My head hurt a lot. It was the dull, pounding ache of… I don’t know, something medium-bad or so. I’d be tempted to drama-queen it up, except compared to the part where I’d been dying of freezer burn and shattered ribs a few minutes ago, the head ache wasn’t all that awful.

Wait. Something was weird.

I was lying on something soft. A bed. With covers. I pried a wary eye open and slammed it shut against bright daylight. I rolled over with a little groan, dragging a hand out from under the blankets to cover my eyes. Shaded against the light, I got my eyes open again.

My bed. With my Egyptian cotton sheets, my pillows, and my antique nightstand. On which stood a large tumbler of amber liquid and a big, sexy bottle of Tylenol. I sat up, making my head throb, and snagged the Tylenol, prying the lid off and dumping a handful into my palm. I washed them back with the liquor, which turned out to be the good scotch, bless you Gene, and stared blearily around my room.

The fire was lit, and my shadow sat in the flames, a vaguely humanoid shape batting at the fire like a cat batting at bugs. She was drinking down most of the heat and light while she was at it, greedy pig that she was. It left the room dim in the corners, and the rich oak paneling dull and flat.

All the light was coming in the open windows, along with a warm breeze. It was daytime.

“Oh, fuck.” I tossed the covers back and swung my feet around, reaching for the bell pull. The brassy ring of the bell echoed down the halls as I spotted my cellphone sitting on the charger next to the Tylenol. I scooped it up to check the time.

It was 11:48. AM. Oh, shit.

Also, I had thirty-seven voice mails and eight text messages.

“Shit, shit, shit…” I moaned as Gene shambled in the door with a cup of coffee. I glanced up at his blank expression. “I was out for twelve hours? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

The zombie stared at me with his dusty white eyes and offered me the cup of coffee.

I shoved myself out of the bed and snagged the coffee, drinking it down in a single long pull. It was hot and black and strong and perfect. I gave the empty mug back to Gene and stormed out into the hall, checking my text messages. The shadow flowed out of the fire and along with me, stroking the walls and carpets as we passed, sharing the exotic texture of imported Persian floor rugs and the woody flavor of the wall paneling.

The text messages were almost all from Tyler: What’d Owen say? And again, Didn’t I say come *right* back? And again, Where the fuck are you? And again, Goddammit Alice. Tyler, getting increasingly more angry with me. The last text was from Pardell, and it said simply: so far so good. more outbreaks but I got help. call me? That made me frown. What did he mean, he got help? Pardell was a nobody, with no connections or money to speak of, and he couldn’t really barter favors with anyone major. He didn’t have the clout or the cojones. I keyed up the voice mails as I reached the top of the sweeping double staircase that led down to the main hall.

I stopped midstep, and backtracked to the full-length mirror I’d just passed. I was wearing a pair of white bikini panties and my red tanktop. I had a bit of a swollen lip, from where the hollowman had punched me in the face, and my head was a little tender where I’d hit the wall, but aside from that… not a mark on me. I lifted up the tank top, and twisted to the side, inspecting my ribcage and my side. Nothing. No sign of my injuries. “Alice, dear,” came a tinny recorded voice from my phone. It was Gianna deAngelo. Her voice was Bridge Club civil. “I need to talk to you. Call me back. Immediately.”

I peeled the bandage off my left arm, looking for the cut I’d received at the junkyard, and there was no sign of it. Not even a scab. There wasn’t even any blood on the bandage, and when I lifted it up to my face and gave it a sniff, I could still detect the faint lingering scent of jasmine and vanilla. Jada’s perfume, and it meant the healing magic she’d infused into the bandage was still there. Untouched. Unused. “Alice. Dear. I said ‘immediately.’”

I examined my reflection and my arm for a few seconds, wondering how the hell this was even possible. I’d activated the magic when I’d applied the bandage last night. When it touched a wound, the magic had to kick in… unless I wasn’t hurt? I’d assumed that the Carl-but-not-Carl had healed me, but why would he do that? How would he do that? And even if he had, that wouldn’t clean and recharge the bandage… it didn’t make any sense at all. A scratching sound caught my attention, and I looked down. “Alice. I have no time for your little stubborn fits of free will. Call me back.”

Down to where I was rubbing one leg against the back of the other, a gesture I frequently made without thinking about it when I was thinking. My legs were rasping.

