The door opened a crack and the big dark eyes I remembered from that first night peered at me through the gap, his glasses making them even bigger, just like that first meeting. “Oh. They don’t think much of me, do they, that they’d send someone untrained.”

He wasn’t wrong. I shrugged. “Let’s make the best of it. I’ll do a perimeter check, then I’ll check the house and you can tell me what’s going on. Okay?”

He shut the door and I let out a long sigh. “Yeah, this is going to be fun.” I made my way around the house, touching the brick here and there. I even pulled out the handbook on bodyguarding that Eammon had given me, but there wasn’t much in it that wasn’t common sense. The tall, narrow windows were on every side of the house, and there was another door at the back. I ran my hand over it, feeling the wood, and then noticed a ding in the upper panel.

I squinted and peered closer at it. A bullet hole? We hadn’t covered it in training, but I’d seen my fair share of cop shows. I pulled a nail file and tissue from my bag and pried the bullet bits out of the door and wrapped them in the thin paper. Maybe not the best forensics, but it was worth keeping. Maybe Eric wasn’t wrong about people stalking him.

Or whatever he thought was going on.

Hell, maybe he’d put the bullet holes there himself to get people to believe his story.

I walked around the house a couple of times, going farther out with each loop. On the last pass, when I was easily a hundred feet out and searching the ground for I-had-no-idea-what, something caught my eye. Not much of anything, just a piece of metal, but it was partially buried in the ground and not rusted, which in this environment meant it was fresh. I pushed the metal with the toe of one boot and it pulled out of the loose soil.

The first link in a series of chains that pulled farther and farther out.

It looked just like the chains on the demon at Crash’s. Was it possible that its buddies were following me? The chains grew cold as I held them, until they iced over and started sticking to parts of my skin. I dropped them to the ground, and they slithered back under the dirt like a snake.

“Not weird, not weird at all.” I opened my bag and peered in there. I had that clearing powder from Bob-John; maybe this was a good time to use it. It was supposed to clear away negative energy and if those chains were attached to another demon, I’d say that was about as negative as you could get. I opened the rhinestone-encrusted box and began sprinkling the white powder that smelled like sage on the ground.

The marsh grasses fizzled and popped, and the new smell that crawled up my nose had me backing up. Forget that, I was here to do a job, even if Eric wasn’t impressed that I’d been sent. I leaned over and poured the clearing powder on top of where the chains had sunk themselves. A massive metallic shriek cut through the air as the ground rumbled. The white powder sunk into the ground and then the chains spit themselves back out, trembling and shaking. Did I dare take them?

I bent and pulled the silver-handled knife from its sheath on my left side and pressed the tip against the chains. Nothing happened. I reached out and touched the chains, but they didn’t move, so I picked them up and stuffed them into my bag. Which still didn’t add to the weight I had to carry. Three cheers for magic bags that carry everything, and don’t turn into an abyss.

I took a step back, considering just what might be going on here. Eammon didn’t think it was anything, Eric thought he was being stalked, and I’d found evidence that maybe there was something strange out here. Maybe not after him specifically, but still out here. The demon chains were interesting. Especially for me to find them twice in one day. What was that about?

I made my way to the house and knocked on the back door. “Eric, can I come in?”

I heard the sound of bolts sliding and then a heavy thud echoed through the wood before the door creaked open. A hand shot out, grabbed me and dragged me in. Just as quickly, the door was slammed shut and bolted tightly.

The interior of the house was sweltering: the fireplace roared, and flames licked the top of the firebox. Rough hardwood floors, and rougher planed wood on the walls, that was my first impression of the room. We stood in the kitchen, a high farmer’s sink set in the counter on my left, next to a small cooking stove. No microwave. No fridge. Rustic was the only thought that came to my mind. The little light that came in the narrow windows was not enough and he had several candles lit in various places which only added to the heat. Gawd in heaven, I needed to get my questions answered and get out of here before I melted into a puddle.

I pointed at what could only be a handmade table. “We should sit to discuss your situation.”

He shivered and I frowned.

“Are you cold?”

“The heat keeps them away.” Eric kept his voice low. “They don’t like it warm.”

Sweat already slid down my sides and back, dripping down the inside of my pants, which was impressive considering they were leather. I cleared my throat and moved to sit at the table. “Tell me what’s going on here. Then I will have a better idea of what we’re up against.”

