Page 2 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

Ez shoots him a look. “Well, it’s not like we rolled out the welcome wagon for her.”

“To be fair,” Cass says, “she actively betrayed us twice.”

“Not the point, Cass!” Ez lets out a slow breath. “And she does like both of you. She’s just not sure that either of you likes her.”

“It’s not that we don’t like her,” Obie stresses, watching Desi press her kite into an increasingly bewildered Roma’s hands. “It’s just that we don’t trust her. Big difference.”

“And she’s done a wonderful job of not actively betraying us for a third time,” Cass adds, “so the not-trusting thing is getting less and less prominent every day.”

Ez smacks his arm. “We can trust her, okay? I promise.”

Cass rubs his arm, grumbling out a reply. Obie keeps his eyes fixed on JJ and Roma playing with Desi, a tinge of nostalgia curling through him.

He remembers running around with a gaggle of little kids, too. Just Ada’s son at first, and then the rest of the tribe’s children. Kites hadn’t been invented yet, but he took them flying with him and taught them how to paint faces on rocks.

But that was a long time ago. “To be fair, I don’t entirely trust JJ yet, either,” Obie admits. “And I’ve been in his head. When you’re as old as I am, trust doesn’t come easily. ”

Ez arches an eyebrow. “And how old are you, exactly?”

It’s an old joke between them. Obie gives it his usual response. “It’s impolite to ask.”

Cass rolls his eyes, but neither of them presses him for details. Obie is glad. That’s one of the many reasons why he likes Cass and Ez so much?—they’re very content to let the past stay in the past.

Too much darkness there.

Besides, they already know he’s one of the oldest demons on Earth. There’s really no reason to specify that he’s the oldest demon on Earth. It’s just a matter of semantics, really.

Even if he precedes the rest of this dimension’s demons by thousands of years.

“In any case,” Ez says, pulling Obie back to the present, “we basically have to trust them at this point. Besides the fact that Cass and I are living with them and having sex with them and such??—?”

“Dating, Esmeralda,” Cass says, exasperated. “The term is dating.”

“?—?whatever?—besides that, they’re both heavily involved in our other subplot.” She raises her eyebrows. “You know. The Sanctum–Chain subplot. The conspiracy subplot.”

“We know which subplot you’re referring to, Ez,” Obie says wearily, resting his forehead on his palm.

Damn it, he just wanted to enjoy their lunch by the lake.

He didn’t want to rehash the altogether distressing fact that the demons’ worldwide governing body is collaborating with hunters around the globe for reasons unknown?—and leaving a trail of demon and human bodies in their wake.

“But I trust the main actors in the conspiracy subplot even less than I trust JJ and Roma.”

Cass hesitates. “Even Micah and Gregorio?”

Unease coils through Obie. Usually, if a demon survives for more than a few millennia?—like Gregorio has?—Obie considers them an ally and friend by default .

Not so much anymore, though. “Especially Micah and Gregorio,” he says quietly.

“Their intentions may have been good, but they hid the fact that the Sanctum and the Chain are working together for six years?—six years that they also spent cozying up with the Redwater Sanctum’s most notorious dissidents.

Hell, they were exchanging information with Sawyer and Naomi even before they defected. ”

Ez’s shoulders hunch. “Well, I swapped intel with Roma before she defected, too. Technically, so did Cass.”

Obie shakes his head. “That’s different. You and Roma had extenuating circumstances?—the mega-rift epidemic was an emergency, even if it was Roma’s own damn fault?—and Cass and JJ had Desi, who literally wouldn’t stop crying until she got her stupid hunter back.”

“Watch it,” Cass says. “That stupid hunter is my boyfriend.”

“And he’s also stupid,” Obie says. “As humans tend to be. But, to be fair, you’re stupid, too. You’re perfect for each other.”

Cass’s lips twitch. “In any case,” he says, dropping his voice even lower, “we’ll hopefully be able to resolve the, ah, conspiracy subplot sooner rather than later.

