I lifted my eyes finally and peered over the top of the cards. “That they are all from the same deck. How is that possible when two are from you, and one is from the deck that belonged to the tarot card reader O’Sean killed? Unless O’Sean had your deck for some reason?”

She stood, sending her chair scooting backward until it slammed into the wall behind her, her hand reaching for something at her side, hidden by her voluminous skirts.

I dropped the cards and threw myself to the side as the boom of a gun went off, rattling the air. The feeling of something zipping by me had me flattened to the ground, but I couldn’t stay there.

Crash had said O’Sean’s sister was quick with a gun.

Oh. Shit.

Guns had more than one bullet, the last I checked, and I’d taken a bullet to the leg a little over a week ago. Once a month was plenty in that department.

I scrambled around the back side of her counter. “Annie, you really going to kill me?”

“You killed Sean.” The hitch in her voice made me grimace. Yeah, this was going to go badly.

“Well, to be fair . . .” I moved so I could peek around the edge of the counter. She had her back to the wall, and she saw me and pulled the trigger.

I yanked myself back, and the corner of the counter exploded in a shrapnel of splinters. “To be fair, he was trying to kill me.”

“I don’t care,” she snarled. “But rather nice of you to come to me, rather than making me come to you.”

How the hell was I going to get out of this pickle? I could throw a knife, but if I missed, I was down a weapon.

Unless I managed to get her to empty her gun. How many bullets in one round? Five? Six?

She’d shot twice already. I took a deep breath and forced myself to look around the corner again, pulling back even before she shot, which she did.

Three. That was three shots.

“Annie, this is not a good way to deal with things,” I said. “Don’t you know O’Sean was trying to take over Savannah?”

“I didn’t agree with him,” she said, her voice as strong as ever. “I told him that it would get him killed, but he didn’t listen.”

“Well, men rarely do until their balls are in a squeeze,” I drawled as I dropped into a crouch. My hamstrings screamed at the tension, and then screamed a little more when I forced myself to pop up like a freaking groundhog.

Or maybe whack-a-mole. My head cleared the top of the counter and I was back down again as she shot not once, but twice. Five shots. Was there a sixth?

The scuff of a foot on the wooden plank floors told me she was coming in for the kill, in the most literal sense.

“Annie, don’t do this. The O’Seans weren’t the only ones dabbling with dark magic in this town. I’m trying to protect Savannah. You said it yourself, you told him not to do this.” I shifted my weight on my heels at the sound of her shuffling around the side of the counter, crouched just out of sight, no doubt.

“Brothers rarely listen,” she said.

I blew out a slow breath, understanding dawning. “Annie, I’m sorry he died. I am.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“You have to believe me. I don’t want you to have the same fate as him and your father.”

“My father? What do you know about my father?”

Well, shit.

She whipped around the counter, gun raised, and I found myself staring into the barrel as I slowly stood, one knife in hand. Annie tipped the gun, motioning for me to step to the side. Maybe she figured she had me cornered and wanted to shoot me somewhere less messy. But as soon as the muzzle flicked away, I lunged forward, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her arm underneath mine so my back was to her chest, the gun pointing away from both of us.

She screamed and the gun boomed twice more. Man, I’d been seriously wrong about the number of bullets.

The door at the back of the shop rattled and Corb yelled my name. “The door is jammed!”

“Kinda busy in here!” I grunted and rolled with Annie through the shop, fighting for control of the weapon. Sure, she’d fired seven times at this point, but I hadn’t heard any empty hammer clicks. For all I knew, there was some kind of magic on the gun, granting her extra bullets.

Annie jerked hard against me and I let her go, digging my nails into her hand, forcing her to release the gun. Heat raked down the sides of my face, and I realized she’d scratched me while we were wrestling for the weapon, her nails going for my eyes.

Her breath came in big gasps. “You killed my father too?”

My jaw ticked and I wrinkled my nose, because damn, that was not a great question for me to answer right then. “Yeah, same problem as your brother. He started it. And to be fair, he kinda killed me too.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Now you are mocking me? When I grieve for them?”

Only she didn’t look all that grief-stricken. Not really.

I shook my head, my chest heaving, and said, “You didn’t even like them, did you?”

“That’s not the point.” She threw her hands into the air. “I’m going to finish what they started. You have to defend your family.”

