“I come in peace, Jojo,” I said, eyeing the slingshot. “This is business.”

“Yes, I know.” Although she didn’t insult me, she summoned the energy to cast a disdainful look in my direction. “Someone must needs keep a vigil.”

“Are you expecting the duppy to show up here?” I asked her. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

“Like as not.” Jojo bared her teeth in a pointed grimace. “But not about the spirits of the mortal dead, no.” Her grip on the slingshot tightened. “I would fain keep him from harm, ’tis all.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “Be careful.”

Inside, Sinclair promised to distribute hammers and nails to all the members of the coven and assured me that they had a phone tree in place and were prepared to convene on a moment’s notice at the first sighting of his grandfather’s duppy.

“They won’t be able to help with the hammering thing if that happens, though,” he warned me. “They’ll need to form a spirit circle around him.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just trying to get as many people armed and ready as possible. God knows, we could be overrun by ghosts before Grandpa Morgan decides to make his grand entrance. We might need all the help we can get.”

Sinclair nodded at the silver acorn whistle hanging around my neck. “Have you thought about . . . ?”

“Summoning the Oak King?” I touched the gleaming metal. “I don’t think this is something even he can help with, Sinclair. The fey don’t wield influence over the dead. Although Jojo’s determined to try,” I added. “She’s out there with her slingshot. Says she would fain keep you from harm.”

He smiled tiredly. “Poor thing. She’s been dogging my footsteps ever since it happened.”

“She’s been dogging your footsteps ever since before it happened,” I pointed out.

“True.”

The front door opened to admit Jen and a tall, lanky, good-looking guy in corduroy pants, a cable-knit fisherman’s sweater, and a chestnut-colored suede jacket. Even given the fact that the jacket was draped over his shoulder to accommodate the cast on his left forearm, it took me a couple of takes to recognize him.

“Lee?”

“Oh, hi, Daisy!” He grinned. The Velcro landing strip of beard was gone from his chin and he had a new haircut. He still had the steel hoops in his earlobes, but now they contributed a mild hint of subversiveness. He looked surprisingly good, in a heroin-chic-meets-Abercrombie-&-Fitch sort of way. “So what’s up? Are we on the verge of a zombie apocalypse?”

Clearly, I’d been distracted. I shot Jen a WTF, girlfriend? look. She shot me a We’ll talk later look in return.

“Um, yeah,” I said belatedly. “I mean . . . I don’t know. I hope not, but we’re on the verge of something, that’s for sure.”