“Oh, this and that.”

The trouble with the real-deal psychics and magicians is they didn’t like to talk about what they could do. Like Tina covering it up because she wanted her colleagues to take her seriously.

“What does something like this?”

“I’m starting to get some ideas,” he said.

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime? This thing is getting more violent. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“What do you know about protective magic?”

“You can crush St. John’s Wort pills and scatter them with breadcrumbs to get rid of a fairy,” I said.

After a pause, he said, “I didn’t know that. Interesting.”

Hey, my side gets a point on supernatural Jeopardy. That was a switch.

“But that’s probably not going to be useful here,” Grant said.

Oh well.

“Try this instead.” Grant gave me directions: “Take the dust from a ruin—”

“Ruin? Like old temple, Roman aqueduct? How am I going to get—”

“You live in a city—what’s been knocked down recently? An abandoned shed going to weed will work just as well. Mix it with blood—”

“How much blood? Human blood? I’m trying not to kill people here—”

“Cow, sheep, pig, chicken. Special order it from a butcher shop. Not human.”

Grant was being very patient with me. “Oh. That makes sense.”

“Mix the dust and blood, then sprinkle the mixture around whatever you need protected. Probably the homes of everyone who’s involved. Any other structures. You can even carry a jar of it with you, to use in a pinch.”

Kind of gross. But I wasn’t going to question it. “What kind of spell is that?”

“I adapted it from an old Egyptian potion. Ideally, it’ll form a protective barrier.”

“And it works?”

“In at least one case it did, yes.”

Now, there was a story I needed to get. But later, when this was over and we were all still alive.

“Thanks. We’ll give it a try.”

“This still won’t stop it,” he said. “This isn’t an ideal solution. I’ll try to come up with something better.”

“I appreciate the help.”

“I took it upon myself to keep that group from causing trouble. Much of this is my responsibility.”

Grant was usually calm, emotionless, a good guy to have at your back. But he was sounding downright frustrated.

“There’s only one of you and like a dozen of them. Just think how much damage they’d be doing if you weren’t there.”

“It’s kind of you to say so.”

I tried to sound cheerful. “Let me know when you come up with anything else. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Until then.”

We clicked off and I felt better, because now I had something I could do. I started thinking about taking a shower.

By this time Ben had gotten up and was making phone calls of his own, in bed, a pen and notepad beside him.

I said, “Grant has this protection spell I want to try, but I have to get ingredients. Do you want to come?”

He glanced up. “Do you need me to?”

“No, I guess not.” We were married, after all. Not attached at the hip.

“I still have to call the insurance company and try to figure out what we’re going to do about New Moon. I called the fire department a little while ago. They’re going to inspect the building for structural and gas-line damage, but if it checks out we should be able to make repairs and open back up in a couple of weeks.”

Which was good news. We were still in the game.

“Call me if anything happens,” I said.

“You too. Be careful.”

Which, when Ben said it, also sounded like “I love you.”

Chapter 8

It turned out you really could go to the butcher shop and get blood. It wasn’t easy—I had to call all over town to find one that could special order it from their slaughterhouse. But I found one that was willing—and they were certainly willing to charge me for it. I also got a couple of steaks to go along with the blood. Any excuse.

For the ruin, I went to where a set of 1920s townhouses was being—tragically, in my opinion—torn down to make way for high-priced lofts. I had always wondered what made a place a loft rather than an apartment or condo. I figured it had to be the outrageous price. Around back, the crews weren’t watching, so I was able to get to the roofless, half-knocked-in building and scoop up a bucketful of dirt and debris.

When I mixed the two ingredients, I ended up with a dark, sticky, smelly paste. Plaster of Paris from hell. The stuff reeked. I separated it out into a dozen mason jars, hoping it would be enough. I hadn’t realized how much I had to protect.

The first place I anointed was New Moon. The building was still intact, after all, even though the doors had yellow tape sealing them off and a sign from the fire department declaring that the building was awaiting inspection. I stared at the facade a long time. From the outside, no damage was visible. Lycanthropic vision was pretty good for seeing in the dark, so I peered through the window of the front door, searching the shadows. Tables and chairs were scattered. Puddles spotted the floor. Scorch marks streaked from the kitchen. I could smell soot, sulfur, brimstone. The Ouija board still lay there, abandoned.

I didn’t want to think about it any more than that.

I walked around the building clockwise, because for some reason these things were always done clockwise, using a spoon to dribble out spots of Egyptian blood potion. If this didn’t work, I’d look really silly. And if it did, how would I know? What if the thing didn’t attack us here again? Would the potion have protected us, or would it be a coincidence? I could begin to see how superstitions like this got started. If you got a hot date the one day you happened to be carrying a rabbit’s foot—well, why not?

But at least I was doing something.

Ben pulled up in his car just as I was finishing the bloody circle. He wore his “threw it on as I was leaving the house” look: rumpled trousers, rumpled shirt, brown jacket, hair brushed back from his face, obviously with his fingers. He smelled clean and showered.

“Hey!” I grinned at him as he came to meet me.

“Hey—oh, my God, what is that? Did you put that around the whole building?” His nose wrinkled, and he glared with disgust at the jar of bloody goo.