Suzy looked up at the sky. “Luke was even more fearful than usual. But that could just be him.”

She wasn’t wrong, so I let it go, at least with my outside voice. My inside voice was yammering on at me that I had all the pieces to this puzzle, I just had to fit them together.

We stood there on the top side of River Street, just before we turned into Death Row, and I couldn’t help but look down at the water, toward the tunnel where Sean O’Sean had attacked us. Where I’d killed him. The weird angle of his neck, the way his tongue had been sticking out partway between his sharp teeth, the blood. Smell of marijuana and sea water. Saliva rushed into my mouth, not because I was hungry either, though I should have been after skipping breakfast this morning and dinner the night before. Another blow of the ocean wind in our faces brought another waft of ocean and a cascade of images I couldn’t dispel.

Oh, I was in trouble.

My stomach clenched suddenly and I swallowed hard to keep the bile down. Nope, that wasn’t working.

I turned to the side, up against a building, and heaved until my stomach hurt and I wasn’t sure I could stand up. Hands on either side of me helped me stand up, and one of the girls pushed a water flask into my hand. I took a swig, rinsed my mouth and spat. Tried not to notice the tourists staring at me. “Thanks.”

“Are you pregnant?” Feish asked.

At another time, I would have laughed. “No, a bad reaction to something,” I said. The shaking took me next, and I had to breathe through it, hard as it was.

“Let’s go shop, that will help.” Suzy tugged me along, and I barely kept up with her as my body tried to shut down and memories of the night before climbed through my mind like monkeys on meth. Feish gave me a look that said it all. She didn’t think shopping would help any more than I did.

But we let Suzy barrel us along, into the candy shop—the sweet smells of the sugar making my stomach roll even more—and from there to the hidden door that led to Death Row. There were multiple entrances into the place that was basically a bazaar for vendors of the shadow world. I’d met a number of them a few weeks ago, when I’d first started at the Hollows Group.

But my mind was still focused on the images it had conjured of Sean O’Sean’s death. A cold sweat broke out all over my body, and I struggled to breathe normally.

I saw Geraldine—Gerry to her friends—right away, and made a beeline for her as if she were an anchor in a rough harbor. She looked over me and then gave a nod. “Breena.” She squinted. “Are you ill?”

I swallowed hard. “Bad breakfast. Trying to run right through me.” I blinked back a sudden image of O’Sean’s protruding tongue. I squatted where I was and Gerry pushed a bucket toward me as I heaved up nothing. Dry heaves are about as pitiful as they sound. Nothing to show for all that effort but a hell of a lot more sweat.

I sat there on my heels, breathing through the worst of it. A cup was pressed into my hand. “Rinse your mouth out,” Gerry said. “Then take a small swig.”

I did as she said, the sharp tang of fermented berries warming up my mouth, pushing back the heaves. A quick swig as I stood cleansed the rest of my palate. “Thanks.”

“Some days are rougher than others.” She looked me over. “Other than the pukes, you look good, toning up well. And the clothing? How is it holding up?”

She’d made my leather pants and boots, which I’d done pretty much all of my training in, plus a short cropped coat that I hadn’t worn as much yet given the warm weather. “Good, very good.” I pointed at the hole in my pant leg. “Shot, but otherwise holding together.”

“I can fix that.” She bent with a needle and thread and began to stitch the hole closed. “What are you here for other than the stitch job?”

It struck me as funny that she didn’t so much as blink when I said I’d been shot. This was my world now.

“Retail therapy,” I said with a smile that I knew was tired. I could feel it around the edges of my mouth, just waiting to sag.

I leaned against her table and turned to watch Suzy work her way through the vendors, flirting shamelessly. Apparently she was back to her usual self. That was good. I, on the other hand, felt like I’d been pulled through a knothole backward and with great vigor.

Feish was even getting in on the act, following Suzy and mimicking her flirting to some strange amount of success if her handful of dried flowers was any indication. I shook my head. “I’ve never been able to flirt to get my way. I’m terrible at it.”

Gerry snorted. “Too strong? Or too blunt?”

I grimaced, doing my best to put my freakout behind me for a few minutes. “Probably both.”

Bob-John, vendor of clearing powders, sat at the table to Gerry’s right. I gave him a smile. “That clearing powder worked like a hot damn.” I almost said I’d used it to drive a demon out of a bigfoot’s property, but I wasn’t sure I could say it with a straight face even though I’d lived it. Or that anyone would believe me.