But I’d just shaved my legs yesterday! I’d been looking forward to the flirting with Randall last night, when he came by the store to do business, and I’d indulged in some optimistic primping, you know, just in case. My face paled, and I brushed my hair out of my face as I stared in slowly dawning dread at my reflection. “Holy balls,” I whispered. “How long was I out?”

“Alice, if you don’t call me right back I will torture your children to death while you watch. If you don’t have children I will chain you to a wall in my basement and have my men rape you until you do, and then I will torture them to death while you watch. Am I making myself clear, you insufferable slut?” Gianna sounded a tad upset. I tapped the screen and silenced the playback.

I tapped the screen as I jogged down the curved staircase, calling up the calendar. No, it was only just Saturday, so I hadn’t slept away three or four days by mistake. Huh. Well, this was baffling; I needed more coffee. I aimed for the kitchen, speedwalking through the big parlor on my way to the kitchen. Irish turned away from where he’d been standing by the big French doors, admiring the view of the cypress trees and swampland just beyond my front porch. He nodded at me, and I flicked a hand in his direction as I pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. I’d deal with him after I had more caffeine in me. I made it halfway to the big industrial coffeepot before I skidded to a stop on the tile floor.

“Wait a minute.” I set my phone down on the counter island, and turned around as Gene shambled into the kitchen behind me. He had my empty coffee cup in hand, and my bed robe draped over one arm as he sedately made his way to fix me a second cup. “Did I just…” I backtracked into the parlor again.

Irish waved at me from the windows. He was wearing the same clothes as he’d had last night, considerably worse for wear and looking rumpled, as though he’d slept in them. I glanced over at the over-sized poofy suede couch, and spotted a pillow and a blanket.

“You’re up,” Irish said, raising his eyebrows. “And it’s ‘bout time. I was wonderin’ if we should’ve took ye to a hospital.”

“What hell are you doing here?” I spluttered, waving my hands around at my house.

“Oh, Gene invited me in.” He smirked, crossing his arms and looking me up and down. “Nice… pajamas.”

I glanced down at myself. Right, no pants. That would explain why Gene was trailing around behind me with my robe, I suppose.

“Thanks,” I said, leaning up against the door frame in a casual pose, even though I could feel my face warming. Blushing is the curse of the fair skinned. “You want a set? I’ve got some lacy blue ones that would look great on you.”

“Doubt I’d do ‘em justice.” He turned back to the window. “Where are we? Florida?”

“We’re in Michigan. The house is in Louisiana.”

“The house is in the trunk’ve yer car,” Irish said, turning back with a perturbed expression.

“Not exactly. The dollhouse, the artifact, is in the trunk of my car,” I corrected. “It’s an expensive one, too. Took me two years to get it right. It makes a connection to the house, sort of. No, that’s not right. It makes the house connect to us.”

“That makes no damn sense at all.” Irish shook his head, glaring around at the parlor.

“Hooray, magic.” I grinned at him.

“And what’s all this mess?”

“Oh, left-overs, mostly.” I glanced around, stepping into the large open room. Despite Gene’s best efforts, the place was a bit of a mess. The front parlor was quite large, boasting an arched vaulted ceiling and a tasteful fountain in the center with goldfish swimming merrily about. Back when this had been a plantation house, it had served as a ballroom. The hardwood parquet floors gleamed – Gene must have polished and waxed while I’d been out – and the chandelier was aglow with crystals and candles that I’d made special so they wouldn’t go out, start a huge fire, or drip wax.

There was a lot of clutter, too, including most of a battered Volkswagon Beetle with mismatched panels, a printing press, a mummy propped up in the corner wearing a cowboy hat leftover from my brief line-dancing phase, a lot of furniture, and my home brewing rig – a gigantic assembly of glass tubes, alembics, burners and valves. Nothing magical about that; I keep all my enchanting gear in the basement. But it looks cool. A ball of translucent goo slowly rolled around on the ceiling, because I don’t like to dust and without it the cobwebs would get pretty thick up there. Strange shapes here and there were covered by white cloth, others were draped in fur or, in one case, swaddled in dried seaweed. Gene hated all the clutter, but did what he could to keep it neat and tidy. Behind Irish, the view just off the porch was striking. It was a beautiful sunny day in the bayou. A heron landed on a fallen, half rotten tree and Spanish moss waved in the warm breeze.

I was seriously annoyed that I’d missed Irish’s first look at it. His expression must have been priceless.

