Last time Vin got naked for a crowd the context had been way different.

As he tossed his shirt and pants and boxers onto the dresser, he made sure his gun was front and center on the pile, and when he turned around, he was ready to get whatever this was over with. Funny, he'd been operated on only once in his life, back about a decade ago. He'd had to get his knee rebuilt after years of playing basketball and tennis and running on the damn thing - and he was exactly the same way now as he had been then: Ready to get back to normal. Hoping that the outcome after the pain faded was the right one.

He glanced over at Marie-Terese. She was sitting absolutely still on the bed, holding the sprigs of fresh sage between her hands so that the fluffy leaves peeked out by her thumbs and the little stems hung free on the far side. As her eyes met his, he had to go over and give her a quick kiss on the mouth. She was scared but she was strong - and however much he wished she weren't a part of this, he agreed with Adrian: No chances with her. There could be no chances with her, ever, so they had to assume Devina had taken that earring.

Eddie took out a compass and four white candles, and after doing some Boy Scouting with his gadget, he and Jim did a north, south, east, and west, marking each of the points on the bare floor with the waxers. Then it was more salt running in a circle around the setup. As Vin watched them, he had to admit the ring-around they did was tidier than the one he'd pulled off over twenty years before, but he'd had to hurry back then. There had been no telling how long his parents would remain passed out.

"As I said, what you did was a possession ritual." Eddie went around and lit each of the four wicks. "You took the three elements of yourself as a man - hair, blood, and...you know - and offered them to her. She accepted the gifts and took up res in your spiritual skin, so to speak. We're going to clean her out of you."

"Yeah, listen," Vin cut in. "You sure we can't take care of Marie-Terese first, then worry about me?"

"No. You're the focal point. You called Devina to you. Besides, Marie-Terese has an easier tie to break, assuming that earring is in Devina's possession." The guy disappeared into the hall bath and returned with dripping hands that were held up like a surgeon's. "Jim, go into my coat and take out the leather roll that's in the right pocket."

Jim fished around and pulled free a ten-inch-long, two-inch-wide bundle that was secured with a white satin ribbon.

"Open it."

Jim's hands were quick to pull the bow free and then he unrolled the leather, revealing a dagger. Made of glass.

"Don't touch the knife," Eddie said.

"What the hell are you going to do with that?" Vin demanded.

"We're going to open you up." The man pointed to the circle of burning candles. "This is spiritual surgery, and before you ask, yup. Gonna hurt like a bitch. But when we're through, you're not going to be scarred or anything. Now lie down, head here at the north."

Vin looked at the men's faces as the pair of them stared over at him. Grim. Serious. Especially Eddie.

"I've never seen a knife like that before," Vin murmured as he looked at the thing.

"It's crystal," Eddie said, as if he knew Vin needed a second before he turned himself over to the ritual. "And yeah, take a deep breath, but we do need to get started." He glanced at his buddy. "Jim? You stay next to Marie-Terese. Eventually you'll be doing these, but right now you're just on the watch team, and if the shit gets critical, you're in charge of her."

"Do you read minds?" Vin asked the guy.

"Sometimes. Now can we get down to business? I don't know how long Adrian's going to be able to hold her."

Vin stared into Marie-Terese's eyes and hoped she read all that he wished he could speak. When she nodded as if she understood perfectly, he stepped over the salt circle and stretched out in the centeft Eddie had gauged the size perfectly: The soles of Vin's feet just touched the far edge when his head was right at the northern candle.

"Close your eyes, Vin."

Vin took one last look at Marie-Terese and then he lowered his lids and tried to relax his body. The floor was hard against his shoulder blades, his ass, and his heels; and his heart was going at a clip in his rib cage. The real shitter was not being able to see, however - not only did he feel isolated, but the sound of everything got cranked up too high. From his own breathing to the footfalls of Eddie walking around him to the whispering of strange words over his naked body, it was all in nerve-racking HD.

