I laid them on the grave cloth as prescribed, then put the jar of ashes in the middle.

If Bradford Grady come strolling back here and found me arranging bits of flesh and bone in a symbolic pattern, he'd fall on his knees, thinking he'd finally found concrete evidence of the satanic. Dark magic does exist, but not in the form he imagines. Satanic cults and devil worship belong in the realm of the mentally ill, the attention-deprived and the foolishly desperate. The power of magic lies in the blood. Without that blood, they can't use the power, no matter how many cats they sacrifice.

Now it was time to start the summoning. First I'd test to make sure this wasn't another vampire. I took a container from my bag and removed two locks of hair. I kept them separate to guard against loss. Vampires are the rarest of the races and I only know two.

Like Jeremy and I, Cassandra and Aaron served as delegates on the interracial council, a body of volunteers from each supernatural race who work together on problems that affect us all. When I'd asked Cassandra for a lock of her hair, she'd looked at me as if I was asking her to lop off a body part. Aaron had handed his over willingly, and would always provide more, but I liked having samples from both genders, so I was taking good care of Cass's.

I arranged the hairs. Almost the moment I finished preparing, fingers glided along my arm, as if the spirit had been waiting patiently the whole time.

"Can you hear me?"

The whispering began, distant and off to my left. Something brushed my arm. A finger poked my cheek. At the same time, a third hand lifted a lock of my hair, and the hairs on my neck rose as I realized this meant there was more than one spirit.

I conducted the vampire test. Hands kept touching me, voices whispering, but nothing changed.

"Can you hear me?" I said. "Can give me some sign that you understand?"

The touches stayed gentle, like the voices, as if whoever was on the other side knew I was working hard to make contact. I repeated the ritual using the regular hair and entreated the spirits to speak or otherwise make themselves known. They just continued the whispering and touching. I redid the ritual. Twice. No change.

I dumped my purse, laying out a pen and paper and scattering some other items. I even smoothed a patch of dirt for finger-writing. The vampire ghost, Natasha, had been able to move objects, and had conveyed "charades"-type messages. Maybe that would work.

The touching and whispering had stopped as soon as I'd emptied my purse, as if the spirits were puzzling over the meaning of this new activity.

"Is there some way you can communicate? Write something on the paper or in the dirt?"

I demonstrated by writing my name on the paper, then in the dirt. The whispering and prodding stopped, but as soon I ceased writing, it resumed.

"Move something. Anything. Just show me you can."

Again, they stopped, this time for almost a minute, but nothing in the pile moved. I shifted the items, encouraging and demonstrating. They'd pay attention, then go back to touching me.

Time to call in the big guns.

From my purse, I took out a plain silver ring. It belonged to my spirit contact, Eve Levine. To summon her, I needed an object that had been significant to her in life. The ring had been a gift from her daughter's father, Kristof, and Eve and I had had to work with her teenage daughter, Savannah, to track down and get access to a safety deposit box.

Until three years ago, I'd known Eve only by reputation. A bad reputation, as the kind of witch you didn't want to cross. By the time I met her daughter, Eve was dead, which should normally make a relationship impossible, but in my case is no impediment. When Eve had needed a necro, she came to the one who knew Savannah, and to our mutual shock, we became friends. Now, when I needed ghostly help, I called on her.

But this time she didn't answer. No surprise. For months each year, Eve was gone and couldn't explain where, one of the many mysteries of the afterlife that ghosts were forbidden to discuss with the living. In an emergency, I could use the ring to summon Kristof, and he'd get a message to her, but this wasn't urgent, and I wasn't keen to summon Kristof Nast otherwise.

TROUBLED BY my failure in the garden, I didn't get much sleep. When I finally gave up and got out of bed the next morning, I had a text message from Elena: I didn't want to wake you. Said you bad a party last night. Call when you can.

"Hey," Elena said when I called. "Jeremy's upstairs putting the kids down for a nap."

"I hear you have a couple of sick puppies."

She laughed. "That we do. Oh, and your delivery came this morning. Their first bunnies! Kate's already trying to chew an ear off. Clay's so proud."

"No bunny chewing for Logan?"

"Too crude. He's been examining his carefully. Clay says he's trying to find its weak spots."

A door banged open and Clay's voice rumbled something I couldn't make out.

"Jeremy's on his way down," Elena said. "And in a few hours, he'll be on his way there. The kids are doing much better. Just a cold, like I kept telling everyone."

Clay's voice sounded in the background, more a growl than a rumble.

"Oh, they'll be fine," Elena said.

" Logan 's coughing again." Clay's voice came clear.

"It's not fatal." An exasperated sigh as she came back to me. "Pain in the-"

She gave a squeal that made me jump. The phone clattered to the floor. Elena shrieked a reminder that she was on the phone-or supposed to be. The phone clattered again, as if being recovered.