I guessed I was no longer her snuggle buddy.

A moment later, a small reddish blur scampered across the kitchen and into the sunroom. A fox. Layla’s familiar, to be exact. His name was Robin, and he was a hyper little thing, running from one corner of the house to the other. According to Roth, it was a baby...familiar.

I wanted to pet it. Just once. On the top of its furry little head.

Sighing, I returned to staring at the blurry contact on my phone.

“You can do it.” Roth bent at the waist and leaned against the counter. “I believe in you.”

“Shut up.”

His golden eyes glimmered with amusement as he looked up at me. “Rude.”

“If you knew there was a chance that Lucifer would up and disappear, that should’ve been the first thing out of your mouth,” I shot back.

“Not like it would change anything. No one would’ve been able to stop him. Stop procrastinating and give them a much needed heads-up.”

Swallowing a mouthful of curses, I called Nicolai. He answered on the third ring.

“Trinity? Was just getting ready to call you.”

“You were?” I winced, hoping it wasn’t because Lucifer had already done something to catch their attention.

“Yeah, got good news. We’re able to get the stones from Yellowstone.”

“Stones?” Roth murmured.

“Really?” That was great news. “So that just leaves...?”

“The onyx and tourmaline. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon about them,” he said. “So, what’s up?”

“Well,” I said, drawing the word out. “You got a moment?”

“I’m on the phone with you, so yes.”

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t busy,” I said, and Roth raised an eyebrow at me. Flipping him off, I turned away from him. “So, I’m just going to say it.” I cleared my throat. “Roth and Layla were successful—well, I guess successful would be considered subjective and would depend on whether or not you were on board with the idea of bringing Lucifer into the fold.”

“I still haven’t made my mind up when it comes to that,” he replied flatly.

I doubted what I was about to tell him was going to push him toward Team On Board. “So, Lucifer did come topside, and good news is he did agree to help. Was actually pretty enthusiastic about it.”

There was a pause and then Nicolai said, “Okay?”

“But we, uh...” My entire body and brain cringed. “We sort of lost Lucifer.”

“What?”

“Don’t freak out—”

“Don’t freak out? Are you kidding me? You lost Lucifer, and you’re telling me not to freak out?” Nicolai shouted from the phone. “How in the world do you even lose Lucifer?”

“Well, it’s easier than you’d think. He did that really annoying demon thing and popped out of existence.”

“Don’t be a hater,” said Roth.

Nicolai sounded like he was trying to take several deep breaths. “Are you legitimately telling me that Lucifer—the Lucifer—is out there, roaming around because you all lost him?”

“I wouldn’t say we lost him—”

“You just said you lost him!”

“Okay. Bad word choice. We just misplaced him, but we’re going to find him.” I hoped we found him. “And he seemed pretty calm for, you know, being Lucifer, and all, so I don’t think he’s going to cause much trouble.”

“You seriously think Lucifer, who hasn’t walked Earth in how many years, isn’t going to cause trouble?” Nicolai asked. “Are you high? Am I high?”

The corners of my lips turned down. “I’m not high, and hey, at least I’m not calling to tell you that we’ve jump-started the biblical end times.”

“Yet,” he growled. “You’re not calling to tell me that yet.”

He kind of had a point there. “Look, we’re going to find him. I just wanted to give you all a heads-up in case you happen to run into a hopefully fully clothed Lucifer to not engage. Okay? So, I’ve got to go and find him now.”

“Trinity—”

“Got to go. Going to be very busy,” I rushed on. “Stay safe!” I hung up, barely resisting the urge to throw the phone across the room. Instead, I silenced it and placed it facedown on the counter before Nicolai could call back, because if I couldn’t see that he was calling me, then I could pretend that he wasn’t.

“That went well,” Roth commented.

I turned to him. “How long would it take for us to know if we jump-started the apocalypse?”

His brows rose as he scrunched his hand through his hair. “Hard to say. I doubt there’s an exact time limit, but we’ll know if it happens.”

“Do I even want to know how we’ll know?”

He snorted. “You know you do.”

I sighed. I did.

“If we’ve kicked off the big end times, you’ll know because they’ll show up.”

A shiver tiptoed down my spine. “And who exactly is ‘they’?”

“The Horsemen.” Roth smiled tightly. “They’ll ride. That’s how you know.”

“Oh.” I almost sat down on the floor. “Okay. I’ll keep an eye out for some dude on a white horse.”

“Actually, what you’ll be keeping an eye out for is the opening of the Seven Seals. War isn’t riding the white horse. He comes with the second Seal. Then Famine with the third. The fourth Seal is the real fun one,” he explained. “That brings out Pestilence and Death. A two-for-one special. Then things really get fun.”