I leaned back against the counter. “No, actually you don’t. Just because they’re family doesn’t mean they aren’t also crazy and dangerous.” I took the clip out of the gun and pulled the slide back a few times to make sure it was empty. “Even crazy people have family, Annie.”

We didn’t get any further than that.

The back door of the shop burst open, revealing Corb, gun already pointed at Annie. As if he’d known she would be the problem, and not some intruder. Bridgette stayed in the shadows, I could see just a glimmer of her eyes.

The front door rattled, glass burst in around us, and a squad of men dressed in black suits rushed in. Judging by the beeline they made for Annie, they weren’t surprised she’d turned murderous either. She didn’t fight them as they caught her by the wrists, cuffed her, gagged her, and dragged her out the way they’d come in, all in under thirty seconds. I noticed they didn’t actually say what they were arresting her for and thought about asking, but then realized I had enough problems of my own. I didn’t need to add Annie’s problems to the list.

I tucked her gun into the back waistband of my pants, but nope, it tried to slide down my pant leg.

I yanked it out quickly, before I could lose it entirely. It distracted me, somewhat, from the tingle down my spine that said I needed to ask Corb if this was his latest job.

The crunch of glass turned me around. Roderick strode in, cravat in place. His blond hair was as immaculately swept back as the other times I’d seen him. His eyes slid over to me, and he arched a perfect brow, damn him, as if he hadn’t seen me just hours before.

“Breena, why am I not surprised to see you here?”

“You know me, always where the fun happens,” I drawled.

Roderick looked at Corb. “You did a good job of flushing her out. Annie never did like having a more powerful woman on her turf.”

I flinched as if I’d been hit between the shoulder blades. What had Corb said down in Death Row?

“Why don’t you go see Annie, see if you can get any information out of her?”

Damn it, he’d fooled me again. Even if he had put some sort of protection spell on me.

“Roderick”—I kept my back to Corb deliberately—“does Corb work for the Supernatural Council Enforcers?”

Roderick dipped his head. “He’s one of our best investigators. Top of his class, which is even more of an accomplishment given his lineage. Not many people could pull off double duty between us and the Hollows Group, but he makes it look easy.”

I nodded as if that, of course, made sense, but all I could think was that I’d been stupid enough to think I meant something to him. Again.

Jaysus lawdy, when was I going to learn?

I made my way across to the small table that had somehow stayed upright during the fight, scooping up my cards and the rest of the tarot deck, plus the three hundred dollars I’d slapped on the cash desk. Small payment for almost getting killed, and for helping Roderick and the council apprehend someone they’d apparently had their eyes on.

Hell, my curiosity got the better of me. “What did she do?”

Roderick tucked his hands into his coat pockets. “Nothing that needs to concern you. But her attacking you was enough of a final nail in her coffin to make the arrest.”

I nodded and turned away from him.

The reality of my situation was suddenly in front of me again, weighing on me so heavily that my chest felt as though it were being crushed. Corb and Sarge’s support had felt like a lifeline, but I couldn’t rely on them. Not really. And I certainly couldn’t expect them to keep me alive. There was a real chance that I’d die in Goblin Town tonight, and I had to be realistic about that.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire . . .” I whispered to myself, knowing that Sarge at least would hear me. Turning back to Rod, I asked, “If I don’t make it past midnight, would you mind seeing about the blood-born demon in the Sorrel-Weed house? The papers that show who killed my gran are in the second-floor desk, third room on the right. Maybe you could look into that.”

Roderick blinked a few times. “And why wouldn’t you make it past midnight?”

“Going to war,” I said, then thumbed at Corb. “Mr. Trustworthy here is supposed to be my backup. So you can understand why I might be concerned that I’m walking into a trap. Or, worse yet, being used as bait again.” Here’s the thing, I’d gotten rolling, and now I couldn’t stop. “I mean, GAWD forbid I should be told the truth about anything. GAWD forbid my woman-sized pea brain could handle what’s really going on. Lawdy, save my lily-white ass from having to take care of myself!” Yeah, I might have been shouting at that point.

Movement to my left, the sway of a body and long dark hair soothed me a little. “Robert’s the only person left I can rely on. A skeleton, for duck’s sake!”