It was a tense few minutes, as we stood on the porch in silence. Me brooding, and thinking about what I had to do when I got back to my workshop, and Irish pouting. Like a child.

“There he is.” I pointed at the lone headlight turning down the street, washing us in a weak, flickering light. He’d made good time. I wondered if he’d actually anticipated my call, or just drove really fast.

“Yer sure that’s him?” Irish raised a hand to shield his eyes, squinting into the light.

“Yeah.” I winced at the sound of the Barracuda’s engine. There was an unpleasant gurgling undertone to it that I didn’t like at all. As it pulled up to the curb, I saw that the boys had gotten the glass replaced, and the rear corner panel, but that was about it. It was an awful mess. I was going to have my hands full getting it back into shape.

The driver’s side door opened, and Gene stood up out of the car. He gave a little grunt of acknowledgment as we hurried down the walk to the car.

“Good job, Gene.” I clapped him on the shoulder. He gestured at the driver’s seat. “No, you drive. Find us someplace to hide for a bit. Pop the trunk, would you? I’ve got some work to do in the shop.” He sat back down in the driver’s seat, reaching under the dash to pull the trunk release. “Come on,” I told Irish, heading for the back of the car as Gene pulled the door shut.

I lifted the trunk lid, waving for him to go first. He stepped up on the bumper, ducking down under the trunk as he headed down. It was an awkward entry at best, but I’d never designed the entrance for a car trunk. I was amazed it was working as well as it was. I ducked into the trunk after Irish, pulling it shut behind me and following him down the stairs. The house jerked briefly as Gene took off, and I fretted briefly about my poor transmission.

“That you, Alice?” It was Honey’s voice, from the kitchen. I followed Irish into the brightly lit kitchen, stepping into the rich scent of roasting chicken.

“My God, that smells fantastic,” Irish exclaimed. “I’m starving.”

Honey stood next to the oven, examining her freshly manicured nails. She’d borrowed of a pair of my baggier work-out sweats, and filled them out better than I ever had. She’d found the baggy black v-neck tee shirt I used as a nightshirt, and it was a lot tighter around her chest than it was on mine, even if it hung a little low on her. It went nicely with her eye patch, which she’d reversed so it showed nothing but plain black fabric. She looked fresh and clean scrubbed, her hair pulled into a ponytail, and no makeup at all. It was the plainest I’d ever seen her look, and she was still a knockout. I hated it when other women managed that.

She glanced up at Irish’s words. “I know, right? It should be ready, soon. Gene started it a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh.” Irish’s face fell. “Gene… cooked.”

“He washed his hands,” Honey offered, wrinkling her nose in commiseration.

“Oh for — he’s perfectly sterile, people.” I edged past Irish, heading towards the basement door on the far side of the kitchen. “Help yourselves. You aren’t going to catch anything.”

“You’re not eating?” Irish glanced at me as I pulled the door open. He frowned. “Do you eat?”

“Of course I eat.” I stopped, leaning on the door frame. When had I eaten last? I didn’t have any breakfast this morning. Dinner last night? No, things got crazy before I made it that far. Lunch, maybe? I didn’t recall having anything for lunch. “Well, I do when I remember, anyway.”

“What’s your secret to forgetting?” Honey quirked a slightly envious smile at my hips, which surprised me a bit, considering what I’d just been thinking about her. “I could use a little help with that, myself.”

“You could try the constantly-starving extra-planar entity diet.” I grinned at her confusion. “She’s always hungry. I can’t tell when I am anymore.”

“Nah, that’s a little hardcore for me. I’ll stick with Slim-Fast.”

“Wuss.” I turned to head down the stairs.

“Whatcha doing?” Honey called, coming after me. “Something cool?”

I laughed. “Yes. Something very cool.”

Irish and Honey trailed down the metal staircase after me into basement workroom. I shrugged out of my jacket and threw it over the railing toward the hat rack, which juked to the side to catch it neatly on one hook. The basement was huge, branching out to the left and right to a dozen or more semi-finished specialized workrooms and storage areas. Somewhere in the far back corner of the maze was the furnace room, where the water heaters and fuse boxes and my forge lived, and directly to the left of the stairs was a really nice wine cellar I kept meaning to fill up. The basement was warm, and smelled of ozone and candy, leather and metal and oil and smoke, and coming down here felt like coming home in a way that the rest of the house couldn’t quite match.

I clapped my hands twice, and the lights came on. Kerosene lamps hanging from the great beams of the old rafters, spotlights aimed at work in progress on a dozen benches, fluorescent lights built into the long metal storage racks, and recessed track lighting over the portraits of the greats – Tesla, Edison, Curie, Carver, Faraday and all the rest. A few discretely placed wood stoves coughed into life, and a tame zephyr stirred itself from a nap and got back to work circulating the air.

Irish gave a long, low whistle as he looked around, using his vantage from the stairs to see take in the view. Honey applauded politely, and skipped around him to join me on the acid-washed cement floor. “Hey, the floor’s warm!” she exclaimed, wiggling her toes.

“Yeah.” I frowned. “Not sure why. It started doing that when I got the dollhouse portal working. I wonder sometimes if I should be worrying about that…”

“Oh-kay.” She gave a wary glance at the swirling rust-brown patterns on the cement, but followed me into the rows of metal utility shelves full of the stuff I used most often, stored in plastic Rubbermaid tubs and archive boxes, in glass bottles and carefully charmed wooden boxes.

