Page 76 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

To Obie, Cass, and Ez, though, she’s the hunter who barreled headfirst into another dimension to make sure Chester didn’t get killed and returned with a backpack full of Blessings to save Obie. The demons have probably mentally adopted her as one of their own already.

Bryant will just have to figure out how to deal with that.

“Fine, I guess,” she says eventually. “No idea how I’ll be once the adrenaline wears off, though.

I sense at least a few pending breakdowns over the next forty-eight hours.

And I’m just, you know.” She winces. “Confused. About… about everything. Especially with the soul exchange?—I mean, what was even the point of that?”

The words slam through Chester. He sits bolt upright, ignoring Obie’s grumble of protest. “Actually, I?—I think I might know the Sanctum’s endgame. I might know what Operation Thirteen is.”

The entire room snaps to attention. Bryant gapes at him. “You do?”

“Yeah, you do?” Obie repeats, surprised. “We’ve had dozens of conversations about this, Chester. You never said anything.”

“Because I didn’t put the pieces together until I saw Bryant and JJ in Tamaros.” Chester takes a deep breath, looking over at Maggie. “You once said that the upper echelons of the Chain mostly want to go back to Tamaros, right? To return to their home dimension?”

Maggie’s eyebrows furrow. “Yes. But Cass wasn’t able to go back with his half-human soul, and I doubt I could, either.”

“Because the gods?—the thirteen gods, since they banished Obie?—put a curse over Earth,” Chester says. “As long as they’re alive, no demon can return to Tamaros once they’ve set foot in this dimension. Right?”

“Right,” Ez says slowly, leaning forward to rest her forearms on her knees. “What are you getting at, Locke?”

Chester looks at Obie. “What if they weren’t alive?”

Suddenly, Obie’s eyes widen. “If someone killed the gods, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, then?—?” Obie shakes his head sharply. “Then the curse would disappear. Hypothetically, demons could come and go from Tamaros as they pleased.”

JJ holds up his hands to stop them. “Wait. Are you saying that the Sanctum is working with the Chain to kill Tamaros’s gods?”

“I think so,” Chester says. “The Council has always had interrogators ask neophyte demons about the gods?—strengths, weaknesses, where they live, how they function?—but I always thought they were just easy questions to get them talking. Now, though, I?—I think the Sanctum has been gathering data all along, trying to figure out how to take the gods out permanently. That’s the one thing the Sanctum and the Chain agree on, after all: the Sanctum wants demons off of Earth, and the Chain wants demons back in Tamaros. Everyone wins.”

“Everyone except the hundreds of demons they’ve tortured to death to make that happen,” Roma says bitterly.

Desi hugs her arms around Bryant’s forehead, concerned. “So they’re all the same bad guys?”

“All the same bad guys,” Bryant agrees warily, squinting at Chester. “But what does that have to do with the soul exchange? Like Khan said, it’s not like half-human demons can go back there to, like, commit deicide or wherever.”

“Because it’s not the half-human demons who’d be killing the gods.

It’s the half-demon humans,” Chester says, and Bryant and JJ both go rigid.

“Roma, do you remember how desperate they were to get JJ back? They literally offered you a match with a purebred?—and let you take me and Bryant with you?—to bring him back, but not until after we reported that the corrosion spell affected him.”

“Not until after they realized he was half-demon,” Roma whispers, horrified. “Until they realized they?—they could use him.”

“Exactly,” Chester says. “And we all saw how well JJ and Bryant managed in Tamaros compared to me and Roma. They implicitly understood the dimension in a way that we couldn’t.

So the Sanctum can’t send human hunters into Tamaros, but?—but if they sent a strike force of highly skilled half-demons, ones who’ve been killing demons for their whole lives?

They’d have a solid chance. The gods would never know what hit them. ”

“And with them gone,” JJ says, “the curse would disappear. All the demons on Earth could potentially… go home. Just like that.”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Obie says, “because I specifically said ‘hypothetically.’ Hypothetically, demons could come and go from Tamaros as they pleased. The reality would be very different.”

Chester frowns at him. “How so?”

Obie looks visibly nauseous. “Earth and Tamaros aren’t the only two dimensions in the universe,” he says.

“There are millions of them?—probably even billions. I don’t have personal experience with many of them, but I know for a fact that there are dimensions with inhabitants a lot more dangerous than demons and humans combined.

The only reason human spellcasters summon demons exclusively from Tamaros?—hell, the only reason why the gods banished me to Earth in the first place?—is because Earth and Tamaros are directly adjacent.

Actually, they’re almost touching?—the only thing keeping them separate is the gods’ inner realm itself. ”

All at once, Cass stiffens. “So if the Sanctum killed the gods??—?”

“?—?then there’d be no one to hold the inner realm in place,” Maggie finishes, her eyes widening. “And without that inner realm, Earth and Tamaros would collide.”

Chester’s stomach drops. “They’d collide? What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.” Ez’s face is noticeably paler than usual. “Everything you saw in Tamaros? All of that would crash into Earth. The streets and the sky would be filled with all those dizzying colors and flickering lights and spontaneous rifts. It would be pandemonium. Chaos.”