I leaned against the staircase bannister and glanced up the stairs as the shadow relayed the sound and feel of bare feet on the steps. Honey was coming down, wearing one of Gene’s old shirts and a pair of my bicycle shorts. Both were too tight for her. She was carrying her heels in one hand, and I saw one of the heels was broken. “Oh, hey.” She looked me over, one eyebrow up. “Didn’t know you did informal in the mornings, Alice. I wouldn’t have bothered scrounging for something to wear.” She reached me and leaned to look over my shoulder, at Irish. “Ooo. I see.” She arced a salacious eyebrow at me. “Should I go back upstairs for a couple of hours?”

I rolled my eyes, and turned to take the robe from Gene, who had arrived at my side with a fresh cup of coffee and his usual bland expression.

“Hey, coffee,” Honey said, taking advantage of my entanglement in the silky robe to relieve Gene of my cup of coffee. “You know that doesn’t help much, right?” She eyed the robe with a critical expression, sipping coffee. The robe was technically opaque, but thin enough to hint at what was underneath. “It’s actually a little sexier this way. What do you think, big guy?” She called into the room, grinning.

I glanced over my shoulder just in time to catch Irish checking out the view. And I don’t mean the one through my windows. Honey laughed and sipped, making a face before handing it back to me. “Needs cream and sugar.” She pointed back the way Gene had come. “Kitchen? More coffee?”

“Yeah.” I waved her off, shaking my head. Slipping my hand into the robe’s pocket, I felt several foil-wrapped packages. What the hell? I pulled a couple of them out to take a look.

Condoms.

I stuffed them back in the robe as fast as I could, and shot a look at Gene. He shrugged, and nodded his head toward Irish, who, thankfully, didn’t seem to have noticed what I’d had in my hand. I waggled a finger at Gene. Bad zombi. No! His dead eyes managed to look innocent. I’d made him to anticipate my needs, which, when I wanted coffee, was handy. Sometimes, though, it was a bit… awkward.

I stepped into the parlor. “So, what happened after I got knocked out? How did you two end up here?”

Irish made his way around a pyramid of car batteries and a birdbath I’d salvaged because I liked the creative use the artist had made of hubcaps. “We were running away from the fire, and Gene led us to your trunk. I thought he wanted me to put you inside, so we could drive away, but when he opened it up there was a staircase.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’d told him to bring everything. So he did. The whole house. Wait, did you say fire?  Last I remember, there was a really pissed hollowman about to stomp my head in.”

“Aye.” Irish frowned. “But ye dropped something. It picked it up and left.”

“I dropped…” I paused, frowning into my coffee. “Carl threw a ring at me. I caught it. That’s what I dropped.” But there was something about the ring, wasn’t there? It was bugging me. “It was an artifact,” I added, taking a drink. That was interesting, but not what was bothering me about it. “Not one of mine, but definitely magical.”

Honey came back, a cup of her own in one hand, and my cell phone in the other, having deposited the heels somewhere en route. “Left this in the kitchen – you got another call. Gianna.” She handed me the phone. “Sounds like Gianna’s pretty fucking pissed with you.”

“You answered my phone?”

She shrugged. “It might have been important.”

“Was it?”

“She said she’s going to wear your femur like a strap-on and skullfuck you with it. After she makes you eat your own raw liver while she pulls out your festering vag and stuffs it up your ass. I might be going out on a limb, here, but I think she’s mad.”

“Shit, yeah.” I rubbed my face as Gene shuffled in behind Honey and offered me a fresh pack of cigarettes. I took them and lit one. “She’s not the only one. I had orders from one of the Knights, too. And I meant to get back to the junkyard and scrub it before Damian figured out I’d been there.” I took a deep drag off my smoke. Depending on how busy the hollowman had been all night, there was still an off-chance I could get to the Ford plant in time, but that would further delay my trip to Owen and Tyler’s answers. Not to mention that the vamps would be up in six or seven hours, and judging from Gianna’s calls, she was still in Detroit. Which meant I was about to be on Lord Duane’s hit list.

Irish sat down on the arm of the sofa he’d slept on, frowning. “It’s noon. What’s the vampire bitch doing awake, making phone calls?”

“Making plans to skullfuck Alice,” Honey replied. Irish gave her a dirty look, and she shrugged. “Vampires don’t like sunshine, true enough, but unless they’re really weak they can stay awake all day. Most don’t bother with it. They’re not as strong in daytime, either, but…” she got faraway look in her eye and shuddered, briefly. “They’re strong enough.”