Against the far wall was my main work area. There were two big over-stuffed bookshelves groaning under the weight of various grimoires and blueprints I’d collected, and an old TV on top of a file cabinet off to one side. I like to watch the Pistons while I work. Center stage was a huge wooden workbench, solid teak and polished to as much of a shine as it would still hold. The surface was pitted and scarred, and there were four or five projects laid out on velvet covers on it, half-completed. One of those was a tangle of fine chain-links of various metals, which was going to be an improved shield belt… or something. I bumped that up on the priority list. There was a giant cauldron of caramelized sugar bubbling away in one corner, and a water-stained and yellowing anatomical poster four feet by eight feet spanning the wall, showing off in excruciating medical detail the human body and all its wobbly bits. Specifically, Gene’s body. I was so pleased with the schematic when I’d finished it that I’d kept it on display.

Irish ducked under a rope of eight drying shrunken heads, following us to the work bench, where I’d paused to glare at another current project, a silver cigarette case which had, much to my irritation, sprouted another healthy tobacco plant. Honey stopped to inspect the shrunken heads, and then came over to join us.

“What’s this?” she asked, fingering the tobacco leaves.

“Well, it was going to be a never-ending pack of cigarettes.” I picked up a leftover glass of water from the bench and tipped a little into the case. “Can’t figure out where the hell I’m going wrong.”

“Huh,” she said.

“The prototype is upstairs in the entryway. That jukebox-looking thing with the red button in the front?”

“I saw that. I didn’t press the button, though! For all I knew it’d turn me into a newt, or something.”

“It would have stolen a cigarette from an unattended pack of smokes somewhere, that’s all. Dispenses them from that little slot in the front. This was supposed to be the portable version of that.” I grimaced at the plant with a sigh. “Ah, well. Next time.”

“So this is where the magic happens?” Irish asked, running his fingers over the workbench as he wandered down its length. The whole thing was maybe fifteen feet long. “I thought it’d be more…”

“Organized?”

“More eldritch, I suppose. I guess I’d pictured, like, an altar. Or a mad scientist kind of setup, with potions bubbling away in glass tubing. Maybe a summoning circle inlaid into the floor.”

“Altar’s by the west wall. I use the old coal chute to get the livestock down here. I do have a rudimentary chemical lab in one of the rooms down the hall, there, but I’m no alchemist. When I need something alchemical, I hire an expert. Eyebrows take a long time to grow back.”

“Very funny,” he muttered, and I smiled sweetly at him, before turning on my heel to approach the round stone pool just to the right of the sugar cauldron. It was about two feet deep, built up from the floor with decorative gray gardening blocks, positioned against the wall under an opalescent white water spigot. The inside walls and floor of the pool were coated with a flat black tar-based sealant, and unless you looked very carefully, it gave the impression there was no floor at all to the thing. Which was fine. Sometimes there wasn’t.

“What’s this?” Irish asked, standing over me to study it.

“My oracle,” I answered. “Obviously. What else would it be? You mentioned a summoning circle, right? Not my thing, sorry, but I do have this.” I turned the spigot and water gushed out into the pool. “Give it a bit to fill, and we’ll see if we can get a message to Grace.”

“Grace?” Irish’s eyes widened. “Why are ye tryin’ to get a hold of her? And you have a phone.”

“Well, yeah, I could call, but she’s probably with Tyler. This way I can get her a message he won’t notice.” I lit a cigarette while the pool filled.

“Who’s Grace?” Honey asked, leaning against the workbench.

“But why?” Irish held his hands out. “What d’ye need her for?”

“Oh, I don’t need her. You do.” I sat on the edge of the pool. “Grace is one of the best enchantresses in the Midwest. If anyone can sort out what’s been done to your head, she can.”

Honey came over and plopped down next to me. “What happened to his head?”

“I don’t need her messin’ about with my head,” he grumped, crossing his arms in an unconscious gesture. His eyes were haunted, though, and worried, and it gave the impression that he was hugging himself.

“Yes. You do.” Irish and I glared at each other for a moment while the water gurgled into the pool. It sent up a faint white steam that wreathed us and twined with thin tendrils of drifting shadow poking around in the pool. I tapped ashes on the floor and shifted to look at Honey.

“That tattoo artifact I mentioned earlier? Turned out to be all enchantments.”

“Yeah? What are those?” Honey plucked my cigarette out of my hand and hit it, so I handed her my pack.

“Enchantments mess with your mind and emotions. ‘These are not the droids you’re looking for,’” I said, giving an Obi Wan wave of my hand. Honey grinned as she lit a cigarette for herself using the tip of mine. “Love spells, mind control, seeing things that aren’t there, or not seeing things that are there, that kind of thing.” She gave me my cigarette back, nodding.

“Okay, sure,” she said agreeably, leaning back and bracing a hand on the edge of the pool. “So his tattoo was made to do that sort of thing? What was it doing, exactly?”

“All kinds of fun stuff.” I grinned as Irish glowered at us. “Big part of it was a love spell. I mentioned he was married?”

“Oh, shitty.” She gave Irish a sympathetic glance.

“Yeah, but what a great way to keep your soldiers from falling for every two-bit succubus who flashes some thigh, right? Plus? Perfect hostage in the spouse, if you need it. Which makes me wonder why they killed her, frankly. I’ll bet they’ve been planning on cutting you loose for years,” I added off-hand to Irish. “They were just using you up first.”

“Wow, what a bunch of winners.” Honey wrinkled her nose. “What else?”

