Chapters (50)
- Cover
- Roc Books by Jacqueline Carey
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
“You’re recruiting ghostbusters?” Jen set down a shopping bag and picked up one of the hammers, hefting it. “Cool. I’m in.”
“Those are for the coven,” I said without thinking. “Not you.”
“Why not?” Her voice turned cool, but the hurt registered in her brown eyes. “I’m not good enough to help?”
I could have kicked myself. “No, I didn’t mean that! But they’ve got spells and magic and stuff to protect them.”
“You don’t.”
“No, but—” I sighed. “Jen, if you really want to help, the biggest thing you could do is convince Brandon and his friends to call off the Easties vs. Townies fight. That would be huge. The fewer kids out there I have to worry about, the better.”
“Fine,” she said promptly. “Actually, I’ve already talked to him about it. Now can I be a ghostbuster?”
“You did say we might need all the help we could get,” Sinclair reminded me. Lee didn’t say anything, glancing back and forth between us. Lee was a pretty smart guy.
“I just don’t want to put you at risk,” I said to Jen.
She smiled wryly. “Look, Daise, I know I’m the Xander in your Scooby Gang. But at least Xander could hammer a nail. So can I. And I promise, whatever happens, I won’t freak out. Let me help?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Deal.”
Forty-five
As if to mock my sense of impending doom, Halloween day dawned bright and clear and unseasonably warm.
By noon, the festivities in the park were in full swing.
The sky overhead was that deep, vivid blue that you sometimes get in October in Michigan. A light breeze ruffled the river, but the thermometer registered seventy-four degrees. A band played in the gazebo. Grown-ups danced and drank beer. Kids with jack-o’-lanterns and black cats with arched backs painted on their cheeks laughed and shrieked, chasing one another over the grass, bobbing for apples, burying their faces in pies donated by Pomona Orchards, rolling pumpkins for prizes.
“I feel kind of silly now,” Jen muttered to me. She was wearing an old carpenter’s apron she’d appropriated from her father at some point in time, nails in the front pocket, hammer slung through a loop.
“I can live with silly.” I was sporting dauda-dagr on my hip and I had the spirit lantern tucked under my arm. As far as I was concerned, “silly” was a luxury that meant everything was quiet and calm. Ken Levitt was present in uniform representing the Pemkowet PD—Cody was on road patrol until later that evening—and he had a hammer and nails, too. Stefan’s second lieutenant, Rafe, was perched solitary on a motorcycle on the rise at the far end of the park, observing from a distance, his inhuman pallor hidden behind riding leathers and a helmet with a dark visor.