“Mr. Butler, Ms. Bell.”

Though she was dressed in the same poncho she’d been wearing when I met her in the faculty parking lot, she now looked frazzled and run-down. Her eyes were bloodshot. She absently scratched her head, then tucked the ends of her unkempt bob behind her ears in exaggerated slow-motion.

“Bet you’ll be glad to get out of here today,” I said, having to speak up to be heard over the din.

“This has been a disaster,” she said in a weary voice. “They called us in at five this morning to tell us what was going on. I’ve been cussed out by angry parents and it’s like a war zone in here.”

“I’m sure they understand it’s not your fault.”

“To be honest, I stopped caring about fifteen minutes ago.”

Yikes. “The girl who went missing last night, Mindy . . . was she your student?”

“No, but I know her and her mother—not well, yet it’s shocking nonetheless.” She sighed heavily. “I think it’s the right decision to close the school. I understand that it’s hard on working parents, but most of the teachers are terrified something will happen on their watch, and no one’s getting any sleep.” She rubbed a temple and sighed. “My mother picked a fine time to get her stomach stapled—I was only supposed to stay with her for a few days while my house was being tented for pest control, but now I’m taking care of her, too.”

“Not roaches, I hope.” I thought of the cannery and shuddered.

“Termites,” she said. “Costs me a small fortune every few years. And on top of all that, no one realizes what we’ve been having to do, sending the kids to the bathroom in pairs, watching their every move—it’s been stressful.”

“It’s hard on everyone,” I agreed. “Do you have kids of your own, or . . . ?”

“No. My husband died years ago. We never had children.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, my dear. I’ve got a wonderful family, friends, and my students. And I have the support of my church. I’m quite blessed.”

Strangely, I could appreciate this, though not in any way she’d understand. When my parents left me and went into hiding after they were charged with murdering the leaders of rival occult orders, the only thing that kept me sane was the regular contact I had with my caliph, who is the head of the E∴E∴ and my godfather. Maybe that’s one reason why, when I moved to Morella a couple of years back, I turned for friendship to Father Carrow, a local retired priest who lives down the street from me and who also introduced me to Lon.

Lon shifted his stance, antsy to leave. He hates crowds. “We’re taking Jupe.”

Ms. Forsythe nodded wearily. “Be my guest. He’s over in the back with Jack.”

As we elbowed our way through the crowded classroom, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other of the seventeen descendants of transmutated Hellfire members were students here. I never thought to ask when I was doing the warding magick yesterday. So many kids in one place at one time. If the Snatcher operated in the daytime, he could take the rest of his victims in one fell swoop right here.

That’s when it hit me. Maybe we’d been going about things all wrong. You couldn’t summon an Æthyric demon who was already on earth, and you couldn’t find a magician who didn’t want to be found. But if I couldn’t track down Merrin, then maybe I could draw the bastard out of hiding—or maybe even Duke Chora himself. . . . If I could get all the remaining transmutation descendants in one place, at one time, would he come?

The annual Morella Halloween Parade was a big earner for the city, with attendance that topped 100,000. It was dark, crowded, and one of the featured floats was sponsored by Dare Energy Solutions, Mark Dare’s company in La Sirena. After a couple of hours of persuading, the senior Dare agreed to populate the float with the transmutation descendants. If that wasn’t bait, I didn’t know what was.

A couple of weeks back, when Jupe and I first made plans to attend the parade, it was just going to be me, him, and Lon, and the world was both Snatcher-free and anti–Halloween protester free. Now the protesters were out en masse, holding up handmade signs and shouting through bullhorns behind police barricades, and Jupe was one seriously unhappy boy, sitting at home with the Holidays, barricaded within the house ward. Both the housekeepers knew how to shoot—Mr. Holiday had been the one to teach Lon, when he was Jupe’s age—and Lon had left them with loaded shotguns . . . just in case. I didn’t feel guilty for refusing to offer up Jupe as bait along with the others. Lon either. Especially when we showed up before the start of the parade and discovered that Mark Dare’s kid was also safe at home.

I wasn’t, however, an unfeeling monster who didn’t care about the other kids. I felt extremely anxious about this whole baiting plan. A little sick to my stomach, even. If anything went wrong, it would be my fault. So I told myself that nothing could go wrong. I wouldn’t let it.

Halloween music pumped from portable speakers, but you could barely hear it over the clamor of the crowd. Every ten or twenty feet, food vendors and drink merchants were set up under tents and doling out smoked sausage, roasted nuts, gallons of beer and daiquiris. Hundreds of costumed revelers sauntered shoulder to shoulder up and down the packed sidewalks.

The Dare float was designed as a waterfall lit up with thousands of sparkling white lights. The float riders were divvying the free throws that they’d be tossing out to the crowd. Candy? Plastic spider rings? Small toys? No: flashing key chains with the corporate logo. “Way to advertise your business instead of promoting Halloween spirit,” I remarked to Lon as we both donned parade badges and took our places at the rear of the float.