CRAZY AS A LOON

HAILEY EDWARDS
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Edited by Sasha Knight
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 CONTENTS
Crazy as a Loon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Join the Team
About the Author
Also by Hailey Edwards
 CRAZY AS A LOON

Yard Birds, Book 1

Ellie Gleason has protected the town of Samford, Alabama for
decades. It’s not as glamours as her glory days as the
WitchLight Hub, but it keeps her active during her golden
years.

Life is good.
Well, it’s okay.
Fine.
It could be bloodier with a smidge more gore, but retirement is
meant to be low-key. It’s not like her fragile bones could
handle the strenuous hunt for monsters, even if her current
duties are dull as dishwater.

But when her great-nephew shows up on her doorstep in tears

—or is he her great-great nephew?—begging for help, Ellie
straps on her beloved shotgun, Bam-Bam, and gets the coven
back together.

Sure, Betty just had a hip replacement, and Flo would rather
flirt than fight, and Ida is busy with her anniversary plans, and
Joan is…Joan. But Ellie is certain she can whip the girls into
shape in time to defeat the creature preying on kids at a nearby
summer camp. She might even have them home in time for
dinner.
 CHAPTER ONE

I f I had a dime for every time a piskie infestation ruined

my Sunday afternoon plans with a blender and a
margarita mix, I wouldn’t have to clip coupons from the
weekly sales flyer. Come spring, the weather got warm enough
to thaw their wings, and they descended like locusts on
gardens within a three-mile radius of their underground hive.
Worse, they were ovoviviparous, and females birthed fully
self-reliant piskets every single place they fed during that first
week. The only thing harder to kill than piskies were roaches.
And that made me a glorified exterminator.
Welcome to retirement, old girl.
For eighty years, I hunted the most dangerous paranormal
creatures to prowl the night as a Witchlight Hub, but there was
a reason why other agencies called us WitchLite. Without each
other, we were about as useless as tits on a bull.
“Ellie.”
“Why do we bother?” I kicked a fallen tomato cage. “The
little pests always come back twice as hungry.”
Piskies were barely the height of a pinkie finger and
resembled Tinkerbell, except for the needlelike teeth, red eyes,
razor-sharp claws, and…well…I guess they didn’t much
resemble Tinkerbell after all.
Give me a kraken to wrestle, a griffin to ride, a manticore
to defang. Not this penny-ante pest control.
“Ellie.”
 Shelving memories of our glory days, I turned to find Ida
on her knees beside a raised bed. “What?”
“Look.” Her orange-cream shirtwaist dress pooled around
her. “Oh, Ellie, just look.”
“I know that tone.” Flo, whose expression had frozen in
place decades ago, sashayed over to us. “Babies.”
Her disgust mirrored mine whenever I imagined her
welcoming botulism injections to banish wrinkles.
“Already?” Betty, still recovering from hip replacement
surgery after a boggart tripped her on the stairs at the library,
picked her way across the uneven terrain with her walker.
“Feed them to that stray Pastor Joe adopted.”
First swarm of the summer, and they had to go and target
the Samford Baptist Church’s small garden.
“Is your memory that bad?” I scowled at the six piskets
dozing under a lettuce leaf. “The fundraiser?”
“Oh.” Betty stepped over a shattered watermelon rind
longer than my arm. “Yeah.”
“I don’t remember a fundraiser.” Ida sank back on her
heels. “Did it happen during my cruise?”
Every year, Ida and her husband, Eli, cruised to the
Bahamas for their anniversary.
Most of us were widows now, so we didn’t begrudge her
the romantic getaway.
“The stray ate a litter of piskets.” I rubbed my thumb
alongside my nose. “They didn’t agree with her.”
“The pastor decided she got in a fight with a tom, and we
encouraged his notion.” Flo righted her pillbox hat. “I don’t
know what possessed that cat. Piskie teeth are sharper than
Betty’s tongue. The poor thing.” She adjusted the wisp of
netting against her silver curls. “She required emergency
surgery, which Colin paid for, but the congregation hosted a
bake sale to pay us back.”
 Colin Rourke preferred golf to Jesus, and more
conservative parishioners took offense to his priorities.
But mostly, they resented Flo for taking the most eligible
bachelor in Samford off the market.
Any chance to snub her, they took with glee. Not very
Christian behavior, but Flo didn’t care.
Flo didn’t believe in getting mad. She believed in getting
even. And she looked fabulous doing it.
“We need to hurry this along.” I checked the clunky gold
watch my husband wore for forty years before I picked up the
habit to feel closer to him. “Service begins in thirty minutes.”
“I would do the honors…” Flo extended her leg to flash
her white pumps, “…but they’re new.”
“More Mew Mews?” Betty reached us with a grunt of
effort. “How many pairs of shoes do you need?”
“The designer is Miu Miu.” Flo’s lips crimped in a hard
line. “Though I would hardly expect someone who still hunts
Pokémon to appreciate art.” She curled her lip at Betty’s black
orthotic sneakers. “Or style.”
“I have grandkids.” Betty twisted and sat on her walker’s
built-in seat. “Of course I catch Pokémon.”
“That app reminds me of our rookie year in Witchlight.” I
cracked a smile. “Those were the days.”
Our handler, Walter Gleason, dumped us into a pond with
a kelpie stallion on our first day.
The thing almost drowned Joan, broke two of Ida’s ribs,
and dislocated Betty’s shoulder. Flo froze, and it was her or
me. I threw myself in front of the charging beast, stuck to its
gummy fur, and it hauled me under.
We passed the test on a technicality. I did catch it, as per
our assignment, but it caught me right back. Had Wally been a
hair slower, it would have drowned me and then eaten me.
“He’s coming.”
 The four of us angled toward the flagstone path as Joan
burst through the garden gate in a lather.
“Pastor Joe.” Her quilted purse thumped hard against her
back. “He just left the pastorium.”
The small house provided for the pastor sat maybe a
quarter acre from the church.
We didn’t have much time to handle this before he got here
and started asking questions.
Good thing I favored orthotics with a nice chunky sole too.
A loud squelching noise caused the rest of my coven to
whip their heads toward me.
“Problem solved.” I wiped pisket goop off on the trampled
grass. “Who brought the lye?”
One look at my face and Betty burst out laughing. Even
Flo allowed herself a modest chuckle.
Lord knows, we were a violent bunch. Practically a death
squad in our heyday.
“Me.” Joan dug into her oversized bag. “It’s in here
somewhere.”
Alkaline hydrolysis was our preferred method of body
disposal, but it wasn’t easily achieved in the field. That was
why we mixed up magically regulated batches to supply the
heat and pressure for the reaction.
“Found it.” She tossed me a prescription bottle. “That’s the
last of it.”
One good thing about getting old was all the free
prescription pill bottles we recycled for spell storage. Sure, the
containers were plastic and not glass. And those childproof
lids gave Betty fits, but free was free. Plus, no one looked
twice at a granny with a few bottles rattling around in the
bottom of her purse. They were perfect camouflage.
“You know what that means?” Betty danced in her seat.
“Margarita night at Ellie’s.”
 Footsteps rang out on the flagstone path, and I dumped the
chalklike powder over the pisket remains.
The five of us joined hands, power trickled into me from
them, and I murmured words to ignite the spell.
In these rare moments, as borrowed magic swam in my
veins, I felt young again. But all too soon, the remains reduced
to goo, then to liquid, and seeped into the earth to fertilize the
next food crop.
“Well, well, well.” Pastor Joe entered the garden dressed in
a black suit with his hair parted just so. “If it isn’t five of my
favorite parishioners.”
Joe Deckle was new to Samford, in his midsixties, and in
possession of a full head of thick silver hair.
Both the wedding band he still wore, and the bible he
always carried, worked like catnip on single ladies.
They screamed I am not afraid of commitment in a subtle
way women our age appreciated in eligible men.
“Ellie, you’re looking lovely this fine morning.”
Part of my uniform as village kook entailed wearing a
housecoat and slippers around town. I used to be a lot sadder
about that, but then I took to carrying Bam-Bam everywhere I
went as an accessory. When no one batted an eye, so long as I
took pains to match my shotgun to my outfit, I decided I could
live with it.
Better to be armed to the teeth than dressed to the nines, in
my opinion.
“I showered.”
A snort blasted out of Betty’s nose. “Jesus, Ellie.”
The girls sucked in a collective gasp, but Pastor Joe just
laughed under his breath.
“Jesus saves.” Betty folded her hands in her lap. “That’s
what I meant to say.”
“I’m sure you…” His gaze slid past her to the garden.
“What on God’s green earth?”
 “Slugs.”
“Rabbits.”
“Deer.”
“Possums.”
“Tarantulas.”
That last one was Joan, so nobody blinked about her
assertion there were vegetarian tarantulas with a hankering for
fresh summer fruits.
“All at once?” He tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat.
“The farmer’s market is in three weeks.”
The farmer’s market was seasonal at the church, and we
did our part to ensure a bountiful harvest.
Proceeds got invested into community programs overseen
by the church, which was as good a reason as any to pitch in.
Leftovers were taken home by the congregation and used in
meals that would then be delivered to the elderly and less
fortunate. Those were also fine and noble things, but we
weren’t either.
We founded a garden club, not only to get ahead of piskies,
but to mix our special fertilizer into the soil.
The resulting fruits and vegetables didn’t hurt anyone, but
they might leave folks open to suggestion.
That’s not a rock troll, it’s a hide-a-key.
That’s not a brownie, it’s a dirty mop.
That’s not a sprite, it’s a lost doll.
Knowing the sanctimonious pearl-clutchers who gave Flo
such a hard time ate produce from mass piskie gravesites? It
made my old and bitter heart rejoice. Just not enough to irritate
my pacemaker.
“Colin would be happy to donate enough plants to replace
the ones we’ve lost.” Flo anchored her hands on her slim hips,
ready to take charge. “I’ll make a list after service and have
them delivered tomorrow.”
 “Thank you for your kindness and generosity.” Pastor Joe
raked his fingers through his hair. “I regret this means we’ll
have to cancel the farmer’s market this year. Perhaps I can get
my brothers to come down.” His shoulders fell over the
devastation. “We’ll need better fences to prevent this from
happening again.”
Fences wouldn’t deter these flighty pests, but I couldn’t
very well tell him that.
Guilt gnawed on me that I had failed in my duty, however
insignificant it felt these days. Maybe that was the real
problem. So little was expected of me, I struggled to hold
myself up to my old standards. I didn’t put much effort into
meeting an already low bar, and that wasn’t me.
The real me.
The old me.
Before I got, well, old.
“Maybe host an auction to sponsor individual plants or
entire beds? Winners get their names engraved on a plaque on
a stick? That way we replace what’s lost and the church earns
some money for the fund.” I ignored the eye daggers Flo
hurled at me for usurping her, but I fully intended to pass her
the scepter. “I’m sure Flo would love to head up the
committee.”
A handful of women would mortgage their houses to beat
her out of pure spite, which she well knew.
She lived for excuses to goad them into competitions they
couldn’t hope to win and couldn’t fuss openly about without
showing an uncharitable spirit, since all proceeds went to the
church and the community.
“That’s brilliant.” Paster Joe embraced me, his scent warm
and woodsy. “We’re so lucky to have you.”
Awkwardly, I patted his back. “Yeah.”
Behind him, Betty rubbed her hands up her arms and made
kissy faces.
 I don’t know why she was my best friend. I should have let
that kelpie finish the job the day we met.
“I’m happy to spearhead a committee.” Flo inserted
herself. “I’ll spread the word after service.”
Pastor Joe smiled at her, deep wrinkles creasing the
corners of his eyes. “Thank you, Flo.”
Preening under his attention, she smoothed her hands over
her hips. “You’re very welcome.”
“Ladies.” He held out his arm in a sweeping gesture.
“Let’s go on in.”
Joan, who stood clutching her purse strap, smiled stiffer
than some corpses I had seen.
Ida rose with the kind of grace you’re either born with, or
you’re not, and dusted off her skirts.
Betty, draped in a flowing housedress that was more my
usual style, grunted and pivoted in her walker.
Once assured his flock was ready to be shepherded, Pastor
Joe led us down the path toward the church.
“He’s tougher to fool than poor old Father Orr was,” Betty
murmured, bringing up the rear with me beside her. “He’s
prettier, though.”
Father Orr suffered from dementia and moved to Wyoming
to be near his children.
That was the official line. The truth was, he quit eating
Samford grown veggies after his wife died and he had no one
to cook for him. Without that dietary staple, he began
remembering the strange happenings in our small Southern
town since the coven relocated here fifty or so years ago.
We dosed him with a mild hallucinogen, drove him to the
airport, and passed him into his sons’ care.
Seventy-two hours later, he was back to normal, but his
kids didn’t believe a word out of his mouth.
For a while, he sent postcards to his former parishioners,
warning them of evil spirits in our fair town.
 Luckily, they didn’t believe a word out of his pen, and life
went back to as normal as it ever got for us.
“He is rather handsome,” Flo agreed, a glint in her eye. “A
widower too.”
“Oh, lord.” Betty clutched her chest. “Did y’all hear that?”
Heart tripping, I scanned the area for threats. “What?”
“A cougar yowling.” She dissolved into laughter. “Rawr.”
She lost her breath. “Flo is on the prowl.”
“Better a cougar than a spinster.”
“Just because I never married doesn’t mean I’m a
spinster.”
“That’s exactly what spinster means.”
“I aged out of that bracket at twenty-six.” Betty shook out
her sleek gray bob. “I’m a thornback, baby.”
“A humpback more like,” Flo muttered under her breath.
“You’ve always had horrendous posture.”
“Do you still qualify if you have children?” Joan pondered.
“You have so many.”
“Only six.” Betty lost her footing, leaning hard on the
walker as I steadied them both. “It’s grandkids that get you. I
have fifteen of those and counting.” She huffed her thanks and
kept going. “Men never did appeal to me. Women either. But
kids? They’re the most fun you can have. And if you adopt
paranormal kids, you never know what you’re going to get.
It’s fantastic. Like Christmas. One day they’re this chubby
toddler. The next, they’ve shifted into this whole new form
that neither of you knows how to control.”
As an adoptee herself, taken in by a warg couple when she
was one month old, Betty was a pack animal at heart and the
foremost expert in mixed-species home placement for
paranormal children.
“Oh, let Betty have her fun.” Ever the peacekeeper, Ida
waded in. “She can be a thornback if she wants.”
 “Thornback has a nicer ring than widow.” Joan tugged on
her purse. “Widow is such a lonely word.”
The man Joan married in her fifties was more of a mad
scientist than the professor he led her to believe. Brilliant
mind, but dull as dishwater. Sadly, he blew himself up on their
tenth wedding anniversary. The explosion destroyed her
greenhouse and cost her a decade’s worth of horticultural
research. To my knowledge, she had never cried before or
since.
She really did love those plants.
“Thornback is fiercer,” Ida agreed, happy to guide the
conversation. “What do you say, Ellie?”
Thumb rolling over my dented, scratched, and slightly
melted wedding band. “I like thornback.”
The word implied you had reached a pinnacle where you
were strong enough to face down anything, and tough enough
anyone whispering about you behind your back could go
impale themselves.
Based on her pinched expression, Betty must have heard
the edge in my tone.
“I was teasing earlier, about Pastor Joe.” Her voice leveled
off once we hit the sidewalk. “Your situation, your marriage,
is…complicated.” She paused to catch her breath. “I just hate
to see you waste your life.”
“Each time one of your kids grew up and left home, did
you rush out and adopt a replacement?”
“You can’t just replace—”
“Exactly.”
Especially since my husband might be dead, but he was
still waiting on me to get home.
 C H A P T E R T WO

