My wave of triumph faded away when Jai said, “Okay, great. So on to the plan. How do we disguise the girls?”

“There’s only one way that women come into that place,” Manda said grimly, “and you know very well how it is.”

Jai fidgeted in his chair and Horace stared at his feet, neither one of them looked like they were ready to say it. Manda tilted back her chair and smacked one booted foot onto the table top. To me it seemed like she was trying to look casual, unconcerned. She folded her arms over her chest and shrugged. “You’ll have to bring us in. Pretend you caught us.”

I chewed on my lower lip, fingers still clenched tightly around the handle of the scythe.  That didn’t sound good. “What do you mean? Like, how will we be disguised?”

“Ropes,” Manda said shortly. “That’s our disguise.”

“Not sure if I like that,” Jai muttered, and I noticed he glanced over at me quickly when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“We have to,” Horace said slowly. “She’s right, it’s the only way we’ll seem believable. If we bring the girls in any other way, someone will know something is up. We have to pretend their prisoners.”

“So, you have to tie us up?” I hated that my voice squeaked at the end of the sentence. My hands were starting to feel clammy.  It was bad enough walking into some kind of fortress, but doing it tied up and vulnerable? Pretending to be prisoners?

“We won’t actually tie the ropes tight,” Horace explained. His rough voice was unusually soothing. Maybe he knew how freaked out I was. “I can tie knots that you’ll be able to slip out of. It won’t be a problem.”

All three of the guardians were looking at me now. They were waiting for me to say yes to the plan. It was sort of a relief. It seemed like they’d go along with me if I refused. But I wasn’t going to be a sissy about this. Manda was obviously willing to do it, so I would too. I took a breath and straightened my shoulders. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Manda sat up straight, the heels of her boots hitting the floor with a loud clunk. “Right, I better get a message to Joe, give him the heads up…”

Horace raised his brows, expression disgusted. “Joe? You soldier is Joe? Like GI…”

“It’s not a real name, idiot.” Manda growled. There was less venom in her voice now though, and a minute later she stared at Horace’s broad back as he turned and began dumping the beer out in the sink, the amber liquid making sloppy “glug, glug” noises into the sink.

Jai was staring into space, and he interrupted the uneasy silence. “Okay, so Manda gets a message out tonight. How do we get army fatigues?”

“I’m on it,” Horace grunted. “Won’t be too hard to find. The army was stationed here not long ago. Should be able to find something, though the uniforms might be a little worse for wear.”

“The army is gone?” I remembered the tank I’d seen as we were driving by, abandoned on the side street. “I mean, the real army? They moved on?”

“You might say that.” Horace’s voice was hard. He didn’t turn around, still staring down at the drain. I wondered if he was wishing he could bring the beer back up. “Most of them are dead. Or they joined Thanatos.”

“The army joined Thanatos?” My eyes went wide, and Manda snorted at my expression. “Why wouldn’t they? It guarantees them safety from the suckers. They get booze, money, women. What more can a guy want?”

Jai glared at her. “How about a sense of honour?”

“Obviously it wasn’t something they could buy at Wal-Mart, so they weren’t interested.”

“Okay.” I started to rehash the plan, if only to get them to stop glaring at one another. “First, Manda sends a message. How are you gonna do that?”

“I know someone in town here,” she said. “Runs a messenger service. Should be happy to trade a few boxes of ammo for what we want.”

“Okay perfect.” I let go of the scythe finally, resting it up against the wall. I was starting to feel…not brave exactly, but a little better. I’d always been more confident if I could have a clear set of instructions in front of me. I was a list maker, a planner. At least I could throw myself into creating mental lists instead of just thinking of all the things that could go wrong.

“Manda sends the message, Horace gets the army gear…” I swallowed hard and then continued, “and the ropes. And then, we leave…when?”

“As soon as the messenger comes back,” Manda said. “He’ll let us know if it’s all clear to go. Then we can leave that night. We have to drive all the way back to where we started.” She shot Horace an annoyed look. “Because someone didn’t come the way he was supposed to…”

Horace stiffened, still turned towards the sink. He didn’t move to turn around or say anything though, so she continued. “It’ll take a few days to get there. Once we do, Joe will let us in and we’ll have to locate the Kronos portal. Unless he can tell us where it is. That’d make things easier.”

Jai sighed and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. “There’s so much room for error here…”

“Any plan of action always has room for error,” Manda said. “But it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“And the instruments?” I glanced over at the scythe. “They’ll follow me?”

“They will.” Jai’s face was worried. “I’m just not sure when.”

