Decided to not kill off a character. ‘Course, sending him off to a war ain’t exactly safe, either. But I’m sure he’ll be fine.
Elizabeth snorted. “What’s happened to me is absolutely outside any regular magician’s understanding how magic works,” she said. “Take it from me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And they’d waste too much time trying to figure it out. Elizabeth’s condition is Shamus business.” I looked ahead on the street. “Crime, and payback.”
“Sounds almost religious,” observed Lucas. “Speaking of which, why not call in Father Mike?”
“Two reasons,” I said. “First, Mike’s a good guy but he’s also a priest, and his religion has a strict limit on who gets to come back from the dead. He’d dump holy water by the gallon on her and send for the Pope-in-Exile’s finest exorcist.”
“Which wouldn’t work,” observed Elizabeth.
“Which wouldn’t work,” I agreed, “and we don’t have time to wait for a convoy from Quebec City. But even if Mike wouldn’t freak out, he’s not around anyway. He went off with the army to Sonora.”
“Really? What brought that on?” said Jake.
“The concert last night, I guess. Mike told me afterward that he had to go and minister to the troops.” I had pointed out that maybe half of the army wasn’t part of his religion and it was sure as his Hell that the enemy wasn’t: Mike laughed and told me not to bother coming up with more reasons to go.