Hex Appeal

HOLLY’S BALM by RACHEL CAINE

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Andy and Holly also appear in a short story entitled “Death Warmed Over” in the anthology Strange Brew (2010).

You have to have a strong stomach if you’re a witch—especially one who deals in potions, because potions in general are not made out of, say, sweet herbs and baby’s breath. But still, as I opened my front door and stepped in, and dropped my bag on the chair, the smell hit me like an iron skillet to the face.

I gagged, covered my mouth and nose, and fought down an overpowering impulse to turn around and leave.

But that wouldn’t do because it was my house, and besides, there was no way I was going to let on how bad that stench actually had hit me. I was a professional, dammit.

Although it was, in fact, really bad. I blinked, wiped tears away from my eyes, locked the door behind me, and took several self-abusing deep breaths before my gag reflex subsided and my body adjusted to the new, foully odorous reality. It was all the worse because I had a great house. It should have smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, maybe, not like rotting corpses and cancer, with a high note of ancient, sweaty armpits.

“Honey?” I tried to sound concerned, but positive, which was somewhat spoiled by my holding my nose. “Um … what died?” I followed the smell into the big open kitchen, where Andrew Toland, dressed in my best apron, the one with red lace trim, was stirring a gigantic pot on top of the stove. Andy has a wicked sharp smile that was balanced by warm, disarming brown eyes; it’s a face that’s young in years but has lines of character that speak of the hard times and experiences. Shaggy brown hair that I couldn’t convince him to trim into a more modern style.

“That had better not be our dinner,” I said. “Or you are a dead man.”

He smiled even wider. “That seem at all redundant to you, Holly Anne?”

He was right, it was redundant, because Andy Toland was, fact, already dead. He’d died back in the Old West days, fighting the world’s worst zombie war; he’d rested in peace for a long time after that, before a resurrection witch—me, in fact—brought him back to help find a ruthless killer, one with the same powers of life and death that I had. I was moderately powerful, I supposed, but Andy was, and always had been, in a class by himself.

Which was why he was standing here in my kitchen, brewing up some foul concoction, instead of resting in peace in his grave. He was powerful, and he was determined, and he was in love. With me. God help me, I was crazy in love with him, too. Somehow, that was a stronger magic than any potion I’d ever brewed because it kept him alive in defiance of all the laws of resurrection magic. The supernatural rules said that someone brought back would get weaker exponentially the longer they stayed—that they’d be overtaken by pain and dragged back into the dark no matter how much a resurrection witch struggled to keep them alive. I’d never been able to sustain anyone I’d resurrected for longer than a couple of days.

Andy had been alive now for almost three months, and although he regularly brewed himself up a maintenance potion, he wasn’t declining. Not at all. He’d never shown a moment of pain, weakness, or distraction.

It was a nine days’ wonder in the magical world. I was surprised we weren’t besieged by researchers, but Andy’s reaction to the first few who’s buttonholed us had been swift and decisive enough to drive them off—or, more accurately, to send them circling like vultures. They could afford to wait. He wasn’t going anywhere. That was kind of the whole point.

“Hi, pretty lady,” he said, and kissed me lightly on the nose I was still holding closed. “How was your day?”

“Miserable, but what else is new? It’s the same office job as yesterday, only fifty percent more boring now that everyone avoids me.” I’d always tried to keep my day job separate from what I did in my off-hours—translation, witchcraft—but now that the word was out, I was treated like a pariah. Not that it was much of a change, actually.

“That’d be their loss, Holly Anne. Never met anybody less worth avoiding than you.”

I couldn’t help it. I let go of my nose and kissed him back, on the lips. “You know I have to ask,” I said. “What the hell is that stench?” When I looked down into the stockpot, I saw a thick red potion threaded with veins of silver. He was stirring with a long-handled silver spoon, so it had a ritual component as well as the basic magical chemistry. Close-up, the smell was so thick, it was like dense London fog. Even though I held my breath, I could taste it heavy in my mouth.

“Damn, I was hoping it’d be done before you got here,” he said, and checked his watch—not a wristwatch, an old-fashioned pocket watch, on a chain, although he’d finally stopped wearing a vest around the house and stuck the timepiece in his jeans pocket instead. “Sorry. I promise, it gets better.”

“It couldn’t get any worse,” I said miserably. It came out muffled and indistinct because I had both hands clapped over my nose and mouth. My eyes were watering. I honestly couldn’t understand how he could stand so close to that awful stench and not collapse. Maybe it was a sturdiness one acquired after death, but my knees were getting weak already. “I’ll never get the smell out of here! Andy, sweetheart, this is where I cook food!”

“I know. Trust me?” He gave me the look I could never resist—puppy dog eyes and an endearingly vulnerable smile. “Here, how about we let this cook a while? I want to welcome you home proper.”

“Can you leave it?”

“Well—for a bit, anyway.”

I didn’t wait for a second invitation to run away, and escaped out into the relatively clear air of the living room, where I gulped down breaths and wiped tears from my cheeks. Andy followed me at a more dignified pace. He overlooked my quiet gagging and let me get my bearings before he hugged me, then kissed me, and oh, that was nice. It almost made up for what he’d done to the house.

That might have gone to sweetly intimate places, in fact, except that, just then, my cell phone rang.

We both froze because my number was strictly private—only a few people had it, and one of them was my call screener, who qualified jobs for me. Her name was Melaine, and she was a brisk, funny, no-nonsense woman who seemed to regard taking messages for doctors and for witches as being pretty much the same thing. That was a rarity in Texas–even in Austin, which prided itself on diversity and tolerance for the most part. Witches were never going to be welcome in most Bible Belt towns, what with the scriptural death sentence and all.

I flipped open the cell, and said, “Melaine?”

“Hey, Miss Caldwell,” her bright, calm voice said on the other end. “I got an urgent call for you from a Detective … Prieto? He says you know him.”

I knew Detective Prieto, all right. A chill settled over me and quickly deepened to artic levels. “Go on,” I said. Next to me, Andy watched, waiting and still.

“Here’s his number—” She read it off slowly, making sure I had it before moving on. “He says that he needs you to look at a crime scene, right away. He gave me the address.”

I scribbled down the information on a sheet of paper. “Did he say anything else?”

“Not really.” Melaine paused for a moment, then said, “He sounded a little weird, actually.”

My pencil stopped midnote. “Weird, how?”

“Shaky. And I’m married to a cop. I’ve never heard a police officer sound like that. He seemed—spooked.”

That didn’t make my bad feeling go away. In fact, it intensified. “Okay,” I said. “Please call him back and tell him I’ll meet him there in twenty minutes.”

“Will do.” Melaine rang off.

Andy was watching me, and he was still holding my free hand. “You look like it’s something nasty.”

“Probably,” I said. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to go.” Normally, I would have asked him to accompany me, but if he had a potion on the stove, there was no way he could. “You did say that will smell better, right?”

“Cross my heart,” he said, and kissed me again. I stepped back and straightened my shirt, which had somehow gotten a little rumpled, then checked my office skirt and sensible low-heeled shoes. They looked approximately crime scene appropriate.

“You look just fine,” he assured me, and gave me that crooked, intimate smile that made the thrill set in much deeper. “Better out of all that getup, but—”

“Mind your manners, you roughneck heathen.”

“Yes, ma’am, I won’t embarrass you in public. But in private, I’ll be happy to make you blush all you want, anywhere you want. You just say the word.”

Oh, how I wished I could. Instead, I said, “The call was from Detective Prieto. He’s got a crime scene.”

Andy’s smile disappeared, and his body language shifted in subtle, dangerous ways. Old West gunfighter kind of ways. He suddenly looked loose-limbed, rangy, and very dangerous. “How’s that old dog?”

“Still hunting,” I said. “And I think he might have caught something bad he needs my help with.”

Andy nodded slowly, eyes gone dark and far away. “Wish I could go with you, sweetheart. I don’t like sending you off alone, something like this.”

“That’s nice, but you know, I did get along just fine for years on my own without being chaperoned by a big, strong man.”

That got me a small grin. “Still don’t like seeing women go running off into the dark unescorted,” he said. “I know it’s a more civilized time, but that don’t mean there ain’t wolves out there.”

Oh, I knew that, almost as well as he did. “Chauvinist,” I said.

“I’ll have you know I was raised Lutheran, missy.”

That made me laugh, then cough, because the smell coming from the kitchen had, if anything, intensified. “I think something’s burning,” I said, and Andy gave me another peck on the cheek and went back to his stirring.

I got out my own go-bag, which I kept stocked for emergencies. Nothing but basic supplies, because if I was asked to do any kind of full resurrection, it would take days of time and effort to complete brewing up the necessary potions anyway.

In the bottom, I had tucked a legal-to-carry Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol.

Welcome to Texas.

I had no doubt that if Andy had joined me, he’d have had guns in his bag as well. And knives. And probably high explosives. Even in Texas, though, some of that wasn’t legal to carry around, so we usually just left it as an ignorance-is-bliss kind of thing.

I was, unexpectedly, feeling a little vulnerable without him at my side.

“Holly Anne?”

He was watching me from the kitchen doorway, spoon still in his hand. He looked adorable in that apron.

I looked into his face and saw the concern. I managed a faint smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “Honest. No worries, okay?”

“All right,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced, but then, I didn’t feel too solid about it, either. Resurrection witches were not the first call from detectives on any police force, not since the laws had changed banning the testimony of the deceased. So it took something powerfully wrong for Detective Prieto to be speed-dialing me.

I was heading into something awful. I could just smell it, just like the stuff Andy was cooking on my stove.

“When you come back here, I promise, I’ll have all this cleaned up,” he said.

I kissed him again, quickly, and escaped the smell … but I had a grim feeling that it was going to be the least of my problems this evening.

