She sobbed again.

“It’s going to be fine,” Bob assured her in a calm voice. “You aren’t bleeding?”

She said no, but who could tell with all the damned red paint everywhere? Assholes. They ruined my binding traps, stole from us, and hurt Kar Yee.

Then it hit me: this was part of the crime spree Dare had been talking about last night.

Like Merrimoth’s out-of-control temperature knack, the telekinesis and electricity-zapping I’d just witnessed were not normal, but the boys hadn’t been transmutated. No horns. No fiery halos. Just teenage Earthbounds with enhanced preternatural powers. How the hell was this happening?

A distant crash sounded from somewhere beyond the door.

“Stay here with her,” I told Bob. “I’m going after those jackasses.” I pushed myself up, careful not to jostle her.

“Get them,” Kar Yee bit out.

I shuffled past the bar, asking if everyone was okay, recognizing a few voices that called back in response. The light was better here, near the window. Stupid ineffectual wards. All they’d done was scorch the doorframe. I threw open the door and took the steps two at time, a black rage pulsing in my veins. When I got to the top step, my gaze fell to the cement. Silver and copper coins fanned out over the sidewalk like ocean spray over rocks. A few scattered green bills fluttered in the wind, dancing when a car on Diablo Avenue zipped past. The empty till sat broken and dented against the brick wall of our building.

I ran down the sidewalk, scanning both sides of the street, then abruptly turned around and looked behind me. A few Earthbounds ambled out of a late-night diner. A homeless man huddled under a dirty blanket on a bench. But nowhere did I spy a thieving Reindeer or his elfin cohort.

They’d gotten away.

A devastating feeling of loss and disappointment washed over me as angry tears welled in my eyes. Defeated by two scraggly punks, all because I’d used the wrong magical wards and gotten lazy. I should’ve pounced on those kids the second they walked in the bar. After all the shit I’d been through, you think I’d know better than to let my guard down.

I’d failed Tambuku. Failed Kar Yee.

Failed myself.

But while Bob rode with Kar Yee to the emergency room, I pushed away these nagging feelings of incompetence, donned my Responsible Business-Owner cap, and stayed behind to handle everything.

Dealing with police always made me twitchy. Living under an alias did that to a girl. The two officers who responded to the robbery were both savages—humans who didn’t believe in anything supernatural—so I couldn’t exactly tell them that the hoodlums who robbed us were Earthbounds with crazy, amped-up knacks. I did my best to gloss over the paranormal details. They couldn’t understand how the fuse box had been blown—and I do mean blown, as the thing was smoking and the connected wires melted—but a forensic examiner dusted it for fingerprints anyway and bagged up the dented till.

While she did, I made a phone call to an electrician to replace the fuse box and get our lights back on, but the soonest he could make it was tomorrow afternoon.

What a mess. The red paint under the barstools had already dried in spots. The barstool legs were going to have to be stripped, the binding sigils repainted. The floor refinished. Once the cops had taken statements from some of the customers and told me they’d be in touch, I put a sign on the door that said Tambuku would be closed several days for repair. Then I locked up the bar and headed to the Metropark.

Bob called. The ER was slammed. A local overpass had inexplicably collapsed, causing a multi-car pileup that closed down the highway and brought in dozens of critically injured passengers. He talked to an Earthbound doctor who’d told him that the recent slew of petty crimes around the city was becoming a nightmare for the hospital. Patients arrived with fatal burns, unexplainable plague-like diseases, internal bleeding, and more broken bones than the man had ever seen in his career. I was starting to think that Dare was right to be worried about all this. Not that I was going to change my mind about working for him, but Jesus. There was definitely something weird going on.

A nurse examined Kar Yee, gave her ice packs and pain meds, and told her it’d be two hours before she could get an x ray. Bob was taking her back to his place, so I hopped in my old Jetta and sped to meet him there.

Bob lived in his parents’ old house in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Morella. At one time, it was probably a grand, lovely house, but Bob’s inheritance was dwindling, and home-maintenance was not his top priority. I’m sure all his über-successful doctor and lawyer neighbors loved the fact that his gutters were overflowing and his lawn was overgrown, but they were probably all jerks anyway, so I told him he shouldn’t care.

Ever since the night he’d saved Lon’s life, he’d been going to an alcoholic support group twice a week. I tried to tag along with him every other meeting. I couldn’t be his sponsor, as I’d never had a substance abuse problem, but I figured since I was the one who’d served most of his drinks over the last couple of years, I could take the time to help him stop. He still came to Tambuku every night—which was totally against the support group’s rules—but I made him virgin drinks. And, with his permission, I’d been adding a small dosage of a medicinal tonic I’d brewed up with milk thistle and kudzu root, which was purported to cleanse the liver and reduce his cravings for alcohol. He said it helped; he’d been sober for five weeks now.

I knocked on the front door and opened it. “Hey, it’s me.”