“Is Trent there?” the man who wasn’t Robbie asked, his voice off.

Ivy leaned toward the door. “No,” she said belligerently. “Whatcha going to do about it?”

I smacked her shoulder with a huff, and she blinked innocently at me. The growing rim around her eyes vanished, and I backed up a step. “What did you tell them that for?”

“To hurry things up. I want to see the sunset over the bay this evening.”

I sighed, leaning to look out the peephole again, but I only got a glimpse of them, their heads clustered over a glowing ley-line amulet, before I flung myself away, pulling Ivy with me.

Her shout of protest was drowned out by a loud bang, and the heavy steel door burst inward, landing askew on the front couch in the lower living room.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, struggling to find my balance as I held Ivy’s arm. I reached for a ley line as the door frame smoked, but the energy source oozed through my mental fingers like slivers of broken mirror. It hurt, and I scrambled to fill my chi with the nasty stuff.

The smoke cleared, and I let go of Ivy when my mother and Robbie came in. It was obvious it wasn’t them, and I frowned when I recognized Wyatt and that young coven witch behind them. Son of a bitch, Trent had been right. They were going to try to off me.

“You!” I exclaimed, then yelped, ducking and trying to set a circle when Robbie pulled a small air gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at me. Holy crap, they all had air pistols!

The circle around Ivy and me gave a hiccup and died. It just flickered and went out. Shocked, I just stood there as Ivy snatched the serving tray from the coffee table. The last of the crackers and cold cuts went flying as she pulled it up to intercept the splat ball. It hit with a ping of sound and a hiss of magic. Yellow foam bubbled, quickly turning black as the salt in the air interfered. Her lip curling in a sneer, Ivy threw the tray like a lopsided Frisbee at my not-mother.

Drawn gun dropping, my not-mother jumped out of the way, knocking into Robbie and ruining his aim. His splat-ball shot hit the ceiling. Trent was going to be ticked. The tray thunked into the wall and stuck, quivering. It would have broken a couple of ribs easily. Whatever was in those splat balls Robbie was shooting was nasty. Robbie, hell. It was Oliver. I could tell by the way he snarled and shouted, “Shoot them both!”

“Down!” Ivy hissed, jerking me up the steps into the upper living room and behind the couch.

“My circle didn’t hold!” I said, feeling betrayed as I took them in. There were four of them. Oliver looked like Robbie. That was probably Amanda posing as my mother, seeing that I recognized Wyatt with his steely brown eyes and stern expression, and the last geeky-looking witch—Leon, if I remembered the papers right.