The address Melaine had given me was in an industrial area of Austin; industrial areas have a certain sameness to them no matter where you are in the world. Little in the way of nature had survived here, except in the artificially maintained entrance to the business park. My headlights caught the name on the sign as we turned, and I felt a startled shock of recognition.

HIGHLAND LAKES INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS COMMUNITY. Yes, I’d been here before. I’d seen that dour-looking Scotsman in a kilt on the sign before. When had I …

Oh.

Yes, that was a bad feeling sinking through my chest, very bad indeed. I completed the turn and headed for where I saw a whole carnival of flashing red and blue lights in the distance, reflecting off the side of a building.

I’d been here before, all right; it was one of my most vivid, horrible memories.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, I thought.

I should have known better.

As I pulled up to the police barricade blocking off the area, I spotted Detective Prieto. He waved away the uniformed officer who was trying to stop me and leaned in the car window. Prieto had that hard, world-weary air that many detectives sported, coated with a thick outer shell of cynical realism. “So. You’re alone? Isn’t your dead boyfriend still lurking somewhere?”

“Why, does it bother you?” I asked him, and couldn’t control a chill in my tone.

“Won’t keep me up nights.”

“You asked me here, Detective. We’re not getting off to a good start.”

He shrugged. “It’s that kind of night. Drive around the corner. Park next to the meat wagon.”

As I pulled to a stop, the sense of familiarity deepened. It wasn’t just the same industrial park and building. It was the same damn spot. That was just too weird to be coincidental. I turned off the engine and sat in silence for a few seconds, thinking. I wanted to get back into the car and drive away, but the fact was, I couldn’t turn down a request from the police. Witches had a tough enough time as it was, with the Bible thumpers trying to get us hanged, burned, or drowned in a dunking chair. We needed the cops to like us. Even Prieto.

So I got out, shivering a little in the evening chill, and grabbed my bag out of the back.

Prieto caught up with me, slumped and tired but still walking fast. “Thanks for coming,” he said, not as if he in any way meant it. “According to the files, you were involved in the last one. Figured we could get your take on what was going on here.”

“Last one?”

“You’ll see.”

Up ahead, a knot of people were working—most of them crime scene technicians, collecting microscopic evidence, photographing, bagging, tagging. We stopped at the edge of the taped-off area, and Prieto waved over one of the team.

“Tell them, Greg,” he said. He made the rest of them step away to give us a clear view. Once I had it, I didn’t really need the update because illuminated by harsh floodlights, the scene told me everything.

What I faced was … monstrous.

And it was like having the worst case of déjà vu in the world … a traumatic flashback made real, flesh and blood, so much blood. I’d been here before, stood here before, seen this before.

I don’t know how I managed not to throw up, or faint, or at least turn away, but I forced myself to look at all the details, searching for something, anything, that would break me out of the nightmare.

But it was all the same.

The forensic tech studied me curiously for a second before shrugging off his questions about why he’d be talking to me at all. “Well, I’m sure you can see most of it. Victim is about eighteen years old. Pretty nasty, even for this kind of thing. You can see the mutilation from here; blood evidence tells us it was mostly done while she was still alive. She’s been dead about four hours, best we can ballpark it right now. No ID yet. Not much in the way of trace evidence, either. This is real similar to a case we had about a year ago. Same location. Same age of victim.”

“No.” I said it softly, my gaze fixed on the pale, blood-spattered face of the girl. “Not the same age as that victim. She’s the same victim.”

Prieto was staring at me, and I knew he’d been thinking the same exact thing but had wanted confirmation. “I thought maybe it was just a close resemblance.”

“It’s not. DNA will confirm. It’s the same girl, Daniel,” I said.

Prieto nodded.

The crime scene tech frowned. “Well, obviously, that can’t be the case,” he said. “That isn’t possible.”

I took in a breath. “Yes, it is. She’s been brought back by a resurrection witch, then killed again. The same way. In the same place.” I felt sick but oddly steady. I understood this now. I understood why I was here. Prieto hadn’t known, but he’d at least had a suspicion. “My God. He killed her all over again.”

The tech—Greg?—seemed to go still for a moment, as if he was running that through his head a few times for clarity. “I’m … sorry. And how exactly would you know that?”

“Because I consulted on the first case,” I said. Consulted was a euphemism, of course; I’d brought back this victim from the dead myself. I’d asked her who’d killed her, but she’d been so traumatized and hysterical that it hadn’t worked at all. I’d had to let her go without an answer. “They never caught him,” I said. “Detective … I think he’s found a way to relive his kills in a brand-new way—not just with trophies or memories or recordings. He’s found a way to actually repeat them.”

Prieto had gone pale because he knew what I was talking about now, and the enormity of it was starting to hit him like a falling wall. “If it’s the same man, he has six kills on his list.”

The world was spinning around me, wobbling like a top, and I had to focus hard to avoid feeling sick with it. “He just realized that it was safer to do it this way,” I said. “There’s no law against torturing and killing the dead. No law at all. As long as he can get a resurrection witch to go along with it, he can keep on going, and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. Nothing legal, anyway.”

“Fucking hell—” Prieto suddenly turned away, overcome and unwilling to let me see it. I waited for it to hit, too, but all I felt was a black sense of betrayal and inevitability. As if I’d known, deep down, that something would never rest safely in the grave about this case, this murderer, these victims.

Prieto paced, head down, then swung back on me. “It’s a fucking witch working with him,” he said. “One of yours. No, two of yours, right? One to create the shell, the avatar—that’s a different skill set. Then a resurrection witch to put the life back in.”

“Maybe this isn’t what it looks like.” I said that, but my heart wasn’t in it. I just didn’t want it to be true because no matter who did it, we all had a share of that kind of guilt.

“Don’t try to tell me this isn’t on one of you. It’s witches doing this shit. What the hell is this, eh? Legal murder?” Prieto was about one second from shoving me, from the wild, angry glitter in his eyes. “Necrophiliac sons of bitches! What kind of sick fucking sadists are you tweaks?”

I was glad Andy wasn’t with me. He’d have punched Prieto for using language like that in front of a lady, but I didn’t care; he was right. Sickeningly right.

I found that the words just came, all on their own. “I’m the kind that stops that kind,” I said. “Or dies trying.”

Prieto had pulled the case files, and he had them in his car. Not a stupid man, by any means. He’d assumed it was a copycat killing, but his forward thinking saved me valuable time, and it might even save a life, although the legal system wouldn’t quite see it that way.

“They’re wasting their time, your forensic people,” I said. “It isn’t a crime to kill the dead.”

Prieto sent me a scorching-hot glare. “No,” he finally said. “Resurrected people don’t have any rights, you know that. So it wouldn’t be murder to kill them, no matter how sick it is.”

“And whoever this is, he’s counting on that,” I said. “He’s a serial killer who’s discovered a way to get his thrills without nearly as much risk.” I felt sick again and had to swallow hard to control myself. “The victims will remember, you know,” I said. “Dying before. All the pain and terror. It would only be worse this time because they’ll know it’s coming.”

“You ever heard of anything like this before? People bringing back the dead for their own version of fun?” Prieto asked. I shook my head, but it was a silent lie. The resurrection business, like the mortuary business, attracted its share of mentally and emotionally broken people. The witch community generally policed its own, and as those kinds of offenders were noticed, they were dealt with. Quietly. With prejudice.

I’d heard of one or two rapists who revived the dead to attack them before letting them slip away again. A few who got their kicks torturing. I’d never heard of one turning serial killer, or someone enabling one. How had he—or, God help us, she—slipped through the cracks? And if you counted the witch who’d created the shell, that made two of them who were guilty and keeping their silence.

Sickening didn’t really cover it.

“So how do we start?” Prieto asked. “Do we go back to the parents?”

I shuddered. “No. The last thing we should do is let them know about this,” I said. “Bad enough they lost a daughter so horribly in the first place, but to know she went through it again, just as horribly … we’d be continuing their torture, not relieving it.”

Prieto looked even sicker as he ran it through his head. “Okay. So where’s our starting point?”

I held up a file. “We could try working it from the burials. An avatar witch needs a piece of the real person to make the physical body—bone, hair, flesh, blood. You start exhuming them and see if any of the bodies have been tampered with; I’ll bet you find they’ve all had samples taken. If I understand forensic rules properly, he—or she—should have left some trace evidence behind in the process—digging up a body is a messy, sweaty business.”

“And what will you be doing?”

“Tracking avatar witches. There aren’t more than a few dozen of them in this state; it isn’t a common skill in our circles, and they all have to be licensed.”

“Couldn’t it be somebody out of state? Somebody brought in just for this purpose?”

“Sure,” I said, and shrugged. “But we’re a close-knit community. Someone will know something about it, even if it’s just the supply shops who furnish what we need.”

“How am I supposed to get bodies exhumed? I need family consent,” Prieto said. “What kind of excuse am I supposed to use for that?”

“The serial killer’s struck again, but you have a revolutionary new scientific technique that wasn’t available before,” I said. “As far as I can tell, most people don’t understand science any better than they understand resurrection magic. Families will give you permission for the exhumation, almost certainly, if you tell them it will help us catch him.”

“You mean, if I lie my ass off to them.”

“Do you want this stopped, or not?” I thought about it for a few seconds, and continued, cautiously, “There’s a third thing we can do. We can keep an eye on the dump sites. He reused one, he might reuse others. These places mean something to him.”

“Well, that’s a problem,” Prieto said. “This isn’t officially a crime, and overtime’s not something we can throw around like confetti; our budget’s stretched so thin it squeaks. There are five other dump sites. Can’t cover them all, especially not during the night.”

“I’ll take the one that comes next in the series,” I said. “Just in case he sticks to the pattern.”

“Not by yourself, you’re not,” Prieto said.

“Andy could—”

He made a sharp movement and cut me off. “I want one of mine in on it,” he said. “I’ll find a volunteer. You want to bring Toland along, that’s on you, but I need somebody who isn’t on the side of the witches.”

