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human means you have to find a human who’s either so evil or so power-hungry that they’re willing to give up some free will to let a demon’s essence move into the body with them. Fortunately for the world at large, there aren’t too many people like that.
    No, most demons are opportunistic. When a person dies, their soul leaves their body, and for a short window of time, a portal is open allowing the demon—who was previously wandering around in the ether all noncorporeal and frustrated—to slide inside, just as pretty as you please. Usually it’s the victim of a heart attack, a drowning, a violent car crash. The kind of situation where EMS is certain they’ve lost the guy, but then to everyone’s surprise he draws a sharp breath and the flatline jumps into a nice, steady pulse. The newspapers often call those incidents miracles. The newspapers are wrong.
    Fortunately, demons can’t just hop into any dead body. If they could, we’d be surrounded by corporeal demons. (The truth is, we are surrounded by noncorporeal demons. They’re out there in the ether, all around us, all the time. Kind of creepy when you think about it. I try not to. I figure until they’ve got a solid form they can’t bother me. And once they are solid, I know what to do about it: kill them.)
    No, demons have to find just the right body. It has to be newly dead, and the demon has to slide in before the portal closes. Even then, it’s not necessarily a sure thing. Some bodies reject a demon. I’m no theologian, but the way I understand it, the souls of the faithful hang around, protecting the mortal shell until it’s safe from infestation. In other words, the faithful fight.
    Thomas Duvall, I assumed, hadn’t put up much of a struggle. He’d dropped dead, and a demon had dropped in.
    What I wanted to know was why.
    Most demons slide into humans simply because that’s what they want— humanity. Sure, they want to traipse around stirring up trouble, but they want to be flesh while they do it. They want the sensations. The emotion. The highs and the lows. But that doesn’t usually include international travel. If a demon wants to be flesh in Italy, it makes a lot more sense to slide into an Italian body.
    But Duvall went from Los Angeles to Rome. Why? And was it coincidence that he was on the same plane as a Demon Hunter who had recently defeated some of the most powerful demons in the world? (Not to seem immodest, but I’m talking about me.) Had he been on some kind of vendetta? And if so, why not just take me out in the airport? Why play nice and return my son’s bear?
    And if Duvall had been planning to take me out, then who stepped in to protect me?
    I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out. And I figured that starting with the man himself was the best place to begin. Especially since I had no other starting point.
    I pulled out my phone, then realized I’d forgotten to turn the thing back on after we got off the plane. I pressed the button and waited for the signal bars to show up, irritated when I realized I’d missed a voicemail. Probably Laura calling to make sure we arrived safely.
    But the call wasn’t from Laura. It was from Eric.
    “It’s me,” he said, his voice sounding far away and hollow. “I know I may be the last person you want to hear from, but I thought you needed to know.” My chest tightened as he continued. “I just found out that the cathedral’s altar was destroyed a few months ago. Apparently the bishop kept it quiet because he didn’t want the press descending, but someone leaked it and there was an article in the paper this week. Seems the bishop had a replacement brought in, and with the cloth covering it, no one was the wiser.”
    He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I called Delores as soon as I read the article,” he said, referring to the cathedral’s volunteer coordinator, a woman who had her hand in all the church’s business. “She said they don’t have any idea who the culprit was or