“Loyalty charms out the ass. Just great big fucking gobs of them. I’d say they’re fucking terrified you guys will get loose. Which is a real funny thing for them to be if you guys lose your abilities when you’re kicked out of the Order, wouldn’t you say?” I turned a bland, inquiring look up to meet Irish’s angry eyes. His gaze lost some of its irritated heat as he considered what I said. “I mean, there’s other reasons I can think of for enchantments like that.” I hit my cigarette. “Prevent people going rogue in the first place is a good starter. Also? Making damn good and sure you believe every word you’re told.”

“So, what, you can’t just turn the tattoo off? Is that why you’re calling Grace?” Honey flicked her cigarette, also on the floor. The house gave a little shudder, meaning Gene had found someplace safe to park the car. I eyed the ashes on the cement floor. He kept bringing ashtrays down here, too.

“What? No, I turned it off. Kind of. It would take weeks to actually unravel the whole thing. It’s really good work. But I jammed up the gears, which should keep it from screwing with him. For a while.” I shrugged. “I’ll need to undo it properly, eventually. But here’s the thing: enchantments are a really sticky kind of magic. You can undo them, but they leave traces. Human brains get used to thinking a certain way, and it’s really hard to get them back out of that habit. And if you’ve got twenty-some years’ worth of magic forcing you to think a certain way, backed up by all this dogma and conditioning and whatnot… well.” I shifted to look up at Irish. “Just turning off a piddly little artifact isn’t going to fix all that. For that, we need someone like Grace, who could go in and rewire the whole mess.”

“Alice,” Irish began, with a great deal of patience in his voice, “You’re talking about letting this woman rewrite my whole… my whole personality. What if I’m not the same man when she’s done? Say it works – say I’m granted my gifts back – what if I don’t even like you when she’s done?” He held his hands out, raising his eyebrows. “Sure, and maybe I’m a dangerous man again, but I’m not on your side?”

“Come on,” I snorted, rolling my eyes. “We can have her write that in.”

“Oh, aye, that makes me feel better.” He turned away, shaking his head.

“You’re such a worrier.” He shot me a reproachful look over his shoulder, and I gave him a little shove. “Seriously, you think I’m just going to let her muck around in there unsupervised? We can at least let her have a look, and tell us what we’re dealing with. Besides, she’s not going to get too out of hand. She thinks I’m going to help her out, remember? She’s not going to want to piss me off.” I reached up and shut off the spigot. The water in the pool splashed and rippled against the sides and I turned a little to look down into it, waiting for it to still. In the depths, which looked a lot more than a foot deep, golden light shimmered intermittently in circuitry patterns.

Irish turned back. “So ye’ll lie to her face to get her to help me?”

I studied the water. “Yep. Sure will.”

“And leave her as she is.”

“Not much I can do for her.” I studied the water critically. “Shape-changing is tricky and dangerous magic. Even Jada only made small adjustments to her own body. One mistake, and you’re dead. You may not have noticed, but a lot of what I do is trial-and-error work. Learn as you go. Fiddle until you get it right. Grace can’t afford that. What she needs, she needs done right the first time.”

Irish ran his hands through his hair, sucking air through his teeth. “So ye won’t even try, is that it? It’s a long shot, I get that, but wouldn’t that be her call? If she wanted to take the risk?”

I shrugged. “I could use other people to experiment on, sure. Probably wouldn’t tell her about that part, since she seems the type to lose sleep over that sort of thing, but it’d let me work out most of the bugs before putting her at risk. Yeah, I could make her human again. Physically, anyway.”

“Wait, what?” Honey was sitting up. “She’s not human? What is she?”

I was going to ignore her, but Irish answered. “She got exposed to some of those creatures… the ones warped by that thing that wrecked your bar.” He paused. “The second time. It changed her… made her a monster.”

“And you can cure that?” she grabbed me, up near my shoulder. In my sleeveless turtleneck, I could feel her warm hand on my bare arm. “Alice, why wouldn’t you cure her if you could?”

“Did I say it was a cure? I said I could make her physically human again, and hey, even that’s a maybe. Mentally? She’s still going to be changed. Hell, it’d take her years just to relearn how to walk. Her mind is set to work a body with extra elbows and knees, now. She might be blind, who knows? Did you see what her eyes look like now? I can’t even imagine what kind of input she’s wired to receive now. Hell, does she still have the unconscious ability to breathe in her sleep? If she still breathes at all? Give her a human body again and she might suffocate in her sleep. You have no idea how many ways this could go wrong; so no. No, I can’t cure her.”

“But you’ll tell her ye can, use her to get what you want, dash her hopes, and leave her fucked.”

“That’s the plan.” Irish and Honey were both looking at me with the same serious, somewhat disappointed frown. It was the same look Gene gave me when he came down here and saw me standing near a clean ashtray, ashes all over the floor. “You seem to be belaboring a point.” I shifted to look Irish in the eye. “What is it? She’s already fucked, Irish. It’s not like I’m fucking her over any more.”

“Alice. That’s an awful thing t’ do to her.” He cross his arms again, mouth set in a disapproving line.

“Is it? The way I see it, the awful thing has already been done. This way, we get to salvage some good out of a bad situation. Honey, you want to hand me that box, there? The one with all the blue tile work?” I pointed towards the shelves, and Honey, after a short hesitation, leaned for the box.

“That is pretty cold.” Honey handed me the box. “I mean, I like it, but I think he’s trying to point out you don’t seem to notice when you’re doing it.”

