Surviving it wasn’t enough, she had to save Jack, and, if truth be told, herself. Not being able to touch him outside of ritual having touched him within ritual would flay pieces off her soul every time she saw him. The only way to keep them out of ritual was to solve the problem.

Problem? Right.

A pigeon strutting back and forth on the edge of the roof froze as her laugh slid toward cackling thirty years too soon. When an auntie started cackling, the rest of the family battened down.

Solve the problem, save the world.

Save not only her family, but Gary and Kiren and Dan . . .

Dan.

“Remember the bears, Charlie.”

She hadn’t given the last thing she’d heard Dan say much thought at the time. Given Calgary’s proximity to the mountains, it wasn’t that surprising a thought for him to have overheard and some poor bastard running into bears in the wild would probably have provided the focus necessary to get through her earworm and into his head. Except . . .

It wasn’t a random thought. It was a thought directed at her.

“Remember the bears, Charlie.”

Charlie squinted at a pigeon strutting along the edge of the roof. His head bobbed forward into the sun, the bit of garbage dangling from his beak both blue and fuzzy.

The universe arranged things in the Gales’ favor. Occasionally, it smacked them upside the head.

Smacked her upside the head.

So she remembered the bears. The bears staring out the windows. The bears freed when she broke the glass. Auntie Jane’s phone call . . .

Remember the bears. Remember what had been said about them.

The pigeon sidled away as she stepped toward him, giving her an impressive hairy eyeball considering his total lack of hair. “Come on, bird, I’m not going to hurt you.” He didn’t look like he believed her. She could make him believe her if she wanted to stoop to compelling pigeons. She stepped closer. The pigeon spread his wings. “Stay there!”

Apparently stooping wasn’t a problem.

The emphasis snapped his wings down.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” She’d have told him not to be frightened, but he didn’t look frightened; he looked pissed off. Bending slowly, she tugged the dangling bit of fuzz out of his beak. “Okay then. I can smell bacon from the diner on 13th. You should head over there and try to score. Or not,” she added, jumping back as her field of vision filled with wings beating out an angry rhythm on the air.

Pale blue polyester fuzz. Incredibly filthy, pale blue polyester fuzz; probably home to the kind of bacteria normally found only around the toilets of the sort of bars that hung chicken wire in front of the stage. Fortunately, Charlie had a charm for that.