“Okay, so I did a thing. No clue how, but all that glowing purple stuff is now pretty much gone. What’s the big deal?”

  Mort rose and then dusted off his robe, thinking through his response.

  “The big deal is that you managed to offload the blowback of an immensely powerful spell. That’s impressive, especially without training.”

  “Go me,” she said, and winced again. The headache was better, but her muscles felt like she’d run a marathon. Riley looked like she felt the same.

  “When this all settles down we’ll put you in touch with someone who can help you with this ability. There is some . . . training involved,” Ozymandias said. He traded a look with Mort. There was a lot not being said about this so-called training.

  “Ohhhkay.”

  She’d just wanted to watch over a dead guy and earn some money. It should have been no big deal, at least until the corpse thief had ruined the whole thing.

  “How could that necro pull Means out of his grave when the circle was up?” she asked.

  Riley shook her head, then winced at the move. “Don’t know. I have a lot of questions about this whole gig.”

  “We all do. I’ll notify the widow,” Mort said. “As Summoner Advocate it’s my job to deal with this kind of thing.”

  “Even if the summoner isn’t a local?” Katia asked.

  “Even then. To the public we are all one and the same—grave robbers. This will only reinforce that stereotype once the news gets out.”

  “Is Alex still at Lady Torin’s? I don’t want him blamed for this,” Riley asked.

  “He is. He’s safe there. No one messes with her.”

  Lord Ozymandias turned his back on them again, staring off into the distance as if trying to sense where their thief had fled.

  “I think Means knew this was going to happen,” Katia said as she stood on wobbly legs. It took a bit to get herself steady. “He just popped out of that grave like it’d been all planned. Or maybe it was because the necro put a spell on him or something.”

  “If he arranged his reanimation, his widow should have known about it,” Mort said. “There’s loads of paperwork that has to be signed and notarized beforehand.”

  “It appears we have a mystery,” Ozymandias said. He cocked his head. “This might be a good time for me to depart. I have . . . inquiries to make. We’ll have another meeting this morning at nine.”

  Then he was simply gone.

  Katia’s mouth dropped open, though the others didn’t seem bothered by the summoner’s abrupt exit. Had he even been here for real? Before she could ask that question, she heard the slamming of car doors as voices rose from the parking lot. One voice was familiar and decidedly angry.

  “Oh no, that’s Means’ widow,” she said. “This is so not a good thing.”

  As the lady marched down the hill from the lot, an older man at her side, she demanded, “Where is he? Why didn’t you protect him?”

  “How does she know her husband had been corpse-napped?” Riley asked, keeping her voice low. Not that the approaching pair would hear them with all the noise Mrs. Means was generating.

  “That’s a very good question,” Mort replied.

  When she finally reached them, he took the lead, his expression solemn.

  “Mrs. Means? I’m Mortimer Alexander, the Summoner Advocate for the City of Atlanta. I am deeply sorry to say that your husband’s body has been . . . reanimated without permission.”

  “I know!” She glared at him, then turned to the man next to her. “Take pictures of this atrocity. My poor Albie has been stolen and someone will pay for this.”

  The word “pay” stood out more than all the rest.

  “I was just about to notify you. How did you find out this happened?” Mort asked.

  “Someone called me. Told me my husband of thirty-two years had been stolen. It’s an outrage! An outrage!” she said, launching a fist into the air for emphasis.

  The only person who could have notified the widow was the guy who stole the corpse. Why would he bother?

  “Oh, great,” Riley murmured as a patrol car pulled into the lot.

  Knowing this was going to take forever with the cops involved, Katia began to collect her gear.

  “You! Stop! Don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene.”

  She would have expected that warning to come from the cops, but instead it was the man who’d arrived with the widow.

  “I’m getting my cellphone,” she said, ignoring the dude.

  She found it a few feet away and fortunately her habit of buying an extra tough case had saved the thing from being so much scrap. After blowing off the dirt, she swiped the screen and it came to life. “Thank you!” she whispered.

  Her eyes returned to the grave, or what remained of it. It was a wreck, the flowers strewn in all directions, though the temporary name plaque had somehow weathered the destruction. As she reached over to pick up her water bottle, she found the widow in her face.

  “What are you hiding?” the woman demanded.

  She sorta felt sorry for the lady, but that sympathy was nearly gone.

  “I’m getting my water bottle, okay?”

  “You sure that’s just water? Have you been drinking? That’d be about right. Drinking and not paying attention. Not keeping my husband safe.”

  Don’t scream at the widow, don’t scream at the widow, don’t—

  “Mrs. Means,” Mortimer called out. “The police would like to talk to you.”

  With a huff the woman headed toward the cops, both of whom looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. Katia knew how that felt. As Mrs. Means carried on, and on, she rejoined her master. They both sank down into the grass, exhausted from the magical assault and all the drama.

  “This is going to be bad,” Riley said, keeping her voice down. “Cops don’t usually get called out on these kinds of things. It’s always an internal summoner matter.”