“See? Honey’s on my side.” Irish tossed his hands out and turned away, shaking his head in disgust. “And you seem to be forgetting the part where she’d be trying to kill us just as hard as the rest of the Knights if she wasn’t so screwed.”

“Yer no better,” Irish snapped, spinning around. “Ye’d let the city rot if I hadn’t dragged ye into this.”

“See, now you’re just flat wrong.” I popped the box’s lid open, revealing a dried slab of roadkill wrapped in plastic. Gopher, unless I was mistaken. “I’d have gone after the hollowman either way. I just wouldn’t be in this much trouble without you around.” I stopped, thought it over. “Well, probably not, anyway. Depends on how much Carl planned on screwing me over, and how much was just luck of the draw.” I slapped the side of the pool, put two fingers in my mouth, and whistled. “Here boy! Come on! C’mere!” I whistled again.

“What the hell’re ye –” Irish stared at me like I’d gone nuts.

“Shh. We’re getting to the good part. Let me work.” I patted the side of the pool again, and the water fizzed and bubbled. A brackish green light glimmered near the bottom of the pool, swelling to fill the waters. Four long silver legs burst up from the surface and scrabbled and splashed for the sides, and a second later a metal spider about the same size as the pool itself hauled itself up out of the water. Honey squealed and flung herself away from the pool, crab-walking until she hit Irish’s legs.

Its eight legs were long, wrapped in cables with slender pistons and solenoids at the joints, and ended in delicate razor-sharp points. Its plated body showed some rust and a few dings, but gleamed for all of that. It perched, dripping, over the water, its feet on the edges of the pool. At the back of it, a tangle of coaxial and fiber-optic cables descended from its spinnerets back down into the pool. Eight camera lenses whirred and clicked, focusing on the gopher in my hand as its mandibles flexed eagerly. “Who’s a good boy?” I cooed at it.

The spider’s legs made a musical noise as it danced on the pool’s edge, as if to say ooo me, ooo me, I’m a good boy yes I am!

“What the hell is that?” Irish had drawn his sword, and moved to stand in front of Honey, never mind that I was still sitting right here on the edge of the pool where, if it were dangerous, I would most certainly not be.

“It’s a webcrawler. And be nice.” I leaned towards Irish and lowered my voice. “He’s a little out of date, and he’s sensitive about it.” I turned back to the waiting webcrawler. “Who wants a gopher?” More eager dancing. I pulled the gopher out of the plastic wrap and offered it to the spider. It lunged and I jerked my hand back. “Hey! Easy now!” It hunkered down, apologetic, almost brushing the green-glowing water with its metal tummy. Thorax? Whatever. “Okay. Here you go.” I held the gopher out, and it reached forward, taking it gently from my hand with the tips of its mandibles.

“Oh. Gross,” Honey muttered, wrinkling her nose as the webcrawler dismembered the gopher in its mandibles and shoved the masticated bits down its wood-chipper gullet. “What is it?”

“Well, you know Google, right? Bing? Yahoo Search?”

“Yeah,” Honey glanced my way, eyebrows raised dubiously.

“This is one of the critters we used before those assholes at Google took over.” I patted the webcrawler’s carapace, and it shivered a bit, like it was trying to wag.

“Wait… you said this was an oracle.” Irish waved at the pool.

“Well, yeah. What do you think Google is?” I twisted to face them, raising my hands. “You ask it a question, it gives you an answer. Sometimes it’s a good answer, sometimes it’s a cryptic mess you have to hunt through to figure out.” The webcrawler gently nudged my shoulder, almost knocking me off my perch.

“Alice. Google is search engine.” Honey climbed to her feet, but remained behind Irish, staring wide-eyed as I gave the five-foot metal spider some more scritchin’.

“Yeah, of course it is. We’ve just gotten a lot better at it since the Delphi days.” Both Honey and Irish stared at me like I was speaking in Greek riddles. “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”

“That is not how that phrase goes,” Honey said in a flat voice.

“Yeah, but it should be.” I grinned. “Anyway. This poor little guy was one of the ones abandoned when Google and Microsoft did all the ‘net upgrades years ago. I stumbled over him by accident when I upgraded the pool to a TI connection and I took him in.” Irish was giving me a funny look, like he couldn’t quite grasp what I was saying. “What? He was going to starve without supplications! And he still works just fine. I mean,” I leaned towards Irish again, whispering, “he hasn’t been patched or upgraded in a long time, but he’s perfect for little jobs like this.”

“You…” Irish shook his head, pinching his eyes closed in a pained way. “Yer the most bizarre woman I’ve ever met. Yer plotting t’ fuck over a desperate woman, planning to brainwash me to fix my bein’ brainwashed… and talking about rescuin’ abandoned… things, all in the same five minutes.”

“What? Look at him! He’s adorable! Besides, after Larry, you’re in no position to scold me for taking in strays, okay?” I shrugged. “Anyway, back to work. Okay, Buddy,” I turned back to the webcrawler. “I need you to do me a favor. Ready?” It tap-danced out its eagerness again. “Query: I need you to find Grace Perry. Got it? Grace Perry. She looks like this:” I held up my hand, and my shadow obediently rendered the spindly, elongated shape Grace was pretty much stuck with. Lenses extended, spun, and retracted as Buddy memorized the image. “And you need to tell her, quote: ‘Alice needs to talk to you. It’s important.’ End quote. And no one can see you do it, okay? No using the cell network or email, got it? This is a direct message.”

The little metal spider shivered all over at the challenge, the points of its legs clicking on the stone in a happy staccato. “Alice needs 2 talk 2 U! Is Important!” it said, in a reasonable impression of my voice. It skittered around and plunged back into the pool, and was gone.

