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to duck under dried herbs and step over a cat to get inside. “Bad kitty,” Suzy said, scooping up her cat in one arm before he could escape between my legs. He had a big gold bell hanging from his neck that glinted red out the corner of my eye. Some kind of protection spell.
    “New familiar?” I didn’t recognize this particular cat. Not that I’d been to Suzy’s place since she’d bought new furniture last year. I’d helped her carry some couches upstairs as a favor. When you were as big as I was, you were always the first one to get called when someone needed heavy crap moved.
    “Witches of my ilk don’t have familiars. We have sacrifices. Cat is not one of them.”
    “Cat? That’s his name?”
    “I’m not a poetic soul,” she said, tossing her jacket on the hook, fluffing out her hair, and heading into the living room.
    Her living room was filled with smoke from smoldering incense cones. Every shelf was covered in crystals and she had herbs drying in every window. There was a permanent altar where most people would have a TV. Her assortment of deity figures could put a museum to shame—Horned God and Mother Goddess, a weeping Buddha, a crucifix with a tiny Jesus in the middle. Ready for any ritual at any time.
    The smell of rose and jasmine made me sneeze twice, hard. It wasn’t just the incense. I was sensitive to magical energy—the stronger the active spell, the stronger my allergy attack. It was pretty much the most embarrassing quirk for a witch to have.
    “I’m gonna open a window,” I said, scrubbing my nose furiously.
    “Do it and die.” She breezed past me and climbed the stairs. “The couch is yours for the night, but we’ll need to figure out what you’re doing tomorrow.”
    “Proving my innocence,” I called up after her. It was hard to work up conviction when another sneezing fit caught me.
    I eyeballed her windows, trying to decide which I could crack without her noticing, and realized that one of them was covered in plywood. Broken?
    I didn’t even see the clothing hurtling at me from the top of the stairs until I’d been smacked in the face. I caught them on my chest, picked them apart. They were a t-shirt and sweats that looked awfully familiar. Suzy yelled down at me, “I got those out of your locker at work. Don’t sit on my couch with your muddy clothes.”
    I changed in the downstairs bathroom with Cat’s cold, appraising gaze behind me in the mirror. The bathroom mirror was shattered on the right side. It fragmented my face into five frowning sections. I wasn’t looking good—I could have passed for something dredged out of Helltown.
    I tossed my clothes over an empty towel rack to dry then splashed water on my face and the back of my neck.
    Even Suzy’s bathroom was filled with crystals and knickknacks. A row of porcelain cats with right paws uplifted filled the shelf across from her toilet. If Cat weren’t so damn furry, he’d be indistinguishable from his china counterparts.
    Once I was as clean I was going to get, I dropped onto Suzy’s living room couch. I felt like I could have passed out the instant I settled onto the beaten furniture. The alcohol hangover had faded hours ago, but I had a shock hangover, too. The throbbing ache of a life turned upside down. Wasn’t that long ago that I’d squirmed out a police station window.
    Suzy’s voice drifted downstairs. “There’s leftover chicken in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”
    Sounded good to me, but the fridge was around the corner about ten feet away, and it sounded like too much work. I kicked my feet up and sank against the arm of the sofa.
    The pipes in the walls groaned as the shower started.
    My eyes traveled to the folder I had dropped on Suzy’s coffee table. The red tab labeled “Isobel Stonecrow” and a ten-digit code specific to her case. I pulled it into my lap, flipped open the cover, and skimmed the details again.
    This Stonecrow was some kind of witch who could talk to spirits.