That was insulting, but I understood his position, really. He didn’t trust witches in general, and if he sometimes, grudgingly accepted me, that was only a temporary thing.

“Fine,” I said. “You put whoever you want with us. But I’m definitely going.”

Prieto nodded, got out of the car, and began giving orders to break down his investigation.

Andy and I would find these people.

And when we did … hell would descend if Andy had anything to say about it.

I braced myself at the front door for the smell. On top of the trauma of the evening, I wasn’t sure that I could really face it, but I needed to see Andy. I needed to talk to him about all this, pour my heart out, tell him just how awful I felt. He was the only one I could tell.

I unlocked the door and came inside, locked it, and realized that I was holding my breath, dreading the moment … but I forced myself to relax.

And the smell that washed over me was nothing like what I’d been imagining. It was unbelievably sweet and clean and lovely, and I found myself closing my eyes in an explosion of sensual ecstasy. I moaned in utter satisfaction and sank bonelessly into the nearest chair as it rolled over me and through me, taking all of my day’s frustration and exhaustion along with it.

The ultimate aromatherapy.

“Wow,” I said dreamily.

“See?” Andy said. I opened my eyes—I hadn’t even realized that I’d closed them—and saw him standing in front of me, arms folded, smiling. “I promised it’d get better, didn’t I?”

“Wow.” It was all I could really manage. The only thing I could compare this feeling to was that of waking up safe in his arms in the hush of the early morning after a fantastic night of sex and sleep. “That is—wow.” I was a pretty fair potion maker, but this—this was a master class, and it was beyond amazing.

Andy helped me stand up, then he put his arms around me and kissed me, and for a man wearing a girly apron he kissed with a lot of authority and great skill. It took awhile before I was able to get my head together enough to murmur, “What is that stuff?”

“I damn sure hope you don’t mean what I just did with my lips because I thought I gave it a real good effort, and it was pretty clear—”

“The potion, Andy.”

“Little something I developed back in the day. I made it mostly for you,” he said, meeting my eyes and holding them. “Just wanted you to not feel so damn bad every day you come dragging home from that office place. It’s not right that you work so hard like that.”

“I know, I know, you can earn money, I’m sure it’s against your Old West code to have your girl out working for living. But I—we—need the paycheck. The resurrection business isn’t what it used to be. The last job I had barely covered a month’s mortgage after I paid for supplies.”

“Don’t you mock my code, ma’am, it was the way I was brought up. It rubs me raw not to take care of a good woman the way I should.” He hesitated, then said, “I’ve got something for you.”

“Something more than this? Because this is amazing.” I inhaled that intoxicating aroma again. It was the human equivalent of catnip, that smell.

“I’ve been taking on some side jobs,” he said, and dug something out of his pocket. “Here.”

It was a roll of cash. A huge roll. I blinked, weighed it, and focused on the numbers that showed at the front.

That was a hundred-dollar bill. “Andy…” I took the rubber band off and fanned the cash out. It was all hundreds. At a quick estimate, I was holding at least five thousand dollars. “Oh my God. How—?”

“Told you. Side jobs.” He smiled and kissed my nose again. “Make you feel any better?”

“My God. That’s just—” I blew out a breath, searching for some word to describe how I felt, and failing miserably. “Amazing. Thank you.”

His dark eyes were intent on me, a little wary, but mostly pleased. “So I did all right?”

“You didn’t have to do this.” I put my hand gently against his face, and he kissed my palm without breaking eye contact. “We don’t know how much energy you can expend without hurting yourself. Doing anything magical without me … that’s dangerous, Andy.”

He shrugged. “Spent most of my life on the edge, sweetness. Ain’t like dangerous is new territory to me.”

That frightened me. I loved Andy, and I knew he loved me, but the little voice in my head kept insisting that I not get too comfy. All of this between us, it was so tenuous, so fragile, so essentially wrong according to the laws of magic. Everyone who was resurrected was eventually drawn back into the dark; he’d lasted so much longer than the others, but … I knew it would happen. And I dreaded it.

I’d have to let him go someday. I knew it.

“Hey,” Andy said, and tapped me on the nose again. “Stop woolgathering. What’s eating at you? I thought the money would make it better.”

“It does.” I took in another calming breath of potion and smiled at him. “You said the potion was mostly for me, and believe me, I appreciate it … who’s it for after me?”

He shrugged. “Folks,” he said. “I figure since they’re bound and determined to make me into some kind of hero, I might as well make a nickel from it. It’s a nice potion, real safe, too. Do some good, maybe. It wouldn’t hurt me none to make some more to help out with the accounts, either.”

More of his wounded pride, I realized. And the fact that just maybe, he was feeling a wee bit useless in this modern world of ours, where his skills weren’t so much in demand—although they almost certainly would be as soon as word got out about this singularly spectacular potion. Which led me to ask, “What’s it called?”

He grinned. “Holly’s Balm.”

That was such a delicious notion that for a moment I actually forgot what I had to talk to him about … but it came back, insidious and dark, and not even the beautiful gift he’d made for me could hold it back.

I took his hand, and said, “Sit down a minute.”

He did, never taking his gaze from mine, and said, “I should have asked you what Prieto called you out for. I’m guessing it ain’t even half as good as bad.”

“Awful,” I agreed. “Last year, there were a series of murders of young women, and it was … gruesome, Andy. Really nasty. I was asked to bring one back, but she—there was too much trauma.”

He didn’t say anything, but I saw the muscles tighten in his jaw. He knew what I meant. Bringing someone back meant breathing your own essence into them, mingling with them, becoming—at least for a time—part of them. The trauma hadn’t been only hers, of course. I’d been heavily medicated, after. That kind of crime took a special toll on a witch.

“I’m guessing that’s not the end of it,” he said, “bad as that is.”

“The crime scene I was called out to tonight … it was the same one.”

“Same killer?”

“Same victim,” I said. “Killed all over again. Resurrected. She was resurrected, Andy. Just so he could do it again to her.”

I’d never seen that look before, not on Andy–not on anyone, really. I didn’t even know what it meant, except that it shook him all the way to the bones.

He dropped my hand as if it had caught fire, then he stood up and paced away—just a few steps, but enough to put a world of distance between us. “Somebody brought her back,” he said. “One of us. Even if the witch didn’t know what would happen up front, it was damn clear once it got started.”

“Someone got paid to participate,” I agreed. “To hold that soul there while he did it. Why else would a witch let that happen?”

“Unless the witch is the killer.”

That was disturbing. Really disturbing. I didn’t honestly want to think that far … bad enough someone would have taken money and stood by while something like that was done, but I just didn’t want to believe in that next step. “It gets worse,” I said. “Somebody had to make the avatar.”

Andy slowly turned around. He leaned his back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and said, “So we’ll be on the hunt,” he said. “Ain’t no crime, is it? Killing a dead girl.”

“No, it’s not a crime, technically. Prieto can’t do much. So it’ll be up to us to make this right.”

“Let me make some calls,” he said.

“Andy. I want this one destroyed,” I said softly. “No prisoners.”

He didn’t look at me, and there was a tension in his body that wasn’t usual for him. “We find this resurrection witch, we burn him right down to the ground and piss on his ashes. I don’t hold with this. I don’t hold with it at all.” And from the unforgiving look on his face, I knew he meant every word. “And then we find this killing son of a bitch and do him hard.”

I noticed, although I wasn’t sure why, that he hadn’t mentioned the witch who created the shell.

Not at all.

I slipped into the kitchen chair across from Andy as he studied a black notebook—his own contacts, written in some strange shorthand he’d used over a hundred years ago. He’d donned a pair of reading glasses that he’d found lying around. They were hot pink, with little fake diamonds sparkling in the corners. It woke a wan spark of amusement in me. As with the apron, it took a real man to wear those and not look uncomfortable.

“You’re calling your people?” I asked. He stretched, and one of the pearl snap buttons on his shirt popped loose, revealing a well-defined but scarred chest.

“Yeah, I thought I’d best. I made some these last few months that probably ain’t in your formal books.” I could believe that; Andy seemed to slide into the underbelly of our witch-world with alarming ease. He’d probably made friends with shady characters who’d never even think of talking to me—or that I’d dare call up, either. “You want to make your own calls down here?”

“Best if we don’t distract each other,” I said. “I’m going to use a falsehood potion. You want some?”

“Day I can’t tell if one of these bottom-feeders is lying to me is the day you ought to put me back in the ground,” he said. “No thanks.”

He sounded all business. There was a dark, angry edge to him that made me feel … oddly excluded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay out of your way. Give me five minutes for the potion.”

While the potion brewed, I pondered my approach. It was a delicate business; witches were licensed by the state, but we were also secretive and protective of each other because in many places, there had been trouble: cross burnings on lawns, arson, beatings. We weren’t a friendly, close-connected bunch. I’d have to work hard to get to those who might have information to share.

Andy was silent, flipping through his book. I kissed his cheek as I filled up my teacup with the potion, and he nodded in distraction. I walked toward the stairs.

“Holly Anne,” he said. I glanced back. “I’m sorry. This got to me pretty hard.”

“Me too,” I said. “No apology necessary. I’ll see you in a bit.”

I sat at my desk and sipped potion for about ten minutes; it wasn’t unpleasant, sort of like a milky version of chamomile tea. The magic would give me an unmistakable signal if someone lied to me … and I had every expectation that someone would.

I made thirty calls in an hour and got two vague falsehoods out of it; they were probably nothing, but I made notes by the names anyway. My circle of contacts included resurrection and potion witches, but the witches who made the avatars … the bodies that we poured life back into … they were a different story altogether. Very hard to find. There were three listed contacts in the state for those with that particular skill set, available only through the witches’ network; I spoke with all of them and hit a brick wall. Two hung up on me without speaking.