“There we go.” I waved at the pool. “There’s the first part of the job done.”

The basement door creaked open, and Gene shuffled down with a tray of coffee things.

Irish glanced at the zombi as he shuffled into the basement, then back to me, like he was thinking something over. I waited for him to say something, but he only shook his head. “Now what?”

I glanced down at the pool, which was still lit up a dull green. That meant it was still active. “Now the second part. You all might want to get back.”

“Why?”

The water began to bubble.

“Well, I can avoid Tyler. He’s going to be hovering over Grace, but that was easy enough to get around. That’s no problem.” I stood up and stepped back from the pool, tossing my cigarette down. “But avoiding Damian? When he’s just waiting for me to give myself away with a sending?” I tsked. “Not a chance.”

The water burst into a hot rolling boil, blowing steam upwards like a geyser. Honey let out a short sharp scream of surprise, and I jumped back another surprised step, too, bumping into Irish. Somewhere behind us, I heard the coffee service hit the cement in a metal-China clatter, and whirled as Gene gave a muffled, ragged groan.

“Hey!” I yelled. “That’s not –” Gene’s shape wavered like a reflection in water, colors running like wet paint in the rain. I let out an outraged gasp as the forming image solidified, and I was suddenly looking at Damian’s tall, slender, and drop-dead gorgeous self. He smiled, tossing a curl of dark hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head. “You fucker,” I snarled. “Get out of there!”

Day held his hands out, rotating his arms like he was shrugging into a new suit jacket. “Hey, not bad. Much better than the strawmen I usually use.” He glanced up at me. “This is nice work, Alice. Wow, it’s strong, too.” He grinned. Then he lunged at me, fist sailing out at my face.

And it stopped an inch from my nose. Damian grunted and shoved, shoulder jerking with the effort. The fist didn’t move.

“Hi Day,” I said, relaxing. “I was kind of expecting you. Not real happy with you co-opting Gene, though. I suppose I should have expected it. You wrote the homunculus spell I used as the basis for his formula, after all.”

“The hell?” His shoulder jerked again. The fist still didn’t move.

“Seriously? Come on, Damian. Like I’m going to make artifacts that will harm me.” I heard Irish let out a breath of relief behind me.

“Dammit.” Damian dropped his fist. His dark face furrowed into a truly impressive scowl as he scanned the room. “I suppose that makes sense. I should have thought of that. Still…”

I felt the swell of Damian’s magic as he unleashed whatever spell he’d been holding ready. I tensed again and the air cracked sharp with magic. In the corners of the room, and along the occasional vertical support on the metal shelves, copper rods lit up incandescent white, sending trails of sparks blazing around the edges of the walls and along the support beams, following copper and silver wires to a giant bank of Die Hard car batteries against one wall. They spat a fountain of hot red sparks and smoke, and the air filled briefly with the bitter, acrid tang of ozone. The zephyr was still on the job, though, so the air cleared quickly.

I wandered over to the workbench, and picked up a big welder’s mask, tucking my hair back as I perched it on my head. Lowering the visor and looking through the smoked glass, I saw a small galaxy of lights orbiting around Damian. Each of the hundreds of points of light represented another spell, primed and ready to release. He raised his hands, chanting power words in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and who knows what else, and a dozen more spells flared, unfurled, and grounded themselves out in my workshop grid. My shadow nibbled at the stray sparks and whorls of power that fluttered aimlessly after the bulk of each spell was snuffed harmlessly.

I lifted the visor again, wandering back to stand beside Irish, and stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Damian. You’re in my workshop. You have any idea how much magic I throw around in here? Of course it’s grounded. Safety first.” The confused expression on Damian’s face made me grin. I cocked a hip and waved casually. “Come on. Did you really think I was going to just let you blaze on in here and blow me up?”

He took a deep breath, and raised a hand, his fingers twisted in a painful-looking gesture of invocation, and I didn’t need the visor to tell me he was readying some more spells. “I had to try.” He was wearing a pale tan suit, his jacket unbuttoned to show a brilliantly embroidered waistcoat done in scarlet and gold. His tightly curled hair looked a little bit wet, like he’d been in the rain recently. Honey was peering around one of the wood stoves at him with her eye narrowed in an appreciative leer. As usual, Damian looked fantastic. “You’ve always been cocky, Alice. I’d hoped I could catch you unprepared.”

“It’s an insult to my intelligence, that’s what it is.” I pressed an offended hand to my chest as Irish let the tip of his sword rest on the cement, giving me a look that was damn near impressed. “I mean, did you think I wouldn’t expect you to follow the connection when I fired up my oracle?” I waved back at the pool. “That thing lights up like Tiger Stadium when I turn it on. Of course you were going to spot it.”

“You’re…” Damian eyed the sizable bank of batteries lining the wall. “You’re not powerful enough to handle that much magic…” his voice trailed off as he looked back to me, eyebrows crinkling together in wary concern.

“I’m not?” I turned, looking over the batteries. They were still smoking a little, but the capacitors had handled the charge just fine. “You’re sure about that, are you?” I wandered over and tapped the gauge. “That’s only about a half charge, Day. Care to try again? You might manage to overload the batteries, but the rest will just ground out. Again: not stupid.”

“You’ve been lying to us about how powerful you are.” He stared at me. The look of befuddlement on his face was sublime. “Deliberately accepting a lower rank. Why would you do that? How did you even manage to hide that?” Oily shadows trickled out from under the shelves and benches, reaching for Damian’s feet. He jumped back, eyes widening in real worry.