  Katia shot a glance at the widow’s companion. “And her buddy’s filming all this with his phone. Look at her, she’s wearing makeup.” She glanced down at her own phone’s display. “At two-thirty in the morning? And those clothes? If someone called me to say my husband’s body had been stolen, I’d throw on the first thing I could find and run my ass right out the door. I swear she knew this was going to happen.” Then it hit her why. “I bet there’s going to be a lawsuit. Wait and see.”

  “Yup,” was Riley’s only reply. And even that single word held a sharp edge of barely restrained anger.

  It took another quarter hour before the Widow and her henchman left the cemetery. By that point she’d been nasty to Mort, accused her and Riley of all sorts of ugly stuff, then started in on the cops. It was at that point her buddy suggested they leave. Riley and Katia rejoined the others as the car pulled out of the parking lot. There was a group sigh of relief.

  “Sorry about that. Unfortunately, it comes with the job,” Mort said.

  “Same here,” one of the officers replied. He looked over at them now. “You’re Riley Blackthorne. I remember you from that demon attack downtown. The one near the capital. You were with some dude with wings.”

  “That was me.”

  “Do you usually grave sit?”

  “No. Katia had a problem here last night while watching over this grave. Same summoner. Tonight, he came back for seconds. I thought being here might make a difference. It didn’t.”

  The cops traded looks. “We’ll need to get a statement from you ladies.”

  “Could you also do a couple quick breathalyzer tests as well?” Mort asked.

  “What?” Katia said. “We weren’t drinking.”

  “I know. But this way it’ll go in the official report. Never hurts to be thorough in case someone decides to make an accusation down the line.”

  “Exactly,” the older officer replied, nodding.

  “Go for it,” Riley said.

  After the tests, which proved neither of them had bothered with any booze, the younger officer led Katia away from the others and started asking a lot of questions. He was cute, in a cop sort of way, but still his questions rankled.

  “Anything else you can tell me about why this evening went wrong?”

  “Not really. The circle should not have broken. Master Blackthorne was reinforcing it. But then the coffin exploded, and Means was outta here,” she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “No way that should have happened.”

  The officer looked over at the grave, then back at her. “Is there any reason that Master Blackthorne would want this body to be taken?”

  Katia was a second away from roasting the guy, then realized he might be trying to help. “No reason at all, because anything that happens with her is big news. The last thing she wants is any more publicity.”

  The officer nodded in agreement. “Okay, that’s it for now. If there are any other questions, a detective will contact you.”

  “Thanks. Sorry you got stuck with this.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Same for you.”

  As the police inspected the desecrated grave with Mort, her boss angled her head toward the parking lot. They headed up the hill, toting their gear.

  “Your butt-kicking headache will be back in a few hours,” Riley warned. “Drink a lot of water. It’ll help. Sorta.” She glanced back as the three men stared at the open grave. “I am so glad I was here tonight.”

  “Me too.”

  If not, Master Blackthorne might have been on the phone to Katia’s parents with the astonishing news that their eldest daughter had gotten herself snuffed during a grave robbery. One thing for sure, her obituary would have been front page news back home.

  FIVE

  Simon wasn’t exactly sure what pushed him to return to Atlanta three days early, but the urge had started in the middle of the night. He’d awoken from a nightmare, the details of which he couldn’t remember, then he couldn’t go back to sleep.

  Staring at the ceiling of the hotel room hadn’t worked, neither had more pain meds. After over an hour of trying to work out why he felt so uneasy, he rose, packed, and checked out of the hotel. The sleepy front desk clerk looked as tired as Simon felt.

  A quick stop at a Waffle House got him breakfast and sufficient caffeine to fuel him for the trip home. As he finished off his second cup of coffee, he cancelled his hotels for the remainder of the trip, then sent an email to the dojo letting them know he wouldn’t be back, at least not this week. He pleaded an emergency in Atlanta which really wasn’t a lie because that’s the way it felt. His original plan to spend a day in Asheville and then one in Chattanooga could wait. Simon had to get home now. He was in his car, headed south even before the sun rose.

  This urgency was not because of the five voicemail messages from his eldest sister. Simon had listened to the first one and found it to be Deanna’s usual litany of complaints, at least when it came to her younger brother. He ignored the others.

  A little after seven he was only a few miles away from reaching the interstate when his phone rang. When a name appeared on the phone’s screen, he smiled. This was a call he’d always take.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  “Hi, Son. How goes it? You hiking today?”

  “Actually, I’m almost back to Atlanta. The sabbatical helped, but I decided to come home.”

  There was a long pause and then, “Oh, okay. I’m glad they finally made you take time off. You work too hard.” There was another pause. “Deanna has been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “I saw that. What’s up?”

  “She went to your house and found you were gone. Your exorcism partner told her that you were out of town. Dee was very unhappy that she hadn’t been informed about your vacation plans.”

  “My sabbatical was none of her business,” he said.

  “I told her that. But you know her. And she’s upset because your front door keys don’t work now. If I need a new set, just drop them by when you have a chance, okay?”

  The keys his sister had were an old set from their uncle, the previous homeowner. Dee had them because she’d watched over the place when Uncle Thomas went on vacation a couple of years back. When Simon had bought the house, he hadn’t thought about reclaiming them. He hadn’t cared.