“I’m so sorry,” said the last one—no name, but a brisk female voice that sounded grandmotherly, with a hint of Eastern Europe in her accent. “Client requests are confidential. You understand how this must be.”

“It’s possible that avatar are being used for … criminal reasons,” I said. “You don’t want that kind of attention, trust me.”

“No, we definitely do not. But the fact remains, if one of our technicians created the body you’re speaking of, what was made of it later has nothing to do with us. We do not restore life. We only create flesh.”

“I know,” I said. “But I also know that sometimes the bodies you create go for … other purposes.”

“What other purposes?” She sounded scornful, but already, the lie-detector potion was tingling its warning message over my skin. “I do not know of these.”

“Oh, come on. It’s common knowledge in the trade that some of the less scrupulous witches create bodies for use by, uh, men with unusual appetites. Or for medical use. Right?”

“Rumors. Nothing more.”

“Well, this goes far beyond that,” I said. “This is a body being used to house a restored spirit. One who was murdered. One who was murdered again, made to feel the same horror and torture again. And this time, she would have known it was coming. Can you even imagine that?”

She was silent for a long, long moment. “That is a great sin. A great betrayal.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. I need your help, ma’am. I need to find out who hired this body to be made. He’s probably asking for others, too. They’ll face the same fate unless we can stop him.”

She hesitated, then said, “There are other kinds of justice. Older kinds.”

“Yes, ma’am. And we’re going to do that, but I need a lead. Something. Anything.”

She fell silent. I listened to her breathe, and waited, biting my tongue because I wanted to sell her harder but knowing that it was the wrong move. She’d do it, or she wouldn’t. I couldn’t force it.

“I will think on this,” she said. “Perhaps you will receive a call back, but it won’t be from me.” She hung up with a soft click, and I stared at the phone for a moment. I didn’t have any contact information for her, not even a place to start; the number she was using went through a privacy exchange, and that would take a lot more firepower to crack than I could bring to bear.

With nothing left to do, I carried my empty teacup downstairs and rinsed it out in the sink. Andy had left a half-full cup of coffee there on the counter, and most of a sandwich, but there was no sign of him. Even his notebook was gone. I called his name, but got no reply.

And then I saw the note on the table. Gone to check a lead, it said, in his careful, flowing script, the kind nobody really teaches kids anymore. Keep the doors locked tonight. Be back in the morning.

I would have expected him to actually tell me this since I was upstairs, but then again, I’d had the door shut, and he’d have known that getting distracted when using a lie-detecting potion is bad. Well, at least he’d left me a note.

I felt abandoned, nevertheless. I’d wanted to talk to him about all this, really talk … and I needed to be held, too. It bothered me how much I missed him; I’d always been self-sufficient before I’d met him.

Now, I thought of me as part of us. Was that a good thing? I really wasn’t sure, but the idea of voluntarily walking away from Andy and just being me, solitary, again … that wasn’t what I wanted, either.

I just wanted us to talk, and evidently I wasn’t going to get what I wanted tonight.

Tonight. Oh God, I’d forgotten to tell him about Prieto, and what we’d agreed about the stakeout on the next dump site. I checked my cell phone, which I’d left in my purse in the other room, and found two calls from the policeman, and one voice mail. The recording cussed me out and told me to call if I still intended to do this thing, dammit.

Andy had told me to stay in and lock the doors, but he’d gone off following a lead. There was no reason I couldn’t do the same. Besides, I’d have company—police company at that. It was like having my own personal bodyguard.

I dialed Prieto. He answered on the second ring, tired and surly as usual. “Sorry,” I said. “I was following up on potential leads.”

“Anything?”

“Not really. I have to wait for someone to get back to me.”

“Still want to do the stakeout tonight?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s just me. Andy won’t be available.”

“Neither am I,” Prieto grunted. “Got other cases I gotta work. Greg said he’d take a shift with you overnight, he’s off tomorrow.”

“Greg…?”

“Crime scene geek, you met him. Greg Kincaid. You want him to swing by and pick you up?”

“Yes, I guess so. Anything I should bring?”

“You want anything to eat or drink, bring it. I don’t trust anything those CSI freaks bring out of their lab fridges; you don’t know what’s been sitting next to it. You got my number if anything happens.”

“Thanks,” I said, then hesitated before saying, “Do you think we’ll get him?”

“Doubt it,” he said. I’d never heard Prieto sound quite that dour. “I can’t throw any real resources at this. If he gets got, it’ll be your witches, probably.”

That was depressing because I wasn’t feeling a lot of love from the witch community for this, and Andy … well, Andy would do his best, and his best was incredible, but it was just the two of us, so far.

Maybe the stakeout would be lucky.

I hung up with Prieto and changed into comfy clothes, packed snacks and water, and was ready and waiting at the door when a dark blue late-model sedan pulled up at the curb. The passenger window rolled down, and the driver leaned across the seat to look out at me.

“Miss Caldwell?” he asked. I remembered him now, from the crime scene. He wasn’t especially, well, anything … a pleasant, rounded face, and a nice smile. He was probably in his late twenties. “Sure hope you brought snacks.”

“Greg, right?” I opened the door and got in, putting the bag on the floor between my feet as I strapped myself in. “Do you like potato chips?”

“Who doesn’t? Bonus points if you brought dip.”

“Ranch,” I said, and returned his smile. “And just what are you bringing to the table?”

“A fearless sense of adventure,” Greg said, “also, beef jerky. Aren’t we waiting for your boyfriend? Prieto said something about him tagging along.”

“He can’t make it. Guess you’re stuck with me.”

He flashed me another of those warm, comfortable smiles. “Not a problem, trust me.” It wasn’t quite flirting … there was a little something more than just being sociable, but not enough that I’d feel hit on. Masterfully done. He reached over and punched some buttons in the dash, and the GPS lit up. “You know, even if he does do this again tonight—which personally I kind of doubt—he doesn’t have to keep the same order of dump sites. I wouldn’t, if it were me. So don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to heroically save somebody tonight.”

“I’m not,” I said. “He doesn’t kill them where he dumps them, anyway. By the time we see him—if we do—the victim will already be past saving.”

Greg nodded as he drove down my residential street. He took a right at the main intersection. “Of course, you could say they’re sort of past saving anyway,” he said. “I mean, from what Prieto said … these are his previous victims, right? He’s sort of reliving his greatest hits. Technically, it’s not even murder. I guess you could argue improper disposal of a body, but…”

“It’s murder,” I said flatly. Greg’s ability to blithely reduce these young women to objects—to corpses—without value chilled me, even though I knew that he was right, from the standpoint of legalities. “They still feel everything he does to them. How can it be anything but murder?”

He cast me a sideways look, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just talking about—”

“The law,” I said. “Yes, I know. But these girls never got any law on their side, did they? Nobody was ever caught and punished, and now to say that he can just do it all over again…”

“Maybe it’s not the same guy at all. Maybe it’s a, a groupie or something.”

That was yet another sickening thought, but I doubted it; there had been too close a similarity in the small details of the crime scene. That wasn’t the work of a copycat unless the copycat had been given access to all of the police’s data.

We’d strayed pretty far from the otherwise pleasant talk about potato chips and ranch dip, and I already missed the comfort of that, even if it was false. As if he sensed that, Greg started a running monologue about the neighborhoods we were passing—it was entertaining, if still a bit morbid, since he’d only been around here on official business, and business was apparently pretty good. By the time the GPS’s stern feminine voice announced we’d arrived at our destination, he’d given me a whole new appreciation for the ghosts that haunted even this relatively benign section of Austin.

The second dump site was an empty, overgrown field, which in this time of year meant lots of dry, tangled weeds grown up to about knee height. It was dark, and the streetlights only cast a vague suggestion in the lot’s direction. We parked down the street in front of a small bodega that advertised homemade tacos and tortillas, and Greg turned off the engine.

“That’s it,” he said, and nodded toward the vacant lot. “The body was found there almost exactly twenty-four hours after the first victim was discovered. Forensics were pretty much a dead end; vacant lots are hell for working any trace evidence, and there was nothing of any use on the body itself.”

“Did you work the case?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Before my time,” he said. “I joined about seven months ago. I read up on it since Prieto told me what was going on.” He settled back in his seat with a sigh and unbuckled the safety belt. “Better get comfortable. We may be here a while.”

“Shouldn’t we check the lot first?” I asked. “Just to make sure it hasn’t already happened?”

Greg stared out the windshield for a moment, unmoving, and then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s probably a good idea. Want to go with me?”

“I’ll wait here.” I was happy to let him go tramping off in the dark. I had my cell phone out, just in case, but Greg’s expedition—aided by a flashlight—was evidently unsuccessful. As he came back, I got the cheerful chime for a text message, which almost startled me into dropping the phone.

Andy had texted me, which was odd; I didn’t think he was comfortable enough with the technology to actually type out messages. But it came from his number, and read, KEEP DOORS LOCKED WILL BE HOME BY 8 AM.

Well, technically, I wasn’t breaking the rules. I had the car doors locked though I thumbed the control to let Greg back in. He took his seat, stowed the flashlight again, and said, “Nothing out there but the usual trash, condoms and crack vials.”

That was a relief, but it also made it that much more imperative we stay awake and alert. I broke out the water first, then the chips and dip. Greg didn’t say much for a while, and I was okay with that. I was busy worrying about where Andy was, and what he was doing. Surely, it was a lot more dangerous than this.

“Can I call you Holly?” Greg suddenly asked, as I scraped up the last of the ranch dip onto a scrap of chip from the bottom of the bag. “Sorry, that was sudden, wasn’t it? Calling you Miss Caldwell all night just seems awkward. Like I’m back in school.”

“Holly’s fine,” I assured him.

