"Maybe not," Hawk pressed. "I understand how you felt when you found out about everything, but she really thought she was saving you, and it hurt her when you didn't even try to see that. Maybe she's just waiting for you to take the first-"

Joby raised a hand to stop him. "If you're trying to make me feel bad, son, you're months too late. I do. I have . . . since hours after I destroyed everything."

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad," Hawk growled. "I'm just saying that maybe you've got to be the one to fix what happened. Maybe she just needs-"

"Some things can't be fixed," Joby said, looking up at last. His expression made Hawk want to wince. "Once you break them, you just have to make room for what's left." He got up and took his half-finished meal to the kitchenette, turned the water on, and stared into the sink. "I hurt her back in high school, much, much worse than I ever knew, and when she was brave enough to give me a second chance, I promised I would never hurt her again." He laid his dishes under the water, and turned to look at Hawk with steely resignation. "But I did, Hawk. What should I go say to her now? I promise . . . again? . . . Third time's the charm?" He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Hawk. You have no idea how sorry. . . . She deserved better, and so did you. But if she wanted to give me more chances, she wouldn't have moved so far away from Taubolt."

"I still can't believe this works!" Joby said in hushed wonder as he set a ring of dandelion seeds spinning clockwise, then counterclockwise, in the air above their heads.

"You learn faster than anyone I ever heard of," GB said quietly.

"Well, that would be largely to my teacher's credit," Joby said, letting the ring of seeds disintegrate on the breeze as he turned to grin wanly at GB. His face was pallid with fatigue, his eyes red-rimmed for want of sleep. The sight filled Lucifer with satisfaction as Joby's grin grew careworn, and vanished altogether. "I wish Solomon could see this," Joby said sadly. "He'd be so surprised."

Buck up, Joby, Lucifer thought dryly. He's missing not a moment of it. "But you're not showin' this to anybody yet, right?" GB said aloud.

"No, GB," Joby sighed, bending to sit on a tangled hump of tree roots. "I'm not going to blow your cover."

"Just a few more months, and it won't seem so sudden," GB said apologetically. "It's just, if these demons can get to an ancient like Solomon, what chance would I have? If they even suspect I could get into their minds, I'd be dead in two seconds."

"You're really that sure it wasn't just a stroke?" Joby asked glumly.

"I told you; guys as powerful as Solomon don't just have strokes. It was them, all right, though I still wonder what he was doin' up there at all when you were gone."

"You're too suspicious, GB," Joby said. "I've known him for years. Besides, he wouldn't have talked to Gladys first if he was trying to sneak into my room."

"Unless he just wanted to be sure you were out," GB insisted. "You said they all used to hide from you, right? Are you so sure they're not still hiding?"

"Hiding what?" said Joby. "GB, I hate to say it, but you're sounding awfully paranoid these days."

"I know," GB scowled, "but can you blame me? Don't you see what's goin' on around here? This isn't just some little band of asshole demons who stopped to look around on their way through. They're staying 'til they take Taubolt down completely. Every last brick! Why? Why now? What are we really caught in the middle of here, Joby? Has anybody told you? You bet I'm paranoid. You should be too." GB shook his head in frustration. "I finally reach a place I could stay with people like me, and get here just in time to see it all destroyed. You have any idea what that's like?"

"Yes," Joby said sadly. "I do." His eyes were seeing something elsewhere. Lucifer suppressed a smile, imagining all the many elsewheres it might be. "That's about all I ever knew 'til I came here." Joby's red-rimmed eyes focused again. "We've still got Jake, GB, and a lot of gifted people on the Council. They'll think of some way to-"

"Hide?" GB finished for him. " 'Til the demons just go away? That's all I see anybody doin'. Who's gonna go away is us, Joby. One by one, just like Rose did, and those other guys, Sky and Jupiter, and from what I've heard, a bunch more before them. People are dyin' at an awful rate here, if you haven't noticed. Pretty soon there won't be any of us left to cry about it."

"Gotta have a little faith, GB," Joby said, looking at him with obvious concern.

"You a preacher now?" GB retorted. "Well, here's a Bible quote for ya. 'Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will open.' Faith's fine, but someone's gotta act, Joby. Someone's gotta find the balls to stop them any way it takes."

"Which would be how?" Joby asked quietly. "Do you know?"

There's the question we've been waiting for, Lucifer gloated silently. But, as always, timing was everything. Reel the line too fast and it might snap. "Not yet," GB sullenly admitted. "But I'm workin' on it. I'll let you know." He scuffed at the ground, and said, "Sorry if I'm bein' a prick. I just get pretty bummed sometimes."