Bob-John squinted at me. “I got something new for you then. Since you are the first to appreciate a good powder in a long time.”

“Oh, I still have one clearing powder,” I said. “I bought two, remember?”

Bob-John ignored me and slid over a red box encrusted with rhinestones. “This is better. Makes you invisible.”

Gerry burst out laughing. “You are so full of shit, BJ.”

I found myself sliding a twenty across to him while Gerry laughed. Not out of pity. But because his clearing powder really had been a lifesaver. And being invisible could be a pretty good thing with the whole fairy ring deal. Although riding my dead steed had that effect, my butt would be in a world of hurt if I tried to stay on it all night. “Thanks.”

He took the twenty and tucked it away. I didn’t for one second think that twenty bucks would cover an invisibility spell, but whatever. Maybe it would come in handy, who knew?

Gerry leaned in close. “Be careful. There were men in here looking for you earlier today. Asking if anyone knew a strawberry blonde who worked for the Hollows.”

A chill swept through me. It had to be Douche Canoe and his cronies. I swallowed hard. “Thanks for the warning. But I don’t work at the Hollows any longer.”

“They are bad men, Breena. Not working at the Hollows is not good. You don’t have protection now.” Her eyes were deadly serious. I nodded.

“I am being careful.”

She pulled back and her face smoothed as she shifted the conversation to a discussion of the merits of knives over guns, amongst other topics. Her warning lay heavily on my shoulders, though, and my tension rose with each minute that passed.

An hour slid by while Gerry and I chatted, me with only half an ear on the conversation. There weren’t a ton of other customers so I didn’t feel bad about monopolizing her time.

Feish strolled back first. “I have tea, much better than before. And more herbs.” She held up her handful of what I’d thought were dried flowers.

Suzy came back with nothing but an appetite. “I’m hungry, let’s get food.”

Once more they led the way, this time going for the stairs that led up to Annie the tarot card reader’s shop. A hand on my arm stopped me. Gerry tugged me close. “You need to go. Now.”

She tipped her head and her eyes narrowed, focusing on something at the far end of Death Row, and I knew our situation had just gotten a whole lot worse. I did a quick glance to see three robed figures headed our way, and one of them was pointing at me.

“Oh dear.”

I jerked away from Gerry and ran for the exit. Stairs, it had to be stairs. Feish and Suzy were taking their time. “Time to run, girls!” I yelped as I all but pushed them up ahead of me.

“Why, what’s happening?” Feish tried to turn around.

“Bad men, Feish, very bad men!” I yelled as footsteps sounded below us and a blast of magic rippled by, just missing us, smelling distinctly of lavender. Strike that, just missing two of us. Suzy let out a yelp and froze in place, her eyes closing as she started to slump. I kept her from falling, but I wasn’t strong enough to pick her up.

“Let her go!” Feish grabbed at me.

“They’ll hurt her!” I made another attempt that worked no better than the last. Feish muttered something and then grabbed Suzy and pulled her over her back.

“Holy Jaysus!” I breathed out as Feish packed Suzy up the last of the stairs as if she didn’t weigh a thing. I stumbled after her at the top, spun and slammed the door behind us. Next to the door was a large bar, which I set in place. Annie raced into the backroom, and I smiled at her. “Rodents. Very large rodents.”

The door rattled behind us and I pointed at Suzy. “You got anything to wake her up?”

Annie frowned at me. “I am not a spell caster.”

Damn it. I opened my bag while the door rattled behind us with a boom that made everyone but Suzy jump. Digging around in the leather bag, I pulled out my remaining container of clearing powder from Bob-John.

“Can’t hurt,” I muttered as I opened the gaudy, bedazzled container and poured the powder over Suzy’s head. The effect was immediate.

She screeched and slapped at her head as if the powder hurt, but at least she was moving. I grabbed her hand and started running. “Feish, let’s go!”

“This way!” the river maid yelped back as we burst out of the tarot card reader’s shop. Feish pointed to the left, which would take us up to Factors Row. Not my favorite place for a lot of reasons.

“You think Jinx will help us?” Jinx being the big-ass guardian spider/trickster that haunted the area and had a thing for classic books.

“No, but there is somewhere we can hide!” Feish already had some serious distance on me and Suzy as I dragged my young friend behind me. I could barely see for the sweat running down my face, and the nausea had picked a bad time to make itself known. My guts were empty, churning, and my energy was nearly spent.