T he wards on my land weren’t as fancy as the ones at

Witchlight HQ, but I could whistle a tune and hear
throaty bullfrog croaks from the stones I buried when the
coven first arrived in Samford that told me the perimeter was
secure.
Oh, well.
Better luck tomorrow.
“Come on, Bam-Bam.” I slid my shotgun into its holster
down my back. “It’s almost MMA o’clock.”
Kook duty required me to appear more harmless little old
lady and less former infamous monster slayer, so I always
walked the property line in my housecoat before bedtime.
Some nights, just to spice things up, I shot empty cans off
fence posts. Toward oncoming traffic. I fired homemade rock
salt shells, but my neighbors didn’t need to know that.
I also made sure the locals saw me talking to myself. Or
my gun. I wasn’t sure which was worse, so I did a little of
both. As much fun as it was (for me), I did it for their own
good. The less they knew about the supernatural world around
them, the better off they would be. Besides, Betty screaming
insanity plea at officers who came to investigate my antics
usually prevented me from getting arrested.
Again.
A prickle of guilt stung my spine as I passed the old
Madison place on the final leg of my evening constitutional.
 The Madisons had been my closest neighbors, but the
missus passed five years ago, and the mister not long after her.
Their house was a cute little thing with a nice creek in the
back. With love, and twenty or thirty grand, it could be a home
again. For another practitioner, if we got lucky.
The girls disagreed with me, but I felt we needed new
blood in town.
A strong white witch would be a welcome addition to the
area, if we could find a suitable one.
But we could hash that out if I ever lured in any takers.
As I did every month, I imbued fresh crystals with full
moon’s light and my intent, then buried them near the house.
They acted as a beacon to weary souls, and one day would
attract a new owner. That was the hope, anyway. This far out,
pickings were slim.
Still, I would hate to watch the old house rot as the years
passed. There was something poignant about the slow
deterioration of beauty, but I saw enough of that in the mirror
each morning to last me. No reason for a perfectly good house
to fall in on itself. My face, a crinkled napkin of a thing, was
doing enough of that for both of us.
With that done, I headed home with plans to watch MMA
until I passed out in my recliner with a pizza roll hangover.
Once on my porch, I toed off my muddy boots and let
myself in the front door I never bothered to lock.
Sadly, no homicidal maniacs had yet to take me up on the
open invitation.
Though I suppose hunting them was more fun than
walking in on them.
“Enjoy your stroll?”
The rich, husky voice rolled over me, and I closed my
eyes, happy to pretend a few minutes longer.
“It rained all last week.” A smile tugged at my lips. “It’s a
bog out there.”
 “Enjoy your slog then?”
“I always do.” That much was the truth. “The Madison
place is still empty.”
“You’re seeding it, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” I loved how well he knew me. “There’s
something about it that feels important.”
“Trust your gut.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“None of that, cadet. We’re far past basic training, don’t
you think?”
The longer I stayed in the entryway, the longer I got to
imagine Wally really was right around the corner, chatting
with me. That he would walk out, wrap me in his arms, and
kiss me silly.
“Well.” I placed my shotgun on the table and shrugged out
of my housecoat, leaving me in faded leggings and an equally
worn tee. “You did put a ring on it, as they say.”
“I did, and I would do it all over again.”
After drifting in thoughts of yesteryear all morning, I was
still deep in recollections of our younger days.
“Bet you didn’t think that the first time we met.”
“You were a smart-mouthed, short-tempered powerhouse
who didn’t listen to a word of caution.”
And he was a god made flesh to my eyes: powerful,
ruthless, and handsome as sin.
“Flatterer.” I drew up my courage and entered the living
room. “How was your day?”
“Same as the day before and the day before that,” he
teased, but I heard the underlying weariness.
Mounted on the wall above the couch was a fish. A bass.
Vibrant latex skin stretched over a mechanical skeleton, really.
Its age-worn base was plastic woodgrain. A gold-tone plaque
proclaimed he was Bobby the Big Mouth Bass. Press the
button, or trigger the motion sensor, and he burst into song.
When I entered the room, smile pasted on, the bass was
flexed so he was staring at me straight on. With one side wired
into the plaque, he only had so much mobility, but we made do
with his limitations.
More and more, I worried I was the one making do, while
he was enduring my inability to let him go.
“Don’t look so sad, gumdrop.” His voice went soft. “You
know it breaks my heart to break yours.”
“I’m not sad.” I cast back for something, anything to
distract him. “We killed our first summer piskies.”
You could tell them from the spring hatchlings by their
duller colors and preference for melons.
Willing to let me get away with misdirection, he engaged
with enthusiasm. “Already?”
This was the equivalent of talking about the weather with a
stranger just to have something to say, and I hated it. Hated,
hated, hated. But my Wally’s soul was cursed into a damned
novelty toy, and the cure was as impossible as it was cruel.
“We noticed them before service.” Hard to miss the mess
they made. “At church.”
“That new pastor drops by with some truly inventive
excuses.”
“Not you too.” I yanked Wally off the wall, and the Velcro
strips affixed to the back of the plaque ripped loudly away
from the ones stuck to the sheetrock. “Betty was teasing me
about him earlier.”
Sinking into my recliner, I rested the plaque against my
stomach to prop him up during the match.
“You could go out with him.”
“I would rather stay in with you.”
“I’m not a man anymore, gumdrop. I’m not anything.”
 “You’re here, and that’s enough for me.”
“I won’t fight with you when you look so tired.”
“Good.” I stroked a finger down his rubbery spine. “I
would hate to earn a pity win.”
Settled in to watch MMA, we fell into a companiable
silence brought on by the mutual appreciation of a good fight
that required no commentary when the announcer was doing
just fine on his own.
With my eyes shut, it almost felt like the good ol’ days.
Too bad you can’t drift through life blindfolded.
A chorus of croaks from the wards around the house
announced we had guests, and I sat up straight. A beat later, a
howl echoed through the front yard, and skittering claws tore
across the wooden porch.
“Sounds like we’ve got company.” Wally cut his eyes
toward me. “Bet you a dollar it’s the boys.”
The boys could mean any of Betty’s kids or grandkids, but
the howl gave me a good idea of who to expect. The question
was who had brought him all the way out here so late.
“That’s a fool’s bargain.” I refastened him to the wall for
his own protection. “I better let them in.”
I had barely reached the door before a tall young man with
light blond hair and sparkling blue eyes swept in and latched
his muscular arms around me. He yanked me off my feet to
prevent a dirty furball moving at the speed of light from
knocking me down like a bowling pin. Good thing too.
Hip replacements might as well be the new friendship
bracelets at my age.
“What are you two doing here?” I swatted Zander’s arm.
“Does Betty know?”
Zander should have been in college, and Zeke ought to
have been at Camp Mudskipper for the summer.
“We have a surprise attack planned for later.” He set me
back down. “One you can maybe help us with.”
 The second my feet touched the floor, the furball swerved,
plotting a collision course with my legs.
“Zeke,” Zander growled in his uncle-est voice. “Calm
down, or I’ll tie you out in the yard.”
To prevent Zeke from landing me in traction, I folded
myself onto the floor. The wolf pup dashed over, braced his
muddy front paws on my narrow shoulders, and planted
slobbery kisses all over my face.
“What did you eat?” I spat out fur and dirt. “Your breath is
curling my nose hairs.”
Zeke, tail wagging a mile a minute, continued stringing
drool over my lips and chin.
“So—” I scratched the little terror behind the ears, “—
what’s this about us helping you?”
“This is Zeke’s first year at Camp Mudskipper, and he’s
already tapped out.”
“Betty won’t like that.”
All her kids had spent their summers from ages five to
eighteen at Mudskipper.
First, they enrolled as campers. Then, around sixteen, they
began volunteering as junior counselors.
The program catered to shifters, predatory and
nonpredatory, and their adopted siblings. Shifter kids in non-
shifter families got a safe environment to interact with their
own kind, often for the first time. Non-shifter kids got a
chance to learn about their siblings through interacting with
others in their situation.
The hope was shifter and non-shifter kids alike would form
their own support networks outside of camp.
Easily done these days, when every kid had their own
smartphone, laptop, or tablet.
From what I recalled of the previous years’ schedules,
Zeke couldn’t have been there but a few days. Betty had a firm
rule that every child gave it a full week before they decided to
stay or come home. It might not work the same for
grandchildren, but I wasn’t betting on it. She was a stickler on
that point.
“That’s why I need a second opinion from you and Uncle
Wally.” Zander angled his chin, showing his throat. “Do you
mind?”
The gesture was deference out of respect, given I wasn’t a
shifter and didn’t rank in pack hierarchy.
There was only one reason why he would come to us
rather than take the problem directly to Betty.
Whatever brought him to our doorstep, his big brother,
Zale, had vetoed involving their mom.
Zale was Betty’s eldest and Zeke’s dad. And yes, she gave
all her kids Z names.
They were each a different species, so she stuck to the
same naming convention to bind them as a family. The kids
decided to continue the tradition, which meant the whole clan
was a tongue twister.
“You can always come to us for help. Always. You know
that.” I ushered him into the living room, Zeke at our heels,
and we sat beneath Wally to include him in the conversation.
“What’s going on?”
“The camp is…I don’t know…experiencing growing
pains? There are more kids, more staff, more activities. More
pressure from parents to receive daily updates. Just more. Of
everything. I’m worried that means Zeke fell through the
cracks and that’s how things got so bad so fast.”
“Okay.” I jabbed him with a bony finger. “What are we
missing?”
As much as Zander liked to talk, I didn’t usually have to
work this hard to pry answers out of him.
“Since Zeke got home, he won’t shift back to human.”
There was only one reason why a well-adjusted kid like
Zeke would act out in that way. Animal forms were stronger,
faster, and took more damage than human ones. Getting
“stuck” was a fear response.
Fingers itching for my gun, I growled, “Who or what did
he need protection from?”
“That’s what I want to know.” He got fidgety. “Zale said to
drop it, but this isn’t like Zeke.”
Green lips pursed, Wally asked, “What else can you tell
us?”
“The head counselor, Sara Camron, called Zale when Zeke
refused to shift back after a midnight fun run. As per camp
protocol, he was taken to the infirmary and examined. The
nurse found blood in his ruff from a shallow bite. When Zale
asked who was responsible, Sara admitted she didn’t know but
insisted any incidents at camp are of the boys will be boys
variety. She insinuated Mudskipper might not be a good fit for
Zeke if the stress of a play bite led to this.”
Shifters played rough. They bit, clawed, and bled daily. A
nibble wouldn’t be enough to spook Zeke.
He grew up too rough-and-tumble with Betty’s kids and
her other grandkids for that.
Tail curling with the motion, Wally leaned out for a better
look. “How long has he been a pup?”
Spend too long in an animal skin, and you risked becoming
one for life.
“Six days,” Zander confessed. “That’s why I had to act.”
Almost a week was dangerous territory, which meant Betty
should have been Zale’s first call.
“How did you end up with Zeke?” I started piecing it
together. “Are you pupsitting?”
“Zale and Maryna are at their cabin. They hoped a family
romp in the wilderness would snap Zeke out of it, but he hid
under his bed all weekend. I live the closest, so they invited
me to join them for a hunt, but I couldn’t get through to him
either. I suggested we bring in Mom, but Maryna vetoed that.”
He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “That’s when I told
them I would bring Little Bit back with me, and we could hang
in my dorm room tonight. He’s got an appointment with a
specialist in the morning that’s on the way to the college, so
Zale and Maryna agreed to let him sleep over. They don’t
know I’m here.”
When they found out, the fur was going to fly, but he knew
that before he made the trip.
“Kids these days.” I shared a glance with Wally. “So
sneaky.”
“I’m twenty-one.” Zander spluttered a laugh. “I’m not a
kid.”
“You’re a grown man.” Wally backed him up. “That means
you know going behind Zale’s back is wrong.”
A slow exhale moved through Zander, and he sank into the
lumpy couch with protesting springs that had been used as a
trampoline for most of his childhood by both the boy and the
cub.
“Guess now that you know all the gory details,” he
lamented, “you’ll have to tell Mom, huh?”
“Gasp.” I clutched my shirt. “It’s almost like that’s what
you intended all along by unloading this on us.”
This kid. He was slick as a fox. The genetic lottery missed
its mark with him.
Most bears weren’t half as sly or silver-tongued as this
boy, and he only got cleverer with age.
Zander knew we wouldn’t hesitate to tell Betty, who had
vast experience in this area, for Zeke’s sake.
“Do what you gotta do, Auntie El.” He linked his hands
behind his head and sat back. “I’ll practice acting shocked by
your betrayal for when Mom gets here. That way I can tweak
my performance before I face Zale.”
Wally’s laughter followed me into the kitchen, lightening
my soul, where I dialed Betty on our landline.
 A low whine drew my attention to Zeke, who had followed
me. His pitiful eyes, made larger and rounder through practice
with Zander, convinced me to feed him the chicken breast I
had been saving to make chicken salad sandwiches tomorrow.
“Can I call you back?” Betty grunted as a door shut in the
background. “I have family drama.”
“Oh?” I washed the grease off my fingers. “Maybe I can
help.”
“Zander isn’t answering his phone, and Zeke is staying
with him overnight. They’re supposed to be on campus, but
Zander’s roomie says he hasn’t seen him all day. Maryna is
coming unglued, Zale is as pissed as alpha wolves get, and I’m
about to put on actual jeans and go hunt down Zander. I have
to get between him and his brother before they start a pack war
over a family matter.”
One of the risks of having kids who grew up to join
different packs was the threat of sibling squabbling boiling
over into a political steamer after, for example, a wolf tore out
a bear’s throat for running to their momma and tattling.
“This must be your lucky night. I do believe I can spare
you from the agony of denim.”
A beat of silence hit the line then she exhaled like a
balloon deflating. “They’re with you, aren’t they?”
“One has a belly full of chicken, and Wally is entertaining
the other with stories of our misspent youth.”
“I’ll give Maryna a call on the way. Don’t let them out of
your sight.”
She hung up, muttering about ungrateful kids giving her a
heart attack, and I put the handset back on the base before I
forgot where I left it. Back when phones had cords, we didn’t
have these problems.
Oh well. It could be worse. I could have a cellphone.
On a normal day, Betty lived about twenty minutes away.
You could cut that in half when she was angry.
 This stunt, though she didn’t know it was well-intentioned
yet, had her madder than a wet hen.
“Brace yourselves,” I warned the boys. “Hurricane Betty is
about to make landfall.”
A whimper escaped Zeke, who squeezed between the
couch and the wall, as if his grandmother had ever said a harsh
word to him in his life. Zander, on the other hand, adopted a
stoic expression that drove home just how old that sweet little
bear cub had gotten when I hadn’t been looking.
Ten minutes later, the front door bounced open against the
wall in the entryway with a loud thump.
“Sorry about that,” Betty called toward the living room.
“This damn walker does what it wants.”
“Here.” I got to my feet and met her halfway. “Let me help
before you trip over the rugs.”
Wally had a thing about rugs, and our floor was wall-to-
wall overlapping carpets. Pups and cubs loved to bat the
tassels, which meant there weren’t as many as there used to be,
but the lumps made it hard for Betty to get around at present.
“What…are you…doing here?” Betty puffed at Zander,
out of breath. “Explain yourself, young man.” She scanned the
area while I helped her sit on her built-in stool. “Where’s your
nephew?”
A low whine rose behind the sofa, outing him, but Betty
only sagged and let Zeke be.
Zander leaned forward, laced his fingers, and filled his
lungs to give her the same speech.
“Well?” She kicked a stubborn foot in his direction. “Out
with it.”
You had to talk fast around Betty, or you couldn’t get a
word in edgewise.
“Mom—”
“Zale told you not to involve me, didn’t he? Probably said
I need more time to recover.”
 “Mom—”
“Pretend I didn’t raise you from a cub. Pretend I’ve ever
given you a reason to doubt I could take care of myself.
Pretend you haven’t insulted your Auntie El for implying she
would ever let anything happen to me.” Her upper lip curled
over the false teeth she got after a pooka kicked out most of
hers. “Then tell me what the hell is going on before I take you
over my knee and spank sense into you.”
“I don’t think that would help,” I muttered, hoping to make
an opening for him.
“He’s wearing his ass on his shoulders, coming here for
help first.” She flicked her trembling hand at me. “No offense
to you or Wally.” She zeroed back in on Zander. “He’s sitting
on his brain instead of using it is the only logical excuse.”
A soft gasp behind the couch warned little ears had
overheard a big swear.
“Grandma privilege,” she yelled at Zeke then dipped her
chin. “I kept my mouth so clean, you’d think my tongue was a
bar of soap when my kids were little. Now here I am, the
granny with the potty mouth.”
“You’ve earned it.” I patted her shoulder, hand close
enough to slap over her potty mouth if necessary to get this
intervention rolling, then circled back to Zander. “You were
saying?”
“Zeke called to tell me he dreamed a monster was hunting
him in his sleep. I thought it was first-night jitters, since he’d
never spent a night away from home without family, but he
woke up with bite marks on his neck. Just like in his dream. I
—”
“—neglected to mention this part of the story,” Wally
chastised with a clicking pinch of his brow.
“What about the fun run?” I reminded myself I would miss
him if I strangled him. “The blood?”
“That came next.” He held up his hands. “I’m sorry,
Auntie El, but I didn’t want to freak you out.”
 “Yes, Zander, us hysterical womenfolk must be eased into
details lest we faint dead away from shock.”
Arching her eyebrows, Betty stared at me. “Still think I
shouldn’t spank him?”
“Ladies,” Wally called us to order. “Let me see if I have
the timeline straight.” He waited for Zander’s full attention.
“Zeke went to camp. He had a bad dream his first night. He
woke up with bite marks. He called you, and not his parents,
I’m guessing because he knew his mother would force him to
leave. The next day, he went on a run. He came back with
more bite marks. This time, he refused to shift back to two
legs. Enter the trip to the infirmary, the call home, and the
harried parents driving to Mudskipper to pick up their
traumatized child.”
“That about covers it.” Zander scratched his nape. “Except
now that Zeke is safe, Zale doesn’t care.”
Wolves could be a bit insular when it came to protecting
their own at the expense of others, but kids? I wouldn’t have
expected Zale to let it go. Unless Maryna convinced him to
drop it. Her people held more isolationist views due to their
animals’ solitary nature.
“But you do?” Betty gave him a thorough once-over then
asked a trick question. “Why does this matter so much?”
“Aside from the fact something is preying on kids, and my
mom taught me to never look away?”
“Yes.” Her expression softened at the evidence of his big
heart. “Aside from that.”
“We studied sleep daemons last year in Daemonology
101.” He puffed out his cheeks before he exhaled. “We had a
guest lecturer. Mr. Lawson. He showed us footage of patients
in a sleep study being fed on by a sommeilae. He shared
photos of that daemon’s victims, some of them children. I
just…can’t forget it.”
“Who in their right mind shows graphic content to kids?”
Betty screeched. “I ought to write that college and tell them to
ban him.”
 “We’re not kids, Mom.” He thought better of rolling his
eyes. “We signed waivers to attend his lecture.”
Righteous indignation puffed her up bigger than eighties
shoulder pads. “They should have asked—”
“I would have been laughed off campus if I had to drive
home to let my mommy sign a permission slip.”
“Oh, Zandy.” Betty deflated on the spot. “I don’t mean to
baby you, but you’re the last baby I’ve got.”
“I know, Mom.” He grinned, dimple flashing. “But you’ve
got grandbabies out the wazoo.”
Her somber tone brought Zeke venturing out from behind
the couch to comfort her. She wasn’t allowed to hold him yet,
but he was very polite and reared up on her knees to give her
access to scratch his ears.
“I don’t have a wazoo,” she said haughtily. “That’s why I
adopted.”
Cracking up, Zander covered his face with his hands.
“You’re terrible.”
“Okay.” I smothered my own laugh at her joke. “How do
we tackle this, Betty?”
“I’m a quarter owner of Mudskipper. Sara Camron, who’s
been with us for a decade, is running the camp this year. That
she didn’t contact me about my grandson as a professional
courtesy is troubling. Her boy is about his age. You’d think
she would understand why I might expect to hear it from her
first.” She picked a weed from between Zeke’s teeth. “I’m
giving you permission, as an owner, to perform an
investigation on my behalf.”
“Quarter owner?” I felt my jaw drop into my lap. “When
did that happen?”
“About eight years ago. Around the same time Sara was
hired. The former owners were strapped for cash and
threatening to shut their doors for good. They called in all the
legacy parents to break the news, and one thing led to another.
Three of us wrote checks to help before we left. I believe in
their mission, and I had the funds to help. I figured why not?”
She winked at Zander and then Zeke. “Plus I needed
somewhere to ship my kids and grandkids to keep them out of
my hair for a few weeks each summer.”
“You said three.” A soft clicking hum moved through
Wally. “The original owners kept a hand in?”
“I wouldn’t have invested otherwise.” She sputtered a
laugh. “None of us grandparents wanted to run it. We were
happy leaving that to the next generation. That’s why Sara
made an ideal candidate. Her son had been attending camp for
two or three years by that point, so we knew her a little from
group chats, calls, and pickups.”
Mudskipper had been a passion project for the original
owners. A shifter couple who adopted a whopping eleven
human kids. That much I remembered reading in their
pamphlets. I was surprised, given the no-tech policy, that the
camp had survived this long. Even with a cash infusion, and
continued support, I wasn’t sure it would make it long enough
for Betty’s next wave of grandkids to enroll.
Wally kept digging, but I didn’t know what he was after.
“You have no active role within the business?”
“No.” She bobbed a shoulder. “But I do get ten percent off
registration for each camper.”
Hands linked in his lap, his blue eyes soft, Zander asked,
“Will you take the case, Auntie El?”
A snort escaped me at the emotional manipulation he did
so well. “Do you really have to ask?”
Betty’s face glowed with thanks that I would spearhead the
investigation, but I turned away before she read how eager I
was for an excuse to do something. Anything. Even spend a
long night crouched behind a tree, eaten alive by mosquitos
swarming the murky lake bisecting the boys’ camp from the
girls’ camp.
Maybe I would get lucky and the sleep daemon would
follow me home to torment my dreams.
That was one way to spice up my nights.
 No offense to Wally meant.
“You don’t have to feel guilty.” Betty nudged my leg with
her shoe. “I know you’ve been bored lately.”
“Most Witchlight agents put in their seventy-five years and
retire,” Wally said behind us. “They’re thankful to have
survived that long and look forward to spending the rest of
their lives without fear of worse than a stubbed toe happening
to them.” He chuckled. “Not my wife. My Ellie reupped and
even now, in retirement, has kept up her duties.”
“She is pretty awesome.” Zander winked at me.
“Definitely my favorite aunt.”
“You only say that because I taught you how to take down
those bullies in middle school.”
Samford was isolated and rural, which made it ideal for
raising kids who were half animal. But that same isolation
meant they either got homeschooled, or they attended class
with humans. To ensure her kids blended well in society, Betty
opted for public school every time.
But when two older kids targeted Zander, beating him up
for his lunch money, Betty hit a snag.
Zander’s nature demanded he let his inner bear fight his
battles. Even with a suppression spell to prevent accidental
changes in public, around humans, he struggled with the
strength of his beast when the boys cornered him.
Enter Aunt Ellie and a judo mat.
With his shifter strength, Zander was able to channel his
natural abilities into punishing results.
Sure, he got sent home a few times. And, okay, yeah, there
was that month of detention when he broke one bully’s nose.
But I was proud of him. Better to take them down with his
fists rather than his claws, right? I thought so. Betty wasn’t
sold on violence as an answer. That was why she grounded me
from seeing him for four weeks as a double-edged
punishment. Still, it was worth it. Those punk kids had it
coming.
 Perhaps because of stories like that one, told over family
dinners, Maryna decided Zeke was better off at a shifters-only
school. Betty took the news hard, as if Maryna were snubbing
Zale’s education or felt it wasn’t good enough for their son.
But Zale and Maryna lived in the city. They had to make the
best choices for their family based on their available options.
“That,” Zander allowed, “and no one else let me watch
MMA, horror movies, and the surgery channel.”
That last part wasn’t as terrible as it might sound.
Predatory shifter kids held a particular curiosity about
anatomy. Zander more than most. He was premed now, so late-
night TV with me must not have scarred him too badly.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, since none of it
was on your approved watchlist.” Betty rubbed Zeke’s soft
ears between her fingers. “I wish I could go with you, Ellie. I
hate to miss out on the fun.”
“I’ll carry you,” Zander volunteered. “You’re as light as a
feather after I shift.”
“Excuse you.” She kicked at him again, but he wasn’t in
range. “I’m as light as a feather before you shift.”
Chin down, laughter twinkled in his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s what I thought.” She checked with me. “What’s the
plan, oh fearless leader?”
“Light up the phone tree first thing in the morning. Call in
the whole flock. I want every available Yard Bird here and
ready to party hard by sundown.” I restrained myself from
rubbing my hands together. “Tomorrow, we host a margarita
night.”
And then?
I was going hunting.
Yee-freaking-haw.
 CHAPTER THREE

