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God invented the iPod. Two hours,” I promised. “Then we’ll go explore.”
    The truth was that I had more than enough energy to go with her right then. But there were other things I needed to deal with first.
    Stuart and I left the kids in their room, and once we reached ours he tugged me down to the bed beside him. “A room all to ourselves,” he said. “Too bad I’m too exhausted to enjoy it.”
    “I won’t consider it a mark against your manliness,” I promised. “And the room will still be here tonight.”
    “Set an alarm?” His eyes were drooping, already half on his way to sleep.
    “I’ll take care of it.” I sat up. “I’m going to find the bathroom. Back in a sec.”
    In a sec, I had a feeling he’d be out cold.
    I didn’t actually need the bathroom, but I did want out of the room, and that seemed like as good a place to make a phone call as any. When I got there, though, I found the door locked. I tapped. “Allie?”
    I didn’t get an answer, but I thought I heard a short sob, followed by the splash of water.
    “ Allie ?” I repeated, my mommy senses in overdrive.
    “No.” The word was low and harsh, but the voice was definitely teenage. I remembered what Signora Micari had said about our floormate—a teenage girl doing the backpacking around Europe thing. I pictured Allie just a few years older than she was now traveling by herself with nothing but some cash, a train pass and her iPod, and my heart twisted a little for the girl.
    “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
    Silence, and then the distinct sound of a nose being very soundly blown. “I’m okay,” she said. “Sorry to hog the bathroom. I’m—I’m going to be a few more minutes. Okay?”
    I hesitated, wanting to help but at the same time knowing it wasn’t my place. I didn’t know this girl. Didn’t know if she was missing her family or if she’d just had a fight with her boyfriend. For that matter, maybe she’d just spent the last two hours watching Sleepless in Seattle on her iPod and all she wanted was a good cry. Bottom line, I had problems of my own.
    “My name’s Kate,” I said before I walked away. “If you need anything, I’m in the room at the top of the stairs.”
    Not that I was going right back to my room, but I didn’t expect that the girl would come calling any time soon. And if she did? Well, Stuart had lived with a teenage girl in the house for years now. I figured he could handle the drama.
    I found an ornate powder room on the ground floor just off the foyer. I went in, turned on the water, sat down on the closed toilet, and pulled out my phone, intending to make one of those extremely expensive international calls to my best friend, Laura. Despite the fact that demon hunting was supposed to be one big huge secret, Laura had known about my extracurricular activities almost from the moment I got sucked out of retirement. At the time, I needed to either tell her or let her believe she was going stark-raving mad. What can I say? I considered it my duty save my friend’s sanity. And, yeah, I was keen to have a confidante.
    Since then, pretty much the entire population of San Diablo had learned my secret (okay, not really, but sometimes it felt that way), but Laura was still the first one I turned to when I needed help with the hunting of demons, the commiserating about marital problems, or the creation of truly delicious baked goods. What can I say? The woman was a goddess in the kitchen. Me? Not so much.
    Today, demons were on the agenda. Pepperdine University was in Los Angeles, just a short drive from San Diablo. I was hoping Laura could get on the Internet and find out when Thomas Duvall—the real Thomas Duvall—had died. Because the poor kid had died—and not in a Roman restroom. No, he’d died back in the States, and as soon as he had, a demon had moved in.
    That’s how most demons take human form. Sure, there are other ways, but possessing a body is messy, and time-sharing with a