“I was just wondering how you got into all this. Not this, meaning the stakeout, but—”

“The witch business?” I smiled a little. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a thing like that?”

“Something like that.”

I shrugged. “I was studying for a degree in chemistry when I discovered that I had kind of a gift—I could combine chemicals, and they didn’t exactly follow the normal rules of engagement that they did for other people. My professor finally said that I had an unusual talent and gave me the name of a counselor who could tell me something about it. It wasn’t that I started out to be one. It just happened.”

“Sounds like what I do,” Greg said, in the same quiet tone as before. “It just kind of happened.”

“So what got you into forensics?” I asked.

Oddly enough, he smiled a little, as if I’d said something funny. “Oh, I’ve always been interested in stuff like that,” he said. “You know, true crime. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies. Looked glamorous the way they show it on the screen. In real life, though, it’s boring. Lots of waiting around for results. Lots of painstaking tests. And not nearly as many pretty girls hanging around the crime scenes as you’d think.”

That was almost certainly true. Most detectives I’d ever worked with, male or female, were grim, tired, and not exactly model material. “Still. With all the glamorous forensics dramas on TV, I imagine it helps you out with meeting people.”

This time, he laughed outright, and it had a funny, tinfoil edge to it. “Oh yeah,” he said. “It helps. The problem is, they never hang around. I mean, I’m really just a glorified lab monkey. They’re looking for some kind of super secret agent with cool toys.” He shifted in his seat and turned his head to look at me. I waited for him to say something—anything—but he just stared for so long that I began to feel a little uncomfortable.

Then Greg said, “Hey, check the alley on your side.”

I whipped my head around so fast I nearly pulled a muscle. Beside the bodega was a standard industrial-type alley, wide enough to drive a garbage truck through, with room for big rusted Dumpsters. I caught sight of a shadow ducking between the containers. “Homeless, maybe?” I said. My throat had gone suddenly dry, and I took another pull from my water bottle to combat it. “Did you get a good look?”

“Not really. Could be a vagrant, a mugger … could be our killer checking out the area.” Greg reached down for the flashlight. I reached out and put my hand over his, and he quickly pulled back.

“I think we should wait,” I said. “Either way, it’s not safe going in there after him. Chances are it’s nobody we need to worry about, right?”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry if I freaked you out.”

“You didn’t,” I said, but it was a lie. I’d felt goose bumps shiver all over me, just for a moment, but now rational thought was coming back. The only real danger we were facing at the moment was a dire lack of snack food and a growing bladder problem. The bodega was open all night, and I’d seen a few people come and go; they’d probably let us use the restroom if it was an emergency. Greg had some kind of credentials as a law enforcement officer, anyway. Surely that counted toward bathroom privileges.

Greg seemed content to let the silence lie. He turned on the car radio to an oldies station, and for the rest of the long night, we found neutral, pleasant things to chat about while taking turns visiting the bodega’s narrow, not-terribly-sanity facilities.

We passed the night without incident. The sun came up, and the vacant lot we’d staked out still looked empty. No sign of a body.

Greg got out and walked the lot, just in case, but came back with a discouraged look on his face. “Nothing,” he said as he started the car. “He’s hit somewhere else, or he took the night off. Sorry, Holly, I guess this one’s a bust. Time for bed.”

I caught myself yawning. Even though I’d dozed a bit while Greg kept watch, I felt achy and light-headed from the lack of real sleep and unpleasantly buzzed from all the coffees. “I can’t sleep,” I mumbled, and yawned again, popping my jaw in the process. “Got to shower and go to work.”

“You’re kidding. You’ll be dead on your feet.”

“Aren’t you going in?”

“Not me,” Greg said. “I have the day off. If you’re smart, you’ll call in sick. C’mon, is the world really gonna stop turning if you don’t turn in some spreadsheet nobody really reads?”

I almost laughed; he was quoting me almost verbatim about my own day job. And he had a point, really. I was so exhausted that I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t fall asleep on my keyboard, even if I could make it in to the office. Maybe calling in a sick day wasn’t a bad idea after all.

“Huh,” Greg said. “I guess your boyfriend’s home.”

I opened my eyes—when had I closed them?—and saw that I’d dropped off again during the ride; he’d pulled the sedan up in the driveway of my house, and Andy stood on the porch, arms folded. He looked tense and a little bit dangerous, and I realized that unlike his note to me, I’d totally forgotten to write a note for him. It had never occurred to me that I might not be back first.

“He doesn’t look happy,” Greg said.

“He’s not,” I said. I gathered up my empty snack bag and water bottles, and opened the door. “Thanks, Greg. I appreciate you giving your time to do this even if it didn’t work out.”

“I’m in forensics,” he said. “We’re used to null results. The ones where you actually find the killer—those are pretty rare. Well, anyway, I’m happy to have gotten to know you a little. Hope to see you again, sometime.”

I nodded and watched him back up and drive away. He didn’t look nearly as tired as I felt.

Andy did. He stayed where he was, standing on the porch with his arms folded, as I walked up the steps toward him. “Friend of yours?”

“His name’s Greg,” I said. “He’s a forensic tech. Prieto arranged for us to cover one of the dump sites last night, just in case the killer was following the same pattern.”

“Doesn’t seem likely.”

“You’d be right about that since nothing happened.” I covered a yawn. “I’m sorry, honey. I should have told you, but I forgot, then you were gone. Did you find out anything?”

“Not as much as I’d hoped,” he said. He opened the door for me and stepped aside to let me go first—unconscious chivalry, something ingrained in him so deeply, I doubted he even knew he was doing it. “It wasn’t safe for you to be out there on your own.”

“Wasn’t safe for me? Andy, you didn’t even tell me where you’d gone! And you know I don’t like it when we’re apart.”

He locked the door behind us. “Don’t you even tell me to be careful. I fought a zombie war, in case you forget. I’m not made from spun sugar.”

“It’s not that,” I said softly. “But what if—what if the longer we’re apart, the thinner the connection between us? I can’t help but think that it’s dangerous for you to be out there without me. Not physically dangerous. Magically dangerous.”

He was already shaking his head. “You need to stop worrying.”

“I know, but I just don’t understand how you’re still here. Still … alive. It defies all the laws of magic I understand, and it scares me that you could just be … gone one of these days.”

That made him look at me, and some of the tension eased out of his face. He reached out and took me in his arms—not holding me close, just … holding. “Sweetness,” he said softly, “I thought you’d guessed by now that there’s only one person in this life who can undo what brought me back. You.”

“Me?”

“You stop loving me, and that connection will spin right out of my control,” he said. “The dark will have me. It’s always there, waiting, but you keep me here. The minute you don’t want me, the minute you turn your back on me, that’s the minute I start to die again.” He sounded casual, but there was something serious about the expression in his face, the tightness around his eyes and mouth.

He was afraid of that, at least a little.

“Never happen,” I said. I felt crazily better, and this time, I almost laughed. “Never, ever, ever happen, Andrew. Thank God. If that’s all we have to worry about, we’ve got nothing at all to worry about.”

He kissed my fingers, and that was the end of that, at least from my perspective. My heart felt warm and peaceful, but when I looked over, I saw that he still had that drawn, tight expression. What he’d just said had eased my mind, but it hadn’t eased his. I didn’t know why, or how to fix it. Sometimes, there were black chasms of misunderstandings between us; we came from different eras, different beliefs, different lives. And I wondered if, way down, he might not believe that I really did love him, all evidence to the contrary.

“I think I’m going to call in sick,” I told him, and that got a smile, a slow and very wicked one.

“Works better if somebody calls in for you,” he said. “Being all concerned. Which I am.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a—”

It was too late. Andy picked up the phone and dialed; he knew my work number by heart. Ten seconds later, he must have gotten an answer. “Yes, ma’am, I’m calling for Holly Anne Caldwell … no, I know she’s not there, ma’am, she’s here with me. Yes, she’s sick. Got some terrible fever. I’m putting her to bed right away. I figure it’s contagious, too, she’s coming out in red spots. May need a doctor. Me? I’m her minister. Reverend Toland.” He fended off my attempts to get the phone away from him; when he was really trying, butter wouldn’t melt in Andy Toland’s mouth, and he sounded utterly convincing. “Yes ma’am, thank you, I’ll let her know. Hope she’s better tomorrow. Thanks.”

He hung up and spread his hands in a gesture that made me smack him on the arm. “Seriously! They’re going to send me a fruit basket now! You couldn’t just tell them I had a cold?”

“Had to make sure they let you off, didn’t I? Now, you need to do what I said. Go right on to bed.”

I was still caught between outrage and delight, and delight finally won. “All right,” I said. “You want to come with me?”

He gave me a crooked smile, and said, “Ma’am, I am a minister, you heard me say it on the phone. I minister to your needs just as often as I can, but I promise, not today. You crawl in and sleep, and I’m going to go talk to those two resurrection witches you said weren’t telling you the truth.”

That drove away the cobwebs for a moment. “Andy—”

He kissed me—sweet and light and undemanding, this time. “You go on,” he said. “I’ll get you up for lunch. Then we’ll see what we do about making up for lost time between the two of us.”

He was right, I did need the rest; I was asleep practically from the moment my head hit the pillow.

When lunchtime came, I woke up to Andy’s kissing me awake, and the delicious warmth of that gave way to a rumble of real hunger as he stepped back and put a bed tray over my lap. “There,” he said. “Grilled ham and cheese sandwich, just like we used to make it back in Amarillo, when the streets were paved with cow chips. Only difference is I used presliced bread instead of having to hack it off the loaf.”

He plunked himself down on the other side of the bed as I dug into the meal; when Andy cooked, it was always with a down-home enthusiasm that denied the existence of cholesterol, and damn, it was great. I tried not to think about the calories, which was actually a lot easier than normal since I’d skipped two meals in a row.