“Shit.” Okay, so much for six or seven hours. This was tricky. How much of the yard would Damian check, really? I rubbed my forehead. He was down a Knight, with a hollowman tearing up Detroit. He might put Irish on the back-burner to deal with that. He was good enough that he could let the trail at the Ford plant cool a bit while he dealt with Carl’s hollowman, and still go back and pick up a trace later. “Okay, Owen first, then,” I decided, leaning to tap ash in an ashtray Gene had placed conveniently nearby on a sideboard.

“Who’s Owen?” Honey asked.

“He’s an expert on, well, lots of things. But Outlanders in particular. He might know something about how to get rid of this hollowman.”

Honey nodded. “Good. I owe him for burning down my bar.”

Wait. What was I going to do with Irish and Honey while I was out trying to save my own ass?

Honey wasn’t directly involved in anything, really. She’d be safe enough if I just dropped her off at home. And hell, come to think of it, I could do the same with Irish. Without his super-Jesus-powers, he was of no use to me, and if I cut him loose, the Order could chase him down without crawling up my ass. It would buy me a little time and room to work.

The shadow purred pleasantly in the back of my head at that idea. Sold. “Pardon me while I clean up a bit, you know, find some pants, and then we’re out of here.” I turned, heading out of the room.

“Who’s Carl?” Irish asked.

I paused at the door, and turned to look at Irish. He was still by the doors, frowning. “A magician I know. Used to know. Regular customer.”

“And he makes artifacts?” Irish looked up at me, still frowning. Thinking.

“No, I make them. He buys them. He was a geomancer.”

“Geomancer?”

“Earth magic.” I waved a dismissive hand. “Really powerful, but really slow. Like, holy shit, slow. You can get some really neat shit done, if you’ve got a few decades to work on it. That’s why he buys – bought – whatever – that’s why he liked artifacts. He could actually use magic with an artifact.” I waited a beat to see if Irish had any more pointless questions, and started up the stairs.

Irish followed me. “Wait, so he always bought artifacts from you, then?” He called after me.

“Yeah. So?” I paused midway up the stairs, turning to look down at him. He was looking down at his feet as he climbed the steps, his face red. I smiled, gathering that he’d liked the view up my robe when he’d come up the stairs behind me. My shadow snarled in disgust, little wisps of darkness twitching along the bannister.

“So why’d he have an artifact from someone else?”

“He didn’t. The body did.” I shook my head, turning to head up the stairs again and maybe taking the steps with a tad more wiggle than was strictly necessary. He followed after me, the shadow fleeing ahead of him and joining me on the landing.

“What does that mean?” Honey called from the parlor below, sipping her coffee and leaning back against the sofa. I suspected she’d undone another button on her borrowed shirt, because Irish had to look away from her rather quickly. She winked up at me, grinning at the game of tease-the-Irishman. I could never figure out how she winked with only the one eye, but she managed.

“Okay, look,” I answered, smirking. “That wasn’t Carl’s body. That was Carl in someone else’s body. Carl’s body is dead – I saw his face on the hollowman’s patchwork body. Whoever’s body Carl was wearing had a ruby ring on it. An artifact. He threw it at me, that’s all. Probably trying to distract me while his hollowman came to eat me.”

“Then what was all that bit between him and the creature?” Irish asked, arriving at the landing.

“That was weird.” I sipped coffee as I thought about it. I glanced around for an ashtray, not finding one. I gave up and held my smoke up in front of a suit of armor guarding the top of my stairs. “Ahem?” It reached up and opened the visor on its helmet helpfully, if a bit slow. I tapped my ash inside the empty metal shell where it wouldn’t make Gene give me that look again before he went off to fetch the vacuum.

“He summoned the creature, didn’t he?” Irish studied me. “He must’ve. Didn’t ye say those… creatures, they need a human body?”

“Yeah, but geomancers aren’t much for summoning. Not really their thing.”

“So how’d it get into his body? That was his body, right?”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“Or do ye call a beast like that up, and stick it in someone else? Is that how it works?” Irish asked, still staring at me. There was a little thoughtful crease between his eyebrows. I edged back a step, force of habit, as I recalled all the things he’d witnessed me do last night, and everything he’d heard Carl say to me.

“Well, no. Magicians used to summon outlanders for the power. Back in the day, anyway.” I waved a hand, trailing smoke, uncomfortable with the question. “You want the power, you don’t go giving it to someone else, right?”

