“Nooooo.”

“Great.”

Of course, that was when the interview took an unexpected turn.

3

As if I weren’t already surrounded by ample evidence of the shadow world’s existence—graveyard after dark in Savannah, Georgia, check; skeleton companion, check; fog creeping around my bare legs, check—a howl split the air, shattering the stillness.

I jumped; I’ll admit it. Robert flattened himself to the ground in a way that was not natural and he . . . he freaking skittered away like a bug.

“Robert!” I snapped his name and he froze. “Don’t you dare leave me! I gave you a chocolate bar!”

Robert trembled and said one word. “Wolf.”

Wolf. Oh crap.

“Okay, go, go!” I yelled.

Wolves were just big dogs, right? And big dogs were something I knew. Dog groomer by day, part-time law clerk at night, helping Himself with his cases because he was too cheap to hire someone . . . never mind, that was beside the point.

I could do this. I dealt with bad dogs all day, every day.

Another howl cut through the fog and I blew out a breath. “Think, Bree, think!”

I needed something to use as . . . “A muzzle,” I whispered. I yanked my bag off my back and dumped the contents onto the ground. The bag was mid-sized, leather, and had two long handles for carrying crossbody. You know, to keep the thugs from running off with it. We old ladies thought about things like that—muggers and thieves on every corner, if you’d asked my gran.

And, apparently, now me.

I shook it off. If I could catch the bag around the muzzle of one of the wolves, maybe . . . that would be enough.

“Crazy. You’re crazy,” I whispered to myself. And maybe I was a bit crazy. Maybe Himself had been right about me all along. Or maybe, just maybe, I was all out of ducks to give. My girlfriend, Mavis, had given me a happy divorce day card before I left Seattle. On it was a saying that had quickly become my mantra.

Behold, the field in which I grow my ducks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren. Autocorrect might like it to be ducks, but we all know it wasn’t a row of quacking fowl.

I started forward again, the purse hanging at my side in one hand, flashlight in the other.

I could almost see Corb’s smug smile as he said I wasn’t going to make it through the interview.

“Maybe he’s right, maybe I’m too old for this shit.”

A snarl to my right spun me around, bringing me face to face with a wolf that was no wolf. More like a damn bear. Its eyes were level with mine, and I stood a respectable five foot eight. The bright amber eyes narrowed as they took me in, dipping to look at the purse before settling back on my face. They shone with amusement, making it very clear that this wolf was laughing at me.

That was a solid no from me, thank you very much. “Robert, take him from behind!”

Now here’s where things got weird. I mean, weirder, let’s be honest, it was already as weird as Al Yankovic.

The wolf spun as if it knew what I was saying. Of course it did. It wasn’t a wolf any more than Robert was a person.

This was my chance.

Be bold? How about jumping on the back of a big ol’ wolf bold?

I scrambled up on a tombstone that crumbled under me as I used it as a launch pad, literally throwing myself across the back of the wolf. It stiffened under me and I clamped down with my legs. It had been a long time since I’d ridden a horse, but the theory was the same in my madly scrambling mind.

Get on, clamp your thighs for all you were worth and grab the reins. I swung the purse forward and, miracle of miracles, caught the opening over the nose of the wolf. Just like a muzzle.

Its body flexed under me as I squeezed for all I was worth and pulled the “reins” back hard enough to tuck its head tightly to its chest. “No eating the interviewees!” I yelled as the wolf twisted hard to the left, throwing me part way down its side, hanging there like a stunt rider. I still had the “reins” and I held them as taut as I could, keeping the wolf muzzled, and me barely still on its back. Its fur was black and mottled gray and smelled like a swamp of stagnant water and rotting something.

“Gawd in heaven, you stink! You need a groomer!” I yelped as it twisted again, that giant head swinging my way which threw me upright on top of its back once again. From behind it, I saw movement. A side-to-side, swaying shuffle moving in our direction.

“Robert! Grab him by the ear!” I yelled.

Ears were sensitive on dogs—they had to be sensitive on wolves too. The wolf didn’t move this time. Maybe it thought I was bluffing.

But in a flash Robert was on its ear, tearing at it, the sound like a thick sheaf of wet paper being pulled in half.

Robert ripped the ear off as easy as if it were paper, and then ate it.

The wolf howled and swung its head hard toward Robert, which sent the skeleton flying through the air. My purse and the wolf disappeared into the fog, the sound of its whimpering fading into nothing after a few frantic heartbeats.