“I don’t think it would be an extinction-level event,” Obie says, “but it would be damn close. Billions of humans would die. Probably millions of demons, too?—they’re not used to having corporeal forms, so they’d crash into trees and buildings and planes by the dozen over the first few days alone.”

Bryant looks lost. “Then why would the Sanctum do that? None of you seemed surprised that killing the gods would destroy life as we know it, so our interrogators must’ve learned it from at least a few neophyte demons.”

“Because…” A chill runs down Chester’s spine. “Because they’ll know it’s coming. The rest of the world will be lost, but the Sanctum is probably already preparing for the fallout. And what better way to consolidate power than by being one of the few people who survive the actual apocalypse?”

“That…” Cass slumps back in his chair, looking shell-shocked. “That might just make sense. We’ll need to run it by the Conspiracy Fam, of course, but?—but it all seems to fit.”

“The Conspiracy Fam?” Bryant repeats blankly.

“Naomi, Sawyer, Micah, and Gregorio,” Roma rattles off, reaching over to squeeze Bryant’s wrist. “Don’t worry. We’ll explain all the lingo and nonsensical inside jokes to you. You’ll be a bona fide defector in no time.”

Bryant flinches, her smile turning forced. Chester’s heart sinks. He knows that she didn’t have a choice about leaving the Sanctum, not like the rest of them did, and that it’s probably going to take her a long time to come to terms with how deeply they betrayed her.

Both the Sanctum and her closest friends.

But she’s safe. She and JJ and Roma are all safe. In the end, that’s all Chester ever wanted.

Unbidden, Obie’s voice slips into Chester’s head. So the idea of the Sanctum killing the gods and high-key destroying the world in the process is genuinely horrifying, he says, but at least we have a shot at stopping them now. Fantastic job, puppy.

Well. Almost all Chester ever wanted. He grins stupidly back. Thanks, baby.

“But let’s maybe save the Conspiracy Fam explanations for another day,” Bryant says diplomatically, pulling Chester back to the present. “Preferably after those multiple breakdowns I mentioned.”

“And after all the humans, half-humans, half-demons, and demons in this room get some sleep,” Ez orders, narrowing her eyes at Chester and Obie. “Especially you two.”

“No complaints here,” Chester says, resting his temple back on Obie’s shoulder. “I’m exhausted.”

Obie touches a kiss to the crown of Chester’s head. “Let’s get some food in you, yeah? I’ll cook. And then we can go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.”

“You’ll cook for me?” Chester asks, hugging Obie’s arm again. “Best boyfriend ever.”

Obie’s lips twitch. “I try,” he says, and his eyes flicker over to Maggie. “Before that, though, do you want to move into one of my safe houses? Just so it can’t be connected back to you?”

Maggie hesitates before shaking her head. “It’s okay. I have plenty of holdings that the Chain doesn’t know about.”

“You sure? It wouldn’t be a burden. ”

Chester’s chest twinges. That’s not just affection in Obie’s voice, he realizes?—it’s concern. Not concern that Maggie can’t handle herself?—she did start World War I, after all?—but concern that, if Maggie ever did need help, she might not think to ask for it.

That her first instinct wouldn’t be to reach out to her friends. Not like Chester’s would be.

And does Maggie think of them as friends?

Any of them? She clearly likes Trevor and Sasha, but she seems to keep some distance between them.

And she’s worked with Cass and Ez in the past, but Chester doesn’t know if she’s really spent time with them outside of that.

Even her relationship with Obie seems to revolve more around bowling and the conspiracy than anything else.

Does Maggie even realize that she has people who care about her?

Somehow, watching Maggie give Obie a faint smile and shake her head again, Chester has the nagging feeling that she doesn’t. “I’m okay,” Maggie says now. “Thanks, though.”

“Well,” Bryant says, “I am currently homeless and will gladly take a safe house. I’m pretty sure Mina from Bibimbap House would let me sleep on the floor of her food truck if I asked nicely, but it doesn’t sound terribly comfortable.”

“Sure,” Obie says readily. “Actually, you can move into the same apartment I gave to Roma during her fake defection?—it’s not under contract at the moment.”

“Ez and I can set her up there,” Roma offers. “Make sure she has everything she needs.”

Obie’s eyes soften. “That’d be great. Thanks, Gutierrez.”

“No problem.”

“And I’ll stop by with JJ and Desi tomorrow,” Cass adds, nodding cautiously at Bryant. “I stockpiled a few extra identities before Gregorio left the Chain. We can easily put one together for you. ”

Bryant looks a bit overwhelmed by the flurry of volunteers, but she nods gamely. “All right. Thanks, guys.”

Warmth spreads through Chester. It looks like Bryant has officially become one of the people that Obie is going to take care of now, and Chester knows from personal experience that it’s the best place to be. Lightly, he squeezes Obie’s hand. Thank you.

Obie’s confused voice wafts through Chester’s head. For what?

For being you.

Obie smiles at Chester before pushing himself to his feet. “Come on,” he says, reaching out a hand. “Let’s go home.”

Chester’s heart feels full. “Home sounds good,” he says, waving goodbye to his friends?—his family?—as Obie threads their fingers together, snaps open a rift, and guides Chester through.