“Did you eat?” I asked after I’d swallowed the last delicious, buttery piece of the sandwich. He picked up the remote control and flipped on the television mounted on the wall across from the bed.

“Yep,” he said. “Ate, cleaned up the kitchen, waited until I was sure you’d had at least six full hours. How you feeling?”

“Great,” I said. “You’re not seriously going to watch TV now.”

He’d tuned it to a show that featured drunk people wandering around screaming at each other. Reality television. “Can’t help it,” he said. “Don’t really want to watch it, but I still do. Don’t seem right, people putting their personal business out like this, for everybody to gawk over. In—” He caught himself, and grinned. “I was about to say in my day, but that’d make me feel about two hundred years older than I actually am in body. But in my day, folks kept their private lives private.”

“I guess it’s a different way of looking at things,” I said. “Maybe as connected as everybody is now, there’s no way to keep your business all that private anymore. And not as much need.”

He put the remote aside, moved the remains of the lunch tray, and kissed the side of my neck. It felt warm, comfortable, and seductive at the same time. “I have no mind to share any of you with an audience, Holly Anne. I want to keep you all to myself.”

I knew that we ought to be talking about the case, or about what we were going to do to find the killer, but as his arm went around my shoulders, as I curled into his warm body, I felt no real desire to spoil this. We need this, I thought. We need this time.

Because there would never be enough time. I knew that. All lovers faced a ticking clock, but ours was loud, and close, and inevitable, and we both knew it. Andy was strong, but his strength couldn’t hold, it couldn’t.

“Hey,” he said, and tilted my chin up to meet my eyes. He had deep, richly brown eyes, full of secrets. Full of warmth, too. “You’re thinking too dark, you know that? Leave it out there.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I keep thinking about those girls. We failed last night. We didn’t get him. You really didn’t find anything, either?”

“We really going to talk about this now?”

I nodded silently, and he sighed and settled back against the pillows, staring at the flickering TV screen again. “I had some knowledge of someone who’d hired an avatar witch. Not through the network.”

I sat up and stared at him, but he didn’t meet my eyes. “What?”

“It’s a dead end,” he said. “I mean that exactly, ’cause when I tracked the son of a bitch down who handed over the money, he was dead and buried in a ditch out behind his house.” There was something unnatural in the focus he was giving the stupid reality show, and I knew he wasn’t really seeing it. What he was seeing was far worse. “Didn’t have time to do a real resurrection, so I took some shortcuts.”

“What do you mean, shortcuts?”

“There are things I know you don’t, Holly Anne. Things it’s better you don’t, and this is one of ’em.”

“What are you talking about, Andy?”

“There’s a way to pull a soul back over into his own ruined body and hold it there, long as you’re not too particular about what it takes to get it done.” He paused a moment, then said, “I got a couple of questions answered, once he stopped screaming. Couldn’t hold him long. Your killer wasn’t too kind to that body.”

I swallowed hard. From the stony look on Andy’s face, it was worse than he was willing to tell me, which made it way worse than I could imagine. “Oh God,” I said faintly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Just did. No reason to give you nightmares, wasn’t your doing. Anyway, I found out who gave him the money to hire the witch. Name was a dead end.”

“You should still tell Prieto,” I said. “Maybe the witch he hired has more information…”

Andy was already shaking his head. “Nothing more to be learned. Believe me, your police friend ain’t gonna get any more out of this than I did.”

“It’s not just about the information. It’s about justice.”

He looked at me, suddenly. His eyes were unreadable. “Justice.”

“That witch is guilty. Maybe guilty after the fact, but she ought to be charged and her license to practice taken away, at the very least. If you don’t want to go to the police, we need to report her to the network.”

“I will,” he said. He settled back against the pillows, still watching me. “Holly…”

I slowly stretched out, facing him. We were close together now, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath stirring my hair. I held out my hand, and he took it, and our fingers twined together.

“Going to be staking out that place again tonight?” he asked.

“Probably.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Not at all.” I smiled, and it felt sad. “I love spending time with you, Andy. I wish there were all the time in the world to spend with you.”

“Hush, now. Don’t let what’s sad take away what’s beautiful.” His fingertips touched my cheek, lightly, and my lips parted in unbidden response. “You’re beautiful.”

“We’re beautiful,” I said, and kissed him. He tasted like apples and wine, sweet and crisp and clean, and his mouth opened with a wordless groan under mine. The wet, slick dance of our tongues made my skin tingle, melted warmth from the rest of my body to trickle and pool between my legs, and I didn’t resist as he shifted his weight and eased me back to the pillows

A sharp tug was all it took to pull loose the snaps on his plaid shirt, and he smiled as he straightened up to take it off. I loved the way light slipped golden over his skin, catching on his muscles and glistening on the hair on his chest; it even gilded the scars, the ones that his avatar had carried out of the resurrection even though he ought to have, by all logic, been fresh and unmarked. The scars had a kind of beauty to them—living badges of the kind of courage I couldn’t really imagine.

Andy stood up and shed his jeans, and stood there looking down at me; and then he sat on the edge of the bed and trailed his fingertips lightly over my stomach. His touch made me tremble, and my breath come faster. “It seems disrespectful to those dead girls to want you this much right now,” he said. “But want you I do, Holly Anne. This minute. And I think you want me just as much. Right?”

I deliberately pulled down the sheet, never looking away from those deep, shadow-haunted eyes. His hand moved slowly over the bunched fabric, then up my inner thigh. He grasped the thin elastic band of my panties and pulled them off. He slowly caressed and kissed my bare leg, moving up into the shadows. I gasped and arched against him as he stroked me in wet, deep, aching places. His mouth, lips, and tongue bathed my nipples in heat, and I was well on the way to a bright and shattering climax even before Andy shifted his weight and slowly, relentlessly filled me.

It took my breath away, and he held there for a moment, staring into my eyes. “All right?” he whispered, and I nodded and wrapped my legs around him, pushing him deeper, arching against him. “God damn, Holly…”

“Stop talking,” I whispered, and kissed him as he lost the fine edge of control to which he’d been clinging.

Our lovemaking was swift and hot and hard, different from the times before; it seemed to go on forever, one breathless deep thrust after another. No words, just indrawn breaths and gasps and whispers that had no meaning other than what we felt.

He’d never been more real to me. More alive. And he drove me to a shattering, gasping pinnacle with my nails digging into his skin, leaving marks. He came a few deep, fast strokes later, and collapsed against me, shuddering with the force of it.

When he stirred, his kisses were sweet and soft and slow—a silent gift. We lay together, linked, for a long time before he heaved a deep sigh, and said, “Didn’t mean it to go quite that way.”

“I did,” I said, and touched his lips gently with mine. “I needed it.”

“Ah. Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint a lady.”

“That was not what a lady would have done.”

“I’ll have you know that I’ve known me a good number of ladies, and a fair number of them…”

I put my fingers on his mouth, stopping him. “Really not the time for your back-in-my-day reminiscences, Andy.”

He kissed my hand. “I know that.”

There was a ring from somewhere in the direction of his pants, which were on the floor, and both of us sighed. Andy touched his forehead to mine for a few apologetic seconds, then said, “I was hoping to hear from somebody on another lead…”

“Take it,” I said. He kissed me gently and slipped out of bed to grab up his pants and find the cell. He didn’t put the pants on, which I could only appreciate; he was breathtaking, for all his scars—or because of them. I couldn’t imagine not having him here, with me, always, and now the gnawing fear came back that this was the last time I’d have this, the last night we’d be together.

Life was so fragile, sometimes.

He said hello, listened, then cast a glance at me and left the room to talk. I got up and gathered my scattered clothes, got fresh ones from the closet, and turned on the hot water in the bathroom.

Andy popped his head in. “Sweetness, I’ve got to go meet a man about a horse.”

“Knowing you, I’m afraid you mean that literally. Want to shower? It’ll only take about ten minutes.”

He smiled, a slow and wicked expression that made my blood warm, again. “Maybe twenty,” he said.

“You’re such a gentleman.”

That made him shrug. “Not so’s you notice.”

It was about fifteen, truth be told, but fiercely sweet, then he was dressed and gone, with his hair still shining and wet. I took my time, relaxing in the spray and the calming scent of the lavender soap.

My cell was ringing when I stepped out. I toweled off hastily, wrapped my hair, and grabbed the phone just before the call flipped over to voice mail. “Hello?” I sounded cross, and I was. I hoped it wasn’t my day job calling, because if it was, I didn’t sound nearly enough out of it.

Instead, I got a male, totally unfamiliar voice. “You were asking questions about a witch who’d made an avatar recently.”

“That’s right.” I felt a quick burn of excitement. “Do you have a name?”

“I do,” the voice said. “But understand, I don’t like doing this.”

“I appreciate that. I won’t ask. All I need is a name, and I won’t tell anyone where I got it. I’m not asking your name, either.”

There was a long hiss of silence, as if the caller was debating hanging up, then the man said, “You know him. I’ve seen you with him.”

I frowned, racking my brain for all of the witches I’d met with in the past few months. There were at least fifteen, about a third of them male …

“It’s the one you brought back,” the voice said. “The one who won’t die. Toland.”

“What are you—” Silence settled cold inside. I was aware of the whisper of traffic outside on the road, of wind in the tree by the window, of the rattle of the air-conditioning kicking in, the warmth of the sunlight on the towel over my legs.

But the world had stopped. Just … stopped. For me.

“You’re wrong,” I said. I didn’t even mean to say it, but the words came bubbling up, out of control. “He didn’t. He’s a resurrection witch, not—”

“He can do both. He’s the only one who can do both. Didn’t you know that?”

And the caller hung up without waiting for an answer.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, numbed and empty. No. No, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

But I remembered. He’d brought home five thousand in hundred-dollar bills. Cash. The way that illicit transactions were done all over the world.

