again, making sure not to touch the ends, and then nodded.
“We’re good.”
He shoved the rest of the bandages into her hand. “Okay—you know the plan?”
“Get him in the middle, close the circuit, push Josh out.”
“And hopefully keep Conklin in,” Tucker affirmed, some of his purpose creeping back. “After that, we wrap Conklin in the wire and….” This part was iffiest. “Shove him back in the hole?”
Thank God Rae looked like that made sense. “Bind him in silver and blood—I get the concept, Tucker, but why can’t you exorcise him?”
Tucker scrubbed his face with his bloody hand. “I’ll try,” he said. “Angel said we tell their stories. There’s usually a core of their soul that remembers who they are. This guy—the drugs, the entitlement—I’m not sure if there was anything inside him that remembers enough to be exorcised.”
Rae frowned. “Monsters are usually made. Most serial rapists don’t shoot out of the womb all excited about fucking up people’s lives.”
“Have you seen the state of politics?” Tucker asked her, completely serious, but not as serious as the daggers she glared back at him.
“Well, something probably happened to those douchebags too! I’m saying find out what his damage is. Find out what made him. You’ll have him trapped. At the very least, knowing that should make him vulnerable, maybe weak enough to shove in that damned hole!”
Tucker nodded, getting it. “Okay, okay, are we ready?”
Stupid question. They had their pentacle—the legs not traced in wire traced in the unbreakable imaginations of children—blocking the gate from the property. Whether Josh or Conklin was at the helm, if he was going to try to get off of the iron and silver of Daisy Place, he was going to have to go through their trap.
The ghosts couldn’t get through it, but Josh could. If they could close the last leg of a pentacle and lock the ghost inside, then push Josh’s physical body out….
Hopefully, they’d have a very confused Josh and the thing that had taken him over in two separate spaces.
“It will never work, Tucker. It’s like every goddamned plan you’ve ever had! Do you think you can protect him? Do you think you can protect any of them!”
“You were never mean!” Tucker cried, distracted, in pain. “Don’t be mean, Damien. Not now!”
Angel shook him again, each shake getting harder and closer to being mauled by a real man, powerfully built and frantic as hell.
“He’s coming,” Angel said, his voice choked. “C’mon, Tucker, I know you’re… oh God.” His hands tightened on Tucker’s biceps. “You’re weak. You’re so weak. But you need to hold on. You will never forgive yourself if you get lost now. Stay with us. When you fade out like that, Rae is in this all by herself!”
Tucker looked at Rae, then closed his eyes against everything but the imperatives.
“Get on the other side,” he said. “The dry side. Nobody can get you from there.”
Rae nodded and strode through the pentagram field with no qualms while Tucker positioned himself in the center of the pentagram. Both of them ignored the bedlam of clamoring souls on the graveyard side and concentrated on the shambling figure of Josh, who had finally opened the gate with stiff fingers and was hovering, right before the shine of the silver wires.
His face contorting with the effort, Josh opened his mouth to speak. Conklin’s voice came out.
“Do you think I’m a child?” he sneered.
“Don’t you want me?” Tucker asked, stabbed by real panic. This whole thing depended on Conklin wanting Tucker so badly, he’d disregard common sense—just like he had when he’d attacked Sophie. “I exorcised them, you know. That was me. Doesn’t that piss you off?”
“We’ll see you rot!” Conklin spat. “But I’m not stupid enough to walk into your trap. What are you? A servant? A worker? A scholar?” The last word seemed to hold a particular distaste for him. “Do you think I’ll risk myself for you?”
With a quick, no-nonsense step, Rae was in the trap next to him. Taking off her shirt and unhooking her bra so she could pull it up to her chin.
“Look, Conklin—tits!” She shimmied shamelessly. “See them? Don’t they piss you off? I’m a woman, and I have an opinion, and I think you’re dogshit, and I’ve got tits!”
Josh took two steps forward, eyes fixated on Rae’s chest. Suddenly he shook himself, the concerned husband shouting, “Woman, put those away. They’re mine!”
“Then come get them,” she shouted. “C’mon, Josh—you, Conklin—first one here gets the first grab!”
The struggle again, and this