I pitched my voice low as I spoke to my grandmother, just in case Monica wasn’t fully out. “Gran, I didn’t know you could come out here. I thought you had to stay inside.”

She didn’t seem terribly troubled by the sight of me hovering in the air, but then again, she was dead. She was the resident ghost mentioned by Monica the realtor.

Gran spread her hands wide and brushed her fingers over the top of a plant I think was some sort of mint. It went right through her fingers, of course, but I did note that the leaves seemed to green up under her touch. Interesting. “The garden was my home as much as my house, and all those people were out here touching my things. I didn’t like it, Breena. I truly didn’t. When they came inside, I considered tipping the mirror on them, but that mirror has been in the family for too long to waste it on a few peasants tromping through my house.” Her voice gained a measure of irritation, which told me she was truly angry.

A Southern belle in her own time, Gran didn’t think it was passing pretty to show your anger. My lips twitched as I waited for the line . . .

“Bless their hearts, they have no idea what they are messing with, do they?”

Translation: What a bunch of idiots, I can’t help it if they’re so stupid they’re going to hurt themselves.

I sighed. “I’m trying to get the house, Gran, I am. I came with money. And now I’ve scared a bunch of them off.” Kinkly bobbed beside me. Could she see Gran? Not everyone could.

“Hey, I helped,” Kinkly said.

Gran’s eyes shot to her, but she shrugged off her presence and waved a hand at me. “Honey girl, don’t fret. Things will work out. None of those yahoos will have my house, I’m sure of it.”

If I hadn’t gotten rid of all the people, she’d have been dead wrong—no pun intended. The only reason I had any money for the down payment was because Eric had rewarded me generously for saving his life. The other members of the Hollows Group had written him off as a paranoid kook, so they’d given me, a trainee, the task of protecting him. Too bad someone had been stalking him—a bunch of nut jobs who’d wanted to use him as a sacrifice for a bit of black magic.

Grave magic, as it were.

Although I’d prevented the black magic folks from hurting Eric, they’d held a different ceremony at a second location. My boss still hadn’t told me what had happened with that, probably because the members of the Hollows Group weren’t really the sharing type.

Not that I should talk.

I swallowed hard and shot a glance at my gran. I hadn’t told her yet that one of her best friends, Hattie, had been at the center of the plot to kill Eric and use his blood in a grave magic ceremony. We knew Hattie had intended to open some sort of gateway to call through a major demon, but why? What could she have possibly wanted? I didn’t know, and that in itself was concerning. But there was no way to question her now—she’d been killed to stop the ceremony, by yours truly. I’m not sure I’d fully processed that yet either. You don’t kill someone and feel nothing unless you are a true-blue psycho, and despite what Himself would say of me, I didn’t think that term fit me.

“What’s got you fussed?” Gran looked up at me, her wizened faced wrinkling up even further. She really was like a female Yoda, other than the ears and the green skin. Even her diminutive height added to the Yoda impression as she blinked up at me.

“Worried about the auction,” I said, which was both true and not true. “I have enough for a down payment if the price doesn’t go too high, but I might not be able to get a mortgage because of what Alan did to my credit. I’m banking on them not being able to check right away.”

A quick glance around proved no one else had shown up for the auction, but that didn’t solve my problem of dangling in the air. It would only take one or two tourists to notice my predicament, and I’d have a whole new slew of issues. I shook my foot and Monica’s hand slid off, but she still floated just below me. “Kinkly, can you get us down?”

“I’m going to try,” she said as she tapped my head again. Try.

“I’m not going to talk to your lady if you can’t get me down,” I said.

She let out a squeak and the tapping on my skull increased in intensity, but I didn’t lower to the ground. I tried not to think about being stuck in the air for the rest of . . . well, for however long.

I wrapped my hand around the strap of my bag, reassuring myself that I still had the money. That was something, even if Monica and I had to make our transaction mid-air. The leather was soft and supple under my palm, and better yet, the bag held more than it should and actually lessened the weight of its contents. It currently contained my gran’s thousand-page leather-bound book, a change of clothes made completely of leather, a stack of money, and the two knives that I normally kept strapped to my thighs, yet the whole package felt like it weighed less than a pound. Pretty nifty. The bag every girl dreams of, if you ask me.

Of course, that stash of cash had been winnowed down quite a bit. Eric had paid me fifty thousand dollars for saving his life. Sounds like a lot until you take the PayPal fees and taxes off. Kidding, he’d paid me in cash. I’d nearly peed myself when he’d handed it over. Shock doesn’t even begin to describe the emotions that had coursed through me with the weight of the money.