And it didn't take long for him to lose his patience. Here he was, laid out like some kind of meal to be consumed, in front of Marie-Terese, who was no doubt -  A subtle vibration came up through the floor.

Vin felt the tuning-fork reverberation first in his palms and feet and then it continued inward, the concentric circles drawing toward the center of him. As he absorbed the rhythmic waves, a subtle breeze tickled across the hair on his arms and his thighs and his chest, and he wondered whether someone had opened a window.

No...things had begun to turn.

Whether he started to spin or the room did, he wasn't sure, but abruptly the waves and the breeze coalesced and became indistinguishable as they swirled around him...or he swirled around. Like water rushing through a drain, speed gathered and his stomach revolted, nausea making that sandwich he'd eaten with Marie-Terese go green and spoiled in his gut.

Just before he threw up, the merry-go-round stopped and he went weightless. No longer spinning, he was suspended in warm air, and thank fuck for it. Inhaling deep, he felt his belly ease up and the tension in his arms and legs release, his muscles going lax.

And then his sight returned. Good God, even though his lids were down, he could see white light: The source was somewhere beneath him, piercing up through the floor he was supposedly on, his body carving out a pattern in the illumination.

Eddie's face appeared above his own.

The guy's mouth moved as if he were talking, and Vin didn't hear the words that were spoken so much as know them in his mind:

Take a deep breath and stay very still.

Vin tried to nod, but when Eddie shook his head, he just thought the word yes at the guy.

The crystal knife rose above Vin's chest, the weapon held steady in Eddie's big hands. As the white light hit it, a brilliant rainbow of color sparkled, everything from pinks and baby blues and pale yellows to bloodred and navy blue and deep amethyst exploding from its length.

Indecipherable words appeared in Vin's head as Eddie spoke faster and faster.

Bracing himself, Vin focused on the razor-sharp blade point.

It was going into his heart. He just knew it.

When the inevitable descent came, it was faster than a blink and slower than a century - and the impact was worse than he'd prepared for. The instant the dagger sank into Vin's flesh, he felt as if every nerve in his body transmitted the pain.

Then Eddie sliced him right open.

Vin screamed into the maelstrom as his body cleaved open at his breastbone, his spine straining as he contorted upward. He was vaguely aware of Eddie speaking words, and then the man's glowing hand reached inside the locus of the agony, making it so much worse.

Probing. Fisting. A great pulling.

Whatever Eddie was grabbing and yanking was holding on tight, and abruptly Vin couldn't breathe for the great pressure on his ribs and lungs. Gasping, he struggled to draw air down in the midst of it all.

He started to scream again. Which made no sense because he had no breath.

As the battle for extraction raged, Vin fought to hold on not for himself, but for Marie-Terese. He would not die in front of her. He would not die tonight in front of her. He would not -

But Eddie didn't let up and the thing didn't loosen and Vin started to fail. His heart went from pounding to tripping to failing to pump, and with the fibrillation came a numbing cold that overtook him. He tried to fight it, tried to will his body back into functioning, but there was no reserve left to call upon. Even as his mind and soul wanted to stay, his flesh was done.

Except then the evil loosened.

At first, there was just the slightest of slips, as if only one of the tendrils that clung to him snapped free. But then another broke, and another, and more in a bunch. And -

With a screeching tear, like metal was being torn apart, a blackness was lifted from him, taken out of him, torn free...and his first thought was that he felt far too light in his body in its absence. His second was that he was still dying -

Vin was saved by the white light.

All at once, as if it knew how little time he had left, he was resuscitated, the illumination's blanketing warmth easing the pain, and then wiping it clean as if the torture had never existed. He soared free, light and transparent, indistinguishable from what surrounded him.

He wept in ecstatic relief and gratitude.

It was the first time in thirty-three years that he'd been alone in his own skin.

Jim's eyes had divided loyalties.