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

But he’d thrown himself into this with a furious intensity—been gone all night—interrogated a murdered man for information … was that the action of someone trying to help me, or someone trying to cover his own guilt?

Oh God, God, God …

Deep breaths, Holly. Give him a chance to explain. You can’t believe this, you can’t just think he would do something like this. You know him.

Did I? I’d seen Andy grow more and more frustrated over the past few weeks, feeling useless to contribute toward our money problems. Feeling less of a man for not finding his chosen employment in this vastly changed world. He was used to simpler times, direct actions, clear rules.

I suddenly knew … knew, with a sick wave of despair. He was guilty. Guilty of making the shell of the dead girl, at least. It sickened me, but I could believe that. He hadn’t resurrected her, though. I knew him better than that he’d coldly looked on as she was tortured, mutilated, killed.

Still, there was something bitterly disappointing about this … not just that he’d taken money from a serial killer, but that …

That he hadn’t trusted me enough to confess it.

Oh God.

I dropped the phone on the table, leaped out of the bathroom, and pulled on clothes as fast as I could. I was shaking and panting with panic, because I knew, knew that he’d lied to me. It wasn’t just asking questions, not anymore.

Andy was out there tracking down a killer, and he was probably closer than anybody knew. Close enough to be in real danger.

I dialed his cell phone. It rang, and rang, then finally he picked up and said, “Bad time, Holly.” He was panting, and I could tell he was running

“Where are you?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Andy, please—I know. I know you made the shell. I know you’re taking this personally. But you need help. This man—he’s not like anything you’ve come up against before.”

“Dammit!” He spat it into the phone, then heaved a big sigh, and said, “Not you, Holly, I’m sorry, but he made it to his car. Son of a bitch. I had him. I had him.”

“Did you see a license plate?”

“No. Couldn’t even make out the car real clear; all them things look alike to me anyway. Was blue, that’s all I can tell you.” His breathing eased a little, and he said, in a much different tone, “Holly Anne, I never meant to lie to you. Not for a second. I just couldn’t tell you. Not that. I let you down. I let that gal down, and if I could take it back, I would.”

“The killer didn’t hire you.”

“No. Money and job came by courier. Courier’s the man I found dead. He couldn’t tell me nothing.”

“So who were you following?”

“Got a tip about the witch,” Andy said. “He drove off afore the killer went for his car. I got the name of the witch; he ain’t getting away. Killer’s still a mystery, and I damn sure want to solve it.”

I heard him starting up an engine. “Andy, did you take my car?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that. Needed to move fast. Look, I may still be able to pick up his trail. We’ll talk about all this later, and I’ll explain proper.”

“Andy, it’s serious, what you did. You know that, don’t you?”

“Dead girl brought back to torture and murder? I know it is.” He sounded grim and quietly heartsick. “Ain’t the first time I made a mistake, but this one hurts. Hurts bad.”

“You didn’t make any others…?”

There was a short silence, then he said, “Gotta go, Holly Anne. Please forgive me.”

And then he hung up, without telling me where he was, or what he was planning to do.

It was a long couple of hours before the phone rang again. I grabbed it up in relief, but it wasn’t Andy, after all.

“Got another crime scene and another dead-again,” said Detective Prieto. He sounded tired and harassed. “Get a piece of paper. I’ll wait here for you.”

My heart was pounding painfully. “Is Andy—?”

“Is Andy what?” he snapped back. “Ain’t seen him, and do me a favor, don’t bring him. The son of a bitch creeps me out.”

Oh, thank God. It wasn’t Andy he’d found, then, which had been my instant and horrifying fear. “I—I don’t have a car.”

“Well, take a taxi, then, but don’t expect the city to be picking up the tab. Hurry it up if you’re coming. I can’t keep this place secure for long.” He read me the address, which I wrote down, then called a taxi for pickup.

I tried calling Andy’s phone, but it went straight to voice mail. The sound of his recorded voice, so awkward and uncomfortable with this newfangled messaging, made my heart break all over again.

He’d already broken it in two by lying to me, even if it was a lie of omission, and now, there was the horrifying possibility that he’d created more bodies to be filled with sleeping souls. More girls to wake to torture and death.

No wonder he didn’t want to talk to me. He had to stop it. I knew that he wouldn’t let go until he’d accomplished that, at any cost.

The taxi honked about five minutes later, and I felt sick as I opened the cabinet to retrieve my go-bag … and found it missing. I’d left it in the car, which Andy was driving. Not that I had the heart, or the stomach, to try to resurrect one of these poor, tortured souls, but it was habit to have it with me. A bit of constancy and comfort that I’d have to do without.

I gave him the address, and the taxi driver struggled with GPS coordinates until he finally said, “Lady, that’s some kind of park. You sure—?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

He shrugged and put the car in gear. Just another twenty-dollar fare to him.

Unlike the first crime scene, this time there was no uniformed police presence, no warning tape. Just Prieto’s big brown car, a shining dark blue one beside it, and an empty parking lot with a thin line of trees at the back of it.

There was one lonely crime scene technician photographing the scene: Greg. I waved at him, and he looked over and nodded. He waved back before continuing to snap pictures.

Prieto looked me over as the cab that had brought me drove away. “Here I thought you and Toland were joined at the hip. That’s two times you’ve shown up without him.”

I avoided the whole topic of Andy Toland because it hurt too deeply. “Where are the other crime scene guys?”

“I didn’t call them in. Legally, the worst we got here is illegal disposal of a body, and nobody wants to waste crime scene dollars on this thing, not in a budget-cutting economy. Hey, Greg, hang back for a minute. I want her to get the full impact of what her damn witch friends did.”

Greg stepped back and waited, watching me curiously as I walked forward. I immediately identified her: the second victim. Her dark eyes were open, staring up at the clouds as they passed overhead; they had filmed over but hadn’t dried out completely. Her full lips were parted. She had a look on her face I couldn’t quite define—surprise, and something horribly close to relief.

She’d been happy to die, at the end. Happy the suffering was over.

I thought about the cash sitting in the bureau drawer at home, waiting for a trip to the bank, and shivered; that was blood money—no, worse than that. I could never bring myself to touch it again.

“This dump site wasn’t on the original case files. It’s new. He’s changed it up to reduce his risk, which means we’re screwed halfway to hell on stopping him unless you and the undead boyfriend run down that resurrection witch.”

“Andy has a name for you. He may have information about the killer, too.” I said. Standing there, staring at the torn evidence of another girl’s horrible, violating death made me angry at Andy, really and painfully furious. He could have confessed. Should have confessed. If he’d made the shells, he could have told me and Prieto about it, and immediately handed over the courier who’d paid him; that would have made it at least partly right again. I knew why he’d tried to go it alone … it was in Andy’s Old West nature. But it was wrong this time.

No. This … this was beyond wrong. There was no mending it.

“Holly?”

Prieto’s voice was quiet, and unlike his usual dismissive tone. It honestly seemed … compassionate. I looked up to see him standing on the other side of the body, watching me. Behind him, the tech was staring, too. After a few seconds, he went back to work, but Prieto’s focus remained.

“Something you want to talk about?” he asked. “I can tell by the look on your face that you’re hurting.”

I shook my head. I did want to tell him, I wanted to blurt it out and be free of the dreadful pressure of this secret, but I couldn’t. Instead, I dialed Andy’s phone again. Got voice mail.

In the background, as distant as another world, the click of Greg’s strobe sounded like the dry scrape of claws on cement.

“All right, but there’s something you’re torn up with guilt about. Something to do with Toland. What is it?”

Prieto was maneuvering me into talking, and he was frighteningly good at it. I could see now why he was such an excellent detective; he had a calm, gentle manner toward suspects, one that made me want to confide in him. Unburden myself and relieve the boiling internal pressure.

I sucked in a deep breath, turned, and walked away toward the street. I’d dismissed the cab, and now I was sorry I had; I’d expected that Prieto would offer a ride back home, or have one of the uniformed officers do it, but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a car with him now. I was frighteningly fragile, and he’d know just where to push to collapse my thin, wavering wall of resistance.

“Holly Anne,” he said from behind—closer than I thought he should be. “Is he off looking for the killer? Because that’s not his job. That’s mine. You have to tell me what you know. He could be in a lot of danger if he goes off and tangles with this cold bastard.”

Good. That came bubbling up from the black, angry depths of my soul, and I tried to push that down, tried to excuse it as temper. “He’ll be fine,” I said. “He’s strong.” God, I was so disappointed in him now. And angry. And frustrated.

And then I felt it.

My stride faltered a little, as if I’d hit an unexpectedly soft patch of ground, but it wasn’t a physical blow, it was a feeling that swept over me, like a stinging black rain.

Weakness. Disconnection. Loss.

I knew that feeling, I’d been dreading it all this time, every day, every hour. It was the other shoe dropping.

It was Andy Toland losing his iron-hard grip on life and sliding back into the darkness from which he’d come.

I stopped and wrapped my arms around my stomach, shocked by the depth of the desperation ripping through me. No, no, no … I wasn’t sure if it was me feeling that, or Andy, or both of us, a tangled knot of despair and pain and anguish. Oh, mercy, please …

“You all right?” Prieto touched my shoulder, but I couldn’t respond. I panted for breath, and there were tears shimmering in my eyes. Bright, harsh tears that bent the light and broke it into twisting black shadows. Death was coming.

Death was here. I was losing him, and I didn’t know why, or how, or how to stop it.

I heard an engine roaring, and looked up to see a car round the corner and pull into the parking area, skidding and sliding in a greasy veil of smoke. My car. A shadow behind the wheel. Before the momentum was burned away, the driver’s side door snapped open, and a body tumbled out in a loose-limbed heap.

Andy.

He rolled over on his back, gasping, arching in the struggle to resist the touch of the darkness that was welling up inside. I could feel it drenching his cells, drowning the life out of him.

