“Tell me your woes first, honey girl,” she said, waving a hand at me to go on.

I took a breath and gathered my thoughts. “Someone attacked a half-man for his fur about six months ago, then two months later his blood, and now they are still hunting him which can only mean they want his death. I have to keep him safe. And I think maybe they are using demons?” That was a stretch there because I wasn’t sure, but running into two demons in one day, I wasn’t going to discount it, especially since the chains of one had been on Eric’s property. Really, it made no sense to me as to why a demon would be after a half-man when it was obvious that a person with a gun was shooting at Eric. But I wasn’t as familiar with the shadow world of Savannah as Gran had been, and where the intricacies would lie.

She tapped a finger against her chin while holding her elbow with the other hand. Classic Gran thinking pose.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“The demons have chains of some sort with them.”

“What kind of metal?”

I grimaced. “You want me to guess?”

She shot me a sharp glance. “No, as good as you are at that, I think this is not the time for guesses.”

I thought about the chains left behind by the demon at Crash’s place. “I can find out.”

She nodded. “That will help pin down what is happening, and it’ll give me time to think on it. Without my book, I . . . well, it’s nothing.”

I grinned. “The red leather book? I have it! I bought it on Death Row!”

She clapped her hands together. Okay, she made the motion and my brain supplied the sound that should have issued from her hands. “Excellent. Bring it here tonight, we need it.”

I could do that. “Midnight, or the witching hour?”

“Just before midnight, please.” Her body faded a little more. “Without the house being occupied, I’m drifting, honey girl. My thoughts are not as clear, and my memories are not as sharp as when I was alive. I’m afraid—”

We were interrupted by Eric coming up the stairs. “I think maybe someone found us, I heard voices and feet on the stairs.”

“Get in here.” I grabbed him and dragged him into the bedroom. “Gran?”

“The closet. I don’t think the realtor knows about it.” She pointed at the closet I used to play in as a child. There was a sliding panel within it that led to a secret room. A tiny one. I didn’t know how both Eric and I would fit in there, but we didn’t have a choice.

I pushed him in first, and there was really no room left for me unless we got nice and cozy. “Don’t get any ideas,” I whispered as I climbed pretty much on top of him, squeezing my legs around his hips, and slid the panel shut behind us. He gave a squeak because he ended up grabbing my butt when I slipped, and he had to grab me, so I didn’t bash backward into the door. We were truly in an awkward position should anyone find us there.

The sound of our breathing was loud in the dark, and I could smell Eric’s last meal. It had included fish and garlic.

“Quiet.” I kept my voice pitched low as other voices curled toward us from downstairs, getting closer. Not being found was rather important at the moment. Were they the ones looking for Eric?

Crap, I didn’t know if I could defend him properly. So far it had been more about luck and timing.

Monica’s voice floated up through the house, no doubt as they climbed the first set of stairs. For just a moment, I relaxed. The realtor we could deal with. If it had been demons or one of the other Hollows members, we would have been screwed. Funny how I put the Hollows group into the untrusted . . . or maybe not, considering Joe.

“Yes, of course, I understand that you don’t like the idea of the house going to auction, but Mr. Walker, let me assure you that it will go for a much higher price,” she cooed. “More money for both of us.”

Himself’s voice was hard, exactly as I remembered it when I woke up at night alternately hating him and cursing myself for loving him. “I understand that, but the longer we wait, the more time my ex-wife has to figure out a way around the court order. She’s a sneaky cow like that.”

I froze in place, my body both freezing cold and burning at the same time as I involuntarily gripped Eric harder. He whimpered.

“Miserable piece of—,” I growled. Duck, duck, duck. God, I hated him!

“Who is it?” Eric’s hands were huge and held my butt easily, but he was nervous. I could feel him shaking every place we touched, the heat flowing off his hands was crazy—like being pressed up to a furnace.

“My ex-husband is out there, trying to get more money out of my gran’s house.” I fought not to snarl the words. Eric’s life was on the line and I couldn’t just blow that because Himself was walking through the house that was by rights mine.

“You’re squeezing me,” Eric whispered. “Like, very hard, I can barely breathe.”

I forced my legs to relax as the voices moved away from Gran’s room. I let myself slide off Eric and then pushed the sliding door open. A bit of fresh air was not a bad thing and I needed to clear my head.

“I’d put a hex on him if I could,” Gran said. “Little twerp. Steal my house and sell it, will he?”

