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job well done. “What’s going on, Rebecca? And why do you get to pull me through the streets like I’m some kind of misbehaving kid who is headed for the principal’s office for a stern talking-to?”
    “Rebecca? You got her?” That deep voice coming from down the hall was innately, completely, male and the timbre of the throatiness sent his words clearly through the empty house.
    “So, a giant lives here?” I said. “Fee-fi-foe-fum!” I called and it echoed back at me in the empty hallway she was propelling me through. It seemed like the only possible response when everyone else was being so serious.
    “You are absolutely insufferable,” Rebecca said.
    “Someone has to save you from your...Grimm…outlook on life.”
    “Oh, do you never stop? Elle, you don’t seem to understand the gravity of this situation.”
    “First of all, Becca, I don’t even know what the situation is . I figure that the situation is somewhere between you having a bad hair day and an asteroid heading straight for Loch Lomond. So, while I wait for you to tell me your problem, I figure if I can get you to laugh, then you won’t feed me to the giant at the end of the hallway.”
    “Don’t call me Becca. I hate nicknames.”
    “Fine. I didn’t know that.” I did. I figured it was probably the only revenge I was going to get for being dragged down the street.
    “There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said ominously.
    “Rebecca, do you have her?” the giant voice boomed again. “Is Elle here?”
    “Yes. I have her now!” Rebecca shouted and looked hard at me. “Come on. He’s waiting.”
    “You still haven’t told me what this is all about. And who is the guy with the theatrical voice? I mean, seriously, he could audition for movie trailer voiceovers. Who is he trying to impress?”
    “Stop,” Rebecca ordered. “Just stop. This is about what you were doing in Niall Sampson’s house, and this is not the moment to argue.”
    Really? Then when was? “I think this is exactly the moment to argue,” I insisted. “I was on an important insurance investigation job when you grabbed me. A rare artwork was stolen from the client’s home, and I don’t have the time right now to spend being pulled around the streets.”
     Rebecca sighed. “I don’t remember referring you to that job through the coven.”
    Was that what this was about? Rebecca knew I had other sources of jobs besides her. I had even been under the impression that she approved of it. After all, I would often hear about things with a more…unusual angle to them before she did that way. Half the time, I could solve things before she even got involved.
     “Is this about the coven’s cut of my fee?” I asked. “Because if it is, they’ll still get their tithe, the same as always.”
     “You don’t understand, Elle. This isn’t about money.”
    “So, what is this about? Enlighten me.”
    She took a deep breath and let it out, holding back…a lot of her thoughts. I could feel the emotions there, half-occluded behind her shields, whirling.
    “Rebecca? A little information, please?”
     “I’m trying to save you,” she choked out.
    “Save me?” I looked hard at her. “From what?”
    The man with the oh-so-threatening voice finally stepped out into the hall. I stared. But then again, he was worth staring at. He was well over six feet tall, probably approaching seven feet in stocking feet, more with the studded motorcycle boots he wore. He was dressed in black leather pants with chains hanging from them and a tight, sparkling white T-shirt that did nothing to disguise his muscles. Not that much could have. He was built like a bodybuilder, except that every muscle looked absolutely functional. His dark hair was cropped short, the center raised up high in a gelled rooster style, but it was the tattoos that caught my attention.
    Oh, those tattoos!
    They spiraled up his arms in interweaving patterns that might have looked vaguely Celtic or tribal to