Gran nodded. “There’s my smart girl. Get the wolf. Bring him here.”

I dialed through to Sarge and got nothing, so I swallowed my pride and tried Corb. Nothing there either. I went to make another call and my phone died in my hand, like the battery literally went from eighty percent to nothing.

Gran leaned over my shoulder. “Oops. That was my fault.”

I grimaced. “Let me guess. There’s no power to the house right now either, is there?”

“No, or I’d have been using that to keep myself together.”

I hurried down the steps, pausing at the bottom, a possible solution coming to me. “Is that old bike still in the root cellar?”

And that’s how I ended up riding a bike first to the loft—where no one was, but I grabbed Gran’s book and stuffed it in my bag, then plugged the phone in and tried a few more numbers. None of the numbers programmed into the phone rang through. Not Tom’s, not Louis’s, none of them.

“Not good, this is not good,” I whispered. I had no choice but to ride out all the way to the Hollows. Not on a hog like Sarge’s lovely Harley, but a pedal bike that looked like the last person who’d ridden it was Dorothy in the middle of her tornado episode.

I pedaled hard through the streets of Savannah, going for all I was worth. I was still the same forty-one-year-old with extra weight, serious self-worth issues, and the worry that I was speeding my way toward an early grave, but something important was keeping me going.

I was Eric’s only hope of survival. For the first time in I don’t know how long I had a purpose beyond just putting one foot in front of the other.

I pedaled harder, and within an hour, I was at the gates of the graveyard. I checked the position of the sun, marked it in my mind to be close to high noon. Graveyard magic would happen closer to midnight. I had time. I had to believe I had time.

I had twelve hours to find Eric and stop whatever was coming for him.

No problem. I pushed the gates open, and there was Robert waiting at the gravestone, tapping his long skeletal fingers across the top. “Hey, Robert.” I was totally out of breath and huffing hard, but he didn’t care.

“Friend.”

I didn’t stop to chat, just hopped back on the bike and hurried my way through to the entrance of the entrance. Yes, I know—I said it twice, but my head couldn’t come up with another description.

I’m going to blame it on my age.

The opening was open (damn, my brain!) and I braked to a gliding stop, hopped off the bike, and peered down into the tomb under the weeping angel with the broken wing. The flame in his hand was out.

“Eammon?” I called down into the darkness. A groan answered me. I pulled both my knives, clutching them with sweating palms, and hurried down the steps as carefully as I could. The last thing I needed was to tumble all the way down on my ass.

No extra swelling needed there after that bike ride.

At the bottom of the steps the light that flickered was in the middle of the room, a single fire lit, and a pile of weapons thrown into it.

Another groan and I did a slow turn. “Eammon?”

“Lass?”

His voice was broken and sounded wet, which couldn’t be a good sign. I found him under a plank of wood. I put both weapons down and pushed the wood off him. “What happened?”

“Crash came here looking for you,” he whisper-groaned. “You shouldn’t have taken something from him. He’s madder than a gator with a sore tooth.”

“I’m not sorry,” I said as I helped him sit up.

Eammon shot me a look. “No? He killed the other trainees. I couldn’t help them, all there was, was screaming.”

Horror, ice and fire, roared through my veins. “What about the other teachers?”

“Tom and Louis are out of town. I went down in the first explosion of magic. Sarge fought him off, chased him out of the crypt. No idea where Corb is, he was on his way back from a job that took him to the edge of Savannah.” Eammon coughed again, and when I moved to help him, he pushed my hand away. “You’ve caused enough harm.”

I stood and stumbled away from him, forcing my feet to bring me to where the other trainees lay strewn about. Their bodies were still, but I saw chests rising and falling. Triage, we needed triage.

Luke was closest to me, and his body was curled around something. I bent and touched his shoulder, tentatively. Bite wounds covered him. Big bite wounds from an animal with a long muzzle and huge teeth. What the hell was Crash? I turned Luke over, and his eyes stared up at mine, amber gold. And he mouthed one word. A name.

“Sarge.”

He shuddered and convulsed under my hand, froth foaming his mouth. One of the other trainees groaned and rolled—Chad by the looks of it. “He’s alive!” I yelled. “Eammon, he needs help! They all do!”

A hand on my shoulder all but threw me backward, and I found myself staring up into Corb’s very angry eyes. “This is your fault. We lost four good people, all because of you.”