M argarita nights required more than a heavy hand

with the tequila to reap a successful harvest.
They also required pizza, wings, chips, dips, pretzels, and
ice. Lots of ice.
Thirteen Yard Birds RSVP’d, not bad for a Monday night,
and I grinned at the lucky number.
The ladies from church might not approve of the five of us,
but they came for the free booze and snacks. What did we get
out of it? We skimmed a little off the top of every one of them
as the cost of admission.
Another reason why we chose this place for retirement?
Way back when, five covens lived in a commune founded
near present day downtown. As time marched on, two moved
away, and the other three began losing their magic as they
interbred with local humans. Descendants from those five
original covens populated what went on to become the town of
Samford.
The women in attendance didn’t have enough magic to
light a candle on their own, but those tiny sparks glinting
within each of them could fuel our powers for weeks if
collected and stored properly.
Lucky for us, we were old pros and had refined our
process into a boozy good time for everyone.
Rap music poured out of the living room as I walked past,
and country spilled across the low front porch. Opera swelled
over the line for the downstairs bathroom, and pounding pop
rock shook the floorboards.
Party time.
“It’s going to be a good night.” Ida welcomed me into the
kitchen. “The energy is off the charts.”
“Hmm.” I picked up a fresh loaf of bread and set it on the
cutting board. “I’m almost out of mint.”
“We’re good on kykeon, right?” Her gaze flew to the
punchbowl. “We have enough for everyone?”
A fermented barley drink, kykeon contained mint grown
from my private garden, among other things. It was a
hallucinogenic, which helped us siphon magic from the
gathered demi-witches and left them in a euphoric state for
hours. Not a bad trade, if I do say so myself. Especially when
we dosed them in their margaritas to hide the flavor.
“I have gallons of it prepped.” I waved off her worry. “I
meant for the cucumber mint sandwiches.”
Yes, we served fried buffalo wings, but we also catered to
the watercress crowd.
“I’ll check with Joan.” She grabbed a platter of petit fours.
“She can fetch more from the garden.”
“Where is she?” I craned my neck. “I haven’t seen her in
over an hour.”
“You know how she gets at parties.” Ida tutted. “She’s in
the spare room prepping for the ritual.”
Joan wasn’t much for people. She preferred the company
of plants.
However, margarita nights required full coven
participation to achieve the desired outcome.
“What about Flo?”
“She’s holding court on your couch.” Ida wiped a perfect
curl off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “The drunker
this crowd gets, the more they want to press the button on
Wally’s plaque.”
 “Ask Zander to put him in our bedroom and lock the
door.” I picked up a knife then put it back down, not trusting
myself to behave. I disliked people touching my husband
when he was alive, and I despised them manhandling him now
that he couldn’t say no. “Please.”
The abundance of Velcro adhesive strips decorating my
walls never ceased to invite questions, but they were a
practical, if unattractive, part of our lives. Not only did I enjoy
bringing Wally room to room with me, but he would be bored
out of his mind if he was always stuck with the same view.
“All right.” She wiped her hands with a dishtowel. “Can
you believe how fast he grew up?”
“Shifter kids are always ahead of the curve.”
“You’re a bigger softie than me, Ellie.” She rolled her
eyes. “Don’t spout platitudes at me.”
With the ease of long practice, I arranged my expression
into grim lines. “You take that back.”
“You’re dandelion fluff.” She blew a kiss off her palm.
“Squishy and fluffy.”
“Are we talking about Betty’s waistline?” Flo sashayed
into the kitchen dressed in fire-engine red with her hair in neat
pin curls. “Or what’s between Joan’s ears?”
“One day, Flo, you’ll say the wrong thing to the wrong
person, and you won’t be able to flirt your way out of it.”
“Have you met me?” She fluttered her lash extensions.
“Who could resist this?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to throw Pastor Joe under
the bus that was Flo, but that would be cruel. To them both.
Flo had a job within the coven, and she did it. Not all of us
were so blessed as to marry for love. Some of us married out
of necessity. For the greater good. And while the years had
polished Flo’s heart to diamond hardness, I ached for what that
role had done to her, how it hollowed her out until the bright-
eyed recruit who seduced instructors for a giggle had all but
disappeared over the years.
 More than once, I wished I had begged her to stop with the
hair and the makeup and the sultry glances. Talents were
weapons at Witchlight, and Flo was a natural seductress. She
could convince anyone to do anything with a crooked finger,
and management took notice.
But I had been too busy falling in love to notice my friend
was falling apart. Worse, I justified it by asking myself who
was I to lecture her on who she had sex with when I had been
warming Wally’s bed most nights?
Neither of us had made great choices back then, and we
had both paid for them in the end.
Her by weaponizing an act she once enjoyed into a
choreographed dance she despised with a passion.
Me by losing the person I broke all the rules to be with,
only for him to end up in a hellish limbo.
“No one.” A brittle smile threatened to crumble on my
mouth. “At least not yet.”
“Challenge accepted.”
“Flo, you’ve only been married five years this time.” Ida
rested a hand on her arm. “It’s too soon.”
Hers was a long con. She picked wealthy targets with
criminal interests, mostly humans (to cut down on the life
expectancy of her exes) and liberated their stolen funds. Right
into our joint bank account.
“Ida.” Flo cupped her soft cheek. “Five minutes is too long
with some people.”
Dropping her hand, Flo left the room with fresh steel in her
ramrod-straight spine.
“Don’t say it,” I warned Ida. “The one thing Flo hates
more than men is pity.”
“You’re right.” She stole a treat off the tray still in her
hand. “I just wish things were different.”
“We all wish.” I focused on the cutting board. “And they
never come true.”
 “Ellie.”
Knife in hand, I turned to find Joan crawling through the
window in the laundry room.
As much as I wanted to ask why she didn’t just use the
back door, since it was right there, I knew better than to
sidetrack her. Besides, there was logic. Then there was Joan
logic. Never the twain shall meet.
“Pastor Joe is here.”
“What do you mean here?” I dropped the knife with a
clatter. “Where?”
“He just pulled into your driveway.” She fidgeted with her
purse strap. “He’s got flowers, Ellie.”
Ida’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say a word.
“For pity’s sake.” I stabbed my knife through the cutting
board in irritation. “I’ll cut him off at the porch.”
Stomping through the house, I shoved aside Birds to reach
the front door before the pastor could knock.
Male energy would contaminate the space and spoil the
ritual. Bad enough I had to talk to him to get rid of him. I
couldn’t afford to accept the flowers and risk our fingers
brushing. As the hub, the centermost point for the siphon spell,
I had to ensconce myself in feminine energy, or the whole
night would be a wash. With the clock ticking for Zeke, we
couldn’t afford any mistakes.
Rushing out the front door, I headed off the pastor before
he reached the front steps.
“Pastor Joe.” I blocked the walkway. “What an unexpected
surprise.”
“I saw the cars.” He gestured around my cluttered yard. “I
recognize them from the church parking lot.” He extended the
flowers. “I hope it’s not too forward that I invited myself to
your party.”
Ignoring the yellow climbing roses from the pastorium
garden he had wrestled into a bouquet, I seized on the easiest
excuse to get rid of him.
“I would have invited you,” I lied through my teeth, “but
this party is girls only.”
“Oh.” He took a second look at the cars, and his eyebrows
winged higher. “I should have caught that.”
Half of his parishioners were single women above the age
of fifty, so I didn’t hold it against him for not putting it
together sooner.
“It’s tradition.” I had to raise my voice to be heard over the
thumping music. “Has been for years.”
The gatherings started out as a monthly Friday night affair
to avoid Sunday-morning hangovers, but they shifted to
biweekly or weekly during busy seasons. Times like these,
when we needed a boost between weekends, we did the best
we could with whoever we could get.
“Oh, yes. I do recall hearing about a club for ladies.” He
studied me. “You call yourselves yardbirds.”
Hoping that would be the end of it, I agreed to get him
gone. “Yes.”
“Isn’t that slang for convicts in a prison yard?”
The nickname, in our case, came from the number of times
the lightweight members of our group had been arrested for
drunk and disorderly conduct after a margarita night. Another
advantage of old age? Not caring what others thought of you
as long as you had a good time with the time you had left.
Especially when they rarely got charged. We called it granny
privilege. Mostly they landed in the drunk tank to sober up
overnight.
Anxious to get back to the party, I faked surprise. “Is it?”
“I, uh, yes.” He rubbed his nape. “I believe it is.”
“Learn something new every day,” I mumbled the
platitude, “even at my age.”
“I apologize for interrupting.” He appeared to finally take
the hint. “I’ll leave you ladies to it.” He smiled, and it was
warm. Too warm. “Oh.” He lifted the flowers Joan warned me
about. “I almost forgot.” He held out the bouquet. “These are
for you.”
“Can you leave them there?” I pointed at the flagstone
beneath his feet, thankful Ida bullied me into lining my
walkway with roses last year. “I would rather try to root them
than put them in a vase to die.”
“Of course you would.” He chuckled at the sentiment. “I
should have put that together too.”
The less he noticed, the longer he would last around here.
But just in case, maybe I ought to do a deep dive to find
out if he had any convenient children living out west.
 CHAPTER FOUR

W ith Pastor Joe’s taillights flashing down my road, I

stomped up the walkway in a huff.
The nerve of that man. Inviting himself to our party.
Bringing me flowers.
Flirting with me. Me. A married woman.
He was too old to go around courting women on warm
summer nights like he was still a teenager.
No sooner had I hit the porch than Zander walked up
behind me and hooked his chin over my shoulder.
The traitor must have been spying on us. No doubt to
report any lascivious details to his other aunts.
“That old dude has the hots for you.” His breath smelled
like Ida’s homemade buffalo sauce. “He didn’t even care you
lied right to his face.”
“He doesn’t have your nose.” I thumped his for sticking it
where it didn’t belong. “He can’t smell fibs.”
“Hate to break it to you, Auntie El, but he could tell you
were lying through your teeth. He just didn’t mind. He was too
happy you were talking to him.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Alone. In the dark.”
“There are twenty people in this house.” I prickled with
annoyance. “I was hardly alone.”
“I was just teasing.” He planted a sticky kiss on my cheek
that reminded me of when he was a boy. Except then it had
been his candy addiction leaving goo on my face, not the
dozen hot wings he inhaled between slices of pizza. “I’m
Team Wally all the way.”
Aunties weren’t supposed to have favorites, but…
“Me too, kid.” Stubborn tears itched the backs of my eyes.
“Me too.”
Arm in arm, we entered the house, and Zander almost
caused a stampede as the women rushed to coo and fuss over
him. He must have been hiding out to avoid this very thing,
given the level of excitement.
He was an exception to the no-man vibe, the same as the
other kids who grew up running wild in this house and on this
land. Wally had been—he was—too. Our energies were in
sync, as if he and the kids were extensions of our coven. Plus,
roosters made for great distractions during hen parties.
“I need a drink.” I hated the dampness of my palms after
that incident in the yard. “Be right back.”
Leaving him to regale the ladies with hilarious stories of
his roomie’s drunken shenanigans during a visit from the
governor to the college, I slipped into the kitchen and poured
as much tequila down my throat as I could swallow before
Betty ripped the bottle out of my hand.
“There are easier ways to drown.” She set it on the
counter, out of my reach. “What’s wrong?”
“Paster Joe.”
“Are you mad folks keep teasing you because you don’t
like it, or mad at yourself because you do?”
The urge to swing at her twitched in my arm, and I told
myself the only reason I didn’t tenderize her face was she was
an invalid. But I tasted bile when the twisting in my gut
cautioned she might not be wrong.
Wally was the only man I had ever loved. The only man I
would ever love. And that was that.
“The crystals are humming,” Joan mumbled through the
pantry door she threw open. “It’s time.”
 Tequila did its job and made me dumb enough to ask,
“Why were you in there?”
“Mouse droppings.” She pinched a grain of rice sized turd
between her fingers. “You can tell from—”
“Fucking hell, Joan.” Betty dropped her chin to her chest.
“Now I need a drink.”
“—the color of the specimen is healthy,” Joan continued.
“You don’t use poison, do you?”
“Nope.” I took her by the wrist and shook her hand over
the trash can. “Drop it.”
“Do you mind if I catch it?” She blinked owlishly. “The
mouse, not the feces.”
The thing about living in the sticks was you were always
going to have mice. It wasn’t a commentary on cleaning skills
or personal hygiene, it was a simple fact of country life. A cat
would have helped cut down on how often my pantry got
turned into an all-you-can-eat rodent buffet, but Joan hated
them with the fiery passion I had only ever seen in a plant
person whose prized, highly variegated, Monstera Albo
Borsigiana was stolen by a stray cat. It climbed in her open
window, yanked it right out of the pot, then trotted off, never
to be seen again.
That was sixty years ago. I tried convincing her it must
have been one of her horticultural rivals hidden under a
transformation spell, but she couldn’t shake her mistrust for
felines. I doubted she ever would.
“Help yourself.” I checked to make sure she held no other
surprises. “After we fill the crystals.”
Nudging her shoulder, I herded her toward the sink and
watched to ensure she washed her hands.
“I’ll get the others.” Betty shuffled toward the doorway.
“We’ll meet you in the Cave of Wonders.”
“It’s a spare bedroom.” I threw a dishtowel at her head.
“Not some damn cave.”
 “Do you think we could grow stalactites?” Joan’s attention
snagged on the new topic. “We could seed them with crystals,
and—”
“This is an old house.” I broke it to her gently. “It can’t
support the weight of stone ceilings.”
“We could always reinforce the roof.” She lost track of
rinsing her hands and stood there with the spout pouring down
her forearms. “Do you think Wally could help…?” A burst of
clarity brightened her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I didn’t mean…”
Head forever in the clouds, Joan often forgot the current
state of reality when she touched down again.
“Don’t sweat it.” I turned off the faucet and dried her
hands. “I wish I could forget sometimes too.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Ida rushed over and appraised Joan.
“You’ve soaked your shirt.”
“Have I?” Joan stared at the fabric clinging to her chest
and stomach. “Oh.” She frowned. “You’re right.”
“Come on, space cadet.” Flo took her by the elbow with
surprising gentleness. “Time to do our thing.”
With Flo, Joan, and Ida cutting a path through the crowd, I
fell back to keep pace with Betty.
“That girl spends more time wandering through her head
than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah.” I felt a smile pulling up one side of my mouth.
“But she’s one hell of a conductor.”
Joan had less raw magic in her bones than the rest of us,
but linked to the others, and then to me, she amplified our
power tenfold. She kept the flow smooth and regulated,
ensuring no one gave too much or got too little in exchange.
We would have all burned out by now if she hadn’t kept us
level.
“Ain’t that the truth?” Betty chortled. “That reminds me.
We need to stock her fridge again.”
 Money wasn’t the problem. Joan didn’t need help to afford
groceries. Thanks to Flo, we had more money in our shared
account than we could spend in a lifetime. Joan just forgot to
buy them.
The woman could remember different pH requirements for
hundreds of plants in her greenhouse, but she would forget to
eat without a daily reminder call to guarantee she fed and
watered herself too.
“I’ll do it.” I mulled over the pantry incident, wondering if
she wanted to use mouse poop as worm food. “She can hunt
for critters after.”
The Cave of Wonders, as Betty called it, held rows upon
rows of shelves that circled all four walls. There were no
books. Only crystals. Thousands of them. And they glittered
like polished diamonds beneath the overhead light when I
flipped the switch.
Except diamonds were a total waste of shelf space, in my
opinion. They held a tenth what a good quartz crystal could
preserve. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they leaked over
time. Total waste of perfectly good money.
Five plush cushions I was forced to add when we got too
stiff to sit on the hardwood for long periods of time made a
star on the floor, and an amethyst pillar as thick as my waist
stood tall in the center of the room. About five feet were
visible and another three extended through the floor, deep into
the ground.
After we bought the house, Wally spent a solid week
ripping up the planks, leveling the pillar (a wedding gift from
his parents), then cutting the leftover wood into a gorgeous
pentagon design that stabilized its bulk and kept us from
having an open hole in the floor.
From the shelves, I selected five empty crystals to fill then
placed them in a large candelabra-style holder that opened like
the petals of a flower around the pillar where it met the floor.
Only four of us relied on them, but we always kept one in
reserve for emergencies. As the hub, a vessel for magic, I
contained my portion within my body. Too bad borrowed
magic didn’t stretch as far as it did in our youth. Now we
required more oomph to get the job done.
Careful not to pull anything, we each claimed a cushion,
minus Betty, who remained on her walker’s seat, and linked
hands.
Warmth spread through me, signaling Joan was smoothing
out the lumps while we waited to fully sync.
“I never did thank you for your auction idea, Ellie.” Flo
stared down her perfect nose at me. “It’s just like you to blurt
the first thing that comes to mind then leave me to figure out
the logistics.”
Flo wasn’t fooling anyone. She wanted off the hook for
this mission to avoid the bugs, the lake smell, the dirt, the
trees, and worst of all, the reek of a dozen boys who had been
living in the woods for a week. Her pride wouldn’t allow her
to bow out. No. She would guilt us into giving her permission.
That suited me fine, since she was a capable but reluctant field
agent.
“You’re best at damage control.” I told the absolute truth,
which also happened to flatter. “You’ve got the brains and
resources to organize an auction, or whatever solution you
decide on, and that’s where we need you the most.” The icing
on the cake was offering up an assistant. “Ida can help.”
Jerking her attention from a wrinkle in her skirt, Ida
bristled. “Now wait a minute—”
Despite being the epitome of a fifty’s housewife in
appearance, Ida wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.
“We can’t all disappear for an undetermined amount of
time without drawing attention,” Betty cut in. “There are only
so many trips to Vegas we can lie about in a year. The town
already thinks we’re lushes. Do we want them to believe we’re
gambling addicts too?” Her tone firmed, my second-in-
command easy with pitching in whenever I needed backup.
“You’re on schmooze duty to fundraise. Deal with it.”
 “Fine.” Ida hmphed. “We’ll preserve our cover within the
community while you three run amok.”
Happy to have her way, Flo settled in. Ida, however, was
less enthusiastic about getting benched.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I confided in her, “these
two aren’t coming with me either.”
Every head in the circle swiveled toward me, and Betty’s
eyes spat daggers.
“I’m taking Zander and only Zander.” I made it an order.
“This is, for now, strictly a recon mission.”
That dulled some of Betty’s sharpness, but I would get an
earful later.
“You break your hip once,” she growled low in her throat,
“and suddenly you’re a liability.”
Okay, maybe I would get an earful now.
“You won’t make the mile of uneven terrain between the
parking lot and the camp in your walker. Not without breaking
your other hip.” The long hike was meant to reinforce the
alone in the wilderness vibe. “It’s a minefield out there
between the tree roots, small animal dens, and the new moon.”
Zander had excellent eyesight and his night vision was
even better. He would be my seeing-eye bear so I didn’t join
Betty in rehab.
“I’m low on death caps, destroying angels, and fatal
dapperlings,” Joan said out of nowhere.
The hint she wanted to ride along for a chance to forage
for poisonous mushrooms was about as subtle as a brick to the
face. They were one of the very few things she preferred wild
rather than hothouse grown for her poisons and tinctures.
“How about I bring some back for you, and you work on
making charms from the list I need for this op?”
“I accept your offer.” She jolted hard. “Oh.” Her eyes
brightened. “We’ve reached harmonization.”
 The ritual was as familiar as breathing, and on her cue, we
all shut our eyes and breathed as the warmth in my chest
heated to the familiar burn of incoming magic. Power dripped
and dropped from our guests, and the spell we murmured
softly collected it, filtered it through the others, and filled me
with pure, undiluted magic that stripped away the weight of
years and left me feeling like that spunky cadet who was dumb
enough to treat a kelpie like I was the fly to his flypaper.
We hummed and whispered and sang, until my skin
stretched with the volume of magic contained within me. The
room spun, the pleasant heat in my chest flaring the longer I
held out.
Back in the day, I could have contained every ounce within
myself and used it to perform miraculous feats.
Back in the day, I could have filled every crystal in this
room to bursting for the others to use.
Back in the day, I could have…
“Let go.”
The words drifted to me through a buzz of pure bliss.
“Let go, you old coot.”
A hard shove knocked me onto my back, where I stared up
at the whirling ceiling.
“You know better.” Betty jabbed me with her walker.
“You’re not twenty anymore. Hell, you’re not a hundred and
twenty anymore.” Jab, jab, jab. “You can’t hold that much
power without incinerating yourself.” She graduated to
kicking me, but she was still so weak, I barely felt her foot.
“Dumbass.”
“Not helping, Betty.” Ida pushed to her feet, stepped over
my splayed legs, then joined forces with Joan. “I can already
smell your hair burning.”
“That’s Flo.” I lolled in their grip. “She probably keeps a
primed curling iron in her purse for hair emergencies.”
Together, they dragged me over to the crystal pillar where
they cupped my hands around its tip.
 “Do you have any idea how much effort is required to look
this good?” Flo struck a pose that had brought low many a
man. “How much time?”
“How much hairspray?” Betty snorted. “You’re a walking
fire hazard.”
“Release now, Ellie.” Ida rubbed circles on my upper back.
“We’ve got you.”
The switch within me flipped, an hourglass turned upside
down, and grain by grain, I emptied myself except for the
portion that was mine to keep.
A soft glow filled the crystals in their holders, and each of
the girls traded their old one for a new one.
The crystal holders worked in reverse as well, for any
stones still holding magic since our last charging. A bit of
effort on my part sent the dregs back into the amethyst and
diverted it into the ground, nullifying it.
Another side effect of getting old? The magic was shelf
stable for shorter periods of time. The safest thing to do was
dump whatever excess we had between charging parties to
prevent another explosion. The first had been hard enough to
explain away, but another would get my address added to the
twice daily patrol roster for SPD.
Again.
“Joan gets the extra.” I sank onto the floor, using my
cushion as a pillow. “She’ll need it for the charms.”
Betty, proving why she was Grade A best friend material,
waited until after the others rejoined the party to kick my bony
butt so I rolled onto my knees and then got to my feet.
“What kind of asinine stunt was that?” She studied me
through narrowed eyes. “You held on way past time to let go,
and you know it. You had to have felt it.”
“Don’t look at me like that.” I flexed my creaking knees.
“I wanted to make sure we have enough for our mission.
That’s it.” I felt her stare boring into the side of my head.
“What?”
 “It’s okay to be mad.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” She scoffed. “You got dealt a shit hand, Ellie.
You gave your life to the protection of others, and all you got
in return was retirement in the sticks and a husband mounted
on your wall.”
The truth shouldn’t hurt after all this time, but it always
did. “I got you too. All of you.”
“Most covens like ours retire and go their own ways,” she
said gently, “but we stuck together.”
Elite teams didn’t survive long in full retirement. Our work
kept us alive. It kept our magic alive.
For her to insinuate they followed me to the boonies out of
fear I might go first…
“I don’t have a death wish,” I snapped, “and I don’t need
babysitters.”
“Idiot.” She smacked the back of my head. “That’s not
what I’m saying.”
“Could you please stop insulting my intelligence and quit
being violent?”
“Act like you have a brain, and I’ll treat you like you’ve
got one.”
I noticed she made no promise to quit beating the tar out of
me. “Fine.”
“Despite what you might think, Oh Mighty Hub, you
weren’t the only one who lived for the danger. We all loved
fieldwork. We loved working cases. You’re not the only one
who feels letdown. You’re not the only one who wishes they
could still climb beanstalks and fell giants.”
“That was only the one time…”
“The point is, you’re wallowing.” She firmed her tone.
“We’re all old, we’re all bored, and Ida dreamed she
smothered Eli in his sleep last night for snoring.” She shoved
me. “You’re not special.”
 “I can see why you’re my best friend,” I said dryly.
“Don’t go and get yourself killed being an idiot is all I’m
saying. We can’t work magic without you, and I for one will
be pissed if you felt so sorry for yourself you got incinerated
reloading our batteries then left me to deal with my gaggle of
grandchildren without a magical espresso shot each morning.”
We all spent our magic differently, preserving most of it to
perform our duties around town, but that almost never used an
entire crystal, except in busy seasons. That left us with magic
to burn most months and an excuse to indulge. For Betty, that
meant speeding her healing before one of the grandkids
rebroke her hip, and giving her the boost she needed to keep
up with them.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, or the others. I push myself.
Too hard most of the time. I know I do. When that much
power is convincing you you’re still young and powerful and
able to slay all day, it’s not easy letting go.”
“You suck at accepting how things are,” she said. “That’s
part of what makes you a great team leader. You never take no
for an answer, you fight for what’s right, and you push us to be
our best selves.”
“I can’t be both an idiot and a tactical genius.”
“No one said genius.” She shoved me. “Just don’t let the
bad days win, okay?”
“Okay.”
Maybe she was right, and I was taking cues from Joan,
spending too much time in my head. Reliving the glory days
on a loop meant not living in the present. Which, honestly, was
what made it appeal so much.
The truth was, I had yet to figure out how to be this
version of myself. I had always flown too close to the sun and
counted on the coven, or Wally, to reel me in before my wax
wings melted. But they were winding down, enjoying their
golden years, and he was…
A dull ache blossomed in my chest, caving in the cavity
around my withering heart.
 Betty was right. I had to accept reality. I had to accept my
limitations and learn to live within them.
“Come on.” She shuffled out of the room. “We need to
check on our guests.”
We didn’t have to go far to find the first partygoer slumped
on the couch, out cold. Another had curled up in a ball on the
floor. The bodies piled up as we neared the front door, and
sure enough, a few had wandered outside to collapse into a
semi lucid state.
The neighbors thought they were drunk and passed out on
the lawn, but it was more of a high that left them gazing up at
the moon and zoned out for hours. We kept a close eye on
them, but some of them managed to wander in a daze all the
way into town before we caught up to them.
“We might as well start the cleanup.” Flo wrinkled her
nose at the chaos. “Parties are so…messy.”
“Here.” Ida passed her a set of dish gloves in a bright floral
print with rhinestone cuffs. “Does that help?”
“A bit.” Flo admired the sparkle. “Joan?”
“Ready.” She snapped her fingers, and five enchanted trash
bags opened themselves. Each one drifted into the air to hover
next to its master. “I brought this for you.” She handed Betty a
metal rod with a pincher on the end. “So you don’t have to
bend over.”
“Thanks.” She lifted it, flexing it open and closed.
“Reminds me of those dinosaur heads on sticks the kids used
to play with. Those were a gas.” She clamped down on a
crumpled napkin. “Rawr.”
“Scientist now believe dinosaurs had more in common
with birds than lizards,” Joan informed us. “They might not
have growled so much as squawked.”
Most of my life, I had a certain mental picture and
expectations of dinosaurs. Neither of those included feathers
or chirping. If that made me wrong, oh well. I was at the age
where I liked things how I liked them, and I liked my T-Rexes
roaring and lizardy, thank you.
 While she prattled on about the evolution of dinosaurs, the
rest of us let the beat of the music drown out the high points.
We picked up the cups, tossed the napkins, and put the
leftovers in the fridge. I tuned in an hour later, just to see
where Joan’s narrative was heading this time, but she had
moved on to theories on which modern-day bird’s egg
mirrored how she imagined a dinosaur egg would taste.
Two hours after that, we had the house clean, the guests
accounted for, and it was time for Zander and me to go.
Another good thing about growing old was that everyone’s
bedtime had crept up to seven or eight o’clock. For that
reason, we started our parties at dusk. We got in an hour or so
of socializing before we slipped off to the guest bedroom to
recharge our crystals. Then it was lights-out for our guests.
Even after an exhaustive cleanup, Zander and I had plenty
of time left for recon before dawn.
Dressed in black Kevlar leggings, a black racerback shirt,
and hiking boots, I was ready for action.
As soon as I coordinated Bam-Bam’s outfit and fit her into
a holster across my back, of course.
Some habits died hard.
“Ready to go?” Zander rubbed his hands together. “I’m
itching for some action.”
“Then I hope you packed some calamine.”
We left the girls to watch over our inebriated guests until
they were sober enough to drive home, usually four to six
hours later, and hopped in his truck to go on an adventure.
 CHAPTER FIVE