"Hey," Joby said reassuringly, "I don't need you to be cheerful all the time. We all get bummed these days. I sure do. You're completely welcome to talk with me about it." He looked wearily away. "To be honest, I'm glad you're there to talk with too sometimes." He shook his head. "Hawk's been through so much, I hate to burden him more with my troubles, especially when so many of his were my fault. Laura's gone," he said bleakly. "Everybody else in town is so busy trying to defend what's left." He looked up to smile grimly at GB. "Seems like you're about the only person I've got left that's been through enough shit to really understand and isn't too busy or fragile to confide in. So, by all means, complain away, as long as I can do the same sometimes. Deal?"

"Deal," said GB, reaching out to shake Joby's hand. "Thanks, man, for understanding. I envy Hawk. He's real lucky to have you."

"Not as lucky as I am to have him," said Joby. He glanced up at the sky above their isolated woodland "classroom," then clapped GB on the shoulder and said, "I'd better go. Hawk'll be wondering where I've gone by now."

"Next week then?" GB asked.

Joby nodded. "Thanks again, GB. For all of this. You hang in there."

Oh, I will, thought Lucifer. Count on it.

"So I took a quick walk with one of my students," Joby said, seeming genuinely puzzled. "I don't see why that upsets you so much."

"You have time to go hiking with GB?" Hawk shrugged, sounding whiny even to himself. "I thought you had a Youth Park meeting."

"I did. It ended a little early. I was already there at the school and so was GB. He wanted to talk about what had happened at the meeting, so we went walking in the woods for, what, forty minutes? An hour maybe? What was I supposed to tell him, Hawk? No, I can't talk with you? My son wanted to go hiking today, and I couldn't, so you can't have me either? Not even for a half an hour?"

"It's half an hour now?" Hawk growled. "Not forty minutes or an hour?"

Joby rolled his eyes. "Look," he said. "I'm here now. It's light for hours yet. You want to go out for a walk? I'll give you two hours. Will that help?"

Hawk was too embarrassed, and too angry, to say anything at all. Since returning to his senses after Rose had died, he'd worked hard to repair his damaged friendships around town. Hawk hadn't known GB that well before what he now thought of as "his illness," but the boy was one of Joby's favorite students, and Hawk had felt bad about being so jealous of him earlier, assuming his feelings had been nothing but another symptom of his dark condition. Lately, though, he wasn't so sure. GB had received Hawk's repentant overtures more magnanimously than many, but there'd also been something smarmy about his "understanding attitude." Today hadn't been the first time Hawk had caught GB and Joby coming companionably out of Taubolt's fields or woods together. He didn't know what they were always out there doing, but there still seemed something wrong about it.

"What's your problem with GB?" Joby asked when Hawk went back to sorting laundry without answering his question.

"Sorry, Joby, but I just don't trust him."

"Why not?"

"Look, Joby, you keep talking like you get it, but I don't think you do. Since last August, Taubolt has been under assault by demons. I met one, remember? I know you grew up in a dusty suburb where there wasn't any 'fairy magic,' but wake up and smell the coffee! They disguise themselves as people, Joby-strangers! GB came here out of nowhere right in the middle of all this. What does anybody really know about him?"

"You're saying GB's a demon now?" Joby half-laughed.

"Do you know he's not?" Hawk insisted.

"You're serious!" Joby said, appalled. "Hawk, Nacho took him straight to members of the Council the day he got here. GB's story checked out fully. He's had a very rough life, and in spite of that, he's been nothing but help in trying to defend this community almost since the day he arrived. Why should I distrust him? Why should you?"

It was true. GB had been checked out by several members of the Council. But then, the Council hadn't recognized the demon riding Hawk's back either, had they?

"That school down there is full of kids who've come to Taubolt in the last few years," Joby pressed. "Am I supposed to suspect them all?"

"No," Hawk sulked. "But most of them aren't . . . like GB."

"You keep saying that, but you never tell me what's wrong with him. Do his eyes flash red or something?"

"He's got such a way with the power, for one thing," Hawk said, sounding pathetic, even to himself, "and such a way with you, for another."

He watched Joby consider him with . . . was that amusement? "You know," his father said at last, "I hate to say this, but you sound a little jealous."

"Forget about it," Hawk said crossly. To his relief, the phone rang.

