I didn’t, as it turned out, have to find him. He walked in a moment later, looked at me, then frowned.

“Yeah. Somebody…talk to the firefighters.”

He shook his head, pulled out his phone, and stepped away. Presumably to call the police. I moved off to the side to let him do it, frowning a little.

I couldn’t do anything about the smoldering mess. I couldn’t really do anything without knowing who it was, but I had to admit…that the idea of, if it was stupid kids, hauling them back by their ears to face a lecture from William was very appealing indeed.

If it was something more serious, then…

And then two of the hunters walked in. I wasn’t in their line of sight. One of them walked over to the altar and the other towards William. I realized the spirit bombs might not be the only magic they had.

Or they had police band scanners. It was a shame that people so well organized had to be my enemies.

I glanced around, then dropped into a pew and lowered my head. I knew they had some way of detecting me – the two in the park had identified me right away.

But they might not be expecting me to be here or even to be able to be here. If I pretended I was praying…

I couldn’t, though, hear what the older of the two was saying to William. But it did give me a good chance to observe them.

They wore the same jackets. I now noticed properly the symbol on the pack – a two armed cross with roundels on the end. I sketched it quickly, hoping to look it up later. “Christian symbology.”

“Sort of,” a voice whispered in my mind. An entirely familiar voice.

“Hello, dad,” I thought back, not particularly surprised by…telepathy or whatever.

“You’re safe. They don’t have a bomb. But they think demons blew up the altar.”

“Wasn’t demons…” I tailed off. “Oh great. They don’t think holy ground works.”

“They think it only works if the priest is perfect.”

“Hrm. They’ll sense me if I move…if they haven’t already.” But the conversation between them and William was definitely starting to get unpleasant. I’d just have to trust that he could look after himself. “Did you see who burned the altar?”

“No.”

I let out a breath. “I think I’m going to stick to my original plan.”

“What’s that?”

“Find them, drag them back here by their ear, and feed them to William. Have you heard his lectures?”
There was a ringing laugh, then the sense of Loki’s presence was gone.