“Right.” Irish’s speculative agreement didn’t do anything to put me at ease. “So yer mate Carl, had shit for magic. Liked artifacts, and wanted more power. He summoned the demon, and it killed him. How’d he get the other body?”

“Outlander.” I had a painfully tight grip on my coffee cup. “Not a demon. Demons are different.”

“Aye, outlander, sure. So an outlander, in a human body, that makes it –?”

“A hollowman.”

“Right,” Irish said, glancing over his shoulder as Honey paused on the top step. “So that’s like you, then,” Irish finished, looking back to me. It wasn’t a question. The upper hall ran the wrong way to pick up much sunlight, so it was dimmer up here. More shadows, and many of them were moving. Irish glanced at them, then back to me, expression carefully guarded and blank. Well, it would be. He was making accusations against an evil creature, and didn’t have his God backing him up while he did it.

Kind of impressive, actually.

“Only he’s dead, and you’re not…” Honey added hopefully.

I blinked. No, that wouldn’t work. The host had to be alive, or it wasn’t a viable host. So then what the fuck…?

Irish was studying me with that patient, neutral expression still. It made my skin crawl, and I suddenly wanted more clothes. And weapons. Lots of weapons. “No time for Twenty Questions, kids. Got work to do,” I announced, hitting my cigarette and turning on my heel. I hustled for my bedroom.

“What if he’s already been working at it a while?” Irish called, following after me with no respect for the impropriety of wandering directly into my bedroom.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Go ahead.” He waved one hand, indicating I should get on with it. He did, however, politely turn his back.

“You aren’t fooling anyone. You can see me in the mirror.” I pointed at the wide mirror over the bureau. Irish’s reflection smirked at me.

“Aye, good view, too.”

“Since when were you so, so, lecherous?” I demanded, one hand on my hip.

Irish shrugged. “I’m damned. Excommunicated. Might as well have some fun with it, eh? But ye didn’t answer my question. Could Carl have been workin’ on summoning this nasty thing o’ his for a while, or can geomancers just not do it at all?”

Our reflections studied each other, my expression confused, his thoughtful. What, that was it? By the way, I’m a hollowman, moving right along? Honey had caught up to us, leaning in my door frame. She was biting back an amused little grin as she watched us. “No, just about anybody can summon something. Shoot, Honey could do it, but she wouldn’t be likely to get something that big or powerful. Carl, now? Yeah, he could work up enough magic to summon something like that, but by ‘a while,’ you’d be talking years. Ten, twenty, maybe more. I’m not sure – I don’t know a lot about geomancy.” I called up my shadow, and she coalesced into a dark fog around me, like I was standing in a gathering storm.

Irish turned to look directly at me again. If he was disconcerted by the display of otherworldly darkness, it didn’t show. “What about the ring, then? Did that have something to do with it?”

I heaved a sigh, tossing my free hand out in exasperation. “I don’t know. I only got to look at it for a second.” At my command, the darkness gathered and thickened, completely obscuring me. I peeled off my robe, and tossed it toward the dresser. I couldn’t see through the darkness any better than he could, but I could imagine what it looked like. A silky pale robe, flying out of a billowy black cloud. It was immediately followed by my tank top.

“Fine, fine,” he said. His voice sounded steady, but I wished I could see his face. “Ye said you’d run into Carl before, at the cemetery. And Carl said he’d had to get another body. Who was he in before?”

“Jesus Christ, what are you, Sherlock Holmes?” I shook my head, and slingshot my panties toward the sound of his voice. Honey laughed out loud, and offered up some applause as I stepped into the en suite bathroom and closed the door. Finally, a little peace and quiet. I let the shadow settle and disperse and started the shower, and someone knocked at the door. “What now?”

“Hey, Alice?” It was Honey’s voice, dry and amused. “You do remember the part where he hunts monsters for a living, right?”

I turned and cracked the door a bit, peeking out around it so she could get the full effect of my annoyed glare. Honey stared back in at me, eyebrow arced, arms crossed.

“Oh, for – he was in the zoning commissioner’s body at the cemetery. Guy named Don Polrowski.” I gestured, and raised a wall of darkness to cover the doorway, letting it swing open. So much for a moment alone, I thought as I got into the shower.

“Zoning commissioner, eh? Who else?” Irish called. He needn’t have yelled. The shadow could hear him just fine, even though I couldn’t – not over the running water. I scrubbed soap into my hair, while the shadow stood sentry at the door and carried my response to the bedroom: “I don’t know. It was a little hectic at the time. I was trying not to get killed!”

