“We aren’t, but… wait, you’re not worried about yourself?”

“Not particularly. I died once before.”

“Yeah, but you’re physical now.” I couldn’t resist sliding an appraising glance at his chest. “If the Charming goes pear-shaped, then you could be harmed.”

“It’s not likely. I am a wyvern first, and a spirit second. Even bound to a physical form as I now am with the placing of the bête noire, I do not fear for my well-being. You, however…” He frowned. “We do not have time for you to study the curse in leisure, not with the demons of Asmodeus obviously on our trail. You must break the curse now, but do so without harming yourself.”

He laid back, arranging the box in place.

I bit back the desire to tell him that I didn’t appreciate the bossiness, but since he included my well-being in his list of concerns, I felt it was wiser to move past it.

“Very well. But if we both turn into bearded lizards named Bernie, then you have no one to blame but yourself.”

He looked puzzled. “Why Bernie?”

“Why not?” I slipped the ring on my finger, immediately aware of heat that seemed to glow within it. “All right, let’s give this a shot and hope we don’t end up as lizards.”

“Your obsession with lizards is confusing, and one I will wish for you to explain at a later date,” Constantine said, lifting his head to watch as I placed a finger on his side just as I’d done before. This time, with the ring on my hand, the touch felt different. My finger felt heavier, as if the curse clung to it, and made it slow to move along the pattern that still flashed in and out of my vision.

“You don’t say anything? There are no verses? No spells?” Constantine asked after a minute of watching me. I was wholly focused on the curse now, on forcing my (seemingly reluctant) finger to travel along the intricate twists and circles of its design. I was itchy and unusually warm, but disregarded those sensations for what was most important: keeping my finger on the right path. If I slipped up, it would at best mean starting over… at worst, it might cause the curse to lash out at Constantine or me.

“You draw no wards of protection first?”

“No, no, no, and no,” I said, my face a scant inch from his chest as I forced my finger along the fleeting lines of the curse. The ring grew hot and tight on my finger, and my fingertip tingled when it moved, a little trail of fire following it before dissipating into nothing. It was as if the dragon fire burned off the curse, for the lines glowed first black, then gold, then dissolved into nothing. “Charming a curse is just a matter of unmaking the pattern that holds the power. Now be quiet so I can focus.”

Constantine obliged by being silent, but the room was anything but quiet. Not only was Gary rocking out to Freebird at the other side of the bar, but in the distance I could hear Guillaume talking to someone, presumably to his boss on the phone. Faintly, over both of those distractions, the sound of Paris intruded on my little corner of the world.

And beneath my hands lay a man who was both irritating as hell and oddly intriguing.

“You stopped?” Constantine asked softly.

“Yes, sorry. I got distracted for a moment.”

He glanced over at the door. “Should I tell the head to turn off the music?”

“No, it’s okay, I listen a lot to music when I meditate. This is just another form of focus.” I took a deep breath, pushed away my awareness of everything but the curse, and continued to move my hesitant finger through the design of the curse.

When I reached the beginning of the curse, the whole thing flared to life for a second, hanging black above Constantine’s chest, then it faded to nothing.

“There we go,” I said, sitting back on my feet. I felt drained, which was normal with a Charming, but at the same time, there was an emptiness inside me, a hollow feeling that something had gone not quite right.

I looked down at Constantine’s chest, trying to see with my peripheral vision, but saw no sign of the curse. Mentally, I ran over the way I had Charmed the curse, but didn’t see anything that I’d done wrong.

“Well?” he asked, sitting up. “Is it broken?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, shaking my head over my odd feelings.

“You do not seem certain. And your finger is still on fire.”

I looked down in surprise, shaking my hands to put out the little blob of dragon fire that burned merrily away on my forefinger. “I am sure. Pretty sure. It’s just… I don’t know, it’s hard to describe exactly. It looks like the curse is gone, and everything went the way it should, only I didn’t feel the curse break.”

“Is that normal?” Constantine asked, reaching for his shirt. He slipped it on, but didn’t button it.

“For the curses I’ve Charmed before?” I shook my head. “I’ve always felt them break, but this is a curse laid by a demon lord, the most powerful practitioner of curses there is. Maybe theirs don’t dissipate like the others do.”

“There is only one way to tell,” Constantine said and, looking around, spied a phone that was connected to the wall, but sitting on the floor. He went to it and dialed a number. “I will call Kostya.”

“I don’t see what you expect to do by calling him,” I told Constantine. “You can’t talk to anyone outside your sept. He’s in a different sept; therefore, you won’t be able to understand him.”

“Ah, but if he understands me, then we will know you succeeded in breaking the curse after all.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” I reviewed the Charming a second time, unable to shake the feeling that it hadn’t been done correctly.

Could I have traced the pattern incorrectly? Gotten confused on one of the more detailed circles? Maybe I didn’t touch every part of the curse… I looked at Constantine’s chest with speculation while I considered the problem.

And that’s how I saw the curse flare back into life a scant half-second before I heard Constantine’s intake of breath prefatory to speaking, and I knew with a sudden flash of insight that the curse was going to strike back for the attempt at breaking it.

“No!” I screamed, and threw myself at Constantine to protect him just as his lips formed the words, “Hello? Kostya?”

A percussive blast followed, knocking me backward with a force that slammed me up against the bar counter. Glass tinkled down in a rain of sharp noise, and in the distance, I could hear the squeal of car brakes, and muffled voices shouting questions.