“Eating here,” Cal reminded him.

“But I thought more about how we were going to kick the Big Evil Bastard’s ass. How we were going to end him. I kept thinking that, like I was telling him. Trash talking, lots of very foul language. That’s a personal pleasure, on a very real level. And when those things started falling off me, thumping on the ground, I started feeling fairly perky. Not, the hills are alive, spinning around like a lunatic perky. But not half bad, considering.”

“It’s always worked that way for you. Once you figured it out,” Cal added. “And it’s worked for me, for Gage. We’ve been able to break down the illusions-when they are illusions. But I tried, and I couldn’t this time.”

“So you bought it.”

“I-”

“You bought it, at least for a few minutes. Because it was too much, Cal. Everything that matters to you gone. Quinn, your family, us, the town. And just you left. You didn’t stop it, so everyone and everything was gone, killed, destroyed. But you. It was too damn much,” Fox repeated. “Those spiders weren’t real, not all the way real. But I saw my hand after they had at me, and it was swollen to the size of a cantaloupe, and bleeding. The wounds were real, so I’m saying Twisse put a hell of a lot into this one.”

“It’s been over a week since the last incident. Also starting with you, Fox.” Cybil laid a slice on a plate, walked it over to Gage. “It used Block’s jealousy, his anger, maybe his guilt, fed off that, used that to infect him enough to have him attack you.”

“So where did it get the extra amps for this?” Gage shrugged. “If that’s the question, there are plenty of negative emotions running around this town, just like any place else.”

“It’s specific,” Cal disagreed. “It was specific to Block. This was specific to us.”

Cybil slid a glance toward Layla, but said nothing as she took her seat again.

“I was upset, and angry. So were you,” Layla said to Fox. “We had… a disagreement.”

“If it can cook up something like that every time one of us gets pissed off, we’re toast,” Gage decided.

“They were both upset.” Quinn considered how best to phrase it. “With each other. That could factor. And it may be that when the emotions involved are particularly intense, when there’s sexuality involved, it’s more potent.”

Gage lifted his beer. “Again. Toast.”

“I happen to think intense human emotion, emotion that draws from a well of affection,” Cybil added, “and good healthy sex, is a hell of a lot more potent than anything the son of a bitch can throw at us. That’s not spinning in circles on a mountaintop naïveté. It comes from studying human relationships and their power, and this particular situation specifically-and how it’s come to us. How many times have the three of you had a scene like you did before in the kitchen?”

“What scene?” Quinn wanted to know.

“It was nothing,” Cal muttered.

“You were in each other’s faces, shouting obscenities, and about to come to blows. It was…” Cybil’s smile was sly and just a little feline. “Stimulating. Countless times, I wager-want to take the bet?” she asked Gage. “Countless times, and I up my bet to wager several of them have resulted in fists in faces. But here you are. Here you are because at the core, you love each other. That’s the base, and nothing changes it. It can’t shake that base. It must beat its fists-if fists it has-at the barrier it can’t pass. We’re going to need that base, and we’re going to need all those intense human emotions, especially if we’re going to do the incredibly foolish and attempt a blood ritual.”

“You’ve got something,” Quinn stated.

“I think I do. I want to wait to hear back from a couple more sources. But yeah, I think I do.”

“Spill!”

“For one thing, it means all six of us, and we’ll have to go back to the source.”

“The Pagan Stone,” Fox said.

“Where else?”

LATER, CAL GRABBED A MOMENT ALONE WITH Quinn. He drew her into her bedroom, and with his arms around her, just breathed her in. “It was worse,” he said quietly, “worse than it’s ever been because for a while I thought I might have lost you.”

“It was worse, because I couldn’t find you.” She tipped her head back, sank into the kiss with him. “It’s harder when you love someone. It’s better and it’s harder, and it’s pretty much everything.”

“I want to ask you a favor. I want you to go away, just for a few days,” he continued, talking fast. “A week, maybe two. I know you’ve got other writing projects you’re squeezing in. Take a break, maybe go back home to-”

“This is my home now.”

“You know what I mean, Quinn.”

“Sure. And no problem.” Her smile was sunny as June. “As long as you come with me. We’ll have ourselves a little holiday. How’s that?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’ll go if you go. Otherwise, you’re going to want to drop this. Don’t even think about picking a fight,” she warned him. “I can practically see you trying it out in your head, calculating if you got me mad enough I’d walk. You can’t. I won’t.” For emphasis, she put her hands on his cheeks, squeezed. “You’re scared for me. So am I, just like I’m scared for you. It’s all part of the package now.”

“You could go buy a wedding dress.”

“Now that’s fighting dirty.” But she laughed, kissed him hard. “I’ve already got some lines on that, thank you very much. Your mother and mine are bonding like Super Glue and… more Super Glue over wedding plans. Everything’s under control. We had a bad day, Cal, but we came through it.”

He drew her back, breathed her in once more. “I need to take a walk around town. I need to… I need to see it.”

“Okay.”

“I need to take a walk with Gage and Fox.”

“I get it. Go on. Just come back to me.”

“Every day,” he told her.

WHEN HE GOT THEM OUTSIDE, CAL WALKED THE neighborhood first. The light was soft, easing in on evening. There were the houses he knew, the yards, the sidewalks. He walked by his great-grandmother’s house, where his cousin’s car sat in the drive, and flowers budded and bloomed along the walk.

There was the house of the girl he’d been crazy about when he’d been sixteen. Where was she now? Columbus? Cleveland? He couldn’t quite remember where she’d gone, only that she’d moved away with her family in the fall of the year he’d turned seventeen.

After that Seven, when her father had tried to hang himself from the black walnut tree in their backyard. Cal remembered cutting the man down himself, and having no time for more, tying him to the tree with the hanging rope to hold him until the rage passed.

“You never did score with Melissa Eggart, did you, hot-shot?”

How like Gage to remember and to turn the memory into something normal. “I doubled. Was working my way up to stealing third. Then things got busy.”

“Yeah.” Gage slid his hands into his pockets. “Things got busy.”

“I’m sorry about before. And you were right,” he added to Fox. “It’s stupid to swipe at each other.”

“Forget it,” Gage told him. “I’ve thought about walking plenty of times.”

“Thinking and doing got miles between them.” They turned, headed toward Main. “I wanted to punch something, and you were handy.”

"O’Dell’s handier, and he’s used to getting punched.” When there was no sarcastic rejoinder from Fox, Gage eyed him. He thought of the ways he could handle Fox’s mood, and opted for what he did best. Needling him. “Are you having intense human emotions?”

“Oh, suck off.”

“There he is.” Gage swung an arm over Fox’s shoulders.

“Punching you still isn’t out of the question.”

“If she was pissed at you,” Cal said helpfully, “she’s not now. Not after your white-charger routine.”

“It’s not about that. About being pissed, about saving the girl. It’s about wanting and needing different things. Look, I’m heading home from here. I didn’t shut anything down, lock anything up.”