But the Hollows Group had taken fifty percent, part of our agreement, and I’d also had to pay Crash.

Just thinking of Crash had me smelling his cologne. The blacksmith was a master at making weapons, and I’d taken a pair of knives from him with the caveat that I would give him ten percent of my first bounty.

I’d tried to give the knives back.

He’d refused.

I’d been forced to hand over the money. Not that another five thousand would have made much of a difference. I’d be able to go to two hundred thousand, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

The smell of Crash’s cologne grew stronger as a huge hand wrapped around my unencumbered ankle. The magic Kinkly had poured over me was burned off in a flash of heat. Monica hit the ground in a crumple, and I would have been right there beside her if someone hadn’t caught me.

Fire and flame, that’s what Crash was made of, and his heat surrounded me in a toe-curling way. I somehow managed to keep my legs under me as he set me on the ground. My gran was looking past me, her eyes flashing with recognition. “Did you know him?” I asked, not caring that he could hear me.

She nodded and a smile whispered across her lips. “I remember him, but not what he is. That one is dangerous, though. Especially to you.” Her eyes narrowed and then she was gone, having completely disappeared. I sighed. Kinkly, who’d managed to stay on my shoulder, scrambled around to peer back at Crash. She gave a squeak and flew away from my shoulder, out into the garden.

Monica groaned and wobbled to her feet. “Oh, the heat just takes the stuffing out of you, doesn’t it?” Crash agreed, put a hand under her arm and helped her up to the porch, where she sat on a step. Yes, I did notice how his pants tightened as he bent over. Yes, I did look.

Heat flared through me again, and I tried desperately to school myself as he turned around and walked back my way, placing himself right behind me, where he’d been before. Damn him in all his chivalry and hotness.

“What are you doing here, Crash?” I didn’t turn around and I didn’t run away like Kinkly, although part of me thought I probably should. The man behind me was all kinds of stunning, from his rock-hard abs and bulging arm muscles to the lovely dark, silver-kissed hair tucked behind his ears and those blue eyes flecked impossibly with gold. All of that made me cross my legs and want to have a long, hot shower by myself. Trust me, I wasn’t kidding about my libido having gone bananas.

Crash did not help that particular side of me, so it was best if I didn’t even look at him.

“There’s a house auction today, I hear,” he said, his voice rumbling over my skin as if he were touching me. “And I’m here to bid on it.”

I spun and glared at him, my resolution to keep him out of sight having given way to a blitz of anger that had burned away most of my raging libido. “Don’t you dare! I just got rid of all the other bidders!” I was purposely not thanking him for getting me down from floating across the yard.

His eyebrows shot up in what could only be mock innocence. “Why wouldn’t I bid? It’s a beautiful house with great curb appeal, and as an investment, I don’t think I could go wrong.”

My eyebrows lowered in perfect contrast to his going up. To spite me. That’s why he was here. We’d not parted on great terms, what with me trying to return the knives and him accusing me of reneging on a deal. All I’d wanted was to cut ties with him.

You see, he’d forged the demon-steel knife that had nearly been used to kill Eric. Worse, he’d given it back to Hattie after I’d stolen it from him. It had been a matter of sheer luck—with a sprinkle of good timing—that I’d managed to keep Eric safe.

I glared at him, anger stealing my voice. The best I could do was turn my back on him with a big huff and hope that he didn’t want the house too badly. Though if what he was saying was only a little true, he wanted it badly enough.

Of course, that was when things went from bad to worse.

You see, my gran had had two besties. The one I’d liked, Hattie, had turned out to be a grave-magic-dabbling psycho. The other, Missy, I’d never liked. She’d always been cruel to me, and to others. I’d seen her do things behind Gran’s back that would curl your hair, but she was careful not to leave marks.

Gran had never believed me. It was the one thing that hung between us. I’d never understood why she’d stood up for Missy.

But if the nice friend had been a nut, what did that suggest about Missy?

I needed to figure out fast, because she was strolling up the street, using her wicked cane to support herself. She paused at the small gate, as if to create a maximum amount of suspense. I didn’t want to let her escape my vision, which meant I had to look around Crash in order to see her. A wave of cool air washed forward as she finally stepped onto the garden path, a wind that was impossible in the Georgia heat. I couldn’t help it. I reached out and grabbed Crash’s forearm.