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sometimes when I get the kind of…you know…weird stuff. Stuff no one can explain…” His voice trailed off.
    That made sense, since Lavinia was another Guardian.One of the handful that Di had actually talked to; in fact, one of the first ones she had talked to, who had given her what she called “Arcanum 101,” walking her through the basics of what it meant to be a Guardian.
    She nodded. “I understand.” For all that Lavinia knew her Ritual High Magic like no one else, she was not good with real-world stuff.
    So, phonies. That had been Memaw’s pet bugaboo.
    That had nothing to do with Guardians, and everything to do with the fact that Memaw had debunked many a “trance medium” in her time. She took a very dim view of people exploiting other people and giving magic a bad name. Real magic, that is. Her pet peeve was the kind of charlatan who would use stage magic to convince people in some of the new witchcraft circles—people who didn’t know any better—that he was the real deal, then take everything he could get from them.
    There was one guy Memaw really, really hated. He’d been all over the country—he’d pull his song and dance number on some “New Pagan” group, milk them blind, seduce anything with boobs, then do a vanishing act. Then he’d turn up in some old lady’s tea and séances Spiritualist group, and do the same there, minus sleeping with the women. And then he’d vanish and turn up at some Bible-thumping church, begging to be saved from satanism and use the same stage magic to convince them that he was really being besieged by demons and get into their pockets (and sometimes their beds). She still hadn’tmanaged to nail him when she died, though not for lack of trying.
    Memaw had taught Di everything she knew about debunking.
    â€œFirst, you probably should tell me the problem.” Di still didn’t let him in, even though he was kind of cute. Actually, really cute. Black hair, faintly tan, like a young Ricardo Montalban. Black Irish, obviously—the many-times-removed descendant of some of the Spanish sailors from the Armada wrecked off the shores of Ireland back in the fifteenth century. Very, very cute. Still.
    He stood in the hallway, looking uncomfortable, but did not ask to come in. He shoved his hands deeply into the pockets of his blue Members Only jacket and shifted his weight to one foot. “I’m one of a bunch of guys on that kidnapping case,” he said slowly.
    He didn’t have to say more than that, because you would have to have been living in a cave not to know about it. She drew in her breath in a hiss. The kidnapping had been everywhere in the news, and it was making even the Harvard students nervous, though they were way, way outside the age of the victim.
    Melanie Fitzhugh was eight years old; she wasn’t a particularly pretty little girl, she was actually fairly ordinary, but that just made it all the worse. Every parent with a child could imagine the same thing happening. Melanie and her mother had been shopping and the little girl had gottenpermission to play in a designated play area in the mall. She knew not to leave, but when her mother came back, she was gone. Other children at the play area told Mrs. Fitzhugh that a “policeman” had come to take Melanie to her mother and that she had gone away with him. There had been no other adults in the play area at the time, but it was supposed to be a very safe place, surrounded by stores, the perfect place to leave a responsible child for a few minutes.
    Unless, of course, there was a predator in the area who was very, very clever. One who knew exactly how to approach exactly the kind of middle-class child who would trust someone dressed like a policeman.
    Still, what did that have to do with debunking psychics?
    â€œI’d like to know who I’m talking with and why before this goes any further,” Di