I glanced at her and noticed that Eric did too. “You can see her?”

“I’m something of a ghost myself—depending on who you ask— so I can see her,” he said quietly. “It’s one of my abilities.”

“But you’re solid, not a ghost,” I said, letting myself be distracted by Eric’s quiet voice.

He shrugged. “Not everyone can see me, Breena. Even in my human form, I can slip by unnoticed. You didn’t see me at the graveyard gate until you whispered your prayer of seeing.”

“Oh,” Gran cooed, “you remembered.”

Himself’s voice rose, cutting them both off. “Do the auction this weekend. Put a reserve on it of four hundred thousand.”

Monica gasped. “That’s very low for the current market.”

“I want it gone, and I want the money,” Himself said. “Are you telling me you aren’t able to sell it? I’ll get someone else then.”

What an ass. He’d pulled that crap with me more than once. Ask a question and then pull the rug out from under you before you had a chance to answer.

She sucked in a sharp enough breath that it echoed through the house and then she quickly back-pedaled. “No, no, I can sell it. We’ll do it on Sunday. That’s a good day. I’ll start distributing flyers now. I have a couple leads already.”

“Good. That’s more like it.”

Gawd in heaven, I wanted to smack his face on her behalf for the condescension in his voice. I clenched my hands, fingers curling into tight fists.

“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” Gran said. “He will.”

The door downstairs clicked shut and I wanted nothing more than to run down there and push Himself down the stairs. Forget hexing him, I’d settle for watching him die on the steps. Slowly. In a great deal of pain.

So yeah, I wasn’t so much of a nice girl, after all. I moved to the window and peeked around the edge to watch Monica and Himself go down the path. He was taller than me by a few inches, closing in on six feet, slim with a potbelly-dad body going on. If you didn’t look at him sideways and didn’t realize that he wasn’t a dad, you’d think that he was in shape. Balding on top, he often wore a cap of some sort to hide the spot. Clean-shaven as always, he wore his sports jacket and jeans with crisp lines ironed into them.

He turned back toward the house, and I shifted so my profile was out of the window frame view, but I could still see him. He squinted at the house and then smiled, a slow smile that said it all. He thought he had me.

We’d see about that.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” I backed up from the window. “Eric, you stay here with Gran. That will give her the energy to stay with us, right?” I glanced at Gran and noticed that she was looking more solid already. She gave me a quick nod.

“Lots of energy comes off a half-man like this one. Plenty extra for me to draw on.”

Eric’s big shoulders slumped. “They’ll find me.”

“Not right away,” I said. “I’m going to find a set of those chains, grab my gran’s book, and head back here so we can figure this out.”

Eric cleared his throat. “Maybe could you bring some food too?”

I didn’t have a lot of extra cash, but I nodded. “Chicken?”

He gave me a grin. “Extra crispy.”

Of course he wanted extra crispy. I hurried down the steps, feeling a strange sense of euphoria even though I should have been scared, tired, frustrated. Gran floated in front of me when I went to the door.

“I want an apology,” she said, lifting her chin and crossing her arms. Petite she might be, and a ghost, but she could still stop me in my tracks like I was twelve years old again.

“Apology?” Maybe I could play dumb.

Her scowl deepened and I turned away from her and headed toward the back door. “Gran, I’m in a hurry, can we discuss this later?”

“There might not be a later if he sells this house,” she said, and a cold whisper rushed through me as she literally pushed her way through me to get in front of me once more. I stopped and sighed.

“You were right. I was wrong, okay? Is that what you want to hear?” I put my hands on my hips. “Can I go now?”

Again, she folded her arms and stared me down. “You aren’t a child, you’re a grown woman, and you need to own up to your mistake.”

I closed my eyes a moment to compose myself. “Gran, do you blame me? I was trying to make a life with a man who had never been around anything more spiritual than watching his favorite sports team win a game. What was I supposed to do when he stuck me in the psych ward?

“Every doctor he talked to said I was delusional, and that the best thing for me was to never come back to Savannah. That’s why I never came home. And yes, I let him convince me that everything I’d seen, everything you’d taught me growing up was just a fantasy. I wish I hadn’t. But I . . . I loved him.” I shrugged and spilled a truth I didn’t like, but this was Gran, and so I could tell her now, even if I hadn’t been able to tell her when she was still alive. “And I thought no one else would ever love me.”