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didn't trade favors by leaking info. These things were best left to the Detroit Fire Department's public relations people. She held up her hand as she walked away, telling him, "No comment."
    The reporter shouted after her, "The neighbors are saying this is a case of spontaneous human combustion. Is there any truth to that rumor?"
    Anya walked briskly up the steps to Bernie's porch, pretending she hadn't heard him. Ignoring him would probably come back to bite her in the ass by looking damning on film, but she had nothing to give him. Hell, she didn't even know which end was up yet.
    Cops milled around the porch, at the edge of the news van's mast light glare. Their shadows cast long over the peeling paint, the uniforms moved aside to let her pass. Marsh stood in the doorway, scribbling on a clipboard. He did not look happy.
    "I thought the scene was secured." Anya frowned up at him. DFD didn't release a scene until the scene was deemed safe and all evidence of arson had been collected... and they were a long way from that point. Leaving at least one firefighter at the scene allowed DFD to come and go without a warrant. It was a handy facet of the law that allowed DFD a good deal of latitude in investigating... all in the name of public safety. "How in the hell did anybody get in?"
    "Yeah. It was supposed to be secured." Marsh glowered. "I posted a guy on the curb. His car apparently caught fire. When he got it extinguished, he saw lights inside the house."
    "Lights? What kind of lights?"
    "Not flashlights... the guy posted to guard the scene described it as a flickering orange glow. He thought the place had caught fire again, went in to investigate. Found the place tossed."
    "Excellent."
    "Yeah, well, DPD is taking a report, but can't tell if anything is missing."
    Anya pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let me guess...."
    "Yup. Figuring out what's gone is your job. You took pix of the scene before it was tampered with."
    "It's not as if I had time to do a thorough inventory...."
    "Congrats. It's your baby now."
    Anya's shoulders slumped. She trudged past Marsh through the kitchen door.
    It was not a pretty baby.
    The kitchen had been thoroughly ransacked. Boxes of cereal had been ripped from the cupboards, spewing rice puffs on the floor that crunched underfoot. The kitchen table had been overturned, a leg broken in the fall. Pots and pans littered the floor, mixed with newspapers and the contents of the refrigerator. The refrigerator door stood open, light on. Lids had been torn off dozens of plastic containers, leaving their contents cast aside. A bottle of ketchup leaked out onto the floor. Anya smelled the remains of Kung Pao chicken, the sickly sourness of melting ice cream. She tugged her jacket more tightly around her against the chill.
    How the hell had the firefighter posted outside not heard this shit going on and put a stop to it? she wondered. It had to have sounded like a frat party in here.
    Reluctantly, she shoved the door to the living room ajar. Unbelievably, Bernie's living room was even more of a mess than before. The couch had been overturned, the stuffing slashed out of it. Bookcases had been ripped apart, their contents spilled among the black shards of broken vinyl LPs. Ashes from the fireplace were smeared along the carpet, almost obliterating the stain that had been Bernie.
    Anya's eyes narrowed. This was no random burglary. Someone was looking for something specific.
    Her eye turned to the fireplace mantel. It had been stripped clean: no bottles, no sword, no talismans. She inhaled deeply. For all the chaos, one thing was clearly different here: She could smell no magick. None at all.
    She orbited the room, nostrils flaring. None of the objects she'd identified as magickal seemed to have been left behind. All she could detect was a dull, background smell of ozone she'd detected on her first visit here.
    Staring at the fireplace, Anya drummed her fingers on her lower lip. Someone had been digging