C amp Mudskipper hadn’t changed one iota since Betty

sent her boys to spend their summers terrorizing other
shifter kids. Still the same six cabin layout with a firepit in the
center. Still the same mucky lake the boys loved but reminded
me too much of kelpies and handsome saviors. And still the
pungent aroma of boy that led Flo to donate an entire case of
deodorant annually to the camp.
In true summer camp fashion, girls camped across the lake
on a strip of rocky land generously referred to as The Island.
Both genders ranged in age from six to eighteen, and the teens
were plenty old enough to stir up trouble with the opposite sex
if they put their minds to it.
An island wasn’t much of a deterrent once hormones got
involved. Especially when most of the kids could swim better
in animal form than as humans.
Zander had put his mind to mischief so often when he was
attending, he was forced to sleep in Zale’s cabin, under his
brother’s supervision.
The sky was as black as pitch when we arrived at the
parking lot, and the hike to camp was a nightmare, but Zander
kept us on the path. The lone lamppost in the dead center of
camp, and an assortment of battery-operated lanterns, made
navigating those areas easier, but Zander hovered beside me
with his hands out like he expected me to trip and shatter into
a million pieces at any moment.
 Had Betty not been recovering from a nasty fall, I would
have fussed at him, but he did it out of love.
There was little enough compassion in the world for me to
stamp out his for the sake of my pride.
Tucking his face into his elbow, he sneezed. “Did it always
smell like…?”
“Dirty socks and wet dog?” I chuckled at his offended
scowl. “Yes, and you did too.”
“I’m a bear.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t smell like a
dog.”
“You were a boy, and you stank. Accept it and move on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
“Again,” he grumbled. “Not a dog.”
As much as I loved needling Zander, we needed to put a
cork in it soon. “How many campers this year?”
“Thirty-six.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Six in each cabin.
Three sets of bunks.”
“Zeke is the only kid absent?”
“As far as I know.”
“Okay.” I stuffed a charm in his shirt pocket then smacked
his chest to break it. “Now you’re invisible.”
With a whack to my pants pocket, I veiled myself from
sight as well.
“Sweet.” He shot to his feet. “Do you know how many
times I begged Mom for this?”
All day every day for a solid year. He drove Betty crazy
over it, and she called me to vent her frustration. That was
right after her first grandchild was born, when Zander—her
baby—felt invisible to the degree he wanted to make it literal.
“Hush.” I swatted him again. “They can’t see you, but they
can hear you and smell you.”
 A charm to dull our scents would have been ideal, but that
required too much magic.
We had to stick to tried-and-true methods of blending in.
“Here.” I opened a plastic baggy then thrust a paper-
wrapped parcel at him. “Stick that in your pocket.”
“Phew.” He held it at arm’s length. “What is that?”
“Half a dead fish I left in the sun all day.”
“If I smelled this bad as a kid, why did you ever let me
visit?”
“Dimples.” I drilled a finger into one of his cheeks. “The
world’s a sucker for them, and so am I.”
A hinge shrieked in the distance, and the slap of a wooden
door followed.
Footsteps creaked down warped stairs, thumped onto the
ground, then broke into a run.
“That kid must really have to go.” Zander pointed into the
shadows. “The outhouses are that way.”
“Oh, I can smell them.” My half of the dead fish stank less.
“You coming or what?”
“Where?” A furrow dug across his brow. “Don’t you want
to trail the kid?”
He ought to be safe as long as he kept his eyes open. I
doubted he conked out on the toilet long enough to tempt a
sleep daemon with thirty-four less stinky meal options dozing
around us.
Zeke had been bitten a second time on the fun run, but if
he was already stressed, he might have chosen to nap hidden
in the woods while the others played. The sleep daemon could
have gotten to him in that way. Until he shifted, or we caught
the creature in the act, we could only guess.
“I want to see where the kid sleeps.” I waved him toward
the cabins. “We’ll wait then follow him inside.”
 The camp was populated with shifters, and their sensitive
ears would pick up any deviation from the norm. They were in
foreign, if friendly, territory, and their instincts would be
subconsciously prickling even if they consciously felt
comfortable here among their friends.
Sure enough, the boy dressed in red shorts and a tee with
the camp logo came walking back five minutes later. His eyes
were half shut, and his yawn revealed teeth too sharp to belong
to anything other than a cat.
His sleep-drunk plodding covered us as we crept in behind
him and watched him fall into bed.
We discovered a clear spot on the floor, almost impossible
to find in a cabin populated by one child—let alone six—and
settled in to wait and watch for any late-night visitors or
unnatural sleep patterns.
Three hours later, the boys snored, smacked, and purred
happily.
While I was glad for their peaceful night, I was sore from
the hardwood, cranky from the lack of activity, and counting
down the time left on our charms.
Just when I had given up hope on seeing action our first
night out, a thin scream pierced the quiet. The boys around us
jerked awake, three of them shifting in reflex, and cocked their
heads to figure out what had woken them.
One boy jogged to the door, scanned the area through the
metal screen, then waved to a kid about his age in the cabin
across the way.
“Hey, Trev,” he called out. “What happened?”
“It got Ben.” The other boy wrapped his arms around
himself. “He’s bleeding everywhere.”
Bleeding?
Just like Zeke.
Sleep daemons didn’t draw blood in their attacks. Their
assaults happened on the dream plane.
 For two kids to suffer bite wounds, I had to assume we
were dealing with a more tangible predator.
“Trev’s in bad shape,” the kid told his bunkmates. “Let’s
sit with him until the counselors come.”
Ah, yes. An alpha in the making. You could tell by their
take-charge attitude and concern for others.
As the boys rushed out the door, we hurried to follow. By
hurry, I mean I forced my aching joints into some semblance
of alignment and limped a few steps until I limbered up
enough to dash out the door on the heels of the very last boy.
Though I doubt they would have heard us over the frantic
chatter as the boys spilled out into the night.
A tall woman in camp colors prowled into the clearing and
clapped her hands to get their attention.
“Ben had a bad dream,” she announced after even the
crickets fell silent. “He rolled off the top bunk and landed on
the mug he made in ceramics class. It broke. He got cut. End
of story. Counselor Andrew will escort him to the infirmary.
Ben will spend the night there, and his parents will pick him
up in the morning.”
“Like Zeke?” A boy folded his arms over his chest. “He
went home too, right?”
“Yes, Trey.” She waved him over to her. “Zeke went
home.”
“Rafe? Davie? Tommy?” The boy, Trey, trembled on the
edge of a shift. “Did they go home too?”
Zeke, Rafe, Davie, Tommy, and Ben.
Five victims.
That was four more than we anticipated, and it didn’t bode
well for the others.
“Any child injured at camp is given the option of going
home where they can recover in familiar surroundings.” She
scanned the crowd for other signs of unrest. “Any other
questions?”
 Trey looked ready to fire more questions, but she placed a
firm arm around his shoulders.
“Everyone back to bed.” She pulled Trey with her toward
the office. “Counselor Ricky will stay in the friendship circle
tonight, with a fire going. He won’t let anything happen to
you. You’re all safe.”
Twenty minutes later, Ricky had put the kids to bed,
performed roll call, and returned to the circle.
Another man brought matches and kindling from the
supply building to help him start the fire.
A fire that would do jack diddly against a sleep daemon,
but tonight convinced me that wasn’t what was attacking the
kids. And if a tingle of excitement prickled through me, I
couldn’t avoid the anticipation of squaring off against a more
dangerous, and tangible, creature.
“We have to tell the parents.” Ricky kept his eyes on the
flames. “There’ll be hell to pay if we don’t.”
“The camp is already on its last leg. Kids, even shifter
kids, prefer video games to spending a month in the woods
without internet or cell reception. If we tell the parents
something is preying on their kids, right under our noses,
Mudskipper will fold, and we’ll both be out of our jobs.”
“One more week,” Ricky decided after a beat. “That’s as
far as I’ll push it back.”
“Thanks, man.” He scratched his beard. “I appreciate the
extra paycheck.”
“One week,” Ricky reiterated. “Then I’ll tell the parents,
and you can send the kids home.”
Why trust him to do the job when Ricky was the one eager
to get help? Did he believe he would get fired as soon as he
reached out? That he wouldn’t be at camp to help the kids
anymore?
“Are you sure?” He clasped Ricky’s shoulder. “You can’t
un-ring a bell.”
 “Yeah.” Ricky tossed a log onto the fire. “Spread the word,
huh?”
Did that mean the entire staff was in on deceiving parents
about their kids’ injuries? Or did Ricky only mean to warn
them the money was drying up soon? I couldn’t tell, and the
lack of immediate action on his part bugged me.
“Sure.” Nostrils flaring, the guy jerked his head left.
“Sara’s coming.” He backed away. “I better go.”
The same female counselor who made the earlier
announcement exited a building and nudged Trey toward his
cabin.
So that was Sara. But which one was her son? And how
could she be so calm about the danger the boys were in?
With a curt nod to Ricky, she passed through the trees to
the glittering moonlit lakeshore.
Zander and I stuck close to her, but it wasn’t as if we could
jump in her canoe without her noticing.
We settled for watching her walk the pier then row across
the lake to The Island.
Since Andrew and Ben weren’t visible on the water, they
must use a motorboat for emergencies. I doubt he could have
crossed the distance that fast, with a frantic child, without
help.
A warm breeze rippled across the water, carrying with it a
sent that hit Zander and me at the same time.
Rot.
The soul-deep kind.
A foul taint white witches like me learned to fear from
birth.
“Someone in camp has been using black magic.” Zander
gazed across the water. “You think it’s Sara?”
“Hard to say.” I sniffed myself and almost gagged at the
pungent aroma. “Between the dead fish stink and the smoke,
this is the first I’ve noticed it.”
 “Me too.” He growled under his breath. “I should have
caught it sooner.”
“We expected a sleep daemon.” I patted his shoulder. “Not
whatever this is.”
Joan wouldn’t thank me for shelving her request for
mushrooms, but we had to get back.
“I could swim over,” Zan offered. “Scout her quarters, take
a sniff around.”
“If I let you out of my sight, after we smelled black magic
at work, your mother would kill me.”
Black witches were a vicious bunch, and any charms or
spells they cast were nasty things. That kind of magic had no
place in a camp full of kids. Or anywhere, in my humble
opinion. But that came from the deep-seated fear I might come
across one hungry enough to make a snack out of my
hardwired heart.
“I could shift and swim us both over.”
“Not tonight.” I sensed our charms about to fizzle. Add
water into the mix? We wouldn’t make it five minutes. No
white witch in her right mind pursued black magic when the
lake might neutralize what little magic I had stored in me.
“We’ll try again tomorrow.”
As Wally always said, better safe than dead.
 CHAPTER SIX

