“Is something wrong with your hands?” Roy asked as we walked toward my car.

“What?” I glanced down and realized I was still wearing the gloves Rianna had given me. “Oh, uh . . .” Would the blood still be there? Now that I’d gone to Faerie, would I always see it on my hands? I peeled off one glove, almost afraid of what I’d find. My skin was spotless underneath. No blood. “No, nothing,” I said, dropping the gloves in my purse and holding up my hands to show Roy my clean palms.

The ghost lifted both his eyebrows, but it wasn’t a look of shock and disgust, just his you’re-acting-odd look. I received it occasionally, and right now I didn’t care. I clenched my fists and then opened them again, staring at my palms. Once I got home and didn’t have to worry about driving close to dusk, I would open my senses and look at my hands with my grave-sight.

“Uh, Alex, are you listening?” Roy said, and I realized he must have said something before that.

I dropped my hands to my sides and glanced at him. “Yeah?”

“‘Yeah,’ we’re being followed or ‘yeah,’ you’re finally listening?”

Followed?

I turned. A dark limo crawled down the street, keeping pace with me. Or it was keeping pace, until I spotted it. Then it sped up, stopping just ahead of me. The back door opened and a man stepped out onto the sidewalk. Dark shades masked his eyes, and his hand moved into the front of his jacket—exactly where a shoulder harness would be—as he straightened and turned toward me.

“How much you want to bet the appearance of a TIDS is bad news?” Roy asked as I ground to a halt.

“TIDS?”

“Thug In Dark Suit.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t bet against it,” I said, glancing back the way we’d come. There was a second TIDS, as Roy put it, behind us. Oh, this is great.

I ducked into the nearest doorway, but this close to the Bloom most of the shops were geared toward tourists and norms. Another street over and the shops and businesses would be like any other except with a magical twist, but here they were full of gaudy, overpriced wares and operated only on nights and weekends.

The CLOSED sign hung prominently in the glass doorway.

I jerked the door handle anyway, just in case. It shook on the hinges, but didn’t open.

“I might be able to open it,” Roy said, stepping through the door.

Through the glass, I saw his face scrunch in concentration as he focused on the lock. But there wasn’t time, and we both knew it.

I whirled around as the first man rounded the corner of the shopfront. The second joined him a moment later. They both had severe haircuts, tailored suits, and dark wraparound sunglasses that screamed “high-class thug” or “muscle-for-hire.”

“Miss Craft?” Thug One asked as he stepped forward.

“Who’s asking?”

The thugs shared a glance that said they’d been working together long enough to have their nonverbals down. In the short alcove I was completely cornered and they knew it. I could go for the dagger in my boot, but I had no illusion that I’d be able to draw it before the thugs closed in on me. I glanced back at Roy. He was still working on the lock.

I shouldn’t have glanced away.

One of the thugs surged forward, his hand locking around my biceps. He jerked me forward with that viselike grip. I dug my heels into the ground, trying to pull back in the opposite direction, but the thug clearly spent way more time in the gym than I did. Thug Two snatched my other arm.

“Boss wants to talk with you,” he said, trying to steer me toward the limo still idling on the side of the road.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to talk to him, and I certainly don’t like the treatment,” I told him, but I stopped struggling. It wasn’t getting me anywhere and I knew only one person who would want to talk to me and had a penchant for limos. My father.

The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could scream and kick and fight, and maybe cause enough of a ruckus that someone would call the cops and they’d eventually show up, or I could cooperate and get out of this quicker and without having to file a police report. I chose the second option. For one thing, it would be dusk soon and I needed this to be over quickly enough that I could still legally operate a vehicle and drive myself home, and for another, it was long past time for Daddy Dearest and me to have a little chat about my heritage. So when one of the thugs opened the limo door, I ducked inside without a fuss. Roy followed.

The man waiting inside wasn’t my father.

The stranger sat on the far side of the limo, taking up more than his fair share of the leather seat as he sprawled, knees wide apart and large meat hook–like hands balanced on his legs. He had no hair, so even behind the limo’s tinted windows, his scalp shone in the sunset. His pants and jacket were flawless white—a color I would never have worn in such quantities, as I was way too accident-prone—and his dress shirt was a brilliant sapphire. Years in my father’s house had taught me how much stock men of power put into their physical appearance, but he hardly needed to impress me—after all, his men had just abducted me off the street.

“Miss Craft, thank you for joining me. Would you care for a drink?” He lifted a wineglass already filled with deep red liquid.

“I think there’s been some mistake,” I said, trying to back out the door, but, of course, the thugs were there, blocking my way.

“No mistake. You are Alex Craft with Tongues for the Dead, yes?” He smiled, flashing teeth that had to have been paid for or heavily charmed to be that white and straight. “Please, sit down.”

“Should I go for help?” Roy asked, fidgeting with the edge of his flannel shirt and pacing through the floorboard of the limo.

Go where? To whom? I gave Roy a minute shake of my head and then considered the seat my “host” had offered.

It wasn’t like I had much of a choice with Thug One and Thug Two outside the door. I slid stiffly into the plush leather seat and crossed my legs. I still had the charm to detect glamour in my pocket. Getting to it might be an issue, but the man looked only mildly interested when I dipped into my pocket and slid the small disk out. I clipped it to my bracelet, but no sudden attack of hiccups hit, so what I saw was apparently what I got.

“And what would that charm be, my dear?” the man asked, his voice dispassionate but his eyes glinting with curiosity.

I ignored the question. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Again he flashed that dazzling smile. “Of course. Forgive me. I must admit, I am not accustomed to not being recognized on sight. I am Maximillian Bell the Third.”

“Of Spells for the Rest of Us?” That meant not only was he human, but he was a norm. Spells for the Rest of Us existed to teach norms who had extreme determination—and loads of money—how to touch the edge of the Aetheric plane and draw magic. The slang word for such a norm was “skimmer.” It was rude, but an accurate description, as they could only skim the smallest amount of raw energy. The problem with skimming was that norms weren’t meant to touch the Aetheric or to channel energy—it tended to burn them up from the inside out, typically starting with their minds and driving them insane. There was legislation currently in the works to make skimming illegal, but the bills kept getting delayed. People like Maximillian Bell III were likely the cause of the delays.

I opened my senses, letting my natural sensitivity to magic loose in the confined car. Bell wore more than a dozen charms on his person, everything from a dewrinkler charm to a charm meant to engender feelings of friendliness—which was borderline gray magic. None of the charms were particularly powerful, but all were at a decent level, some stronger than I could have cast, and nothing I expected to be in the possession of a skimmer. Of course, he could buy his charms. Or he could be a witch making easy money on norms. Despite his charisma charm, nothing about this situation added up to my feeling any overt goodwill toward him.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Bell?”

“Please, call me Max. I would like to hire your services. Cigarette?” He held out a flat gold cigarette case and I shook my head. He took one of the thin cigarettes from the case and fished a matching gold lighter from an inner jacket pocket. “You don’t mind if I—?”

“Actually, I do mind. There are channels to go through if you would like to hire me. You could call my business line, use my Web site, or e-mail me.” I uncrossed my arms and leaned forward. “Having your goons pluck me off the street is not an appropriate channel, nor is it appreciated. Now, it’s time for me to get going. Good day.”

“Please, Miss Craft, I did not mean to offend. Your line appears to be turned off, your voice mail is full, and e-mail is so impersonal for what I wish to discuss. I am willing to spend a tidy sum of money to retain your services.”

Money is always hard to turn down, especially when working freelance. But hard to turn down doesn’t mean impossible. I showed some teeth. “Good day, sir.” I slid across the seat toward the door.

“You haven’t even listened to my request yet,” he said, and pressed a button beside him.

A click sounded as the doors locked. Creep. I reached for the handle anyway, hoping it would auto-unlock from the inside, but it didn’t and there were no controls for the lock on my side of the limo. I turned toward Roy. I didn’t want to alert Bell to Roy’s presence, so I fixed Roy in my gaze and then cut my eyes toward the button near Bell’s hand.

The ghost nodded and walked over to the button. I just hoped he had enough focus to push it—the TV bested him if he got even slightly distracted.

“I’m not inclined to work with anyone who holds me against my will, so you better hope the deceased has some other relation who can go through the proper channels,” I said, leaning back in the seat but not moving away from the door.

“Deceased?” Bell scrunched thick, dark eyebrows, which I guessed were the same color as his hair would have been if he’d had any on his head. “I don’t want to hire you to raise the dead, Miss Craft. I want you to open the Aetheric for me and a select number of my followers.”