More shadow flared around me. My hair moved with it, and tendrils moved over my skin, while patches of darkness spun away in my wake as I turned from the bank of batteries and walked back toward him. “Oh, most of that was easy. Artificer. None of you ever see me using my magic, you just see me using my artifacts. But as for the rest of it… You’d be amazed at what else I’ve been hiding.” I took hold of a spindly old office chair and shoved it across the floor at Day. “Have a seat.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think –” He stopped as he realized that even while he refused, he was grabbing the chair, turning it around, and sitting down.

“Wasn’t talking to you, Day. Gene’s programed to obey my orders.” I dragged another chair over as Honey stepped cautiously out from behind cover, moving to stand next to Irish. I found another chair, and spun it around backwards to face Day and straddled it, folding my arms across the edge of the back. I put my chin down on my arms. “Want to try leaving, now? Go ahead. This place is warded six ways to Sunday. I couldn’t stop you getting in – the pool has to download from outside the wards to work – but I can throttle the bandwidth so you can’t get out. I have throttled the bandwidth so you can’t get out.”

Day glared at me, eyes hot and hard.

“I guess you could try sending your mind out in small packages, a bit at a time.” I chewed my lip as I considered it. “Good luck with that. Let me know how that works for you. I’d suggest sending the bit that knows how to put you back together, first.” I grinned. “Bet you don’t have a spell ready for that, do you? You could try working one up, but I’m not going to share components with you.” I sat up and pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket, tucking one between my lips and lighting it. “Really, there’s nothing stopping me from keeping you here, oh, forever. Except that I’d like my late husband back. There’s my reason for being nice. And if you’d rather I didn’t keep you trapped down here while I worked out a way to get you out of there and trap you in a bottle like a genie you’ll be nice. So. Let’s talk nice, shall we?” I exhaled a breath full of smoke at his face, braced my hands on my knees, and smiled at him.

“Bitch.”

“Isn’t she, though?” Irish said as he moved up next to me. There was just a hint of admiration in his tone.

Day flicked his angry glare at Irish, then back to me. “Fine,” he growled. “What are your demands?”

“Demands?” I raised a surprised eyebrow.

“What do you want? Your little plan worked. You played Leonard for a fool, you brought Detroit to its knees, and now you’ve got me trapped. What do you want for it?” Damian’s tone was snide, scathing. “Money? More power? The city all to yourself?”

“Leonard?” I frowned, thinking hard. “Who’s… you mean Randall?” I sat back, eyes wide. “Wait, is he Leonard Feist? Holy shit.”

“Who’s that?” Irish asked.

“Dude. Leonard Feist is a fucking badass. Holy shit. I mean… wow. I guessed he was Major Arcana, but… damn.”

“Who is he?” Irish repeated, dropping a hand on my shoulder to snap me out of my shock.

“He’s the Devil.”

“What?”

“No, no, it’s his Arcana title.” I waved my hand to ward off Irish’s knee-jerk outrage, sending up whirling eddies of cigarette smoke. “He’s one of the big boys. I mean, even in the Majors. Whoa.” I turned my stunned expression on Damian, who wore a look of confusion. “Man, if I’d known that, I’d have taken him up on all those date offers!”

“What are you playing at?” Damian studied me with narrowed eyes.

“Day, I’m playing at trying to keep my bills paid, just like every single other person on Earth. Seriously.” I held my hands out. “I just figured out this afternoon that Randall wasn’t who he said he was. This is not some master plan on my part. Oh, sure, I was ready for this,” I admitted, waving at him. “I had to be. I’ve always been ready to defend myself. And yes, I put a lot of effort into hiding myself from you guys. But this shit? What exactly does this get me?” I rested an arm on the chair back again, hitting my cigarette as I stared Damian down. “My city is a clusterfuck. You guys know about me, and worse, the Order knows about me. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Take over?”

“You can’t.” Damian sneered at me. “You and your minions might have us in trouble, but you can’t stand against the entire Arcana. And the Order.”

“’Minions?’ Really? Jesus Day, what is this, a Hammer flick? And those aren’t my minions out there. I had absolutely nothing to do with this. Those rings aren’t my artifacts. Carl Meiter had them commissioned, and I’m pretty sure I even know who did make them: Jacob Stills. You know, the guy you called in to check them out? Bet he fingered me on that, didn’t he? Of course he did, because he’s sure not going to fess up to it, is he? Carl Meiter’s behind this whole mess. I didn’t even know it was going on until last night, when he – ” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder at Irish, “– brought me one of the junkyard dogs, wanting to know what it was.”

“That is the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard, Alice,” Damian rolled his eyes heavenwards, tone sarcastic. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.” I flicked ash away. “Pay attention, because I’m only going to explain this to you once. Carl Meiter commissioned the rings from Jacob Stills. He gave those rings to a dozen or more city officials who could help him rearrange the city the way he needed to build power for the summoning. Also, he used them, through the rings, to monitor his power grid, so he wouldn’t have to share with other geomancers, or arouse your suspicions by bringing them in. He’s been working on this for at least a year, probably more. I know that, because one of the guys he snagged was Benny deAngelo, Mama deAngelo’s grandson, and she’s one of my clients.”

“You’ve been working with the vampires? And an Inquisitor? Alice, don’t you have any loyalties at all?”

