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“So how does Jacob close a portal? And why doesn’t he just close all of them?”

He picks up the bottle of tabasco and shakes a dangerous amount of it in his chowder, staining it orange. “I don’t know how exactly. He just can. But the moment he closes one, another pops up. It’s an endless cycle. Which is why we need more legs on the ground.”

“Meaning me.”

He stirs the chowder and points the spoon at me. “Meaning you.”

“So why don’t you just create more Jacobs instead of pulling in recruits like me, who don’t know a thing about closing portals and killing demons and would much rather spend their Saturdays at the mall.”

I know I’m testing his patience with all the questions but hell, it’s not like he’s been forthcoming about any of this since I first met him.

“I don’t have all the answers you know.”

I give him a steady look. I’m not sure if I believe him. “Because you don’t even know who you are.”

His eyes narrow, a gaze that pins me to my seat. I mean, I physically can’t move and my lungs feel stuffed with cotton. What the fuck is this trickery?

“I don’t need to know who I was to know who I am,” he says. His voice is rough, hard, and for a moment I’m terrified I’ve angered him beyond repair.

“I didn’t mean to be insulting,” I manage to tell him with a broken voice, displaying my palms in a peace offering, even though moving is difficult while he’s staring at me like that. I feel like he’s using some part of him, some type of ability, on me that he hasn’t done before.

He keeps this intimidating gaze on me until he abruptly breaks it and looks down at his chowder. Suddenly I can breathe again. “I don’t have all the answers because that’s the nature of the game. It’s something I live with. Something you’ll have to live with too, no matter how curious you are or,” he pauses, “demanding you get. But I do know that all Jacobs come from somewhere. We weren’t ordinary people to begin with.”

“You’re not? What are you?”

He glances up at me. “People like you. People with abilities. Power. Sometimes power that lies latent inside them their whole entire life.”

“So the person you were before, the person that you have no clue about,” (or so you say, I add in my head), “was someone just like me. But obviously not a woman. Why so sexist?”

“Maybe because women are unpredictable,” he says simply.

“Excuse me?” I practically snarl, my hands pressed down on the table. “We are not unpredictable. When did you become such a caveman?”

He has a spoonful of chowder, then gives me the slightest of grins. “How do you know I wasn’t a caveman to start out with?”

“Well I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What I meant to say is that women are more emotional. That’s what I get from it anyway. They attach to more things. For example, their children. That’s a difficult bond to break, even when you die.”

I swallow down the pang of sadness, feeling it saturate me. My mother. No wonder I dream about her still, no wonder my subconscious wants to see her, no wonder the demons use her to trick me. They know about that bond just as anyone does. How, even in death, I sometimes feel my mother is as attached to me as always, an invisible thread that links us and will never break.

“Anyway,” Jay goes on, eyes flicking to mine, softer now, and I know he can feel the sorrow coming off of me, “that must be one of the reasons. I don’t know for sure but I bet that’s part of it. It’s harder for some people to let go of love.”

“That still sounds a bit sexist,” I mutter before I shove the toast in my mouth.

He shrugs, not bothered.

“So, since you don’t really have answers but seem to have opinions, when do you think I’ll be able to, um, begin my training?”

He flags down the waitress and gestures for more coffee for the both of us. He turns back to me. “You’ve already started.”

“What I mean is, when do you stop being some guy hanging around me and start turning into Mr. Miyagi?”

He cocks a perfect brow. “Some guy?” he repeats. “I am not some guy.”

Testy, testy. The more time I spend with Jay, the more I get under his skin. I kind of like it.

“You know what I mean,” I tell him. “When will it all . . . begin?” I quickly add, “And don’t tell me it’s already started.”

“I’m not going to tell you anything because I don’t know anything. To be honest, I’m not even sure how I’ll know. Maybe I’ll just wake up one day and it will be clear. Maybe Jacob has to pull me aside. I have no idea. But I know you shouldn’t worry about it. Things like this don’t happen overnight.”