“Why me? Who is it?”

“I dunno, but there’s a lot of ’em and they’re wearing suits.” Rarely, if ever, was it good news when a suit showed up unannounced on a farm. “And they’re asking for you. So go up there before you cause this family even more grief.”

As Mollie mounted the stairs, she could hear Jeff calling a report to the rest of the family. His bedroom looked out over the porch. “They have a dog. And I think one of ’em’s carrying a gun!”

Mollie stopped. The soft yellow glow of the porch light through the frosted glass of the storm door showed human silhouettes standing on the porch. She opened a hole in space to make sure the barn was locked up tight before opening the door. Then she reached through a portal to Bismarck and grabbed a silk scarf from the closet.

Three people stood on the stoop. Some sort of K-9 unit, apparently—the dog Jeff had seen from upstairs was a big-ass mastiff. The men wore suits, and they didn’t make an effort to conceal their sidearms.

“Mollie Steunenberg?”

“Yeah. And you are…?”

The dog stepped forward, leaned toward Mollie, took a long deep sniff, and stepped back. Weird.

The man who spoke had a face that looked like it had been sculpted in a hurry. Not the crowbar kind of sculpting, not like Jim and Troy had done to each other. At least this guy had a face, of sorts. But a network of faint scars ribbed his features, his eyes weren’t quite on the same level, and his chin seemed the wrong shape for his jaw, almost as though it was lacking some bone. He wasn’t hideous, but he seemed not quite right. She didn’t recognize the Fed or his backup singers. She’d know if she’d met him before—his face was off just enough to be pretty memorable. She stopped staring at his face long enough to glance at the badge he flashed in her face.

Redundantly, he said, “William Ray, SCARE.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “These are my colleagues: Agents Moon, Huginn, and Muninn.”

The scarecrow-tall guys hanging back behind the badge-flasher were twins. They shared the same pale complexion, the same sweep of inky feathers on the scalp instead of hair, and identical eye patches over their left eyes.

“You’re either way early or way late, but Halloween is in October and we’re all out of Tootsie Pops.” Probably because it was the middle of the night, she hadn’t slept well, and because he was being an asshole, it took a second for what he’d said to sink in.

“I only count three of you,” she said.

The dog growled. Oh. Mollie suppressed a sudden urge to flee like a startled fawn. “Let me guess,” she said. “You must be Agent Moon. Strays have to sleep in the barn.”

The SCARE guy with the mashed-up face rolled his eyes. “What happened to your family, Mollie?”