“Ah ah.” I wagged a stern finger in his face. “Focus. Carl bought a treatise on summoning from Leonard. He was set up, but still, he was careful. I figure he spent years building up the pool of power he’d need, and maybe years more fine-tuning his ritual with his cronies. He summoned his outlander the other night, but it went went all pear-shaped because Benny deAngelo tried to wrestle him for the power. Benny’s a dumbass like that. I know, because Owen told me, and you can double check it with him.”

Damian laughed. Irish and I looked at each other, both of us probably replaying the last few sentences and trying to figure out if I’d said something funny. Even my shadows went a little slack, as she wondered what had me concerned. It was Honey, though, who spoke up. “What’s so funny?”

He crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. “Check with Owen, you say. Like you don’t know.”

I scratched the back of my head, where the strap from the welding visor was pinching. “Um. Actually, now that you mention it…”

“It’s nothing. Go on. You were lying?”

I shrugged. This was my chance to set the record straight, and I wasn’t going to let Damian control the conversation. “I was explaining. No, there is too much. I was summing up. Carl and Benny fought for the outlander, because they both really wanted the power for themselves. The power struggle distracted Meiter enough that when the outlander came through, he couldn’t fight it, and it subsumed him. That’s your hollowman. It’s running around Detroit, wreaking havoc in Carl’s body.”

“That’s not true,” Damian snapped. “I talked to Meiter’s ghost. He’s dead.”

“No, you talked to a geist that thinks its Carl Meiter. Meiter can’t be dead, because the outlander he summoned is riding his body, and an outlander needs a live human body. Trust me on this. It’s safe to say I’m an expert on the subject.”

Damian stared at me for a long second. “Then… it’s not in Meiter’s body. That’s all.”

“Of course it is. I had them both in Bushie’s last night, trying to kill me. The hollowman is in Meiter’s body, and that thing claiming to be Meiter is a super-charged geist running off Meiter’s power grid, body hopping through Meiter’s Country Club Cult. Anybody with one of those rings, with a connection to that power nexus, was a potential host body for the geist. Those are those burnt-out shell corpses you’ve been finding. And right now? It’s in Benny deAngelo’s vampire body, running around out there somewhere chomping on mundanes and building itself an army of subvampires. Shit, you can double-check that with Mama deAngelo, or the Eldest, if you can find them.”

Damian stared at me, slowly shaking his head. “Utter bullshit.” But what I said made sense, and I could see that he knew it. It answered questions he’d been unable to account for. It closed loopholes. It worked.

“What in the hell would I want a second outlander for? Shit, Day, you guys are right about one thing: I’ve already got one. I am a hollowman. I’ve been a hollowman for years, since I was a teenager.” Day glanced down at the twisting shadows again as I spoke, then back up to me, his gaze less suspicious now, and just a tad more thoughtful. “And what of it? I’ve got a nice business built up here, or I did, anyway. Thanks for blowing up my store, by the way. I had a bar to go to, some hobbies, a city to live in. My outlander is happy with our territory, I like Detroit, and I had everything worked out perfectly. Hell, I even joined the Arcana, so I didn’t have to work that hard to hold my territory. I could just call you guys and send you off after any threats I stumbled across. Why in the hell would I endanger such a sweet set up with such a stupidly conceived powerplay?”

“Money? Power?”

“Got both. Next?”

“I don’t know! Revenge?”

“Against who? I had some rivals, sure, like Jacob Stills. But I also had him beat. You know as well as I do that my work is better than his. So he stole the occasional sale. It just meant I could charge more when the customers came back to me. Face it, Damian. I wasn’t even a suspect until Carl gave you my name.”

“That’s… you really expect me to believe all you want out of life is a god damned business license?” Day gave a scoffing little snort, and I tossed my hands up in frustration.

“Damian, Detroit is already mine. And it was running exactly the way I wanted it to. I don’t need any more than that. Hell, that’s more than I ever had before! Now Meiter’s gone and fucked it all up, and you better believe I’m about to fix his fucking wagon. Both of them.” I stood up, hitting my cigarette and staring down at the Knight of Pentacles. “This is our city, Damian, and we do not allow interlopers.” The shadows shifted and writhed, long spindly jags of darkness shifting under tables and chairs and shelves.

“Yours? You think so?” Day shook his head, mouth set in a grim line. “You think we’re just going to shake your hand and let you go when this is all done? You’re a hollowman. It’s… you’re a walking affront to reality.”

“Yeah, but I’m a walking affront to reality who pays her membership dues on time and who is about to go save Detroit. Doesn’t that count for anything?” I flicked ashes away. “Seriously, Damian. What are you going to do? Call in an army of Knights and purge the city, just because of me? What have I ever done?”

Well, all right. I’ve done a few things. But still.

“I don’t need an army of Knights, Alice. I have a truce with the Order, the first in history, and we will clean this city out. That includes you.”

“So it’s true?” Irish stepped forward. “Tanner did come to you.”

Damian spat at Irish, and hissed a few words of, I’m guessing, Enochian. My battery bank hissed and sparked some more. “Of course. Two hollowmen, and one of them having already seduced one of his little soldiers? Of course he did. It’s kind of a big deal,” Day said, dripping snide sarcasm.

Irish turned to me. “He’d never do that. He’d call in a whole Fist, if he thought it was as bad as all that.”

“Then what’s he up to?” I hit my cigarette, frowning. “You’re the expert here. I have no idea how you crazy bastards think.”