Every time a car rolled slowly down the street, he stared out the window. Any noise around the house? Creak of a tree? Breeze rattling the window? It was the same. He was constantly searching corners, waiting for Devina to come roaring in.

And yet the center of the room consumed him.

He'd never seen anything like it. From the moment the floor dropped free from Vin and that blast of white light shot up from nowhere, to the electric second when Eddie put the knife to use and then started pulling, it was all so incredible.

God, that knife.

It was the most beautiful thing Jim had ever seen: When the light had hit it, a child's spectrum of vivid colors had sprung forth, the hues so bright and clear, it was as if his eyes were young again and seeing them for the first time.

But the struggle...he'd been certain Vin was going to die. In the fulcrum of the glow, Eddie had stabbed the man and reached inside his chest and started yanking like he was trying to drag a car out of a swamp. And in response, Vin had screamed from a vast distance, the agony tearing out of his throat as his body had strained.

At that moment, Marie-Terese had lunged forward, but Jim had caught her, instinct telling him she couldn't get in the way of what was going on, no matter how dire things appeared. Interrupting was not in the playbook: This was surgery for the soul and the cancer had to come out. Even if the man died in the middle of it, the extraction attempt was the right course of action.

Jim held her as loosely as he could, and she ended up against him, nails deep in his forearm as she watched, as helpless as he was to affect the outcome.

It was all about Eddie and Vin and whatever fate was going to roll out.

And then it happened. Eddie started to win the battle - what he was pulling on began to give way, first in increments, then with a final, exploding separation that landed the angel on his ass. But there was no time for celebration.

As soon as whatever that black shit was got out of Vin, it was free in the air, a vicious-looking shadow that wafted loose - and immediately came gunning for Marie-Terese. Rippling through the air, it pulled itself together, darkened up like it was gathering strength, and faced off at the woman.

Jim shoved Marie-Terese behind him and forced her up against the wall. Working fast with the crystal gun, he popped the plug on its belly and poured what was inside all over her, until it was dripping off her nose and from the ends of her hair.

He wished he had a bucket of the shit.

Wheeling back around, he braced himself as the shadow hurled itself at them. Impact was not a party, the smoky nonentity registering like a thousand bee stings across his skin. Marie-Terese screamed -

No, it wasn't her. The thing screamed and splintered apart, looking like BB pellets that had been scattered across a floor.

Fucker re-formed, but it didn't take another shot. It boiled for the one window that didn't have salt on its sill and the shattering of glass was a shocker, the sound echoing throughout the house.

At that very same moment, the light in the circle sucked out of the room, and its exit was even louder, a sonic boom that made Jim's eardrums pop and the mirror over the dresser crack into pieces. Eddie was thrown back by the burst of energy and he slammed against the wall just as Vin was revealed on the floor, pale, shaky, covered with sweat.

As he curled over onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest, Marie-Terese broke free of Jim's hold and rushed to him.

"Vin?" She brushed the guy's hair back. "Oh, God, he's freezing cold. Give me the duvet."

Jim yanked the cover free from the bed and put it in her hands; then he went to check on Eddie, who seemed to be out cold. "You okay there, big man? Eddie?"

The guy jerked to attention and looked around as if he were momentarily lost. To his credit, though, even in his out-of-it state, the crystal dagger was locked in his fist, his knuckles white like the thing was going to have to be pried out of his grip with a pair of pliers.

His expression was not one of triumph.

When he tried to get up, Jim grabbed the guy under the armpits and helped hoist him off the floor and onto the bed. "You're not looking like this went okay."

Eddie took a couple of deep breaths. "He's clean...and nice move with soaking her."

"Figured it'd be more effective." Jim shifted that thick braid over the guy's shoulder and couldn't understand why Eddie seemed so disappointed. "I don't get it. What's the problem?"

Eddie focused on the busted window and shook his head. "This was too easy."

Shiiiiiiiit.

If this had been a walk in the park, Jim wondered what in the hell a real fight looked like.

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