“Darvin,” he said. “And yours?”

“Ms. Noneofyourdamnbusiness,” I said. “And don’t think for a second that I believe your name is Darvin. That’s a made-up name from a man who thinks he’s dealing with an idiot.” The more I looked around, the more my blood boiled. Because not only was Feish not here, it looked like she’d been taken by force.

How did I know?

Because Gran had trained me for this, or at least, she’d hired someone to train me. Officer Jonathan’s training was distant, but the more I was in this world, the more it came back to me, bit by bit. She’d been dragged out by her heels with the way the marks were on the ground and the scales that had been pulled off her skin.

“Then we are at an impasse,” he crooned. “I am here for Crash, as you call him. And any who would conspire with him. Demons are not my issue.”

“Not worried about the bigfoot at all, are you? A rare and endangered species that someone is trying to kill?” I did a slow turn and faced him, satisfied that I would not find anything else here.

“Again, that is not my area,” he said. “Another of the council will be in charge of—”

“That’s stupid,” I said. I waved the tip of my knife at him. “Stupid not to know what the other arms of the council are doing, or at least be aware of it. How the hell can you keep track of everything? It’s no wonder you lost a criminal!”

His silence said it all. They didn’t keep track of everything—they didn’t talk. Power structures were a real pig whatever world you lived in, especially if some of those people were trying to climb to the top of the heap. I sighed. “I don’t have time for this. My friend is hurt, I’m trying to save a bigfoot—crazy as that may seem—and you are in my way.”

I deliberately strode past him, to show I wasn’t afraid. And I wasn’t. Which was a nice change from all the screeching and jumping away from things that went bump in the night.

He was the one to step back. “You have one of his knives. How could you possibly afford it?”

“I made a deal,” I said.

“I’m sure you did,” he murmured. “I suppose flat on your back is one way to make a deal.”

My feet froze, and before I thought better of it, I spun and drove the point of the knife to the edge of the hood of his cloak, right where his throat would be, could I have seen it.

“You had better learn to show some respect, boy. I am not like the others.” I said those words and they flowed off my tongue like water. Like I meant it, even if I didn’t understand exactly what I was saying. How the hell was I not like the others?

Talk about bluffing my way out of something.

“Understood,” he said quietly, and the condescension was gone. “Clearly understood.”

I stepped back and strode away from him, pushing my way out of the door as I jammed my knives into their sheaths. The wood panel banged behind me, a loud boom that broke the still air on the other side. Irritation, fear, and confusion fought for dominance inside of me and I was shaking hard. “Jinx, let’s find us a bigfoot.”

She snuffled and opened her eyes, rolled to her feet and started walking. “Who were you talking to in there?”

“A council member,” I said.

Her rounded ears flicked back to me. “Really? Which one? They’re all kind of dicks.”

I dropped a hand to the thick fur on her back and she tensed. I sighed. “You are right about that. But I’m starting to think anything with a dick, can be a dick.”

She relaxed and we started out again on foot. I didn’t take my hand off her back. “You okay with me touching you?”

“Yes.” She rolled her shoulders, which caused a ripple down her spine. “I actually don’t mind you much. You scream a lot and that makes me laugh.”

My lips twitched. “Glad to be so amusing to you.”

We only got a few looks as we made our way through town. “Do they see you?” I asked after a group of tourists with cameras walked by us with barely a glance.

“They see what they want to see. Probably a dog. Maybe a pony.”

At that I laughed. “A pony would make them stop and want a ride.” A small child glanced our way, her big blue eyes going exceptionally wide. Not unlike the little boy who had seen Feish pulling me back toward the metal shop after Jinx had stuck me with her hairy legs. Some of the children saw just fine, apparently.

I gave her a wave, and she gave me a tentative wave back.

Jinx didn’t move as fast as I would have liked. The sun was shifting, sliding downward by the time we reached the edge of town. “How far?” I asked.

“Out toward the shadow graves,” Jinx said.

That did not ring a bell. “Where?”

“You know it as Bonaventure Cemetery.” Jinx yawned. “I’m tired. Give me the book. The path goes all the way to the shadow graves, I am sure of it.”

