished that thought by chuffing out a disgusted breath and reached for the phone. “I can call her, but she’s never going to respect you again if she hears this from me over the phone.”
Glen looked down to speed dial. When he looked back up, the demon was gone.
Rosie was playing on the kitchen floor. Litha was emptying the dishwasher, when she felt the atmosphere shift. Storm always wondered why she was never startled by the demon’s popping in and out. It was because she had enough demon blood to sense the change when another entity opened a portal into her immediate environment.
Litha turned toward him. “Dad. Why are you back so…?” The question hung in the air when she got a look at his face. “What’s happened?”
She’d never seen Deliverance look so unsettled and it scared her. “Is it Storm?” Oh gods. His lips parted and he looked like a person who had something to say and couldn’t decide how to say it. Losing patience, she took a step toward him. “Say it. What’s wrong? Where’s Storm?”
He was shaking his head just a little. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?”
“We left here…”
“I know that.”
“And I was the only one who…”
Litha felt her knees go weak and had to grab onto the countertop behind her. “You didn’t lose him in the passes.” She felt tears well up. Litha hated tears. She hated looking weak. She hated feeling weak. She hated crying. And she hated her father for making her feel everything she was feeling at that moment. She whispered, “Please tell me you didn’t lose him in the passes.”
“I’m going to form a… a search party.” Litha’s eyes glazed over. “Glen said I should come tell you first, that you would want to help look, and to bring Rosie to him. He said they would take care of her.”
There was no response. Litha’s eyes continued to be out of focus. She looked dazed. As a frequent traveler of the passes, she had every good reason to react that way.
Deliverance glanced at Rosie who was looking at him with accusation all over her little face. It was an odd look on a toddler. He was starting to get a little worried about Litha’s reaction. Or lack of.
“Litha. I know this is bad, but I’ll fix it. I’ll get him back. I promise.”
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then slowly her eyes slid toward his.
“You’re damned right you will. You’ll find him if it’s the last thing you ever do.”
Litha didn’t know it was possible to be so angry or so scared. The combination of two such powerful emotions smacking up against each other was debilitating. She felt like her body was going to go on overload and explode.