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was afraid something was chasing her, then she turned to Michael and said, “Where’s Daithi?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone else,” Michael said, trying to keep his voice calm and soothing. In the dim light, he couldn’t see her well, but he got the impression she was in her late thirties—too old for the prom dress she wore.
    Both of them gasped at a noise coming from behind her. He reached to grab her and pull her behind him as he stepped forward. Beau barked a warning. Michael wasn’t sure whether to go for his weapon or for the iron nails in his pocket. “NYPD. Stop right there!” he shouted in his best cop voice as he grabbed a handful of iron. He figured that anything that still came at him after that warning probably wasn’t from this world. Most common criminals would have run the other way, taking the chance to escape.
    The noise came closer, and he prepared to hurl the iron that would repel any fae, but the woman chose that moment to collapse against him, sagging on his left arm. He struggled to hold her upright while the sense of approaching menace grew ever stronger.
    He smelled smoke and turned to see a burning torch waving nearby. The flames cast his surroundings into sharper darkness, so he couldn’t see who wielded the torch. He didn’t think it was whatever was threatening them, though. That was confirmed when a voice near the torch said, “Oh, be gone with you. This isn’t your place.” Almost instantly, the sense of menace retreated. The torch went out, leaving him momentarily blinded while his eyes readjusted to the darkness.
    He was fumbling for the little LED flashlight in his jacket pocket when the voice he’d just heard said, “You let that woman go, young man.”
    “If I let her go, she’ll fall down,” he said, looking around for the source of the voice. “I’m not hurting her. I’m a police officer. I’d show you my badge, but I’ve kind of got my hands full. I was just about to call an ambulance.”
    “A hospital won’t be able to help her,” the voice said, drawing closer. Now he could see that it belonged to an older woman, sturdy and stout, pushing a battered shopping cart piled with belongings. A still-smoking bundle of branches was propped in the child seat at the front of the cart. A couple of months ago, he might have thought she was just another bag lady, but there was something about her. He suspected that if he grabbed his clover keychain, he’d see what the difference was.
    “I know,” he said, adjusting the woman in his grasp into a more comfortable position. “But if I can find out who she is I might be able to find her family, and that might help.”
    “It might,” the bag lady conceded as she came close enough to examine the unconscious woman. She placed a gnarled hand on the woman’s forehead, frowned, and said, “But first we’d better revive her. Do you have any human food or drink on you?” She asked the question matter-of-factly, as if she didn’t expect him to find it at all odd.
    “I have a candy bar.”
    “That’ll help, but first we need to get some liquid into her. I’ve got some juice.” Returning to her cart, she pulled out a blanket and spread it on the ground, then gestured to Michael to bring the woman over. Michael scooped the limp woman up into his arms, her knees draped over one arm and the other arm under her shoulders. He felt a slight twinge in his right shoulder and realized that although he was mostly back to normal, the muscles that had spent weeks resting while his arm was in a sling weren’t quite up to carrying women around. Fortunately, it was only a few steps. The bag lady helped him lower the woman to the ground.
    Beau waddled over to settle himself on the blanket next to the woman as the bag lady retrieved a bottle from her cart. She knelt beside the woman, gently lifted her head, and spilled a few drops of juice between her lips. A moment later, the woman blinked, moaned, and stirred, and the