T he next morning, long after the girls had seen off our
last guest and Zander and I had returned from the
camp, we all sat down to a shifter-size breakfast spread Ida
cooked up to discuss what we had learned at Mudskipper.
We had just finished covering the bullet points when the
back door swung open, the knob embedding itself in the
drywall. I couldn’t count the number of times that had
happened with shifters in the house. That area was held
together with plaster and hope, and it looked like I was
running short on both.
A curvy woman almost five feet tall prowled in with a
hand fisted in the ruff of a massive golden wolf.
“Zander,” she growled at her brother-in-law. “You have
some explaining to do.”
The wolf snarled its lip over its teeth, and drool strung its
jaw.
“Hi, Maryna.” I blew on my piping-hot tea. “Zale.”
Zander crunched on his bacon, sipped his orange juice, and
otherwise ignored the fuming couple.
“Zale.” Betty shook her finger at him. “This is your
auntie’s house, and you are a guest in it.”
“Apologies, Auntie El.” Maryna inclined her head like
royalty. “We will, of course, pay for the damages.”
“Now wait just a cotton-picking minute.” I shot to my feet.
“I know that tone, young lady.”
 The aggression in my stance triggered Zander, and a
hulking grizzly tore from his skin, shoving the table clear
across the kitchen into the fridge.
“No.” I jumped on his back. “You are not fighting in my
house.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Wally flexed his gills at me.
“Get off that bear.”
With a gentle paw, Zander pushed me off him onto the
floor then grunted to the wolf.
They didn’t speak the same language in this form, but they
had one of their own, as brothers often did.
“Maryna,” Betty tried again. “You need to stop this.”
“Zander lied to us.” A wildcat yowled in her voice. “He
disobeyed a direct order not to involve you.”
“He’s a bear,” I yelled at her. “Zale is a wolf.”
“Direct orders don’t apply when you’re dealing with two
alpha personalities,” Flo added. “In fact, you ought to know by
now it only incites them to do the exact opposite of what
they’re asked out of spite.”
“You always take Zander’s side.” She aimed her sneer at
the coven. “You treat him like he’s still a baby.”
“And you act like a bear ought to submit to a wolf.” I
braced a hand on the wall. “If you had any respect for Betty,
Zale would have come on two legs. Brothers can be reasoned
with. Two predatory brawlers with a bone to pick cannot.”
Lord save me from alpha personalities. Betty never failed
to adopt them. Or maybe she raised them. She was an alpha
personality herself. How she kept them all alive while under
one roof was a miracle.
The wolf had already padded out the door, but the bear had
to wiggle his hips to fit through the frame.
This was not the time to notice how adorable his nubby tail
was as it wagged with his effort.
 Tempers ran too high for me to add more fuel to the
playing favorites fire.
Even if it was so cute I almost smiled despite myself.
“I expect better from you,” Betty chastised Maryna, rising
to her feet. “Both of you.”
“I could say the same about you,” she snapped. “This was
our problem to solve, as Zeke’s parents.”
The bite of resentment had me certain this wasn’t the first
time Betty and Maryna clashed over camp.
“You weren’t solving it fast enough,” Ida said gently.
“Think of Zeke’s health.”
A fraction of the fight drained out of Maryna, but her jaw
remained a stubborn line.
“This is bigger than Zeke,” I tried to reason with her.
“Other children are in danger.”
A roar from outside rattled the glass in the windowpanes,
and a series of loud snarls answered it.
“We’re too late.” Ida pressed a hand to her chest. “Nothing
but submission will pry them apart now.”
“We’ll see about that.” Betty double-timed it onto the
porch. “Boys, you better listen to your mother…”
Maryna joined her, hands on her hips, but she didn’t lift a
finger to make the brothers stop.
“What’s the plan?” Flo sipped her mimosa. “I assume you
have one.”
The girls looked to me, expecting a solution, and I
wracked my brain for the quickest way to prevent this from
becoming an incident. With my luck, folks would claim I was
hosting a wildlife fight ring, and no amount of magic would
get me out of that much trouble.
“Ida, get the hose.” I rubbed my face. “Joan, get the spare
crystal.” I pointed to Flo. “Call the Middles.”
 The three of us hustled out the back door, drawing on our
magic stores for speed and strength.
Moving into position at the side of the house, I waited on
Ida while tamping down an eagerness to jump in and crack
their heads together that belonged on a version of me that
wasn’t more likely to break a bone in the effort than dent their
thick skulls.
“Hose is ready.” Ida widened her stance, bracing her legs.
“Tell me when.”
The fight hadn’t gone out of the boys whatsoever, so with
a grunt of disappointment, I gave the okay.
Using magic, she transformed the gentle flow of a garden
hose into the punishing force of a fire hose.
Water pummeled Zale’s side, knocking him off his brother,
who rose on his hind legs.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Ida muttered, shifting her blast. “I am
Switzerland.”
The stream hit Zander in the shoulder, spinning him
around and knocking him back onto all fours.
“Good job.” I patted her shoulder. “Keep them separated as
best you can.”
“I’ve got the spare.” Joan cupped it in her palms. “Does it
still count as a spare if we always deplete it?”
“Hit them with freeze spells.” I had no time for Joan logic.
“Minor ones.”
We had to conserve as much magic as possible for camp
patrol tonight, and Ida was already sweating.
“Did you know—” Joan turned mist from the hose into
tiny snowflakes, “—no two are the same?”
“Backup will be here in five.” Flo carefully avoided the
puddles. “They’re using their boosters.”
We provided charms for Zeb and Zack—and only for Zeb
and Zack—to use in the event of an emergency. The boosters
maxed out their vehicles’ top speeds and cast a faint
misdirection spell to keep them from getting pulled over for
breaking the speed limit into itty-bitty pieces.
To replace those would cost us more magic, but the boys
couldn’t be without them. Not in this family.
The girls and I weren’t sturdy enough to break up fights
anymore, even with a boost from the crystals. We had to let the
youngsters handle it among themselves these days.
“Hold the line as best you can,” I told Ida and Joan. “We
only need to make it five minutes.”
Five minutes might as well be five years when you’re
watching two boys you love rip each other to shreds.
“Honestly.” Flo scrunched up her nose at the mess. “I
thought they would outgrow this nonsense.”
Soon as a speck of mud hit Flo’s open-toe shoe, she
excused herself to see if she could salvage them.
Call me an optimist, but I chose to believe she couldn’t
stand to watch versus she cared more about her shoes than the
boys.
When two pickups spun into the driveway and two hulking
young men stepped out, I breathed easier.
Zeb inhaled as a middle child used to playing peacekeeper,
and exploded into a white rhino.
Zack, also a middlest thanks to Betty having six kids,
sighed at the drama then shifted into a bison.
“Cut the water,” I told Ida then ordered Joan, “Kill the
flurries.”
The heavyweights wasted no time with pleasantries. Zeb
dipped his chin and charged Zale. He struck the wolf midleap
and knocked him clear across the yard. Zale tried to stand, but
his brother wasn’t done yet. He lumbered over, kicked him in
the face, then bit his tail to hold him still.
Meanwhile Zack pounded toward Zander and rammed him
with his horns, piercing his shoulder. Zander fell on his butt
with a snarl and swiped at Zack, scratching down his side.
Zack ignored the blood and lined up for another go, slamming
his full weight into the bear’s chest and knocking him flat on
his back. A series of swift kicks with his sharp hooves had
Zander rolling over, and that was when Zack straddled him
and sat with a grunt, pinning his brother under him.
With the worst of it over, I circled to the front of the house
to check on the others.
A flush heated Maryna’s cheeks, and her fingernails
tapered into claws.
Betty sat on her walker’s seat, her elbows braced on her
knees, and her head resting in her hands.
“Betty?” I took the steps to reach her side. “You okay?”
The faint tremor in her limbs might have convinced
someone who didn’t know her that she was seconds away
from dissolving into tears. I knew better. She was about to
jump up, toss her walker, take Zack and Zander one over each
knee, and damn her hip.
“Shift.” She dropped her hands. “Dress.” She raised her
head. “Then get your asses inside.”
The zoo on the front lawn disentangled from each other
and marched behind the house to claim pairs of the athletic
shorts I kept in a bin on the back porch for that exact reason.
The rest of their clothes were rags strewn across the lawn that
I would toss later.
“Come on.” I supported her elbow while she stood.
“Where do you want to do this?”
“Living room.” She quivered from the effort of not
throttling her kids. “There’s too many for the kitchen.”
Assisting her over the myriad fraying rugs, I positioned her
in the center of the living room then went to collect Wally and
stick him where he had the best view. About the time Joan,
Ida, and Flo had joined me on the couch, the boys walked in.
“Hey, Mom.” Zack sat on the floor in front of Betty. “How
are those tennis balls treating you?”
 A few days ago, he shucked tennis balls and stuck them to
her walker’s legs to make it more stable.
“Works like a charm.” She patted his cheek. “You’re a
good egg.”
Zeb braved the room next, electing to sit beside his
brother, and heaved another sigh.
“I know what you mean,” she empathized with him.
“Those two are going to put me in an early grave.”
Zeb let her tousle his hair. He wasn’t a fan of touch, never
had been, but she got away with it.
After him, Maryna and Zale walked in, hand in hand, and
stood behind the middles.
Zander was last, and he sat at my feet, which earned us
both sharp looks from Maryna.
“How did you plan on handling this situation?” Betty
rested her forearms on the walker’s handles like a queen sitting
on her throne. “Maryna assured me you two were on top of it,
and yet my grandson was still a wolf two nights ago.”
“The new environment caused a sensory overload.” Zale
kept his tone respectful. “His new therapist has a ninety-five
percent success rate. Zeke just needs more time.”
“That’s the one thing he doesn’t have,” Betty pointed out.
“You should have come to me sooner.”
“I never should have let you talk me into sending him to
that backwater camp,” Maryna snarled back. “I understand it
was a tradition for your children, but there weren’t many
options in your area for enrichment.” She held tight to Zale.
“Zeke could have gone to computer day camp and been home
in time for supper every night. If he had, we wouldn’t be
having this conversation.”
“We loved Mudskipper.” Zack angled his head toward her.
“We still keep in touch with the friends we made there over the
years.”
Zeb flashed a recent text message on his phone with
someone who had a campfire emoji in their name.
 “You got Zeke out,” Zander countered his big brother.
“What about the other kids?” Zander picked at a string on his
shorts until I popped his hand. “You’re okay with leaving them
there?”
“We’re not their parents.” A muscle fluttered along Zale’s
jaw. “We can’t make those decisions for them.”
“Those kids are in danger.” I let that settle. “Zander and I
went to investigate last night, and we learned Zeke isn’t the
only victim. Just the first.”
Aiming a finger at Zander, Zale lit into him. “You had no
right—”
“I had every right.” Zander’s chest rumbled. “Zeke is my
nephew, and he’s in trouble.”
A snarl rattled through Zale while Maryna hissed through
her teeth.
“We’re not going down this path again.” I got to my feet.
“Use your words, not your fists.”
Or teeth.
Or claws.
Or horns.
Or hooves.
“I hate to be rude, Ellie,” Betty started, “but can we have
the room?”
“Take all the time you need.” I unstuck Wally and cradled
him to my chest. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”
After the earlier tussle, the kitchen required some
straightening before the girls and I could sit around the table
again.
“Who wants coffee?” I stuck Wally safely back to the wall
in case things went south. “I have sweet tea and lemonade.”
“Tequila over here.” Flo met my stare head-on. “What? We
all know you stock a full bar.”
 “Make mine vodka.” Ida lifted her hand. “These days my
nerves need all the help they can get.”
“Guinness.” Joan blinked at me. “Did you know the plastic
ball in a Guinness can is called a widget?”
“Yes.” I started pouring. “You told me last week it’s
responsible for the creamy head of foam.”
She gave a beautiful technical explanation how the floating
widget replicated the famous two-part pour, but what I
remembered most was the widget’s uncanny resemblance to a
ping-pong ball with two holes.
Once the booze was flowing, I sank into a chair with an
inch of bourbon in a glass for myself and kicked out my legs.
“This is what comes from marrying for love.” Flo downed
her shot like a pro and glanced around to see if I had hired a
bartender in the time it took her to blink. Sadly, I had not. She
would have to pour round two herself. “Headache and
heartache.”
Wally and I exchanged a knowing glance, but we couldn’t
exactly disagree.
Love hurt. Either from having it or not having. I wasn’t
sure which was worse.
“There were bound to be hiccups.” Ida sipped her drink.
“Packs and prides run differently.”
“That’s a delicate way of saying Maryna comes from an
old family with old money and old traditions. Worse, she’s
beautiful. That combination means she expects to always get
her way with a man.” Flo dipped her finger in her glass then
licked it clean. “Her father was, I suspect, the first to fall
victim to her wiles.”
“Not everyone has daddy issues,” I cut in, swirling the
contents of my glass.
“Twenty-five percent of children born in the US grow up
without their biological father sharing the same address.” Joan
gazed into her ice water. “Daddy issues are far more prevalent
than most people realize.”
 “Zack wasn’t a clod of dirt she picked out of her shoe and
decided to marry,” Ida challenged Flo, leaving Joan to
continue with her statistics. “He comes from a good family,
and he’s never wanted for anything.”
“Zack comes from…” Flo gave up on flagging down a
nonexistent server and rose, “…we don’t know where.”
“We’re his people.” I smacked my glass on the table.
“That’s all that should matter.”
“Blood is what counts with these people.” Flo cut out the
middleman and drank straight from the bottle. “Trust me.”
Out of all of us, she would know, having shed her skin so
many times to fit in with her targets.
A yowl split the air, and I set my palms on the table, ready
to rise if Betty needed me.
Seconds later, Maryna and Zale exited the living room.
She prowled to the door and stood there, glaring at us, while
he made the circuit, kissing each of our cheeks and
apologizing for his earlier behavior.
Whether his conscience dictated his actions, or his mother,
Maryna remained unrepentant.
The couple left after that, her hand on his upper arm, her
nails piercing his shirt to the skin beneath.
A muted thump-thump warned me Betty was on her way to
see us.
Shifter ears being keen as they were, I knew her kids had
heard our table talk, but I was too irked to care.
“I hope you saved some for me.” She entered the kitchen.
“Lord knows I need it.”
“Whisky sour?” I pushed up, ready to play hostess, which
earned me a dirty look from Flo.
“Whisky. Just whisky.” She noticed Flo with her bottle.
“Or maybe I’ll just have what she’s having.”
“You’re on pain meds,” I reminded her. “Your whisky will
be half water, sour or not.”
 “Killjoy.” She grunted as she eased onto her seat. “As to
your general dislike of my daughter-in-law, you have to cut the
girl some slack. Her family is a hardcore matriarchy, which is
not too different from how Zale was raised. But they’re
pureblooded shifters. She’s got a lot of cougar in her. They’re
solitary animals by nature, which makes her choice to marry
and live with Zale remarkable. Practically unheard of. The rest
of her kin shares a compound on a property that’s been in their
family for a century or more. Females and children in one
house. Males in another.”
“Sounds like they’ve got the right idea.” Flo put down the
bottle to listen. “But Maryna balked at tradition?”
“Living with Zale is challenging. She copes because she
knows the wolf in him craves pack. But sharing the
responsibility of raising a child with a man? It goes against her
instincts and her upbringing.” She accepted her drink from me
with a nod. “Don’t judge her too harshly is all I’m saying. It
may not look like it, but she’s trying.”
“He is too,” Zander said from the doorway. “Maybe
they’re trying too hard.”
“To avoid stepping on one another’s toes,” I said, “they’re
bound to have their share of missteps.”
“Maryna and Zale are taking care of their family the best
way they know how, which is the most important thing.” She
stared into her glass, near empty, like she hoped the glass was
enchanted to refill itself when she hit bottom. She and Flo had
more in common than they realized. “I have their blessing to
continue investigating.”
With probable cause, we no longer required permission or
a blessing to investigate. For the sake of preserving Betty’s
relationship with her kids, I was glad for her that Zale
extended that much leeway.
The alcohol was hitting Ida, and she smiled softly at
Zander. “What kind of father will you be?”
“A beary good one?” Betty chuckled. “The beary best?”
 “Uh, no.” He ruffled his hair. “Bears eat their cubs. Like a
lot.”
We allowed for a moment of silence to absorb that grim
reality then the alcohol got the best of us.
“Beary well,” I began. “Let’s get down to business.”
“Yes,” Flo demurred. “Let’s.”
“We need more intel before we make a plan of attack.” I
picked at the tabletop with a fingernail. “Odds are good the
black magic traces Zander and I picked up last night came
from an enchantment or charm.”
“You don’t think the witch is on the grounds,” Ida
surmised. “That’s good news.”
“The smell was too faint to be fresh, or he would have
caught it sooner.” I quit picking when I noticed I was gouging
the wood. “Even over the environmental factors.”
“What I’m hearing is Auntie Ellie and I have a hot date
tonight.” Zander walked up behind me and wrapped his arms
around my shoulders, squeezing me tight. “What time should I
pick you up, sweetheart?”
“Don’t get fresh with my wife, young man.” Wally side-
eyed him. “Keep your paws to yourself.”
“No paws it is.” He winked at me. “She’s safe in my
hands.”
Swatting the terror on his shoulder, I grinned up at Wally,
and it was almost like old times.
Sure it was, and maybe I would believe myself one day if I
kept telling myself often enough.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Z ander and I returned to Mudskipper at sundown to find