“Thanks for that,” he muttered, annoyed, as he studied the floor, forehead wrinkled in thought. He looked up. “It’s Caitlyn. It has to be. She went rogue, too. Tanner doesn’t dare call anyone else in, for fear we’ll get to them, too.”

“Oh, come on. He can’t be worried about that. Hell, you two were accidents.”

“Aye, maybe, but we were accidents that don’t happen. Not ever, Alice. And yet you managed it.”

I turned to Damian again. “I managed it, by the way, by dealing straight with him, not by seducing anyone. I want that on the record.” I looked back at Irish for a moment, considering. “Okay, so he makes a truce with the Knights, and sics them on us. Then…?”

“When they’ve done his dirty work, and Caitlyn and I are no longer a threat to the loyalty of his other soldiers, he turns on them and wipes them out. Detroit is all but purged in one blow, and he looks like a bleedin genius for doing it.” He shrugged, and gave a wry smirk. “It’s what I’d do.”

I turned to Damian, arching a questioning eyebrow. Day gave me poker face. “Or we wipe him out first. I guess it depends on who’s faster on the draw.”

“Ah, no.” I dropped my cigarette and crushed it. “I won’t have it. Not in my city. You’ll fuck the whole place up, Damian.”

“It’s not your city.”

“Yes.” The room dimmed and cooled, and Irish and Honey’s next breaths came in puffs of white. “It is,” I told Damian. “I’m willing to share, but don’t test me on this. Just don’t.” Day’s eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed, and he glanced up, a slow smile. “What did you just do, you conniving little shit? Did you just send a spell at my oracle pool?” I snapped the welding helmet down and saw he’d discharged one of the bigger spells. I tracked the whirling patterns, and found which one. It took me a second to work out the spell, from the echo it left behind. He’d cast, all right, but not here. He triggered a spell that called something else… Then I started snickering.

Day frowned, glancing up as the small meteor he’d just called down on me failed to come crashing through the basement to destroy us all in a blistering blaze of heat and concussion. He glanced at me as I pushed the helmet up, shaking my head. “Where the hell are you, Alice?”

“Wouldn’t you just love to know. Jesus Christ, Day. I used to have more respect for you.” I pulled the welding helmet off and tossed it on the work bench. “Okay, I’ve told you what I know, and what I intend to do about it. What you do with it is your business. Cross me, and we’ll bring the city down fighting each other. Work with me, and we can all go back to a safe, happy status quo, and you get to rest easy knowing you’ve got an ace in the hole who could be persuaded to help out in an emergency.” I shrugged. “Ball’s in your court, Day.”

“What… what do you mean?” His eyes widened warily as he glanced at me, then to Irish, and back to me.

I waved towards the pool. “I said my piece. Fuck along off. Get out of my zombi.” His eyes widened as he realized I’d just opened up the pool bandwidth. I was letting him go. He shot me a distrustful look. “Go on, before I change my mind, or you waste any more of those spells. You’re gonna need them.”

Damian shot me one last glance, eyes full of thoughts and the beginnings of worry, and then his image wavered and the color drained. The illusion popped like a bubble and Gene sagged with a muffled groan that turned into an outraged grunt as he spotted the smashed coffee service. He stood up with something that was almost a growl and turned on his heel, shuffling towards the steps. He stomped up the stairs. Irish and Honey watched him go, and turned back to me as the basement brightened and warmed again.

“Think it’ll work?” I asked Irish, glancing up as Gene slammed the door on the way into the kitchen.

“Ye’ve given him something to think about, that’s sure. He might be more wary with Tanner, or he might disbelieve every word you said.” Irish rubbed his jaw, thoughtful, as the door thumped into the wall again, and Gene stomped down, carrying the broom and dustpan. “I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s a fool if he thinks he can defeat what Tanner will call into Detroit once he knows it’s safe.” He watched Gene sweep up the remains of the coffee service, the zombi muttering in muffled little grumbles and grunts. “For that matter, if he’s fool enough t’ run his mouth to Tanner, he’ll make you a top priority, not me. We’ll need to watch for him.”

“You think?” My spirits sank a bit, as I recalled meeting Tanner the first time.

“Aye. But…” Irish paused, shaking his head. “He’s no fighter. And he can’t sneak up on us, not with your shadow about.”

“Yeah… about that. It’s been busy. I may have forgotten to mention. She can’t see him.” Irish looked up from Gene, staring at me. “At all. Like he’s not even there. I could see him with my human senses, but that was all. It was creepy, like… like he was letting me see and hear him. I don’t know what the hell he is… but if sneaking up is what we have to worry about, we could be in a bit of trouble.”

“Damn it, Alice!” Irish stepped forward like he was going to shake me. “What’ve I said about tellin me these things?”

I tossed my hands up in mock self-defense. “Hey, it’s been a little hectic!”

Irish stopped, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I swear, Alice –” He pulled in a deep breath. “We’ll have to be careful, is all.”

“We’ll have to be.” I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket, and held it up. “Also, text message.” I thumbed the screen and called up the text. “From Grace. Michigan Central Station at eleven. And Day should be too distracted to keep much of an eye on her.” I grinned, and sketched a little bow.

“You’re a devious little bitch, aren’t you?” Honey grinned back at me, giving a happy little golf clap in salute. “What now? Who do we screw over next? This is a blast!” She stuck her tongue out at Irish’s disgruntled glare.

“What now? Now I’ve got to fix that ring. Or at least, break it very carefully. Everybody out.” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder, towards the stairs. “I’ve got work to do, and not much time to do it in.”

Table of Contents / Chapter Thirty-Seven >>

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