The spell I got from MacFee is complicated, dangerous for amateurs, and has lots of moving parts. I could never hope to do it on my own. That’s why the people he got it from have put it together in convenient kit form. It’s less like chanting in ancient Aramaic for fifteen hours to summon pit demons than it is like following instructions from Ikea. About half an hour later, I’m done. And I don’t even have any left-over Swedish screws.

Sitting on the table is a perfect—as perfect as I can recreate from my own memories and photos on my phone—likeness of Darius’s bottle. I go over it one more time. Make sure the sigils match, the colors are right, the brass is tarnished in the right places.

Satisfied that it’s as close as I can possibly get, down to how I remember the feel of the glass and the acid-etched glyphs, I delete the photos from my phone and pack the fake bottle in its case.

MacFee sources some good shit, I gotta admit. He works with a group that does high-end glamours. Really high end. There are pretty young things walking the runway or starring in blockbuster films who aren’t what they appear to be. Hell, they’re not even human. You’d be amazed how many famous actors and actresses have been around since before talkies were even a thing.

I’ve got an hour to kill so I turn on some 24-hour news channel and watch a talking head tell me that the Vernon fire is contained and they expect to have it out in the next day or so. But the damage is done. Hospitals are at capacity. The county morgue doesn’t have enough room for all the bodies, so they’ve got them stored in hospitals, funeral homes, refrigerated trucks.

On the plus side, people are opening their homes to displaced strangers, blood donations are up, people are generally being nicer to each other. There is surprisingly little looting. Nothing beats horrible, gut-wrenching tragedy to bring a city together.

I dial up Letitia. She answers right before it goes to voicemail and the first thing I hear is someone, presumably her wife, yelling, “Don’t you turn your back on me!” in the background.

“Hey,” Letitia says. She sounds ground down.

“Bad time?”

“These days I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a good time.”

“Have you had The Talk?” I say.

“God, no. And I’m not talking anymore about this. What do you want?”

“I’m heading over to Chu’s. He’s got that fundraiser going on. I figured I’d go surprise him with a little present.”

“You found a sp—You found one?”

“Yep. Thought he should get a chance to see it before I hunt down a god with it.”

“Jesus, that’s the first good news I’ve heard.”