I grabbed for the edge of the gravestone closest to me, clinging to it as I stared at Robert pulling himself up from the ground. “You ate his ear.” I mean, saying he ate it is relative, seeing as the tuft of ear was on the ground, having passed through his skeletal guts the way the chocolate bar had.

I could barely speak, my heart was racing, and sweat covered every part of me, down my spine and right into my butt crack where I was sure it was pooling. Legs shaking, I slid down the side of the tombstone. “Robert?”

“Help. Friend,” he muttered and then did that weird swaying, if not quite as fast.

“Thanks,” I whispered, only because I was still trying to breathe normally. I made myself push to my feet even though my limbs were full of strange tingling sensations that told me this was far more exertion than I was used to. I held a hand out, watched every single finger shake, and then shook my head. “A little adrenaline, right? Not a bad thing.”

Robert just swayed where he stood in the slowly dispersing fog.

It took me a moment to realize my flashlight was gone. My purse was gone. I did a turn and could see in the distance the gate and the single light above it. I could leave. I could walk right down the path, take a cab back to the loft, and take the waitressing job at Pirates Restaurant, where I’d make good tips off the tourists. If I left, this would all just be a crazy moment.

Another crazy moment, for a crazy woman.

But then Corb would be right.

Himself would be right.

And I had a feeling that it would let Gran down if she was watching from somewhere.

My back straightened like I’d been hit in the ass with a paddle. I was finishing this, one way or another, even if it left me sore for a week, even if I had nightmares for months of a slavering amber-eyed wolf coming straight for me and being saved by a skeleton who liked candy bars.

Maybe the job would suck, and I’d turn it down even if they offered it to me, but I was finishing this interview.

I scrubbed my hands over my face in a quick motion. “Okay, Robert. You still with me?” I mean, at this point, he was my only option. Even if he did eat the wolf’s ear. I frowned. “Wolves aren’t common in Georgia, never mind Savannah.”

Robert, of course, made no comment as I forced my jelly legs to start walking again. My mind shifted to my gran’s book, a great big tome bound in red leather which she’d used to chronicle her spells and information about various creatures in the shadow world. Some had names, some didn’t. I’d loved reading that book when I was younger.

The way the wolf had looked at me, the way it had reacted to me talking to Robert could only mean it wasn’t really a wolf. It was . . . maybe a shifter of some sort? I gritted my teeth as my legs tried to shake again. Sure, I’d been raised with knowledge of the shadow world, but that was so, so different than being immersed in it. Gran had said it would take something big to bring me fully into the shadow world.

Maybe a divorce would do that?

The answer came to me then, and I said it out loud. “Gran dying.” The wind stilled around us, the night noises fading as I realized that was exactly what had made the change. The night she’d died, I’d woken in a sweat, alone as I so often was with Himself working late.

I could feel the sensation of something sinking into my skin that night, and then the phone rang, and Gran’s best friend Hattie sobbed out that she was gone. Gran was dead.

For a good minute, I stood there in the graveyard, letting the truth sink into me. I was not a child any longer, and I wasn’t going to deny what was happening, what I was seeing with my own eyes and feeling under my skin.

“Into the darkness,” I said softly, making my feet move. “And find the lights along the way.”

Whatever Gran had done, she’d done it for a reason.

Which meant I wasn’t slowing down.

The path took us under a long line of trees, the branches reaching low, tugging on my hair in places. Now that my eyes were adjusted to the darkness, there were other shapes darting around, ducking behind trees as they followed me and Robert. But none popped out the way he had.

“Any idea who is out there, Robert?” I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Dead.”

Well, maybe I was wrong about that.

“Not exactly the most comforting answer.” I rubbed at my lower back, already feeling the jarring in my spine stiffening from riding the bucking, twisting wolf. I wasn’t going to let the growing aches stop me. I’d go back to the loft after this, take a couple Advil chased with that whiskey Corb thought he was hiding in the top cupboard above the fridge, run a hot bath, and call it a night to remember.

“I won’t forget this night, not if I live to be a hundred,” I said.

Robert grunted.

“Don’t you sass me,” I said. No, I had no idea what the grunt meant, but let’s be honest, men grunting usually means they’re thinking something smart-assy.

Robert twisted his head to the side and shrugged.

The path came to a crossroads intersection, giving me three options. I paused and stared at the ground in the middle. As I crouched, the clouds shifted and the moon made an appearance, showing off the solid black stone in the middle of the juncture.