I slid the book out of my purse and handed it to her. Or put it in her mouth. She shook her head, crunched down on the book and swallowed it whole. A lick of her chops and she turned her back on me. “I hope it didn’t cost you too much.”

The smugness in her voice made me smile. “A thousand dollars.”

“Excellent. Tasted like at least that much.” Her body shimmered and then she was a small house cat bounding away from me, back toward Factors Row.

Bonaventure wasn’t too far, about a twenty-minute drive, three times that or more for a bike ride.

The sun was going down. I didn’t have a lot of extra time, but I needed my grandmother and her knowledge, and her house was mostly on the way. So, I headed there first. In four days, it would be on the open market. Someone would get it in an auction. Himself would get a handsome payday. Gran would be stuck with people she didn’t know. And probably wouldn’t like. Maybe when I died, I would haunt the place with her.

I hopped onto my bike, took a couple of pedals and realized that my luck had taken another turn for the worse. Both tires were flat. I got off the bike with a few muttered curses. Dropping the bike where I was, I broke into a limping, foot-aching jog that took me to Gran’s house in more time than the bike would have, and produced plenty of sweat. Feeling like I was too old for this was a constant refrain I kept pushing back. Positive thinking, that was what I needed. I was not old; I was midlife at best.

Forty was the new twenty or something like that, right?

I let myself in the back door—seeing as it was broken anyway, no point in using the front door. “Gran?”

She hurried (if floating quickly just above the ground could be considered hurrying) toward me, moving through the barren kitchen. “Did you find him?”

“I think so.” I leaned against the closed door. I dug into my bag and pulled out the Advil, downing three of them. I needed all the help I could get at this point. “Gran, what the hell am I doing? I know that you taught me a lot of this, to help you, to protect you and the secrets of the shadow world. But that was a long time ago!” I rubbed both sides of my head. “And . . . I . . .” I didn’t know how to tell her the worst of it.

She drew closer to me, her eyes as real and solid as if she were still alive. “What is it?”

Even now, with her dead, I didn’t want to stress her out. I sighed and slid down the door. “I’m old, Gran! I know you don’t see it that way because here you are dead as a doornail but still floating around!” I waved an impatient hand at her. “How the hell can I do this? How can I save Eric and Feish when I hurt everywhere. I’m exhausted. I don’t remember all the stuff you taught me . . . and I don’t know who to trust! I can’t do this! I need to do this, and I just don’t know if I can!” I was yelling by that last bit, and all the energy slid out of me. “I’m sorry.”

She crouched, settling herself as a ghost would, halfway into the wooden floorboards. “You aren’t old. That’s the world talking to you, telling you that you have no value because of your age. Darling girl, stop trying to be young and stupid. Own yourself, my girl. Own your wisdom and the things you’ve learned that brought you here, back to me. Back to where you’ve always belonged. Those twenty-somethings . . . they don’t know the power of a woman who owns every part of herself. The good, the bad, the ugly.

“Take it from someone who made it to a hundred and two. A woman of age has far more power and strength than anyone else. Far more than anyone will give you credit for, and that makes you dangerous. Because no matter how amazing you are, they will always underestimate you.”

Gran brushed a ghostly hand across my face, and a chill whispered across the tracks of my tears. Her words strummed chords of truth up and down my spine, reminding me who I was, all I’d survived.

I drew a breath and brushed my own hands over the now semi-frozen tears, knocking them from my skin. I pulled her red leather-bound book out of my bag. “Do we have time to find what we’re looking for in here?”

She smiled and nodded, her face crinkling up. “I think we do.”

The next half hour, I scoured the book, turning the pages as she scanned them, looking for the notes she knew to find better than me.

“Here,” she pointed at the page and I brushed my fingers over it, the “recipe” scribbled into the top corner in tiny print. “This is what I think they are trying to do, to open a doorway.” The spell wasn’t particularly complicated, but did require the death of a ghost with the knife made from demon steel. Two items that were so particular, there really couldn’t be anything else.

A doorway? “To what?”

“If you already have demons, then they are looking for more power, a bigger demon, I think,” Gran said softly. “That’s all I can think. Now that you know what they are doing, it will help you stop them. Take any one of the items out of play, and you will stop them.”

“Thanks, Gran.” I paused and stuffed the book back into my bag. “I still don’t know who to trust.”