We both backed out into the store. "Can't get out that way," Murphy said. "Maybe they don't want to herd you anywhere. Maybe they just want to gas you and kill you while you're down."

I swept my gaze around the store. Cold grey mist rolled forward, slow and steady, in every direction. "Looks like," I said. I nodded down a tall, narrow aisle containing auto parts. "Down there, quick."

"What's down here?" Murphy asked.

"Cover. I have to get us a defense against that mist." We reached the open space at the end of the aisle, and I nodded to Murphy. "Here, stop here and stand close to me."

She did it, but I could still see her shaking as she asked, "Why?"

I looked up. The mist had reached the far end of the aisle and was gliding slowly down it. "I'm going to put up a circle that should keep it off us. Don't step out of it or let any part of you cross outside."

Murphy's voice took on a higher, more tense pitch. "Harry, it's coming."

I twisted open both salt shakers and started pouring them out in a circle around us, maybe three feet across. As I finished the circle, I invested it with the slightest effort of will, of intent, and it closed with a sudden snap of silent, invisible energies. I stood up again, holding my breath, until the mist touched it a moment later.

It roiled up against the circle and stopped, as though a cylinder of Plexiglas stood between it and us. Murphy and I both let out our breath in slow exhalations. "Wow," she said quietly. "Is that like a force field or something?"

"Only against magical energies," I said, squinting around us. "If someone comes along with a gun, we're in trouble."

"What do we do?"

"I think I can protect myself if I'm ready to do it," I said. "But I need to set up a charm on you."

"A what?"

"Charm, short-term magic." I fumbled at my shirt until I found a frayed thread and started pulling it out. "I need a hair."

Murphy gave me a suspicious frown, but she reached under her hat and unceremoniously jerked out several dark gold hairs. I plucked them up and twisted them together with the strand of thread. "Give me your left hand."

She did. Her fingers shook so hard that I could feel it when I put my own around them. "Murph," I said. She kept looking up and down the aisle, her eyes a little wild. "Karrin."

She looked up at me. She looked very young, somehow.

"Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."

She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick."

"You'll get through it."

"What if I don't?"

I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."