"Hello," Joby said, after grabbing the receiver. "Bridget! Hi. I just got back" Joby's expression darkened. "That bitch," he sighed. "Wait a minute. Slow down. It's a pain in the ass, but if I have to get a credential now, I'll go get one." There was a longer pause during which Joby's expression went from pained to thunderous. "What!" he exclaimed. "Can they just do that? Who do they think is going to replace me?" Joby's expression went from angry, to angry and scared. "Well . . . what can I do?" he asked quietly. "Isn't there anything?" Another pause, and then, "Yeah. Thanks. I'll meet you down there in ten minutes."

He hung up the phone, and just stood looking down at it, his back to Hawk.

"What happened?" Hawk asked anxiously.

"That goddamn fucking bitch!" Joby yelled, slamming his hand down on the tabletop. When he turned around, Hawk took an involuntary step away. Veins stood out on Joby's neck and forehead, his face had been transformed by anger. He looked almost like a demon himself. "She's trying to get me fired now!"

"After all the years of work I've done for this district," Joby said, his head hung in furious despair, "everything I've gone through just this summer to protect the very kids they're supposed to be concerned for! I can't believe they're doing this to me! Hamilton, I couldn't care less about," he said in disgust. "Who expects anything else from her, but the school board! And without even talking with me? If Bridget hadn't called me, I'd probably already be fired by now! Were they just going to wait until I showed up at school in September? Announce it in front of my first class?"

Joby finally looked up at GB, realizing that he'd been ranting for at least ten minutes while the boy had simply listened patiently, managing, somehow, to convey genuine concern and sympathy in total silence. The gift of a true fellow sufferer, Joby thought, considering all the far more terrible things GB had been through.

"Taubolt's kids are your whole life," GB said when it was clear that Joby had run dry of words. "You'd die for us. Everybody in this town knows that. You were practically the first person Nacho talked about the night I got here. If the school board's too dumb to see that, they're about to get an education. People in this town will really riot when they find out. You've been saving them all summer. Now they'll save you." He came to put an understanding hand on Joby's shoulder. "You'll see. This is never gonna happen, Joby."

Joby had come to meet GB at the appointed time, in their usual spot, because he hadn't been able to contact him in time to cancel, but their magic lesson hadn't really gotten off the ground today.

"Thanks for listening to me spew, GB," said Joby, "but I shouldn't be wasting your time here. Let's learn me some magic."

"Are you sure?" GB said. "We don't have to, if-"

"No, this is what we came to do," said Joby. "Hamilton's preempting enough of my life. I'm not giving this to her too."

"Okay." GB shrugged. "What do you want to try this time?"

Joby thought for a moment, then smiled sardonically as a very therapeutic idea struck him. "Teach me how to blow things up."

"What?" said GB uncertainly. "What things?"

"I don't care," Joby said. "Anything you want. Rocks, stumps, bugs. Anything big enough to make a decent boom. I'll pretend it's Hamilton."

"Cool." GB grinned. "Okay. Here's what you do."

As spring gave way to summer beyond the confines of his season-neutral retail environment, Merlin had been deluged with increasingly grim live-action broadcasts in living cosmicolor of Lucifer's revolting predations upon Joby, and all of Taubolt's many boiling conflicts, one of which was coming to a head this evening at the local school board meeting. The question of Joby's future at the high school, which had escalated into a battle royale between Taubolt's old ways and its new, was to be resolved at last.

As he continued mapping out the convoluted path to freedom, Merlin had been turning occasionally to watch the proceedings. The meeting was already in its second hour. Joby's rapport with Taubolt's teens had been praised or denigrated, according to each speaker's sympathies. His lack of certification had been set against his excellent performance in the classroom. Occasionally, the view on Merlin's TV screens zoomed in on Joby, seated in the front row, never speaking unless directly addressed, watching with un-readable expressions as his fitness was debated.

Bridget O'Reilly had just explained again why Joby had been hired without a credential and asked why he couldn't just go get one now. The board had replied that, given Joby's failure to admit his uncredentialed state immediately, his character had become the central issue. Still, it seemed more and more that Joby would prevail.

Then Agnes Hamilton came forward with "new evidence" of Joby's unsuitability.

"When I think of all the things I could have turned you into," Merlin grumbled as she appeared on screen.

"I know many of you are fond of Mr. Peterson," she said, "but this board is not elected to conduct popularity contests. Its mandate is to ensure that those to whom we entrust our children-"

"Our children!" someone shouted. "You haven't even got any."