the boys huddled in groups of twos or threes.
Our invisibility charms made it easy for us to sneak close,
but I couldn’t get a sense of what had caused the uneasy
silence blanketing the camp.
Forget the laughter you would expect. The joking. The
shoving. The pranks.
These kids would have looked happier in line to go to the
dentist for root canals.
“I’m out of here.” The same boy as last night, Trey, stood
in a rush. “Who’s with me?”
“Sit down.” The kid next to him gripped his arm. “You
want them to hear you?”
The us-versus-them mentality always existed in
environments where children reported to authority figures, but
I had never heard the lines so sharply drawn. Not here. Which
got me thinking. I hadn’t identified a single junior counselor in
the bunch. They often bridged the gap between the kids and
the adults. They wore bright yellow tees to make them easy to
spot, but I only saw the standard red.
That wasn’t normal, but not much of what we had
witnessed here fit that category.
“I don’t care, Lane.” Trey shook off his friend. “I’m not
hanging around until it gets me too.”
“The counselor said—”
 “They lied.” Trey rounded on his small group. “Have you
seen a kid come back from across the lake? I haven’t. The girls
are on an island. The parking lot is a mile that way.” He
pointed through the trees. “How are kids getting home if
they’re not coming back here first?”
“But the counselor—”
“Lied.” He trembled with the need to shift. “When was the
last time you heard from your parents?”
“Six days ago,” Lane confessed. “No letters from Mom or
terrible drawings from Brianne.”
Between the terrible drawings and his annoyed voice, I bet
Brianne was a younger sibling.
“You can’t just walk off.” Another boy stood. “That thing
could be out there.”
“There’s a cabin five miles from here. I always see it on
the drive in.” Trey laid out his plan. “I could run there and use
their phone to call my parents. Then they could call your
parents, and we’d all be saved.”
This was a terrible idea, but I could hardly come out and
say so without compromising our cover.
“Wait until morning.” Lane set his jaw. “Then I’ll go with
you.” He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Trey shook and sank back down with his friends.
“We should sneak into the kitchen for provisions…”
Their planning fell into whispers I didn’t bother catching
now that I could trust them to stay put. And by trust, I meant I
would plant my butt in the shadows and wait for dawn to make
sure they kept their word to each other and then foil their
escape attempt in the morning by bungling it so badly Ricky
kept an eye on them. But first, Zander and I had to follow up
on Trey’s claim the injured kids weren’t making it home.
Careful to remain downwind from the campers, he and I
retreated a safe distance away.
“I don’t like this.” I swatted a mosquito. “We need to set
eyes on their infirmary.”
 “Lucky for you, I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“If I’m lucky, that canoe will be back, and I can borrow it.”
“Now that’s just mean.”
We searched the shore but found no boats, no floats, no
noodles. Nothing to encourage kids to swim after dark and risk
drowning before help arrived to fish them out.
“They must keep the motorboat at the other camp and use
it to ferry kids back and forth as needed.” I thought about the
canoe. “Sara must have left the canoe at the girls’ camp.” I cut
him a look. “Probably safer there.”
“Where’s the trust?” He clicked his tongue. “A pity about
kids these days.”
“These days?” I thumped his ear. “You got kicked out for
being caught skinny-dipping with a fellow counselor. If not for
your mother, you would have been banned for life.”
Very much the mama bear, despite being a witch, I hadn’t
given it a second thought when she got him out of that scrape.
I should have considered then she held sway at the camp, but
Betty was—quite frankly—terrifying when protecting her
kids. That outcome hadn’t surprised me.
“That was a misunderstanding.”
“Two naked sixteen-year-olds in the lake at midnight.” I
scoffed. “What was confusing about that?”
“She was already swimming when I came along. I waded
in to help her to shore. Like a gentleman.”
“And your clothes dissolved like sugar in the water?”
“Shifters.” He spread his hands. “We’re always either
naked or about to be.”
Since he wasn’t wrong about that, I couldn’t call him out,
but no rescue techniques I had ever learned resulted in
hickeys.
“Looks like you’re riding the Zander Express.” He dug
around in his pockets. “Boarding will commence shortly.”
 “Fine,” I grumbled, catching his phone when he tossed it.
“But I can’t get wet, or my magic will fizzle.”
A bear swimming in the lake was cause for concern, but it
wasn’t so bizarre as to incite panic.
A normal black bear was harmless and easily spooked
back to the woods where it belonged.
That Zander was neither normal nor a black bear I hoped
went unnoticed by anyone who spotted him. Especially since
our charms couldn’t get wet without frying them, which meant
we had to leave them somewhere dry. To cross, I would have
to ride on his back. That alone shattered the bounds of normal.
“Give me ten.” He walked off, shucking his clothes as he
went. “Ignore the grunting.”
Eyes rolling at the mess he left behind, I picked up his
clothes after him like I had when he was little and folded them.
I placed them on a stump then sat on the cushion they made to
take off my boots and roll up my pant legs. As I stood, a
buzzing in my pocket nearly spooked me into my next life.
Damn phone.
I mashed a few buttons, none of which accomplished
anything, then slid my finger across the screen the way I had
seen the boys do.
Nothing.
“Zander can’t come to the phone right now,” I joked,
sticking it in my back pocket. “He’s bearly decent.”
With a snort, he lumbered from between the trees and
stuck his cold nose to my throat.
“You always were a handsome devil.” I scratched between
his rounded ears. “I hope the water’s warm.”
Reckless to a fault, Zander broke into a gallop and hit the
water with a splash that tempted me to swat his furry behind.
“Hush,” I hissed from between my teeth, tucking our
charms and his phone under his clothes. “You’ll wake the
whole camp.”
 The bear made apologetic noises and sought me out over
his shoulder. He rumbled a laugh as I splurged on energy and
leapt from the bank onto his spine, allowing my bare toes to
sink into his fur as I found my balance.
With a low grunt, he went deeper, sinking lower, but the
water didn’t come up past my ankles.
So much for not getting wet. Good thing I emptied my
pockets.
The trip over reminded me of the good ol’ days, when it
wasn’t unheard of to find me on the back of a shifter riding
into battle. But on the far shore, we faced another problem.
Our charms were across the lake, and I couldn’t exactly sneak
around with a six-hundred-pound grizzly on my heels.
A hundred-and-ten-pound bag of bones had a better chance
of not being caught.
“You stay put.” I tapped the end of his sensitive nose. “I
won’t be long.”
He grumbled a low complaint, but he was a good boy, and
he listened to his elders.
Sometimes.
Barefoot, I picked my path toward the ring of cabins in the
girls’ camp only to find them dark and quiet. Voices in the
distance carried to me, and I made my way toward those
before seeking out the infirmary.
Two female counselors stood in front of the doors to a
building handily labeled with a giant red cross.
One-stop shopping. Just the way I liked it.
“Bite marks,” the blonde said. “Same as the others.”
“We patrol all night, every night,” the brunette one
growled. “How is it getting through?”
“I don’t know.” A second blonde rubbed her face. “Fire
ought to keep it at bay, but…”
“It’s growing stronger.” The first blonde frowned. “We
have to stop it before it’s too late.”
 “It’s already too late.” The brunette balled her fists. “It’s
tasted blood.”
Ears perked, I waited for them to say more, but they fell
silent as a weak cry drew their attention.
The brunette rushed into the building, and I wished like
anything I had my charm and could follow. I had to settle for
searching out a window and watching the woman soothe a
young boy, maybe five, who had grown fitful in his sleep. His
left arm was bandaged, and an IV threaded his arm.
Ben.
Maybe Trey was onto something.
As I scanned the room, I noticed four other boys of
different ages in beds hooked to IVs too.
This meant…none of the injured kids had been picked up
by their parents. They were all here. Quarantined. Except for
Zeke.
Why had Sara sent him home but not the others? Because
Betty was his grandmother? Or did Sara know we were more
than witches? That we were Witchlight agents with
connections that could cause the camp serious trouble?
Before I circled back to Zander, I performed a quick check
on the girls. They were sleeping soundly. Every bed occupied.
Now that I thought about it, the infirmary was packed with
boys. Only boys.
What was keeping them safe? The counselors on patrol?
The females did appear more organized than the males. More
hot under the collar about the issue too. There was no
bargaining on this side of the water. There was only outrage
and determination. And the faintest whiff of decomposition,
sour yet cloying.
A beat later, the answer to girls versus boys hit me.
The lake.
Whatever was preying on the kids couldn’t cross the water.
That was why they kept the injured boys in the girls’ camp. To
protect them.
 When I returned to Zander, he had a wriggling fish
hanging out of his mouth that reminded me too much of Wally
and was scratching his butt with a wide paw.
“Zan.”
The startled bear whirled toward me, slipped on a rock,
and landed on his tail.
Graceful as an elephant, that one.
“Spit that out.” I didn’t have time to wait on him to finish
snacking. “We need to go.”
Tossing his head back, Zan instead gulped the whole thing
down then waded into the water.
I was too wet to access magic for a jump, so I followed
him out, sinking to my ankles in mud. I clambered onto him
with help from a supportive paw and did my best not to
wobble off as we crossed shores.
While he was changing and putting his clothes on, Zan got
another call I couldn’t figure out how to answer. Every time I
saw him, he had upgraded to a new phone. This one still had
plastic on its screen.
“Let me see.” He walked up behind me and plucked the
cell out of my fingers. “Mom will freeze you—I mean, me—
out for weeks if I miss a call.” He hesitated then passed it back
to me. “Do you know that number?”
“That’s Pastor Joe.” I read it again to be sure. “Well, the
pastorium.”
“Wonder why he’s calling,” he said blandly. “Answer it?”
“Nah.” I pulled on my socks and boots. “I’m good.”
He and I took the long way around camp, positioning
ourselves so we could watch over the kids until dawn. Maybe
we would get lucky and catch the creature on its way to its
next victim, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Danger was a lot harder to get into than you might think.
Unfortunately.
 “Well?” He picked a fishbone out of his teeth. “What did
you learn?”
“Something is preying on campers, and all the counselors
are in on it.”
If I were them, I would pray the creature got me before
Betty did.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

B etween the argument with her kids, the alcohol, and

the pain meds, Betty was dead to the world when we
got home just after dawn. Ida and Joan had helped her into my
bed, and they had fallen asleep watching a makeover show that
involved plastic surgery before and afters. Given the content, I
had to assume Flo was around here somewhere.
While Zander woke his mom, I bumbled into the kitchen to
find Flo and Wally deep in conversation. She hadn’t stuck him
to the wall. I forgave her for that. Fear of dropping him made
most folks nervous about moving him from room to room. She
had, however, leaned his plaque against a tall mug so that he
could look at her while they talked.
“Hail the conquering hero,” Wally teased, his voice soft.
“How did it go?”
“You smell like dead fish.” Flo fanned her face. “Lord,
Ellie, do us all a favor and go shower.”
“That reminds me.” I tossed the packet of rotting fish to
her. “I got you a present.”
“You are a foul, despicable old coot.” Flo dropped it then
squirted a gallon of hand sanitizer on her palms that perfumed
the room. “How are you no more mature now than when we
were recruits?”
“Chaos keeps me young.” I grinned toothily. “What are
you two up to?”
“I’m attempting to seduce your husband away,” she said
dryly. “He’s so far resisted my charms.”
 “That kelpie kicked me too hard in the head,” he
reminisced. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Ellie
since.”
“You’re blaming our grand romance on head trauma?”
“You did suddenly look fetching after that hoof to my
temple.”
“That was her wet shirt.” Flo might have tried to crinkle
her brow, but the Botox was too fresh. “She kicked off her
skirt too, didn’t she?”
“She did.” Wally chuckled deep in his throat. “White silk
panties.”
“Mystery solved.” Flo shook her head. “That bulge in your
pants was nearly as scandalous. A rather large snake from the
pond, didn’t you say? It swum up your pant leg before you
carried her to safety?”
Unsure if I ought to be irked she had noticed, I couldn’t
blame her when I had been sneaking peeks too.
“Pretend I’ve walked away,” he said, “with my head held
high.”
“This is me, pretending you forgot something and came
right back.” I tapped his plaque. “I need your opinion.”
“I’ve often thought my soul was wasted on a fish. I should
have been cursed into a grimoire.”
“That would be more dignified,” I allowed, “but I’d miss
the way your tail flicks when you get excited.”
Plastic fish don’t blush, but I knew my Wally. He would
have been painted scarlet had he been alive.
“Enough of that.” Flo sank back into her chair. “What did
you find?”
“The counselors from both camps know what’s going on.
They know kids are being hurt. Some are doing their best to
prevent it. Others not so much.” I drummed my fingers on the
table. “For whatever reason, they’ve elected to keep it from
the parents. They are, in fact, holding the wounded kids under
sedation in the infirmary to avoid discovery.”
“That’s willfully providing a food source.” Ida appeared in
the doorway. “Whatever’s out there, they’re training it to eat at
the camp by not sending the kids away.”
“Sara is calling the shots,” I told them. “The others are
falling in line without much fuss.”
“Hmm.” Zander pulled out his phone. “Let me see what I
can dig up on her online.”
The camp performed background checks prior to hiring,
but they didn’t recheck as far as I knew.
“I forgot about this guy.” Zander flashed me his phone
screen. “Ricky.”
“He’s the only one I heard arguing for the parents to be
told. He sat outside, by a fire, to keep the boys safe.” As
admirable as that was, I couldn’t pat him on the head for it.
“He also gave the counselors one more week to collect their
pay, which means the creature got an extension too.”
“A fire?” Wally turned thoughtful. “He must have been
melting in this heat.”
“Whatever’s feeding on the kids must be afraid of it.”
Betty wheeled into the room. “It’s a generic defense, though. It
doesn’t tell us anything. Plenty of things that bump in the
night are scared of fire.”
“Do you think the counselors know what they’re dealing
with?” Ida straightened the pressed collar on her dress.
“Maybe they’re hoping to catch the creature themselves and
then present it to the parents in the hopes it mitigates the
trouble they’re in.”
As much as Ida wanted to believe in the good in people, I
didn’t have that problem.
“They know.” I was certain of that. “Their actions indicate
they’re protecting it, not the kids, whether they want to or
not.”
 Why else keep the kids there? Why else cut the parents out
of the loop? Why else not take action?
Whoever stank of black magic must want the creature kept
close and fed regularly.
Was that Sara? Or another of the counselors? Hard to say.
Zander needed a good sniff first to be sure.
“We need to get those kids out.” Wally’s lips whirred as
they set into a frown. “Quick and quiet.”
Parents entrusted the counselors to care for their children
in their absence, and the counselors were in breach of that
contract. Even if, by some miracle, the other parents forgave
this, Betty wouldn’t rest until every single one of them were
barred from working with children for the rest of their
preternaturally long lives.
“That’s what I’ve been saying.” Zander pounded his fist on
the table. “Let’s do this.”
“We don’t have the manpower to snatch an entire camp
full of kids.” Betty grunted as she sat on her walker’s seat.
“We have to be smart about this.”
“Hold on.” Zander thinned his lips. “Looks like Sara was
in the news about a month ago.”
“If you tell me she’s a chainsaw murderer,” Betty
threatened, “I’m going to evacuate the kids and set the cabins
on fire with the counselors in them.”
“Take a pain pill.” I patted her hand. “You’re more violent
than usual.”
“Zander?” Flo hauled us back on track. “You were
saying?”
“She was in a car accident while on vacation. A drunk
driver T-boned her car, and her son was killed. Looks like it
happened in Utah.” Zander frowned. “The driver was DOA,
but the police report states he was ravaged by a wild animal.”
A bad feeling took root in my gut that had nothing to do
with shifter justice.
 “Sara killed him.” Flo’s lips crimped. “I can’t say I blame
her.”
“Poor Ryan. He was a sweet kid. She must be devastated.”
Betty wiped an errant tear. “Why wouldn’t she tell us?
Working at the camp so soon after her loss must be killing
her.”
“Utah,” Ida murmured. “That must be why it wasn’t in the
local papers, but it doesn’t explain why Sara kept it to herself.”
“Grief makes people do strange things,” Flo said softly. “It
might be her way of coping, or saying goodbye.”
“The boy was a shifter, right?” I checked with Betty. “For
his mom to be working at camp?”
Given the purpose of the camp, only shifters need apply.
The kids got their fill of other paras, and humans, at home.
“Hold on.” Zander pressed a few buttons on his phone.
“Says here mom and son are Bengals.”
Bengal tigers were rare, as far as shifters went, and you
didn’t see many in the US.
“How did you know?” Betty narrowed her eyes on him.
“Ryan was after your time.”
Meaning he wouldn’t have seen the boy change with his
own eyes and had no reason to sound so certain.
“I logged into the portal for parents with Zale’s
credentials.” He flashed his dimples to get out of trouble. “I’m
sure he won’t mind.”
Pretty sure Zale would have kittens if he knew his brother
had hacked into at least one of his accounts.
“I didn’t smell a tiger.” Zander tapped his phone across his
palm. “There are a few big cats, but common ones.”
“I’ve seen Sara shifted,” Betty vouched for her. “Trust me,
she’s the real deal.”
“We’re not dealing with a vampire.” Flo debunked our best
guess. “Necromancy only works on humans and animals.”
 Put that way, it was odd necromancy didn’t work on
shifters, given humanity was their core component.
“But the creature is feeding on the campers.” I recalled the
bite wounds. “Like a vampire.”
“The nastier options would have eaten the campers,” Betty
pitched in. “Revenants, ghouls, zombies.”
“What does that leave us?” Ida frowned. “What craves
blood and fears fire?”
“Nothing living.” I turned it over in my head. “We need to
go back, Zander.”
“We don’t have enough information to pin down what’s
going on,” Ida agreed, “or how to fix it.”
“I took the week off.” He pocketed his cell. “I’m at your
disposal.”
“You’re a good kid.” I pinched his cheek. “Go home.
Sleep. We’ll leave again at nightfall.”
After the others shuffled out to their vehicles, I stifled a
yawn and fetched Wally, who watched me with a soft smile.
“You overdid it tonight,” he chastised. “A hub can only
burn so much magic.”
“I also rode a bear across a lake like a circus performer.” I
stroked down his spine. “You were right when you told me
yoga would save my life one day.”
The two of us retired to the living room, and I stuck him to
the wall. He couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t fair for him to be
bored for the next eight hours, so I turned on the TV to
entertain him. As for me, I settled in my recliner. I had lost my
taste for our bed the day he died.
And then came back.
You couldn’t pay me enough to sleep in that room. I would
have set fire to it if it wouldn’t take the rest of the house with
it. I might have still done it if I didn’t have a spicy arrest
record that would make the insurance company laugh me into
the old folks’ home before paying out on my policy.
 After kicking up my feet, I fell asleep while Wally watched
over me, as he always had.
And, as I hoped, he always would.
 CHAPTER NINE

T he next night, about the time Zander and I usually

rolled out, half the coven rolled in.
Betty, my usual partner in crime, demanded to come, and I
didn’t put up a fuss. She couldn’t get far without her walker,
and I had an idea how to get around that. We could load it in
the bed of Zander’s truck while she was watching and then
sneak it out when she turned her back, effectively marooning
her in the parking lot where she would be safe.
And where she couldn’t keep tabs on me, which I knew
was her real reason for going.
Joan, who drove her over, stepped out of her car dressed to
forage and loaded down with jars and tins.
I wanted to turn her back around, but she would argue I
was letting Betty go, so why couldn’t she?
Plus, charms bulged from her purse. Enough to take on an
army. Joan had come armed for bear.
No pun intended.
Okay, fine.
A little intended.
With the small armory on her person, she ought to be safe
enough to collect her mushrooms. She could handle perimeter
patrol while she was at it. We had no idea where the creature
hid between meals, but Zander and I hadn’t stumbled across it
yet.
 If it lived deeper in the woods, that might explain why.
If it masqueraded as a counselor, that would definitely
explain why.
While Joan went to hunt poisonous fungi, she would wear
a chitinous armor charm. One of my favorites. Excellent
protection against sneak attacks too. Tigers were ambush
predators, after all. I would send her with Bam-Bam just in
case.
With Joan slinking off in the dark wearing a fancy
headlamp and a rare smile, and Betty banging her fists on the
windows after realizing we tricked her, Zander and I followed
the now familiar path through the boys’ camp to the lake.
I gave a repeat performance of my bear balancing act, but I
was stiff from last night’s acrobatics. Even with magic, I could
only push myself so far before I couldn’t bounce back, and I
was close to topping out.
Snug as a bug in a rug, the girls were already in bed on
their side of the water. Their camp was dark and quiet except
for the infirmary, where the on-call counselor read at a desk
across from the sleeping boys.
“That’s Sara.” I recognized her from our first visit. “That
means her cabin is empty.”
The bear beside me huffed then slung his head to the right
to indicate a path. It must lead around to the counselors’
sleeping quarters. Which, it occurred to me, he shouldn’t
know.
Lord that boy.
As it happened, the other counselors shared bunks in a
single cabin, the same as the kids, but Sara had her own living
space. Good thing too. The lack of roommates made breaking
in easier than it might have been. Especially with no charms to
give us backup if we needed it.
The doorway was too slim for a massive bear to squeeze
through, even after Zander tried sucking in his stomach, so he
stood guard at the threshold while I slipped inside.
 The head counselor’s cabin had an open floorplan.
Bedroom, kitchenette, and dining room were separated only by
creative use of rugs. The bathroom was enclosed, but it was
tiny and easy to clear. So was the rest of the place.
Aside from one photo of Sara and her son, the rest of her
belongings were camp-issued clothing and equipment.
Everything was neat and tidy. Nothing looked amiss.
Everything was as it should be.
And nothing smelled like black magic. Not her pillow, not
her hairbrush, not her clothes.
Zan grunted to call me over then pawed the welcome mat
that looked like camp kids had woven it as a craft years ago.
Faded and worn, it was also speckled with fresh dark spots.
“What is it?” I bent down to get a better look, my poor
knees creaking with the strain. “Blood?”
Another substance came away on my fingertips when I
tested the stains.
Mud.
The seemingly random pattern gained clarity the longer I
studied it.
Footprints.
Small ones.
As if from a child.
A snuffling grumble from Zander drew me outside to
where he indicated a bare patch of earth beneath the lone
window. The muddy area had been trampled, and the perfect
oval shape of it reminded me of when deer bedded down in
grass.
He picked up a few twigs in his lips, spat them into my
palm, then pawed at his mouth.
Tiny they might be, but the sticks were imbued with
powerful dark magic that made my skin crawl.
 “The creature has been sleeping here.” I brought the twigs
to my nose, but the black magic stink wasn’t on them. “I don’t
like this.”
The bad feeling I got when Zander told us about the death
of Sara’s child left me tasting ash and dread.
The presence of the creature’s den sank my idea about
water protecting the girls, but why feed on the boys and not
the girls if it was crossing the lake to sleep here? Self-
preservation? Maybe it knew better than to eat where it slept.
Or maybe Sara kept it on a tighter leash when it was close to
her.
“We have a few hours left until dawn.” I scratched the
hump between Zander’s shoulders. “Let’s meet up with Joan
and see if she found anything.”
To do that, we had to cross the lake to the boy’s camp.
Zander didn’t mind, but I was losing my get-up-and-go. I
gave up on propriety and rode him like a horse to the water
and let the lake soak me to the waist. It was warm from the
long sunny day, which made me wonder how much of this
lake was urine.
Once safely on the other side, Zander finished his change
while I pulled on my boots.
The hum of low voices drew me back to camp where I hid
in the bushes to watch.
Ricky sat vigil before a roaring fire, his eyes keen on the
woods. He must have heard us sloshing onto shore. Hard to
muffle that much soaking-wet bear clomping through mud. He
twitched his nose, but the rotten-fish stink in my clothes and
Zan’s fur helped us blend in, and he settled back into his
watch.
A light glowed in what I believed was the mess hall, and I
tiptoed over there to see if I could locate the other two
counselors. Sure enough, they sat inside playing cards and
drinking sodas. Theirs were the voices I heard as they hooted
over hands won and money lost. I gave them a few minutes to
become interesting, but they didn’t budge, and I soon gave up
on them.
The nature of the creature’s nest sparked an idea, but I had
to be stealthy to pull off investigating.
Leaving Zander to provide a distraction if I got myself in a
sticky situation, I circled each cabin, inspecting the area
beneath them. Each one sat about two feet off the ground with
lattice blocking the underpinnings. Most of the wood had split
or buckled with age, leaving gaps big enough for a small child
to squeeze through.
Or a scrawny old lady with more magic than sense.
Out of the six cabins, four showed signs of nests the same
as I found outside Sara’s window. They weren’t as defined,
which made me think the creature hadn’t slept there but only
waited out its prey.
Without a flashlight, which would have drawn too much
attention, I couldn’t gauge the age of the nests or which cabin
had been visited most recently. Given the attack on Ben was
the last one mentioned, I assumed it was the best place to
check. I located his cabin and tiptoed to its ragged edges.
I had always been thin, and age had whittled me to skin
and bones. I had no trouble wiggling into the hole silently for a
better look, as long as you didn’t count the creaks and pops in
my back, knees, and elbows.
I groped around in the dark, searching for more clues, and
foul magic zapped my fingertips. I snatched the offending
items and came away with a handful of twigs that matched
what Zander found across the water.
“Now we’re talking.” I tucked the evidence in my pocket
and pivoted toward the exit only to bump my head on a low
support beam. “Shit.”
“Who said that?” a small voice cried out above me.
“Who’s there?”
Before I could decide what to do, a door banged open, and
heavy footsteps hit the planks.
 “What’s wrong, buddy?” Ricky kept his voice low. “Have
a bad dream?”
“I heard someone talking,” he whimpered. “They said a
bad word.”
“I bet it was Mr. Andrew,” he whispered, teasing. “He
probably stubbed his toe.”
“I won’t tell.” A slight laugh moved through the boy. “I
don’t want to get him in trouble.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He sounded genuine in his
affection. “We all make mistakes.”
“Will you…? Can you stay with me until I fall asleep?”
“Sure thing, champ.” The boards creaked again. “Let me
grab my book. I’ll be right back.”
“How do you have homework in the summer?”
“Welcome to adulting. Colleges assign homework even in
the summer.”
That put Ricky around Zander’s age then. The two young
men couldn’t be more different.
“I’m not going to college then. I might not even grow up.
It sounds lame.”
“Growing up isn’t all bad.”
“If you say so.” Quiet stretched until the boy got bold.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Ricky hesitated near the door. “What’s on your
mind?”
“I was wondering if the rumors are true. Is there a monster
in the woods?”
“Even if there was a monster, I would keep you safe.”
Not an answer, but the kid didn’t seem to notice. His relief
was too great.
“Thanks,” he murmured sleepily, already halfway back to
dreamland.
 When the counselor made his exit, I made mine and
scuttled several yards away into the shadows. I laid in the dirt
to stretch out the kinks in my, well, everything while my body
screamed at me for every twist, bend, and squat I had done
tonight.
Not long after, Zander located me and scooped me into a
bridal carry.
It was an undignified retreat to say the least, but I wasn’t
sure I could have walked back to the car without his
assistance.
“Oh dear.” Joan rushed to help Zander. “You overdid it
again.”
Once she helped me into the truck cab, she reached into
the massive bag on her shoulder and withdrew a bottle of pills
labeled as acetaminophen. Except for their faint glow, they
were a fair approximation of the real thing. I popped three dry
then settled in to let them work their (literal) magic.
“Well?” Betty cuffed me on the shoulder. “What did you
find?”
From my pocket, I produced the handful of twigs and
dumped them into her palm.
“Sticks?” Joan washed her hands with a baby wipe that
would have made me feel a lot better about the pill she gave
me if I had seen her use one beforehand. “The woods are full
of sticks.”
“Not like these.” Betty gave her one, and Joan gasped.
“Where did you find them?”
“In nests.” I wiped my palms on my pants. “Under the
boys’ cabins and outside Sara’s window.”
“You know what this means.” Betty twisted one between
her fingers. “We have a fetch on our hands.”
And given its nesting habits, I had little doubt who it was
meant to replace.
 CHAPTER TEN

