Dani was leaning jauntily against a streetlamp in front of the church, bike propped against her hip. She had a painful-looking knot on her forehead; the undersides of her forearms were scraped raw, and dirty; and she’d torn holes in the knees of her pinstriped pants as if she’d gone sliding on all fours down an asphalt roof, which, she told me breezily, she had. I wanted to take her back to the bookstore, clean and bandage her up. I told my bleeding heart to get over it. If we ever ended up fighting back to back, I’d need to trust her to deal with all but critical wounds.

Dani slapped the camera into my hand with a cocky grin, and said, “Go ahead, tell me what a great job I did.”

I suspected she didn’t hear praise often. Rowena didn’t seem the type to waste breath on a job well done, when she could save it for a job badly done. I also doubted Dani got much nurturing from the other sidhe-seers. Her mouthy defensiveness made her hard to cuddle, and her sisters-in-arms had their own worries on their minds. I thumbed on the camera, glanced at the measly seven pages she’d photographed, of the wrong stuff, and said, “Great job, Dani!”

She preened a moment, then hopped on her bike and pedaled off, skinny legs pumping. I wondered if she ever used her superspeed while biking and, if she did, would you see only a flash of green whizzing by? Kermit the Frog on steroids. “Later, Mac,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll call you soon.”

I headed back to the bookstore by way of the drugstore. It was light enough to put away my flashlights. I did, then stared down at my camera, zooming in on the photos, trying to figure out what she’d gotten.

I knew better than to walk with my head down. I didn’t even dare carry an umbrella in the rain for fear of what I might bump into.

When I careened off the shoulder of a man standing near a dark, expensive car parked at the curb, I exclaimed, “Oh, sorry!” and kept right on going, blessing my luck that it had been a human I’d bumped into, not a Fae—when I realized I had my “volume” way down—and it hadn’t been a human.

I whirled, whipping my spear from my jacket, willing the people passing by—most with their noses buried in a newspaper, or on their cell phones—not to see me, as if maybe I could throw a little glamour of my own. Melt into the shadows with the other monsters.

“Bitch,” spat Derek O’Bannion, his swarthy features contorted with hatred. But his cold, reptilian gaze acknowledged my weapon and he made no move toward me.