I wasn’t even aware of falling on my knees beside him on the cracked surface, but the touch of his skin was the most real thing in the world to me. “Andy—Andy, no…”

He grabbed for my hand and squeezed it tight. His eyes were wide and blank with concentration. I could see that the whites of his eyes were coloring over with blackness. Death was coming, and coming fast.

“Found the resurrection witch. He’s dead,” he gasped out. “Holly, Holly, I damn sure didn’t mean for this to happen. I never meant to cause suffering. You believe that?”

“I do,” I said. It was hard for me to see his expression now, through the bright veil of my tears. “You made the shells. You didn’t know what they’d be used for.”

“Should have,” he whispered. “Should have fucking well known. I killed that witch, but he gave up his black-hearted son of a bitch boss first. Gave him up and he’s here, Holly, he’s right here with you, and I had to make it back to you, I had to…”

I didn’t know what that meant. I looked over my shoulder; Prieto stood nearby, watching us with a confused expression. His cell phone was in his hand, but I could see that he didn’t know who he could call for help. Not for this. “He dying?” Prieto asked.

I was afraid to tell him, but there was no doubt of it, not now. I could sense the relentless tide of it growing inside him. “No, Andy, stay with me,” I begged. “God, please, stay with me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I doubted you…”

“Holly, listen,” he said. His voice was faint, but there was a note of urgency in it, a raw edge of insistence. “He’s right here.”

Prieto. No. I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t, but I turned to look at him. He frowned back. He hadn’t heard what Andy had said. “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would he call us in, why would he if he knew—”

“Not him!” Andy forced the words out, and squeezed my hands so hard I felt bones shift. “Other one.”

The blue car.

Greg.

I didn’t register the sound of the gunshot immediately; it took a long, confused second to penetrate as anything but a sharp, alien noise. By then Prieto was falling, the cell phone dropping to shatter on the pavement before he did. Half of his face was gone in a red ruin of bone and blood and brain, and, for a numbed instant, I thought his head had actually exploded in some kind of freak accident …

And then I realized that someone had shot him, as a bullet ricocheted off the door of the car and dug a raw gouge in the pavement not a foot away from me.

I screamed and ducked. Andy tried get up, to put himself in front of me because that was who he was, what he had always been.

I’d given up on him. I’d let myself doubt, and doubt had set him adrift just when he needed me most. And still he’d fought his way back out of the dark to come here. To warn me.

I wrenched open the back door of my car, and there, in the back floorboards, were two bags. Andy’s, and mine. I threw myself inside and grabbed both. I thumped Andy’s down on the pavement next to him.

He didn’t reach for it. In fact, he didn’t move at all. I still felt the connection between us, but it was pulling at me like a razor-sharp hook in flesh, and I was gasping from the agony of it. Death was dragging him away, and he was fighting it with every single ounce of magic and courage he possessed.

I didn’t dare try to get to him, there wasn’t time. Instead, I dumped the contents of my own bag on the floorboards.

The gun tumbled out, solid and reassuring, and I got it up and aimed just as a shadow stepped in front of the driver’s side door.

Greg. So damn normal. I’d spent an entire evening sitting in a car with him, laughing at his jokes, sharing chips and ranch dip and discussing the merits of the original Star Trek with the follow-ons. I’d liked that Greg, but now, as I saw his face, I realized that the man I’d gotten to know had been a ghost. A mask.

What was behind it was something not really human—full of cruel anticipation and dark pleasure and a particularly soulless kind of glee that held no hint of joy.

He pointed his weapon straight at me and smiled. “Drop it,” he said. “I already killed Prieto, and this guy’s gone, too.” He nudged Andy with his foot, and Andy’s head lolled bonelessly. He was pale and lifeless as a rubber doll. His eyes were open, but blank as glass. “Drop it.”

I squeezed the trigger, but he was faster. My shot went wide. His hit my shoulder and slammed me back against the upholstery in a bright red spray of blood. It must have hurt, but my brain skipped a beat, then it was just numb, as if I’d been asleep on that side of my body for too long. Shock, clamping down to preserve my life.

I’d dropped the gun. I bent forward to try to pick it up, but he grabbed my foot and dragged me out, flailing, leaving a thick wet trail of crimson behind. He kept dragging, past Prieto’s corpse, onto the grass. I tried to get up when he released his hold, but he put a knee in the center of my chest as he put his gun away and drew a knife. “Never shot a woman before,” he said. “It’s not as much fun as I’d hoped. You didn’t scream enough, but we can fix that. We’ll have to make this quick, though, Holly Anne; it’s kind of public around here. Exciting, though, isn’t it?” His grin was loose and wet and horrifying. “I sat there all night with you in that car, you know, wondering if I should take you over to that field and do you there for your friends to find. If you’d followed me out there, I don’t think I could have stopped myself.”

I shut my eyes because there was nothing I could do now. I was wounded, and he had the knife, I had nothing at all. Not even hope.

Andy. I love you, I always loved you, I am so sorry I even doubted it …

At least we could be together, somewhere beyond all this. Somewhere far from the pain and the sharp bite of the blade as it touched my arm, widening the bullet wound. Cutting my life away. I heard myself scream, but I focused on retreating into a place of silence, of peace, of Andy.

I love you. I’m so sorry for hurting you. You’re the only thing that ever really mattered to me, the only man who ever touched me in my heart, and I love you, I will always …

“I know,” Andy Toland said. I thought it was in my head, I really did; reality had come undone. I opened my eyes. It wasn’t Andy crouching over me, it was the killer, Greg, with his totally normal blue golf shirt underneath, and his totally normal face with a wolf’s eyes and a shark’s smile like some horrible accident of nature …

But it had been Andy speaking. He was standing right behind Greg. Pale as death, stark as an ink drawing, built of flesh and blood and bone and rage.

And below all that, there was love, oh God, so much love it mended my shattered heart into an unbreakable whole.

He pumped his shotgun one-handed and put it to the back of Greg’s head. For a second, Greg froze; his predator’s eyes turned frightened, and his smile faltered. Then he dropped the knife and held up his hands. “Please don’t shoot,” he said. “I surrender. I won’t give you any trouble.”

He must have thought that would do it. I could have told him different because Andy Toland was never a policeman, was never a lawyer; he grew up in a world where, sometimes, the only judge, jury, and justice was to be had in the flash of a gun.

And this was personal.

I turned my head just in time before he fired the shotgun. Both barrels.

Andy had angled the shot up, but some of the blood and … other things … fell on me. I expected to feel Greg’s lifeless corpse sprawl across me, but Andy had hold of his collar, and he pitched him off to the side like trash. Then Andy dropped to his knees and clamped both hands on my shoulder.

I still felt the pull of the dark, but this time I realized that it wasn’t Andy fighting that tide. It was me. “Holly Anne,” he said. “Holly, you listen to me. Listen. You’re not leaving. I ain’t allowing that. You just listen.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt vague and distant now. “I was angry you didn’t tell me. You understand? I didn’t mean to let you go.”

“All done now,” he said in his most smooth, soothing voice. His buttery voice, the one he used to lie to my boss to get my day off. Oh Jesus, I was going to die on my day off. That was just sad. And I hadn’t gotten my reports finished.

Andy cursed in a soft, trembling voice, and fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone. He punched 911, but I didn’t hear the conversation. I was busy thinking how odd it was to be looking at him from so great a distance. He had a nice nose after all, even if it had been broken once. I couldn’t understand why he was crying. “Did you have a shotgun in your bag?” I asked. “Because that must have been really heavy.”

“Shut up, my love, please Jesus—”

“I love you,” I said. It was important to say it.

And then I closed my eyes and with a great sense of relief, let go.

And Andy Toland held me, hovering there, suspended in the dark, tethered to him by the unbreakable chain of our love.

It took two surgeries and three weeks in the hospital to put my arm back together properly, and Andy never left my side. I think there might have been some violence involved in his defiance of visiting hours, but by the time I was conscious enough to really know, he and the medical community had achieved a cautious truce.

The police chief showed up to formally shake my other hand and present me with a certificate of appreciation, which was nice. There was a check for my services, too, which was even better. My boss sent flowers.

Andy looked good on the evening news, telling all them reporting sons of bitches to go to hell. I almost choked on my chicken broth.

But the best thing … the best of all … was going home with Andy, and being carried over the threshold, and smelling the astonishing scent of his potion brewing in its final stage. “I made sure it wasn’t so smelly for you,” he said. “Got a surprise, too.”

I breathed in Holly’s Balm and rested my head against his shoulder. “No more surprises,” I said. “Promise me.”

“All right then.” He smiled, put me on the couch, and pulled up a chair. He pulled from his pocket a thick sheaf of papers, which he unfolded. “You need to sign these.”

“What is it?”

“Company papers.”

“Company for what?”

“Holly’s Balm,” he said. “You own it, and I just got the first check for agreeing to let this company sell it. All I got to do is give ’em the recipe, and they’ll hire on the potions witches to do it. Us included. Should make us a tidy sum in paychecks, plus this signing bonus for you.”

Oh, there was a check. He held it in front of me.

That was a lot of zeroes. Six of them, with a respectably large single digit in front of them.

“Andy—I can’t take all this…”

“It’s only half,” he said. “The other half’s gone to Detective Prieto’s family. They won’t want for nothing, I promise you that. And—and to the families of them girls. I sent it without signing the note.” A quiet, shy smile spread over his lips. “Did good this time, didn’t I?”

I took the check, put it and the papers aside, and kissed him, long and sweet. He tasted like the potion, like every good thing that had ever happened in the world and nothing bad.

“Yes,” I said. “You did good.”

The potion was called Holly’s Balm, but the fact was … he was all the balm I’d ever need.

Author’s Bio:

Rachel Caine is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the Morganville Vampires series, the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series, and the new Revivalist series. She lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas. Her website is www.rachelcaine.com.