“T he boy isn’t a changeling,” Wally told us with

authority. “That rules out the traditional role of a
fetch.”
Fae who wanted children but couldn’t have their own often
poached from humans. In place of the child, it was tradition to
leave a bundle of sticks enchanted to look and act like the
child it was replacing. They didn’t live long, and I use the
word live loosely. Animated was a better choice.
They existed for a week or so, hearty and hale, but then
they began to sicken. Eventually, they died. The real parents
then mourned their child, believing it was dead, and freed the
fae to raise their stolen baby without any pesky mothers or
fathers hunting them down.
“He’s not a death omen,” Betty tossed in. “The boy is
already dead.”
Another job fetches performed was showing up on your
doorstep before you died as a warning you didn’t have long to
get your affairs in order.
“I hate to be crass,” Flo interjected, “but we’re saying Sara
had a facsimile of her son made by the fae?”
Fetches were a fae magic. No other paras created them.
“Any fae dealing in fetches,” I said, hating to be grim,
“would require the body as payment.”
Shifter organs and bones were worth a fortune on the black
market to witches and the like.
 “If she had to choose between a copy of Ryan or a body,”
Flo asked, “which do you think she’d choose?”
“The body,” Ida said without hesitation. “You can’t get
back what you’ve lost.”
The barb struck home, even aimed away from me. She was
right. Magic was a miracle, but it wasn’t a cure-all. The dead
couldn’t be brought back to life, not really, and not without
consequence.
“Fetches aren’t generally malicious,” Wally said, cutting
into my thoughts. “Why is this one attacking other children?”
“A fetch should only be connected to the child it was made
to replace,” I agreed, “but that child is dead. This creature has
no anchor beyond a shape and the purpose it was given. I don’t
see how it could have been animated in the first place, except
with black magic, but that’s not how the sticks smell.”
“What keeps a fetch alive?” Ida asked. “Magic? Blood?
Meat?”
“They come with an expiration date.” I drummed my
fingers on the table. “The fetch ought to have disintegrated by
now.”
Three months was an eternity for it to survive, but the
twigs it was shedding were proof it couldn’t outrun its fate
forever.
“Blood,” I repeated, still considering its shedding problem.
“What if that’s the key?”
“You think it’s feeding on children to live?” Wally gave a
mechanical shudder. “That’s not normal.”
“Neither is a shifter fetch.” I rubbed my face. “I’ve never
heard of fae taking anything other than human children in
exchange, so it stands to reason that type of magic only works
on humans.”
Without innate magic, humans were blank slates. Enough
time in Faerie, they could be warped, turned into a shadow of
fae themselves. They were ideal candidates. Shifter kids were
more resistant to magic.
 “We need to find out who his father is,” Flo decided. “Do
you think he could be fae?”
“The father is irrelevant.” Joan sorted her mushrooms into
clay bowls. “We’re not dealing with the child. This is a violent
construct of fae magic.” She lifted one to her nose. “We can’t
afford to treat it as a boy.” She put it back, seeming satisfied.
“Feeding into its belief it is real might give it power to become
more real.”
That hadn’t occurred to me, but she was right. There was
power in belief too. Ask any major religion.
“We need to pull those kids out of there,” Betty argued,
“before the fetch takes it too far.”
Already, it must be drinking more than it had at the start of
the summer. Otherwise, hearty shifter kids would have
continued to heal the bite marks and replenish the minimal
blood loss before they woke. For them to be unable to repair
the damage meant the fetch was already taking too much in
order to keep itself alive.
“I agree.” I placed my palms on the table. “Tonight, we
catch ourselves a fetch.”
“How are we going to do that?” Zander pulled on his ear.
“We haven’t even seen it yet.”
“The usual way.” I smiled, all teeth. “With bait.”
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

O nce night fell, I gorged on potions until the tips of my

hair tingled, and I felt young enough to climb any
mountain. I was tugging on my leggings when I heard a
cellphone ringing and hopped toward the noise.
On the front porch rail of all places, I found Zander’s
phone where he must have forgotten it.
Recognizing the number, I palmed it, and by some miracle,
answered the thing.
“Hello,” I grunted, waving to Ida as her blush-pink car
pulled in the driveway.
A smooth voice filled my ear, reminding me I was on a
call. “Ellie?”
“Zander’s not here, Pastor Joe. Unless you were looking
for Betty?”
“No, I, ah.” He cleared his throat. “She told me this was
your number.”
I was going to kill her, and my oh so helpful nephew, who
had to be in on the con, for this.
“I don’t have a cellphone.”
“Oh.” He paused. “Well.” He cleared his throat again. “I
have tickets to an MMA fight in Birmingham. I was
wondering if you’d like to join me?”
An MMA fight?
“What makes you think I like blood sport?”
 “I heard you’re an enthusiast.”
From that big mouth liar Betty, no doubt.
“I enjoy it on TV, but there’s not much else on, is there?”
Aside from a million other channels I subscribed to for
Wally’s sake.
“Oh.” He hesitated. “I can ask someone else. I just thought
of you first and—”
“Don’t mind me.” Ida wrestled a cardboard box out of her
car’s trunk. “I’m bringing back Tupperware.”
Betty, Ida, and I tended to borrow the dozen or so
containers from one another. I doubted anyone knew who they
really belonged to anymore. We kept what we accumulated
until we ran out of space to store them, then we boxed the
excess and dumped it on an unsuspecting victim under the
guise of friendship.
“Gotta go.” I was beyond grateful for the excuse to hang
up on him. “Yard Bird emergency.”
After ending the call, I exhaled and counted backward
from one hundred, until I was relatively sure I wouldn’t
murder Betty over this game of cellphone hot potato.
“When will they get tired of setting me up with Joe?” I
glared at the phone. “I’m a married woman.”
“They’re witches.” Ida hooked an arm around my
shoulders. “Wally is cursed, and it’s like catnip, attempting to
rid him of it.”
“Trying to rid me of him,” I corrected. “I can’t date a man
then come home to my husband.”
“I understand.” She squeezed me. “I do.”
“But?”
“Wally is suffering,” she said gently. “He’s miserable and
depressed and as much in love with you as ever. He will never
leave you, unless you ask him to go. Unless we find a
workaround, the only way to grant him peace is for you to fall
in love.”
 “Do you understand why that was a condition of his
curse?”
“Yes.”
“We love each other too much to ever let go. I can’t fall in
love while he’s still here. I’m not sure I could even if he was
gone. Wally was—is—the only thing I need to be happy. I’m
being cruel by holding on, and I know it, but I can’t bear to
have him doubt for a moment that any man is worth more than
the shadow of him to me.”
“Oh, Ellie.” She embraced me. “I know.” She rubbed my
back. “I do know.”
Aside from me, she was the only coven member who
married for love.
“We need to get moving.” I stepped out of her embrace.
“We only get one chance at this.”
The fetch hadn’t been aggressive toward adults, likely
because it had been designed as a child and had a child’s
liminal respect for authority. Tonight, the rules changed. Ryan
would be fighting for his life.
Within the hour, the others arrived, and we finalized
everyone’s roles.
As the coven filed out of the house, ready to load into
Betty’s van, I checked in with Wally.
“Sure you don’t want to come?”
“I might look like a fish,” he said primly, “but I don’t want
to take my chances in water.”
As it was, he required batteries to function. Which I found
oddly humiliating on his behalf.
“Well then, make sure you watch Turner versus Brock, and
tell me who wins.”
“That I can do.”
I settled him in the living room on my way out then
claimed the copilot seat beside Betty.
 With her mobility limited, she was happy to fill the role of
getaway driver if we needed one.