“Or where,” added Manda.

“Right,” I murmured, “room for error.”

That night I tried to insist that I couldn’t take Horace’s bed, but I might as well have been asking that he drown puppies, he acted so horrified with the suggestion. He insisted, demanded actually, that I take his bed. Manda slept beside me on the floor.

I lay awake on the hard mattress, staring at the dim shadows on the ceiling and listening to her snore. When I peeked over the edge of the bed I could see she was lying on her back, the checkered blanket from the back of the couch draped over her, a rolled up sweatshirt serving as a pillow. She clutched a wicked looking hunting knife in one hand, holding it to her chest like a regular person might hold a teddy bear.

Shit, she’s scary sometimes. Okay, all the time.

I sighed and rolled over to face the closet doors. They were dented and splattered with paint, and before I’d turned the light off I’d noticed that one was hanging on its hinges like someone had kicked it. I tried to imagine how many people had rented this suite before Horace had. People with stories, people running from the soul suckers, or Thanatos’ army. This place was decrepit and gross, but it was the last safe haven we would have before we stormed the fortress. Before we walked straight into the heart of evil.

There was no way I was going to sleep tonight.

After lying there for what felt like hours listening to Manda grunt in her sleep, I tossed the covers back and climbed out of bed gingerly, being as quiet as I could. The dirty wooden floorboards creaked the slightest bit and made me freeze. Manda mumbled something and shifted a little bit, the thin line of light from the crack in the door glinted off the knife in her hand. What if she rolled over and impaled herself with that thing?

I slipped out the bedroom door, sucking my stomach in as I edged past in order to avoid opening the it all the way, since it squeaked. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but it was a relief to see that the light in the kitchen was on. Just the stove light, but it was enough to cast a faint glow around the bare kitchen, enough to show me that Jai was still up, sitting at the table, his blonde head bent over a book.

I tiptoed past Horace sprawled out of the couch, one gorilla like arm trailed off it, the back of his hand resting on the floor. He snored twice as loud as Manda.

Jai heard me coming, even over the noise. He looked up from his book, face concerned. “Are you alright, Kali? Couldn’t sleep?”

I shook my head and sat down beside him, checking out the front of his book. “Oscar Wilde?”

Jai nodded, setting his book down on the table carefully. I noted the battered, leathery looking cover.

“That’s old, isn’t it? The book I mean?”

“Very old.” Jai ran a finger over the cover, a wistful smile on his lips. “I’ve read it countless times. I find new meanings each time.”

“We had to read Dorian Grey for school.” I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my eyes. “I thought it was creepy.”

“It is.” Jai glanced over at Horace, who had flopped over the other way on the couch, one knee jutting up at an awkward angle. He was still sound asleep and snoring though.

“I wish Horace had let me give him the bed. He’s way too big for the sofa.” I sighed.

“Horace will never let you give up anything for him,” Jai said gravely. “Despite what Manda thinks, he’s completely selfless, that’s why it ruined him when we failed you.” He glanced over at me. It was hard to read his expression, since his face was half in shadows, but I thought he looked sad. “Horace is completely devoted to his job as a guardian. He’d give up anything for it.”

My fingers were digging into the edge of the table, turning white. The question that had been burning in the back of my mind finally spilled out before I could stop it. “Are they…were they…together?”

Something flicked briefly across Jai’s face. An expression I didn’t recognize on him. Anger? Grief? It was gone as soon as it came.

“I don’t know.”

I eyed him suspiciously. His face was carefully blank.

“You’re lying.”

His mouth firmed into a straight line and he stared down at the cover of his book.

“Jai?" I frowned. “What the matter?”

“I’m not…I shouldn’t keep it from you…” he seemed distraught, clearly torn by something. Finally he rubbed one hand over his chin and sighed. “They were, for a short time, after we lost you…” he trailed off, looking at me. It was like he was expecting something. When I didn’t react, his shoulders slumped.

“I forgot about…how much you remember.”

I blinked at him, confused. “I don’t get it. What’s that got to do with what I remember?”

Jai glanced over at Horace nervously, clearly wondering if he might be awake and listening. “Guardians are forbidden to be together. It interferes with the job. What Horace and Manda had was completely breaking the rules. I think Horace feels guilty that he and Manda were together as soon as we’d lost you. I don’t think he’ll let himself be happy ever again.”

“But…that’s stupid!” I protested. “Why is it against the rules? Who says?”

Jai stared at me for a second, his face still blank in the dark. Finally he said, “You do.”