"Wards," Bob said. "Marcone's."

I felt my mouth fall open. "What?"

"Wards," Bob repeated.

I sat down on my stool. "How the hell did Marcone get wards?"

Bob's tone became a shade contemptuous. "Magic?"

The insult relieved me a little. If he was able to be a wiseass he'd probably be okay. "Could you tell who did the wards?"

"No. Too good."

Damn. A spell had to get up pretty early in the morning to get around Bob. Maybe he'd been hurt worse than I thought. "What about Ortega?"

"Rothchild," Bob said. "Half a dozen vamps with him. Maybe a dozen mortals."

Bob's eyelights flickered and guttered. I couldn't risk losing Bob by pushing him too hard-and spirit or not, he wasn't immortal. He wasn't afraid of bullets or knives, but there were things that could kill him. "Good enough for now," I said. "Tell me the rest later. Get some sleep."

Bob's eyelights flickered out without another word.

I frowned at the skull for a while and then shook my head. I collected my potion bottles, cleaned up the work area, and turned to leave and let Bob get some rest.

I was leaning over the ward flames to blow them out when the green candle hissed and shrank to a pinpoint of light. The yellow candle beside it flared up without warning, brighter than an incandescent light bulb.

My heart started pounding and nervous fear danced over the back of my neck.

Something was approaching my apartment. That's what it meant when the flame spread from the green to the yellow candle. Warning spells I had threaded out to a couple of blocks from my house had sensed the approach of supernatural hostility.

The yellow candle dimmed, and the red candle exploded into a flame the size of my head.

Stars and stones. The intruder that had triggered the warning system the ward flames were linked to was getting closer; and it was something big. Or else a lot of something’s. They were heading in fast to set off the red candle so quickly, only a few dozen yards from my house.

I dashed up the ladder from the lab and got ready to fight.

Chapter Ten

I got up the ladder in time to hear a car door shut outside my apartment. I'd lost my .357 during a battle between the Faerie Courts hosted on clouds over Lake Michigan the previous midsummer, so I'd moved my .44 from the office to home. It hung on a gun belt on a peg beside the door, just over a wire basket I'd attached to the wall. Holy water, a couple cloves of garlic, vials of salt, and iron filings filled the basket, intended to be door prizes for anything that showed up in an attempt to suck my blood, carry me off to faerieland, or sell me stale cookies.