She was thoughtful when she drove away from Lauren’s studio. How ironic that she might be in a position to acquire power after all. Not that it mattered to her. But she did like the idea of investing in her new community. She loved helping people who needed it, and if they needed her protection too…

She could see herself doing it.

The alarm on her phone went off. It was five o’clock.

Pulling over to the side of the road, she almost called Josiah to tell him about it and see what he thought. She was pretty sure she knew what the Josiah she had first met would have said.

But, no. That’s not what they were doing.

So she texted, Safe.

And he replied, Safe.

In Atlanta, the Sunday-evening B & E didn’t go off without a hitch.

They executed it close to midnight. The Sherman & Associates main office was located in a downtown high-rise, but they didn’t need to break into the main office. As the most prominent law firm in the state, Sherman & Associates would pay a fortune for data protection, so they would almost certainly use an off-site server with encrypted security anyway.

But the coven had yet to discover an electronic encryption that Steven couldn’t breach. Steven said all they really needed was to get him access to the internal network, so they chose to target one of the firm’s smaller auxiliary offices located north of the city.

It was physically more accessible, located in its own building separate from other businesses. Also, if things went south, they had a marginal hope of gaining a minute or two more before either the police or some other form of security showed up.

But when the team of four went in, something happened, some elusive magical thing that shot off into the night. None of those who went in caught what it was, and Josiah and Maria were positioned at road points too far away to identify it.

“Get out,” Josiah said into his mic.

“Roger that,” Anson replied.

Steven might have difficulty with social situations, but at that moment he sounded entirely calm. “I just need forty-five seconds to finish casting this malware spell. Hold on.”

Josiah heard fast-approaching sirens and got the sense of something huge, magical, and ugly approaching fast.

Maria said, “Jesucristo. Incoming.”

“Twenty-two seconds. Almost there.” Steven sounded like he was discussing the weather.

Two cop cars hurtled past Josiah’s sentry position, but that wasn’t what worried him. He was worried about that huge magical thing. Josiah said, “Get out now.”

“Goddamn it.” Richard uttered a foreign-sounding name.

Another immense magical thing hurtled in like a cyclone. A moment later the cyclone appeared in front of Josiah. It resolved into the form of a tall, stern-faced Djinn with sparkling, diamond-like eyes. He had with him the four who had gone in.