The Conspiracy Fam has pretty strong circumstantial evidence already, and investigating the Sanctum–Chain link is basically their full-time job?—especially now that Micah and Gregorio have embraced the fugitive life. We should have concrete evidence soon.”

Obie almost scoffs. “‘Soon’ is a very relative term, Chin. I’ve seen empires rise and fall. They take time both ways. We’re probably going to have to measure this in years, not months. Maybe even decades.”

Ez presses her lips together. She doesn’t look happy.

“I really hope not. I know that we think JJ might live longer than a regular human now that he has half of Cass’s soul, but?—but Roma only has another eighty years.

And that’s only if luck, genetics, and lifestyle are on her side.

Considering how much takeout we eat, lifestyle is already a gray area. ”

“Simple solution,” Cass says. “We just have to seduce another Sanctum hunter and get them to turn double agent for us.” He raises his eyebrows at Obie. “And I believe it’s your turn, dear Obadiah.”

“I won’t be doing any seducing of hunters, thank you very much,” Obie says.

“Aw, come on,” Ez wheedles, nudging him in the ribs with a grin. “Can’t you take one for the team?”

Vividly, Obie remembers the day when the first hunters came for him, remembers the day when they bound him with a spell that left him powerless to do anything but watch and scream while they slaughtered his family around him??—

He forces the memories away. It may have been fifteen thousand years ago, but that’s the problem with being the Memory-Keeper: forgetting isn’t an option.

“No,” he says shortly. “I can’t.” He nods at JJ and Roma.

“Have one of them pull a spare hunter for you. JJ might have been a social outcast, but Roma had at least some status as a mixed-breed hunter, right?”

Ez winces. “Hypothetically, yes. In reality, though, most of the other mixed hunters avoided her. Between Naomi smearing the Gutierrez name when she defected and Roma herself accidentally starting the mega-rift epidemic, she made more enemies than friends. The only two hunters who would even give her and JJ the time of day are Bryant and Chester, and somehow, I don’t see either of them defecting anytime soon. ”

Cass shudders. “Definitely not Bryant. She’s a Nehemiah, a purebred, a descendent of the original hunters.

She’s not going to give up that prestige.

” He tips his head to one side, considering.

“They might be able to convince Chester Locke, though. Especially if we get rock-solid evidence that the Sanctum signed off on his family’s murders. ”

“Rock-solid evidence that we’re unlikely to get without a spy in the Sanctum,” Obie finishes. “Thus bringing us back to our original predicament.”

Ez sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’ll figure something out.

We have to. Glamouring ourselves whenever we go outside isn’t a permanent solution, and it means Roma and JJ can barely leave the house without us?—not until Roma and I refine our human-magic glamour spell and get our human-magic rifts functioning, at least. And Desi can’t keep a secret to save her life, not that a four-year-old should be expected to keep secrets. ”

“Yeah,” Cass says quietly. “Homeschooling is fine for now, but?—but I want her to have the chance to be a regular kid, you know? I want her to be able to take ice-skating lessons and make friends and experience new things. She can’t do that while we’re being hunted on all sides.”

Obie’s chest hurts. “We could leave Redwater,” he says softly. “Go somewhere safer.”

Cass’s jaw tightens. Ez shakes her head. “Obie, you know as well as we do that Redwater is too deep in our bones to let us go,” she says. “Besides, it’s Roma and JJ’s home. It’s all they’ve ever known. We can’t ask that of them.”

Obie bites back his argument. Truthfully, he doesn’t want to leave Redwater, either?—the magic reservoir under the town disguises his godly power signature with little to no effort from him?—but there are other options.

Options where the Redwater Food Truck Association won’t be around to see through their glamours with unnerving accuracy and where the local Sanctums and Chains won’t have their photographs on file.

But he’s also learned over the years that humans?—and younger demons?—get particularly attached to places. Countries, cities, houses. Cass and Ez aren’t even three centuries old yet; their experiences are limited .

They’ll learn to let go eventually. They’ll have to, especially if JJ and Roma don’t survive for as long as they’re all hoping.

Someday, they’ll be just another memory in Nostringvadha’s memory jar.