T HE FIVE OF US JOINED HANDS IN A CIRCLE AS WE WAITED FOR

the moon to rise, and our power zinged along my nerves like
electricity. This spell wasn’t the same as the one for refilling
crystals, but it was close. It filled the girls from their crystals,
allowing them to hold borrowed magic within themselves for a
few hours.
Sadly, there was no putting back what they didn’t use. Any
magic not spent would metabolize.
Come Friday, we would be hosting another margarita night
to compensate for tonight’s expenditure.
As soon as the girls were topped off, we cast a sleep spell
that rolled like fog through the camp.
The best way to minimize casualties was to remove
potential victims from the trap we meant to set.
And if we wanted to maximize the hours we had until
dawn, Zander and I had to get moving.
Betty was as comfy as we could make her behind the
wheel of her van. If we succeeded in flushing out the fetch, I
didn’t want her to be a sitting duck, so I left Flo and Bam-Bam
with her. Which had the side benefit of protecting Flo’s
designer boots from the mud. God forbid a pair of boots get
dirty.
Ida and Joan paired off, searching the outer perimeter in a
tight spiral that would lead them inward until they met up with
us at the lake. The hope was they would herd the fetch straight
to us or keep it from escaping. But it had proven slippery to
pin down. It was anyone’s guess if tonight would be a success.
All that was left was for me to activate my invisibility
charm and to hand Zander his disguise.
 “This is so embarrassing.” He tucked his charm into his
shirt pocket. “Mom better not take pictures.”
When he grimaced at his mom, already dreading this part,
she waved both hands at him with the vigor of windshield
wipers holding back a thunderstorm.
“Stop being a baby.”
“I thought that was the whole point,” he grumbled and
smacked his chest as magic rippled over him.
When the glamour finished settling, I was left staring
eleven years back into the past, and my throat hurt.
“Do not cry.” Ten-year-old Zander folded his arms over his
chest. “I mean it, Auntie.”
“Your little cheeks.” I couldn’t help but pinch them, even
though the glamour didn’t change how he felt. Just how he
looked. Which was adorable. “How I missed these.”
Aside from the fact he was the best man for the job, I had
chosen to regress Zander to our target age because Zeke bore a
passing resemblance to him despite the fact they weren’t blood
relatives.
When you go fishing with the aim to catch a big one, you
use proven bait, and Zeke had gotten bitten twice. On two
separate occasions. That told me the fetch found him tasty. Or,
as one of the youngest boys here, easy prey.
“Ugh.” He swatted at me. “You’re worse than Mom.”
A whirring noise told me Betty was lowering her window
as fast as she could stab the button.
“Awwwwwww.”
“Let’s go.” Zander gripped my arm and yanked me in the
opposite direction. “Right now.”
About to force him into a photo op for his mom, I spotted
Betty. She had one leg sticking out of the van, and Flo was
wrestling her into a headlock to prevent her from escaping.
“My baaaaaaaby.”
 “Um, yeah.” I kicked it into high gear. “We need to get
away from her before Flo loses her grip.”
The blast from the past was too much for his mom, and I
couldn’t say a thing about it when I was misty-eyed with
nostalgia too.
Darn kids.
They really do grow up too fast.
Once out of Betty’s line of sight, I slowed down to
preserve energy. “You ready for this?”
“Yeah.” He cut his eyes to me. “Fire or water?”
“Fire would be ideal, but Ricky has probably warned the
fetch off the direct approach.”
“It would be handy if the fetch saw me sitting by the fire,
tripped, and fell into it.”
“That creature was born of pain.” I frowned down at him.
“I won’t let it suffer more than it already has.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He ducked his head, flashing the thick
cowlicks he had when he was younger. “I’ll do better.”
“It’s hard to forgive what he did to your nephew, I know.
I’m not happy about it either. But there’s a proper way to put
him to rest, and that’s what we’ll do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sara, on the other hand, was in for a world of hurt if we
were right about the fetch’s identity. Shifters ruled themselves,
for the most part, and their laws were clear.
Justice by fang or claw.
As much as I wanted to pity her, I didn’t have much
sympathy left after seeing those boys in the infirmary.
“The pier.”
“What?” Jerked from my thoughts, I had to backtrack.
“Oh.” I thought about it. “Good idea.”
The pier provided Zander with protection on three sides in
the form of water. The fetch, if it proved aggressive, could be
flung into the lake to neutralize it. I didn’t want to unravel the
creature so crudely, but I wouldn’t risk Zander’s life for its
continued existence.
We approached the camp with caution, but the sleep spell
had done its job.
The ever-vigilant Ricky was passed out in his bobcat form,
purring in his sleep. No others were in sight. I figured they had
conked out in the mess hall playing cards. Putting them to
sleep wasn’t much different from any other night’s work for
them.
“Go sit.” I nudged Zander toward the end of the pier. “I’ll
wait at the tree line.”
With a nod, he walked off and got into position. I told
myself if Betty could let him do this, then I could too. I trusted
Zander to do as he was told, and he could take care of himself,
but seeing him as he was now…
Stop being a sentimental old fool.
Once I got in place, I watched him sit and dip his feet in
the water. He kicked his legs and began singing a camp song,
looking for all the world as if he were a boy enjoying sneaking
out after curfew. The noise in an otherwise silent camp was
guaranteed to draw the attention of anything still awake. And
the fetch would be, since the spell only worked on the living.
We didn’t know for sure the fetch crossed water, but the
nests indicated that was the case.
If we didn’t get a nibble here, we would just have to try
our charade on the other side.
Three hours later, I was about to bring Zander in for a
readjustment when a blur caught my eye.
A boy about Zeke’s age, though a good three inches taller,
exited the woods and walked onto the pier.
Ryan Camron.
Sometimes I hated being right.
“You told on me, Zeke.”
 “Yeah, well.” Zander remained seated and kept his back to
it. “You bit me.”
As we had hoped, the fetch couldn’t tell them apart from a
distance.
“You got me in trouble.” His gait slipped into a prowl.
“You made Mom cry.”
Zander turned then, watching Ryan approach. “I’m sorry
you got in trouble, but you’re not playing nice.”
“I can’t help it.” His voice lowered to a death rattle. “It
hurts.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hunger.” He clutched his stomach. “I have to eat, or I
get sick.”
The wind ruffled Zander’s hair, and the fetch jerked to a
halt, flaring its nostrils.
“You have to stop.” Slowly, Zander got to his feet. “Before
you kill someone.”
“You’re not Zeke.” A tremor worked through Ryan, and a
loud crack jolted me as he shot up another six inches.
“I know who you are too.” Zander watched the fetch for
his reaction. “I know what you are.”
“I’m just a boy.” His body popped, and he groaned.
“That’s who and what I am.”
“You’re not really Ryan.” Zander pushed the creature’s
buttons. “You’re a stick figure held together with magic.”
Then he took it one step too far. “Your mom doesn’t love you.
She loves her real son.”
“I am real.” Ryan shot up another foot, his clothes tearing
and skin shredding over a wooden frame. “Mom loves me. I’m
Ryan. Me.”
“Idiot boy,” I grumbled at Zander as I stepped onto the
sand. “Hey.” I dropped my spell as Ryan whirled toward me,
and his blue eyes flickered to fathomless black pools. “Leave
him alone.”
 The drone of a boat motor explained Zander’s aggressive
switch in tactics.
Sara was coming.
How she knew Ryan was in danger, I couldn’t say, but her
timing meant we had to accelerate our plan.
“Who are you?” He sniffed the air. “Witch.” He bared his
jagged teeth. “You can’t kill me.”
“I’m offering you a chance to be laid to rest. I’ll even let
you talk to your mom first.”
“Where is she?” He spun a tight circle. “What did you do
to her?”
“She’s safe.” I approached him. “You can’t keep feeding
on kids.”
“I have to do it.” His bones crackled as he put on another
foot in height. “Mom told me to.”
There was the confirmation I dreaded, but it shouldn’t
have surprised me. His mother had already broken natural law
by having the fetch created. What were more bent rules to
keep it that way?
“These kids were friends with the real Ryan. He wouldn’t
want you to harm them.”
“I am the real Ryan.”
“Ryan,” a panicked voice called across the water. “I’m
coming.”
“They came to take me away.” The creature pointed a
jagged finger at me. “That one’s a witch.”
“I won’t let them hurt you.” Sara bumped the pier hard
enough to shake it when she docked, and she didn’t bother
tying off but kept the rope in hand. “Come on, baby.” She
waved it closer. “Let’s go.”
“Mom, no. It’s summer. I want to be at camp.”
“I know.” She took a step closer, positioning her body
between Ryan and Zander. “But we can’t stay.”
 “I won’t hurt anyone else.” His shoulders hunched. “I’ll do
little sips, like you told me.”
“We both know he’s beyond that,” I appealed to Sara. “He
can’t control himself.”
“He can learn,” she all but begged me. “Give him a
chance.”
“He’s had his chance.” I couldn’t help the sympathy
threading through my voice. I thought I was made of sterner
stuff, but I must be going soft in my old age. “So have you.
You could have asked for help. You could have told the
parents. You could have protected the children in your charge.
You didn’t, and now there’s no undoing it. Not for him, and
not for you. It’s too late.”
“Why couldn’t you be happy with me sending Zeke
home?” Her scream was big-cat loud. “I let him go. I protected
him for Betty’s sake. Why couldn’t she let me have this? It
was just for three months. One last summer. Why did she have
to ruin everything?”
“You sent Zeke home to avoid getting caught, not for his
own good or hers.”
Had a week gone by without contact from Zeke, Maryna
would have led the charge to investigate.
“Ryan.” Fingers trembling, she held out her hand to the
fetch. “We have to hurry.”
The creature, now that it had shed its skin, was sloughing
off the last vestiges of the little boy as well.
“I’ll fix it,” Ryan promised her. “Then we can stay. I’ll
make it like it used to be.”
He charged Zander, but my spell had only tweaked
Zander’s appearance. It didn’t alter his mass. The fetch hit
him, and the unexpected impact with a man rather than a boy
sent it spinning back on its heels.
“Ryan,” Sara yelled, lunging for him. “Hold on.”
The creature stumbled and fell into the boat, but he didn’t
flail, and he didn’t panic.
 Almost as if…he was used to riding in the boat across the
water.
For that to be true, then we had to assume Sara had been
driving him over when he got the munchies.
Zander swooped in, ripped the rope from Sara’s hands, and
shoved the boat as far as his shifter strength allowed,
neutralizing the immediate threat. If Ryan attempted to climb
out, he would unravel himself in the process. From his pitiful
cries, I figured he knew it too.
Impact jarred my bones as Sara slammed into me, halfway
to a shift. Her teeth grew long in her mouth, and her nails
extended into claws. She attacked me as if I were the cause of
all this, as if my death would fix what had been broken.
Zander poised as if to come to my rescue, but I yelled at
him, “Keep that thing in the water.”
Drawing on the magic in my core, I jolted Sara with the
nastiest spell I could sling without burning out.
“He’s a child,” she lisped through her canines. “Leave him
alone.”
“He’s a predator.” I zapped her again. “Your grief is
fueling him as much as the children.”
A shot rang out, and Sara jerked against me before falling
to one side, twitching.
Clutching her thigh, Sara panted as blood spilled through
her fingers to wet the sand.
“Silver bullet,” Joan told her, brandishing Bam-Bam. “I
have more, but I would prefer not to use them.”
“That was a warning shot.” I knew the protocol for lethal
takedowns like the back of my hand. A single bullet could be
removed, if you acted quickly. Liquid silver? There was no
saving a shifter from that. “The next round is filled with silver
nitrate. You’ll be dead before anyone can help you.”
Tears poured down Sara’s cheeks, but I refused to be
moved by them. “What will you do to him?”
 “What you should have done.” I staggered to my feet.
“We’ll lay him to rest.”
I turned to check on Zander, who had gone into the water
to anchor the boat, and Sara dove for me.
Joan screamed a warning too late for me to react, and I hit
the ground with a sickening crunch.
Ida bolted out of the woods, Flo right beside her. They
carried a silver mesh net strung between them.
Wait a minute.
Flo?
What was she doing here? She was supposed to be with
Betty. Back at the parking lot.
“That’s my best friend.” A metallic thwack rang out. “Get
the hell away from her.”
Vision blurring as pain radiated through me, I squinted to
watch as Betty used her walker against Sara like a lion tamer
armed with only a stool.
I didn’t have much juice left, but I funneled what little I
had into the link I shared with Betty, who moved from defense
to offense, whacking Sara until the walker dented and
crumpled in her hands.
Between the silver and the brutal onslaught, Sara fell under
the blows, and the girls flung the net over her.
This time, she didn’t get back up again.
“That’s for Ellie.” Betty kicked Sara’s injured thigh. “And
this is for my Zeke.” She kicked her in the jaw hard enough
her neck popped, and her head fell limp. “And this—” she
threw the mangled scrap metal at me, “—is for scaring the piss
out of me.”
“What the hell?” I raised my arms over my head. “What’s
wrong with you?”
“I told you to invest in Depends.” Flo used a flick of her
magic to divert the walker from striking me while I was down.
Betty had a damn fine aim. One of the things I loved most
about her. “Women of a certain age do need assistance. It’s
nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Statistically,” Joan said, “seventy-five percent of women
over sixty-five experience leakage.”
While Joan regaled us with statistics that made us all glare
at Flo, I did my best to sit upright and assess the damage.
Broken rib was my guess. With a side order of cartilage
damage in my bad knee. Easy to fix, with enough magic, but
my tank was on empty. I got my feet under me with a hiss and
wobbled over to a tree for support.
Ida, ruling Betty the greater fall risk, rushed to wedge her
shoulder under Betty’s arm.
“I’ll wear diapers,” Betty snarled, clearly in pain, “the day
Flo retires her push-up bra.”
“You realize Vernon bought my breasts for our third
anniversary?”
Quick mental math told me that was two husbands ago, or
about twenty years. “Bad bet, Betty.”
“Bad Bet Betty.” Flo snickered as she caught her breath.
“That ought to be her nickname.”
“Only if you’ll agree to go by Fellatio Flo.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Flo cocked an eyebrow. “By
you, as a matter of fact. Your skill with insults is weakening
with your age, just like your mind.”
“Call the cleaners.” I reached in my pocket and withdrew
the cell. “Here, Betty, you can use my phone.”
Cleaners specialized in erasing signs of paranormal
activity. They swore oaths of impartiality and vowed to seek
justice for all supernatural factions. That was well and good,
but we had handled most of that on our own. However, they
were great for cleaning up messes made by paranormals before
humans caught wind of them.
“Oh.” She grunted when she leaned forward to catch it
after I threw it. “Figured it out, did you?”
 “After the pastor called to ask me out, yeah.” I wished I
had her aim. I would have smacked her between the eyes with
it. “I should have known when that phone kept working its
way into my hands it couldn’t have been Zander’s. He’s too
social media addicted. It couldn’t be yours either. You couldn’t
go that long without hunting Pokémon. Which left me with the
happy realization you bought it for me.”
“Sixty-six percent of the population exhibits symptoms of
nomophobia,” Joan told us. “Fear of being without your
phone.”
“What’s the plan for the fetch?” Flo handed Joan a lichen
off a tree to distract her. “We can’t just leave it out there.”
Now that we had all caught our breaths, and most of us
were mobile again, we had to finish this.
“Do you want to lay the fetch to rest?” I gave Sara the
choice. “I can tell you the words to speak.”
“Never.” She thrashed and kicked up sand. “I won’t lose
him too.”
“Your selfishness is what birthed him, and your greed is
what will cause this creature you’ve transferred your affection
onto to suffer. Is that what you want? Is that the kind of
mother you are?”
“Do the right thing,” Betty advised her. “It’s the least you
can do.”
“She’s right.” Ida gentled her tone. “You don’t want us to
end it for you.”
“Can I talk to him?” Sara’s voice trembled. “Can I see him,
one last time?”
I had made that offer to the fetch, so I owed it to Sara to
give her the same option.
“Zander,” I called out. “Can you bring him closer to
shore?”
Treading water, Zander frowned as he stared over the edge
of the boat.
 “Zander?” Betty tried to rise, but she couldn’t make it up
without her walker. “What’s wrong?”
“Ryan?” Zander reached in and shook the creature. “Can
you hear me?”
“Did he get wet?” I straightened from my lean. “I didn’t
see—”
The fetch sprang into action, gripping Zander by the throat
and thrusting his head under the water.
Contact with the lake should have dissolved the fetch, but
he had fed too well to crumble quickly.
“My boy.” Betty fell sideways, banging her hip, and began
crawling. “Zan.”
Scrambling, Ida latched her arms around Betty and held
her down to keep her out of the water.
Flo, the fittest of us, pulled her dress over her head to
reveal a bikini about the size of a postage stamp. I had to
admit, she made it look good, but who wore a stealth bikini
under their clothes? Did she have a secret lifeguard fetish? Did
her husband?
And more pressing, had I lost so much blood I was woozy
enough to wonder either way?
“I’ve got this.” She ran to the end of the pier and dove in
with perfect form, surfacing beside the boat. “I had my hair
done yesterday, Fetch. Do you know how much that costs?
How hard it is to book appointments with Enrique?” She
produced a machete from lord knows where, I prayed from a
thigh holster I hadn’t noticed, and chopped off the fetch’s arm.
“I ought to bill your mother for damages.”
A gurgling roar stood my hair on end as Zander breached
the surface in his bear form. He dug his claws into the
fiberglass shell and threw a back leg over the side. He was too
much bear, and it was too little boat. It tipped too far and
dumped the fetch in the water where it sank as if rocks were
tied to its ankles.
 Expecting an outcry from Sara, I pivoted to check on her
but found her staring through clouded eyes.
“The bullet—?” Joan fretted, checking my gun. “Did I use
the wrong one?”
“Doubtful,” Flo murmured. “You’re not one to make
mistakes.”
Wary Sara might be playing possum like her son, I
checked her pulse. “She’s dead.”
The bullet wound alone wouldn’t have killed her, and even
with silver slowing her healing abilities, she could have
repaired the damage from the beating Betty gave her. There
was always a possibility a health condition sped things along,
but I had my doubts.
“Zander?” I pivoted toward the water. “Can you locate the
remains?”
The rumble in his chest was a clear indication he didn’t
want to go diving for it, but he did.
He was a good boy, that one.
A few minutes later, he dragged up what could have been a
rotting log and dropped it at my feet.
Within the tangle of twine and twig gleamed a white bone.
A rib. I pried it out and tossed it to Zander.
“Does it smell like Sara?”
After a few sniffs, he bobbed his head then lumbered off to
the trees where he would shift.
A bone-deep link to the fetch would explain how Sara
knew when to speed to his rescue.
“She offered a piece of herself to animate it.” I finally
understood what had made it different, how it had existed
without Ryan as its anchor. Sara had provided the link herself.
“One couldn’t survive without the other. They were connected.
That’s why it lasted this long.”
“Stop right there.” Ricky jogged from the trees, baseball
bat in hand. “I’ve already called the police…”
 “No,” Betty countered, voice tight, “you didn’t.”
“Ms. Betty?” He lowered his weapon. “What are you
doing here?” He stepped forward. “Is that…?”
“Sara.” I waited until Zander slipped up behind Ricky,
naked as the day he was born, before questioning him. “And
her son, the fetch.”
“A fetch,” he breathed, the bat thunking onto the sand as it
fell from his limp fingers. “I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough.” I locked gazes with him. “You
wanted to tell the parents their kids were in danger.”
“How did you find out?” He touched his lips, and his eyes
widened on me. “We couldn’t tell anyone.”
“What prevented you?” Flo honed her scowl on him. “Fear
of losing your job?”
“We sign contracts to work the summer,” he explained, his
voice stilted as if he expected the words to dry up any minute.
“It’s always the same one. In the ten years I’ve worked here,
not one single word has changed.” He flushed bright red. “I
didn’t read it this year. I never do. I just signed it. We all did.”
I could see where this was going. Nowhere good. But at
least it restored my faith in the counselors.
Well, some of them anyway.
“We didn’t know anything was wrong until Zeke got hurt,”
Ricky explained. “He was the first victim. The run-in with—
the fetch?—scared him so badly he shifted and got stuck. I
tried to call his parents, and you too, Ms. Betty, but I couldn’t
touch a phone without blacking out. When I used paper to
write a letter, my fingers curled into fists too tight to hold a
pen. I even walked to town, or I tried to. I only got as far as the
road before I got so sick I might have died if Andrew hadn’t
come looking for me.”
“You went to Sara with the problem,” I surmised. “How
did she explain it?”
“She was honest.” He laughed miserably. “She paid a
black witch to enchant the contracts. The spell took our
agreement to work for Mudskipper as a binding agreement to
obey Sara’s word as law. For three months, she had absolute
control over us.”
Behind him, Zander inhaled then shot me a thumbs-up to
say he could smell the black magic on him.
No wonder the scent had been so faint. Ricky was the only
counselor we encountered nightly, and he was drenched in
woodsmoke. I could smell it all the way over here.
“She didn’t want you telling the parents their kids were in
danger. If they took their children, the fetch would have to
hunt somewhere else, and that wasn’t the goodbye Sara
wanted with Ryan.” I appraised him. “You were the only one
still fighting. What was the blowback if you found a way
around the spell?”
“Death.” He swallowed hard. “A slow, painful one.”
“What was your workaround?” I recalled his determination
to do it. “You seemed certain you had one.”
“After my failed attempt walking into town, I decided to
get hit by a passing car dressed in my Mudskipper sweats to
draw attention to the camp.”
“That’s a rather grim solution,” Flo observed. “You would
die for children who aren’t your own?”
“I’ve watched these kids grow up, summer after summer.
It’s my job to protect them, so yeah. I’m willing to go to
extremes to keep them safe.” He laughed softly. “There was
always a chance I would survive a crash but still accomplish
my goal, so don’t pin a medal on my chest just yet.”
That explained why he gave the other counselors another
week. He was working up his nerve.
Maybe he and Zander had more in common than I first
thought.
“Round up the other counselors then start calling parents.”
It was the middle of the night, and they wouldn’t care one
whit after they heard the whole story.
 “It’s going to be a long night.” Ida swatted a mosquito. “I
hope they have coffee in the mess hall.”
“Depending on the season—” Joan began, but Ida hauled
her off toward camp before she finished.
“I better go supervise.” Flo shuddered when a frog sang
from nearby. “Indoors.”
“Send someone down with clothes for Zander,” I called
after them, but Ricky was ahead of me.
He ran shorts and a tee down to Zander and tossed them to
him before returning to camp.
“Zander, take your mom home.” I could read pain etched
into every line of her face. “She needs rest.”
“And drugs,” she agreed. “Probably another whisky
wouldn’t hurt either.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Zander swooped in to give me a hug.
“Thanks, Auntie.”
“Anytime, sweet boy.” I kissed his cheek. “Now hurry up
and get her gone before the pain clears enough for her to
realize she’s acting reasonably.”
Chucking under his breath, he lifted his mother and carried
her off in the direction of the parking lot.
Meanwhile, I ambled over to steal her stump so I could
rest my weary bones until the cleaners got here.
Then I would go home, soak in an Epsom salt bath, slather
on Bengay like body lotion, and pass out on a heating pad in
my recliner.
 C H A P T E R T W E LV E

O ne week later.

“Y OU CAN ’ T PLANT THEM THAT CLOSE , E LLIE ,” B ETTY HARPED

from the plush leather seat of her gleaming orange scooter, a
massive upgrade from the smashed walker she had to trash.
“They’ll strangle each other.”
With Zeke back on two legs, and the full extent of Sara’s
betrayal revealed, Maryna was grateful.
Gifts were the currency of affection Maryna understood
best, so Betty accepted the token with grace.
“I can sympathize,” I muttered, continuing to stake beans
in the church garden.
The swing and clap of the gate followed by harried
footsteps announced Joan better than any words.
“He’s coming,” she warned, purse sliding down her
shoulder. “He’s just left the house.”
“This ought to be interesting.” Flo lounged in a folding
chair beneath an umbrella, watching me plant the fruits and
veggies sponsored by her fundraiser. “I should have brought
popcorn.”
“Flo,” Ida warned, tugging her frilly gloves straight. “Be
kind.”
“Why bother? You’re stuck with me. We’re a lattice.” She
snorted. “I could seduce your husbands while they’re in bed
beside you, and you couldn’t raise a hand to me if you wanted
to practice magic again.”
“Half our husbands are dead,” I pointed out. “If they’re
sleeping in bed with us, we’ve got bigger problems than your
apparent necrophilia.”
“The other half were smart enough not to marry.” Betty
chortled. “You don’t have to seduce a vibrator, Flo. You can
buy your own, but if you must take mine, do us both a favor
and keep it.”
“Ladies,” Pastor Joe said, clasping his hands. “The garden
is looking lovely.”
“Thank you,” Flo demurred. “It’s been hours of hard
supervision, but I believe we’re on the right path.”
“Yes.” Ida smoothed a wrinkle from her dress. “We’d be
absolutely lost without Flo’s oversight.”
The pastor glanced between us, as if to find the joke, then
settled his gaze on me.
“Ellie?” He had the nerve to twinkle his eyes at me. “Can I
have a minute of your time?”
“More than sixty seconds, and I’ll have to start charging by
the minute.”
Betty’s mouth popped open, and I could read the joke
about phone sex operators written in the air above her head
like a highway billboard, but Flo hurled an ice cube that
bounced off her cheek and interrupted her train of thought.
Eager to take this conversation out of the coven’s earshot, I
rose and walked with him down the path.
“I wanted to apologize for my forwardness the other day.”
He linked his hands behind his back. “I didn’t mean to offend
you.”
Given the tangle of the last few days, I had to wait for his
meaning to crystalize in my thoughts.
“Oh. The date thing. You asking me out.”
“Yes.” His chuckle flushed his cheeks. “That.”
 “I like you, Joe, so I’ll tell you straight. I loved my
husband more than anything in this world. He’s been gone five
years, but it feels like he’s still there when I get home at
night.” I found the truth came easier to me than a lie. “I can’t
move on until that feeling passes.”
“I understand.” He lifted his left hand, his wedding band
glinting. “I loved my Annie the same way, but…”
I waited, curious about his caveat.
“I miss a woman’s company.”
Ah. That. So much for originality. “You mean sex.”
“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not like that. I’m a
man, so, yes, but no.”
“So you don’t want to have sex with me.”
“No.” He turned five shades of red. “I mean, I—”
“How about this? If you get lonely, you can call me. If you
get a spare ticket to an event, I’ll go with you. If you need a
friend, I’m there. As long as you understand this relationship
will be platonic.”
“What if that changes?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
“It won’t.”
“Okay.” He cracked a smile. “Here’s to friendship.” He
stuck out his arm. “And to you joining me for the MMA match
in Birmingham.”
“Wait.” I already had my hand in his before I registered my
misstep. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“Yes, you did. Just now.” He leaned in to buss my cheek.
“We’ll stop for a friendly dinner on the way.”
“Um,” I said eloquently.
“See you in church.” He tossed a wave and left with a
spring in his step. “Afternoon, ladies.”
 I wasn’t quite sure how the situation had spun out of
control so fast, and my friends didn’t give me time to wonder.
They rushed me, convincing me they used a spell to eavesdrop
since our hearing was universally garbage.
“Well, well, well.” Flo touched up her lipstick with a
pocket mirror. “Look who’s got a boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a—” I refused to add fuel to the fire. “It’s one
date.”
“A date.” Ida clapped her hands. “How exciting.”
“Not a date. That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
“Will you bring Wally?” Joan killed the mood, and
everyone glared at her. “What? He likes MMA too.”
“You can’t bring your dead husband on a date with another
man,” Ida said gently. “It’s just not done.”
“Oh.” Joan pondered this. “Okay.”
“Are you going to tell Wally?” Betty couldn’t help but
poke the wound. “We’ll cover for you if you want.”
“I tell him everything.” I pivoted back toward the garden.
“We have no secrets between us.”
Wally and I were like the hook and loop on Velcro. One
made no sense without the other.
And if it took following my husband’s advice to go on a
date with Pastor Joe to prove it, so be it.
 JOIN THE TEAM

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today best-selling author Hailey Edwards writes about questionable

applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love,
the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at
once. That could get messy.
www.HaileyEdwards.net
A L S O B Y H A I LEY   E DWA R D S
Black Hat Bureau
Black Hat, White Witch #1
Black Arts, White Craft #2
Black Truth, White Lies #3
Black Soul, White Heart #3.5
Black Wings, Gray Skies #4
Gray Witch #5
Gray Tidings #6
Gray Court #7
Yard Birds
Crazy as a Loon #1
The Foundling
Bayou Born #1
Bone Driven #2
Death Knell #3
Rise Against #4
End Game #5
The Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy
How to Save an Undead Life #1
How to Claim an Undead Soul #2
How to Break an Undead Heart #3
How to Dance an Undead Waltz #4
How to Live an Undead Lie #5
How to Wake an Undead City #6
How to Kiss an Undead Bride #7
How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon #8
How to Rattle an Undead Couple #9
The Potentate of Atlanta
Shadow of Doubt #1
Pack of Lies #2
Change of Heart #3
Proof of Life #4
Moment of Truth #5
Badge of Honor #6
Black Dog Series
 Dog with a Bone #1
Dog Days of Summer #1.5
Heir of the Dog #2
Lie Down with Dogs #3
Old Dog, New Tricks #4
Black Dog Series Novellas
Stone-Cold Fox
Gemini Series
Dead in the Water #1
Head Above Water #2
Hell or High Water #3
Gemini Series Novellas
Fish Out of Water
Lorimar Pack Series
Promise the Moon #1
Wolf at the Door #2
Over the Moon #3
Araneae Nation

A Heart of Ice #.5

A Hint of Frost #1
A Feast of Souls #2
A Cast of Shadows #2.5
A Time of Dying #3
A Kiss of Venom #3.5
A Breath of Winter #4
A Veil of Secrets #5

Daughters of Askara

Everlong #1
Evermine #2
Eversworn #3

Wicked Kin
Soul Weaver #1