Sinclair laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You might want to lead with that next time. By the time you’ve passed the point of supernatural extortion, it’s a little too late.”

“Sinny—” Emmeline began.

He looked at her. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

She fell silent.

There were a few more fraught exchanges and awkward logistics to be sorted out, but ten minutes later, Letitia and Emmeline Palmer were on their way out of town with a four-motorcycle escort of hungry, glittering-eyed ghouls. Sinclair and his father had departed, as had most of the coven, with promises to confer tomorrow. Casimir and nice Mrs. Meyers from the historical society were the only ones still lingering in the cemetery with me.

It was quiet. Too quiet. I mean, I know that’s the nature of a cemetery, but after all that dramatic buildup, I felt like there should be a ghost wailing and shrieking among the headstones, or maybe taking on some of the bizarre and terrifying appearances that duppies were said to manifest.

I kicked at the dry grass scattered with brown pine needles and maple leaves. “Grandpa Morgan?” I called. “Are you there?”

Nothing.

“Daisy, I want to apologize to you,” Casimir said to me. “We concentrated our efforts on protecting Sinclair. That was a mistake.”

I shrugged. “We all agreed it was the right approach. The question is, what happens next?”

Mrs. Meyers was sitting primly on the stoop of Talman Brannigan’s mausoleum. She’d taken her knitting out of her handbag and her needles were clicking away. “No one knows, dear. That’s the problem.”

“Maybe it just . . . fizzled,” I suggested. No one was buying it. Another thought struck me. “Or maybe . . . maybe Hel claimed Grandpa Morgan’s spirit herself! She is a goddess of the dead, after all.”

It was a nice idea, and it cheered me up while it lasted, which was as long as it took for Mikill the frost giant to pull into the cemetery in his dune buggy and summon me to an audience with Hel.

Oh, crap.

Thirty-five

Hel did not have the spirit of Grandpa Morgan in custody. Hel’s sway over the dead was limited to those of the Old Norse faith, of which there were actually more than you might guess these days, but still few enough that it probably wasn’t a good idea to comment on it to a goddess.

Especially a pissed-off goddess.

To make a long story short, I was an idiot for having agreed to a parley without dictating the terms of the meeting. I was an idiot for allowing it to be held in the cemetery. I was an idiot for not knowing in advance that a second, more powerful sorceress would be in attendance. I was an idiot for not ensuring that they were disarmed of any and all magical weaponry, including what appeared to be an empty pickle jar.