“You believe me?” The shock in his voice was heavy. “I mean, they’ve sent out others, but they don’t believe me. They just hang outside and watch the grounds and then leave as soon as they can.” He shook his head.

“You shouldn’t have paid them if you didn’t think they were doing their job,” I pointed out. Like Crash. Maybe they would have taken Eric more seriously if they’d been having to work for it.

Eric pushed his glasses up on his face and touched the top of his head. His auburn hair was wildly messy, and he looked a bit like a mad professor, even more so than the first time I’d met him. “You don’t want the Hollows angry with you. They’re a very powerful group. And I can’t protect myself from these things, so I need them.”

I shrugged, and my clothing stuck to every movement. “Tell me what’s going on, in your own words, then I’ll tell you what I’m seeing out there.”

He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat with a heavy sigh. He was a big guy, like I’d noticed that first night, easily over seven feet tall. Leaning forward, he motioned for me to do the same. As if we were conspirators about to share secrets.

“They want me dead.”

I pulled a notepad and pen from my purse and motioned for him to go on. His hands lay flat on the table as he whispered across to me as if he thought they were listening.

“It started maybe a year ago. I noticed I was being watched. Nothing serious, just someone always there out of the corner of my eye. With my background, that’s not a big deal.” He waved a hand in the air, and I paused him there.

“Wait, what do you mean with your background? Because you’re a half-man?”

Those big eyes blinked at me through his glasses, more like an owl than a werewolf in my estimation. “You . . . they didn’t tell you what I am, did they?”

“You’re not a werewolf like Sarge?”

“A werewolf wouldn’t need protection from someone like you,” he said with a snort.

I put the pen down. “What do you mean, someone like me?” He was not used to women, that much was clear. Maybe he was the perpetual bachelor, because even a man who didn’t know women well wouldn’t have missed the warning in my voice.

Even Himself would have backed down at that point.

Not Eric. He just kept on going, oblivious to the current danger he’d put himself in.

He touched his glasses, adjusting them. “Well, a woman for one thing. And you’re rather long in the tooth. Obviously not fit, given the way you’re sweating, and I can smell the hormones on you, which means you’re coming up on some powerful menopausal symptoms which will work to impair your thought processes based on the articles I read. Not what I’d call cream of the crop when it comes to being a bodyguard. No werewolf would so much as glance at you, let alone think he needed you to protect him.”

That’s what Sarge thought of me too.

And Eammon.

And Corb.

All of them pitied me because I was old to them, old and useless.

The thing was there wasn’t an incorrect statement in any of Eric’s words, and that’s why they hurt. Because just like that, I’d been dismissed, and for reasons I couldn’t really deny. I was older. I was a woman. I was out of shape. I was gliding into early menopause.

Hell, I wasn’t even fully trained for this stupid bodyguarding gig, no matter that I’d had training as a kid.

I sat there, all those words rushing through me, leaving as much of a sting as if he’d physically hit me.

Old. Weak. Woman.

Was this going to be my life from here on out? Was every man, critter, and child going to assume I was incapable based on my age and the fact that I didn’t have a rock-hard body? I slowly stood, knowing I was about to blow my job right out of the water. But did I care in that moment? Not really.

I refused to be labeled. I refused to let the world tell me what I could and couldn’t do based solely on my gender and age.

My eyes narrowed. “Go fuck yourself.”

I turned on my heel, and let myself out, almost booting the door open. Rage pushed me forward like a wounded animal. Eric didn’t follow me as I strode out with all the indignant fury of a woman who was done being cast aside for not being better than she was. For not somehow denying time its ravages on my body and soul.

My lower lip trembled, damn it all, and I almost ran all the way to the water’s edge. Breathing hard, trying not to cry, without a second thought, I threw in the blue stone Feish had given me. I paced there while I waited for her, my ego and heart aching like I’d been slapped repeatedly on the back of my head, even while I raged that I would prove them all wrong.

A soft touch on my elbow turned me around. Eric stood there, his head hanging, tears dripping off his long face. “I’m sorry.”

I glared at him. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Eric.”

He bit his lower lip. “You are the first person to believe I’m in danger, and I was unkind to you.”