"Try to find one in the rain. Honey—"

"Yes, I would like honey, and bread. I am hungry."

"Right." He shook his head. "Coffee. Coffee first, then all questions can be faced. Come with me. I want you where I can see you."

She followed him into his tiny galley kitchen. While he measured coffee, she ran her fingers over the surface of the counter, over the refrigerator and stove. "So much magic," she said softly. "You must have great wealth."

"Yeah, rolling in it." He made a reasonable living, Harper thought. But he was what you could call between active cases at the moment. Maybe he could hold off on the guys in the white coats, see if she needed an investigator, and had enough to pay his retainer. "Jake didn't send you, did he?"

"I do not know this Jake." She peered at the side of the toaster, delighted with her own odd reflection. "I know no one in this world, save you."

"How did you get here, to my place?"

"Through the portal. It is…" She straightened, trying to decipher the knowledge, then to express it. "There are many dimensions. Yours and mine are two. The Bok stole a key and have entered yours. I have another." She drew the clear globe out of her pouch. "So I have followed. To hunt, to kill so that our worlds will be safe. You are to help me in this quest."

Poor kid, he thought. She was definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal. "You can't just kill people in this world. They lock you up for that."

"You have no slayers to fight against evil here?"

He dragged a hand through his hair, then rooted out some Extra-Strength Excedrin. Isn't that what his father had done? And what he himself had wanted to do as long as he could remember? To go after the bad guys, on his own terms?

"Yeah, I guess we do."

The woman was definitely in some sort of jam, even if it came out of her own oddball imagination. He would just keep her calm, ask some questions, see if he could dig out the problem. When he'd done what he could, he would make a few calls and have her taken someplace where she could get some help.

It would be the first good deed of his new decade.

"So, you come from another dimension, and you're here to hunt down some demons."

"The king of demons and three of his warriors have entered your world. They will need to feed. First, they will hunt for animals, the easy kill, to gather strength. Where are your farms?"

"We're a little short on farms on Second Avenue. So what do you do back in—where was it?"

"A'Dair."

He could run a search on the name on his computer, see if he could pinpoint where she'd come from. She didn't have a discernible accent, but the cadence, the rhythm of her speech sure as hell didn't say New York.