I slid backward, feeling the weight of his words like blows, but I pulled myself together. “They aren’t dead. And I didn’t do this.” Crash had, or so Eammon had said, but he hadn’t seen Crash. Only assumed. I trusted Luke’s word over his that Sarge had something to do with this.

“Yeah? Well, why did he do it? What did you take from him?” Corb pushed me backward with his size and all the anger flowing through him. His hand went to the gun at his side, and he pulled it from its holster. “Give it to me. Give me the knife. I know you have it.”

I swallowed hard, looking at Luke as he trembled under the weight of what was happening to him. Sarge had done this to him. He’d changed him.

There was no way Corb would believe me. He and Sarge were buddies. But maybe I could get him to believe something else.

“I don’t have it with me.” How the hell did he know it was a knife if Crash hadn’t been here causing this mess? Crash would have come in, yelling for the knife. Trashing the place. I knew he was strong enough, he’d thrown me across the room like I weighed nothing.

“Then you’d better get it and bring it to me. Maybe I can salvage this with Crash. We do not need him pissed off at us.” He picked me up by one arm and pushed me toward the stairs. “You’re worse than Alan said. You aren’t just chaos, you’re stupidity incarnate.”

I stumbled up the steps and grabbed the bike.

Corb’s words stung like blows to my body, and I shook as I walked my bike back through the graveyard. He agreed with Alan.

And every insecurity, every time Himself had said he’d been embarrassed by me came rushing back, dropping me to my knees. I put my hands over my face to block out the light, to breathe through the pain washing over me. Too old. Too out of shape. A woman. A joke. Had I been a joke to Eammon and the others all along? I swallowed hard as a burning core of anger cut through the pain.

“I am not a joke.” I all but growled the words. I’d prove it to them if it killed me in the process. Eric needed me, which meant I had to pull my bigger than average big girl panties up, and get the job done.

I wiped my face of the tears I hadn’t meant to cry. Robert swayed next to me and I looked at him. “Sarge had something to do with this. So, I can’t use him to track Eric. And Corb would never believe me now.” Yeah, that stung. Robert swayed a little faster.

I pushed to my feet. Eammon was out too, seeing as I was his number one on the “You’re an idiot” list.

Who did I have left in my arsenal to help?

“Not Feish,” I muttered. She worked for Crash and was afraid of him.

Crash was definitely out, seeing as he could very well be the bad guy here. Damn it, I had to be honest, he was the bad guy. He’d made this knife.

Who was there left that I knew? Not Hattie, she was too timid, and I didn’t want to get her killed.

I groaned and flexed my hand, feeling the spines of hairy legs stuck into me again as if they were still there. If Jinx was truly a trickster, and a shape shifter, maybe I could get her to play a trick on someone if I played my cards right. A plan formed in my mind, and I started forward again. Beaten down I might be, but I was not beaten.

Not yet.

Turning my bike around, I began the long trek back to Savannah and Factors Row. “Robert, you want to come with me?” I asked as I passed the skeleton swaying against one of the still-standing gravestones.

“Yessss.” He stepped toward me and then crumpled into nothing. Well, nothing but a single bone that looked like a finger bone to me. I bent and scooped it up and tucked it into my bag. I was guessing, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Maybe I needed to get bopped in the head again.

Scratch that, I did not need another smack in the head.

An hour later, I coasted into Savannah and headed for the part of River Street with all the tourists. I was going to start there. I had an idea. Maybe not my best idea, but I suspected if I did things just right, it would work. I hoped it would work.

I headed for a used bookstore at the edge of the tourist strip. I stumbled into the store, dragging my bike with me. “Excuse me, you can’t bring your bike in here.”

The man at the front desk looked me up and down and tried to wave me out. I glared back at him. “I need a specific book, and I need it now before I lose what is left of my sanity which would result in me making quite the scene in here.”

His jaw snapped shut and he blinked at me a few times. “What book is that?”

“Charlotte’s Web.”

“Oh, we have several copies.” He motioned for me to follow him as he stepped around his desk. I propped my bike against the desk and hurried after him as best I could. The exhaustion of the day was catching up to me.

I really was too old for this shit. Lethal Weapon, in case you were wondering.

He stopped at the back of the store and pointed to a stack of books. “I have several copies somewhere in there.”

I put my arm out as he moved to go by me. “Let me make myself clear. I’m in a hurry, and I’d bet the tourists would not like to see me have a meltdown in here, maybe push a few of these stacks over?” I put my other hand on the tall bookshelf to my left. “Maybe you should help me find the book, and then I can leave, and we can both be happy. M’kay?”