“Well, try fuckin’ thinking about it! It could be important!” Irish’s tone was just as annoyed as mine.

I rinsed my hair and ran a handful of conditioner into it, rolling my eyes. I don’t know what the man expected me to come up with, and frankly, I had bigger things to worry about than which bodies Carl had stolen. The better question was how he’d even managed to avoid shuffling completely off the mortal coil, and…

I paused with the shower puff in one hand and my bottle of apple-scented body wash in the other, squinting against a stream of conditioner running into my eye. Wait a moment. At the cemetery, Carl had turned up, riding some other guy’s body and all aglow with poorly controlled magic, and I remembered –

“Shit! Polrowski was wearing a ring, too! I remember seeing it at the cemetery!” I armed the conditioner out of my eye. “It was the same ugly ruby ring!”

“The same ring?”

“Yeah – no, wait.” I squeezed body wash into the puff and lathered it up. “He would have had to find another body, then go back for the ring. I don’t know if he had time for that.” I gave myself a quick scrub and rinsed off, resisting the urge to linger under the hot water, and the more irrational urge to shave my legs again. I stuck my head under the water to rinse out the conditioner, and got a mouthful of both when I exclaimed, “Hey, I just thought of a thing! Just a sec!” I rinsed my hair, shut the water off, and stepped out, grabbing a towel. The towel was one I’d made, and it drank the water in seconds. It even worked on my hair as well as a hair dryer, and was a great time-saver.

“What is it?” Irish’s voice sounded impatient. By the sound of it, he was directly outside the door, which was still wide open but covered by an impenetrable wall of dark.

“When I met Tanner. He tailed me out of Bushie’s earlier, right? So I was trying to lose him, and I ended up at another house with more Corruptions –”

“How’d ye manage that?”

“Long story,” I said, remembering my suspicion that the shadow had directed me there while I wasn’t paying attention. “Anyway, it was Polrowski’s place. The hollowman had been there, too. But, the thing I remembered, there was another body. Malcom Chambers – the DA.” I brushed out my hair until I was satisfied with it and thought about adding some makeup. The shadow grumbled, and I shook my head. She was right, of course. Not the time.

“The district attorney and the zoning commissioner,” Irish mused as I called up more darkness. I wrapped the shadows around my body, letting it drape like a long-sleeved floor length robe.

“Better – the DA was missing his pinky finger.” I stepped through the shadowy privacy curtain, letting it fade away as I passed through it, coming face to face with Irish, who was leaning against the door frame. “Whoa.” He was a lot closer than I had thought, and I put a hand on his chest to steady myself.

“Sorry.” He took a quick step back, startled. Bits of the evaporating curtain clung to and were absorbed by my cloak of shadows, and I stepped around Irish on my way to the walk-in closet. Honey was leaning against my four-poster bed, smoking one of my cigarettes. She eyed me suspiciously. “Hey,” she drawled, “Alice? What are you wearing under all that dark?”

“Hm?” I arched an eyebrow at her. “Just shadows. Why?”

The room suddenly lurched, and I was thrown back against Irish as the floor pitched and yawed. Honey squealed and grabbed the bed for support, and Irish took hold of the bathroom doorframe and my waist. The housequake only lasted a few seconds, and when it was over, I heaved a sigh and looked down.

My shadow had flinched away, not wanting to touch Irish. Most of my ‘robe’ was still there, but missing a band around my middle. “Irish? You can let go. The house will compensate from here on out.”

“Compensate for what?” he asked, releasing me but trailing his fingers along my hip in the process. My shadow flowed and rippled, covering the exposed skin.

“We’re moving. Someone’s moving my car.”

Honey stood up again, from where she’d fallen on my bed. “What? We’re in the car, really? I thought we were in Louisiana?”

“No, we’re in Michigan,” Irish replied, deadpan. “The house is in Louisiana.”

“But…?”

“Magic.”

I patted his arm. “Yeah, you go ahead and tell her how it works. I’m going to go get dressed,” and I slipped into the my enormous closet, letting my ‘robe’ billow and grow and become another privacy curtain at the doorframe as I crossed the threshold.

“Somebody stole Alice’s Barracuda?” Honey asked, while I selected some clean undies.

“Looks that way,” Irish answered, dryly. “Or maybe it was towed.”

“Wow, somebody’s stupid.”

Table of Contents / Chapter Twenty-Six >>

---

Black Alice © Marci Sischo and James Agle | All rights reserved.
SiteMeter.com: