“I don’t think—”

“It’s not too scary to talk about her?” I asked him.

Danny shook his head, eyes grave. “Not in the daytime.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Because daytime’s safe.” He nodded in agreement. His mother’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Glancing around, I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ll let you in on a secret. That old lady can’t actually hurt you, not even in the nighttime. All she can do is scare you. Can you tell me what she looked like?”

He considered. “Like a Halloween witch. Like this.” He bared his teeth and clawed his hands.

“Did she have a hat like a witch?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “She had hair like a witch, and red eyes, like, like . . . a really evil witch.”

“What did she do?”

“You don’t have to talk about her, Danny,” Sonya murmured. “Come here.” He padded over to her on bare feet and she hoisted him onto her lap, holding him as though he were a much younger child. “It’s okay. It was just a bad dream.”

He regarded me from the security of his mother’s embrace. “It wasn’t, was it?”

“What do you think?” I asked carefully.

“She sat on me.” Danny’s eyelids fluttered involuntarily. “I was laid on my back and she sat on me and I couldn’t move. Not one inch. And then . . .” Grimacing with all the ferocity a seven-year-old could muster, he made his hands into claws again and reached out in a throttling gesture. “I think it was a dream, but I think she’s real, too.” He lowered his hands, his gaze skittering around the room, his voice dropping to a frightened whisper. “And I think she’s coming back.”

His mother glowered at me. “See what you’ve done!”

I ignored her. “No way, Danny,” I said firmly. “We’re going to make sure she’s not coming back here, ever.”

“Yeah?” There was a faint spark of hope in his bruised gaze.

“Yeah.” I unfastened the chain of dwarf-wrought silver around my neck and unthreaded the Seal of Solomon charm Casimir had given me a few months ago, tucking it into his small hand. “This will help protect you.”

Danny examined it. “Don’t you need it?”

“Not anymore.” Strictly speaking, that might or might not be true, since Casimir had given it to me to ward off obeah magic that was no longer a threat. “You keep it as long as you need it. Then someday, you’ll give it to someone who needs it more than you do, okay? That’s how it works.”

He nodded. “Like if that old lady comes after some other kid?”

God, I hoped not. “Exactly. Except I plan on catching her first, because that’s what I do.”

His hand closed over the charm. “Okay.”

I refastened the chain around my neck, now strung with only the Oak King’s silver acorn token. “Good job. Why don’t you make yourself that glass of chocolate milk while I have a quick word with your mom?”

“Okay.” Danny slithered down from her lap obediently and padded toward the refrigerator.

Sonya Reynolds escorted me to the front door. “I really don’t appreciate you encouraging him,” she said in a fretful tone. “Danny’s a sensitive boy and he has such an active imagination.”

“He didn’t imagine this,” I said quietly. “I wish he had.”

She paled. “It’s real? You’re sure?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” I handed her one of Casimir’s business cards, having grabbed a few when I was in his store the other day. “The charm might help, but I wouldn’t count on it. There are other precautions you should take. Tell Casimir that I sent you and that it’s about warding off another Night Hag attack.”

Sonya stared at the card.

Behind her, Jen descended the master staircase, a compartmentalized carryall of cleaning supplies in one hand, a dustrag in the other. We exchanged a wordless glance of understanding.

“You know, I didn’t bargain for this when I agreed to raise our children—our child—in Pemkowet,” Sonya said, her voice shaking. She raised her stricken gaze to mine. “Don said it was different, a special place, a magical place. A safe place. He didn’t say anything about this.”

I felt bad for her.

“Pemkowet is special,” I said to her. “But there’s no such thing on earth as a truly safe place. All we can do is try our best to make it safer, and here that sometimes means unusual measures. You’ll take my advice?”

She nodded, squaring her shoulders. “You’ll catch the bitch who terrorized my son?”

I nodded in reply. “You’re damned right I will.”

      Fifteen

Shortly after sunset, Cody swung by my apartment. Since he wasn’t on patrol duty, he was driving his pickup truck and wearing his usual civilian gear of faded jeans and a worn flannel shirt, topped with a fleece-lined Carhartt jacket due to the cold weather. Like I’ve said before, he was one of the few guys who could pull off that look without it going redneck. Although it’s also possible that I imprinted on jeans and flannel at a tender age thanks to countless episodes of Gilmore Girls. When it came to Lorelei Gilmore’s love life, I was Team Luke all the way.

Now that I thought about it, I was probably lucky Cody didn’t wear a backward baseball cap. Definitely not a look that ages well.