Roger Tanning, the board's president, banged his gavel, glaring at the audience. "Please continue," he said to Agnes when quiet had been restored.

"To ensure," she began again, "that your children are entrusted to safe and trustworthy persons who teach constructive values. Caring as passionately as I do about both quality of education and the safety of our youth-" There were more rude noises from the audience, quickly gaveled down. "I have assembled a body of evidence that clearly shows that Mr. Peterson is neither teaching constructive values, nor a safe adult with whom to leave your children."

She went on to present a noxious parade of "sworn written testimony," some of it from tourists, demonstrating nothing except that Joby was more sympathetic to Taubolt's kids than to Hamilton's agenda. One accusation, that Joby had referred to Hamilton as "the goblin lady" during a lunchtime discussion with other teachers, merely won Agnes her first big laugh that evening. Even Tanning was starting to look impatient with her.

"As amusing as many of you seem to think this is," she said impatiently, "it presents a very disturbing pattern. Has no one ever wondered why there's hardly a teenager in Taubolt who won't do whatever Mr. Peterson asks at the drop of a hat? Does that seem natural? What other adult do they treat this way? Of course, it's less mysterious when one sees how often he undercuts legitimate adult authority. Of course your children adore him. He tells them what they want to hear, whatever the effect on their behavior afterward. He not only regards his students as personal friends, but treats them like peers, socializing more often, it seems, with people half his age than with adults. Do you really want your children learning from a man who seems to have such difficulty understanding where to place himself on the scale of maturity?"

The audience before her was clearly growing uncomfortable, but not, Merlin thought, with Joby. "Do go on, dear lady," he muttered at the TV screen. "You've nearly enough rope to do the job now. By all means, hang yourself."

"And who are these 'personal friends' Joby gathers from your cradles?" Hamilton continued. "Boys-nearly all of them. Young, pretty boys. Not a girl in the bunch."

Clearly incensed, Joby finally stood, and said, "If I may, Mr. Tanning?"

"I would like to finish," said Hamilton. "He is welcome to respond in his turn."

"If it's brief, Mr. Peterson," Tanning said, ignoring Hamilton.

"I can't see how it would look better," Joby said, "if my younger friends were all girls. I lean toward friendships with male students precisely because there is less risk of misunderstanding regarding my intentions there. I would also like to say that I deeply resent Ms. Hamilton's implication here."

"Methinks he doth protest too much," Hamilton said frostily. "I am curious why a man of your polished social skills, respectable income, and, frankly, decent looks, Mr. Peterson, is still single and apparently uninterested in more mature company."

At this, there was an uproar that took quite a bit of gavel-banging to subdue.

"Ms. Hamilton," Tanning scowled when he had finally been heeded by the crowd, "I begin to find your remarks very inappropriate. Unless you have some substantial proof of the things you are implying, I-"

"I do," she interrupted, unable to conceal the smirk of triumph on her face. "I would like to ask one of Mr. Peterson's students to come forward: a boy known as GB."

Merlin groaned, but morbid fascination kept him watching as GB came forward glancing desolately at Joby in such convincing imitation of remorse that Merlin had to shudder at whatever must be coming.

"Now, GB," Agnes attempted a sympathetic smile with rather gruesome results, "just answer my questions as simply and honestly as you did for Sheriff Donaldson."

Joby jumped up again, demanding, "What's the sheriff doing questioning my students? This is no police matter!"

"Mr. Peterson," Tanning barked. "You will be given ample time to address all of this, but I ask you, please, to let us hear what this boy has to say."

Hamilton's smile grew more genuine, if less sympathetic. "GB," she said, "you are a very good-looking boy. I'm sure you know that. Has Mr. Peterson ever spoken to you about your appearance?"

GB nodded, looking at the floor.

"What did he say?" Hamilton asked.

GB mumbled something unintelligible and Agnes asked him to speak up.

"He said I was attractive," GB said, looking humiliated.

Merlin's view swiveled to show the incredulity spreading over Joby's face.

"I see," said Hamilton, adopting a far graver expression and tone.

"It wasn't like that!" GB protested, looking again in apparent agony at Joby. "I was just worried about how I'd make a living when I grew up! That's all."

"Of course," said Hamilton. "And what did Mr. Peterson suggest?"

"He said I had nothing to worry about, 'cause I could be a model."

"A model," Hamilton repeated. "Well, I'm sure he's right. You are, as he said, a very attractive boy. Is that the only job he suggested?"