  Until recently.

  “Your set are the right ones.” He might as well tell her all of it. “Dee was in my house a few weeks back, moved around some furniture, threw stuff out of my refrigerator. She left a note that said I really should take my garbage out more often. I changed the locks the next day.”

  “Oh, that sounds like her. I’m sorry about that.” There was a long sigh down the phone. “I don’t know what to do with her, Simon, I just don’t. She’s got to be involved in everything.”

  Came with being the firstborn in a long string of kids.

  “I am not going to be nice this time, Mom,” he warned. “I am done with her interference.”

  That was The Old Simon. The new one had far less patience.

  “Tell her to back off. She won’t listen, but it’s time she knew that she can’t run over people. Your dad and I will stand behind you on this.”

  That was reassuring. “Thanks, Mom.” Then he remembered the other issue. “Oh, I got Katia a birthday present. It’s a wooden staff and it’s almost six feet long. There’s no way I can hide it if she’s home this morning. Can I stash it at your house?” The other one he could hide in his trunk.

  “Sure. Bring it over.”

  “I’ll stick it in the garden shed. I can just imagine what might happen if one of the sibs found the thing.”

  A laugh came down the line now. “Yeah, put it in the shed. I’ll be out this morning, but you know how to get in the gate.”

  “Thank you. Ah, sorry, but I’m almost at the turnoff to the interstate. I’d better focus on my driving.”

  “It’s good to talk to you, Son. Call when you can. And bring your Katia over one of these days. She sounds like she can hold her own with this family.”

  “Oh, believe me, she can.”

  “Love you. Bye!”

  He returned the love and then a short time later merged onto the interstate.

  Deanna didn’t mess with their four youngest siblings because they were still at home. The two older than Simon were safe as well: Amy was a legal secretary and had a toddler of her own. Joshua was in the Army and based in Germany, so their eldest sister couldn’t order him around. That left Simon and his choice of professions, neither of which Deanna approved of.

  “Time to set some boundaries,” he said.

  Then he upped his speed a bit. He needed to get home. Once he saw Katia, everything would be fine.

  † ~ ‡ ~ †

  After a quick stop at his folks’ place to stash one of Katia’s presents, Simon headed home. When he pulled into the driveway he sighed in relief. Everything looked fine, nothing to indicate anything was wrong. Now he wondered if he’d overreacted.

  “No,” he murmured. Not after that conversation with the Divine in the forest.

  The car Katia had borrowed from Grand Master Stewart was here, so she was probably asleep after a long night’s trapping. He turned off the engine and sat there for a time, enjoying the idea of being back home. The lawn looked like a landscaping pro had mowed it, which was the case. She’d also washed his windows, something he’d intended on doing one of these days.

  Once he got his luggage out of the trunk, leaving the collapsible bō tucked under a blanket, he debated whether he should text Katia before walking into the house. But if she was sleeping, he didn’t want to wake her.

  The decision was made for him when the front door opened and she stepped out onto the porch. She looked like she’d been up all night.

  “Simon?” she asked.

  “Hey!” he said, then carried his luggage up to the porch.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I was just ready to come home. I didn’t text you because it was early, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  A lengthy yawn was the reply. “Yeah, it was a really long night.”

  He followed her in the house, which smelled of furniture polish. She’d gone to extra effort on his behalf and hadn’t even known he’d be home today.

  As he closed the door behind him, she yawned again. “I need a shower.” Then she was in the guest room, the door closing behind her.

  It wasn’t quite the reception he’d hoped for, which told him something had happened. Something bad. Katia wouldn’t usually blurt out those kinds of things but saved them up until she was ready to tell him. They were a lot alike.

  Just as he was about to feel sorry for himself, her bedroom door opened.

  “Welcome home,” she said, sending him a faint smile. “I missed you.”

  Then the door closed again and everything was better.

  † ~ ‡ ~ †

  Katia did not hurry through her shower because she needed time to think of her next move. If she told Simon what had happened at the cemetery, he’d feel obligated to help her in some way. That wouldn’t be fair. This was his sabbatical, the one he’d earned with every horrific demonic exorcism. And yet, part of her wanted him to be there, to give her advice, to watch her back. He made her feel safe and that was an amazing, and utterly unnerving feeling.

  She found him in his recliner, thumbing through the mail he’d received from Rome. He looked up, studied her, and then set the magazine aside.

  “The house looks great. Thank you.”

  “I had some free time.”

  “That I doubt. I mean, you washed the windows. That’s definitely beyond the call of duty.”

  Katia shrugged and then plopped down onto the sofa. “Ah, since you’re home early, is it possible for me to stay here a couple more days? The painting at Stewart’s house is going okay, but they found stuff that needs repaired so they’re behind schedule. If it isn’t okay, I can try to find somewhere else to crash. Maybe a bolt hole. You folks have them here, right?” Lawrence had one, a place on Holy ground that was safe from demons. Not fancy, but it’d give her a place to stay until Stewart’s house was livable again.