Sylvie doubted that Strange would be so cavalier if she got them in her grasp.

Her heart thumped hard. Other way. If they went out the front, they’d be easy prey for Strange. Right now, Strange seemed desperate enough to—

Why hadn’t she taken over any of the females who’d fallen, fed utterly, and forced her spirit into the empty shell? This was Miami, the land of sun and skin. Surely there’d been more than one who’d fit her criteria of young and attractive.

“Why specifically Zoe?” she murmured aloud.

“Money,” he slurred. “Prolly set up so Zoe will inherit it. Like Bella. New body. New life. Old money.”

Sylvie shivered. She’d hoped he’d missed that. That Demalion had missed that. “No fun in being resurrected if you can’t take it with you,” she bit out. “I bet Strange doesn’t know she’s broke.”

He swayed, hard, tipped over, put his hand against the grimy stucco wall for support. “Still naked,” he muttered. “And I stepped in glass.”

“Fine,” she said. “Stay here. I’m going to get the truck.”

His gaze was hurt, and she stamped out her guilt. She wasn’t even sure which one of them she was yelling at and was scared to find out. She ran out of the back alley, looped around; hopefully, by the time she got back to the front of the store, Strange would have moved far enough away that she could collect her truck without collecting the ghost’s attention.

Good plan, she thought, only—

Her truck wasn’t there.

SHE TURNED AND TURNED, TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT. HER TRUCK hadn’t been involved in the accident—no glass littered the area where she had parked. In fact, the empty space where her truck had been was the only slot that would allow egress onto the street without waiting for the tow trucks to remove the tangle of cars.

Odalys, she thought. In a hurry, needing an escape, and seeing a chance to do Sylvie an injury in the process.

The lich ghost blurred the air like a heat shimmer, a deadly mirage; bystanders stopped to gawk at the ghost as it moved along the sidewalk, and realized their mistake too late. A police officer in a squad car shouted into her radio, shouts about gas and casualties, and only managed to stir panic into the already tense street.

A high whistle rang through the street—the ghost shrieking again about her promised body? Sylvie didn’t want to find out. She turned, headed back toward the alley, toward Wright. Half-naked, disoriented or not, he was going to have to brave the streets.

They had to get out of there.

“Shadows!” a hoarse voice called, followed by another piercing whistle. She jerked about, hand going for her gun, even as her hailer scrambled to her side.

She barely recognized him. In his darkened apartment, Wales had been cadaverous, creepy, a horror-movie host. Sunlight washed his skin, gave him life and a veneer of health, picked out reddish lights in his dark hair, made him less of a scarecrow, more a man. He yanked her toward him by the elbow.

She jerked away, and said, “The fuck, Wales?”

“You didn’t destroy the lich ghost when you shot it,” he said.

“You think?” She threw a hand out to encompass the chaos nearby.

“She was weak, trapped in my apartment. I let her out by accident. Didn’t even realize she’d survived until she blew past me when I headed out for a milk run. I followed her here.”

“Great,” Sylvie said. “Nice to see you. Now get the hell out of my—”

“I did some research,” he said, holding her in place. His sallow face brightened, lips twisting upward. “I know how to get rid of a lich ghost.”

She stopped fighting him, feeling a glimmer of relief, hope, eagerness. “Well, get to work. She’s right over there!”

The lich ghost was bent in half, a muddy blur in the air, crouched above a fallen body. Snacking, Sylvie thought; then the blur whipped around, and another person fell. Strange was a glutton.

Wales slewed around, shaking his head. “Haven’t got the ingredients with me.”

“Useless,” Sylvie said. “Utterly useless.”

He dangled car keys in front of her face. “Useless? Your overburdened and underdressed friend’s already in my car. Want a ride?”

Sylvie turned a last look on the scene, watching people felled, knowing more police would be arriving any moment, feeding themselves into the ghost. And all she had was a gun. She was the useless one here.

“Get us out of here,” she said, and guilt swamped her. For the first time ever, she thought that the ISI—that paranoid and secretive agency—might be onto something with their plans. If they could figure out a way to introduce the Magicus Mundi into the world with laws already in place for controlling it, scenes like this might not happen. Instead of the police, there’d be people like Wales, but better prepared.

The best she could hope for was that Strange would remember Odalys and leave once the area calmed.

His sedan was an ancient Corolla, more parts rust than paint, but it purred when it ran.

Wright lay curled in the backseat, his skin sleek with sweat. He was shivering in fine tremors.

“Soul shock,” Wales diagnosed. “Doubled.”

“They both in there?” she asked.

“As far as I can tell,” he said. “Can’t last, you know.”

“More pressing problems,” she said.

He shook his head, all tangled hair and cheekbones like knife blades. “I don’t even want to know.”

“My goddamn sister—”

The thought, the hope, was as sharp as a blade. Sylvie scrambled for her cell phone, dialed Alex. “Tell me you got Zoe safely into Val’s care.”

“Zoe? You found her? Where?” Alex asked.

Sylvie slapped the phone closed. Christ. She was worse than useless. She’d made bad decision after bad decision this week, not least of which was sending Alex off with Zoe. But she hadn’t thought Zoe would or even could use that oblivion spell, thought it mostly bravado.

“Your sister?” Wales asked.

“My sister’s decided to go hang out with the necromancer who sold her skin to Strange.” Sylvie banged her head against the dash and groaned.

The back of the car echoed her. A hangover groan, followed by a wiry arm flailing into awareness. Wright dragged himself up in the backseat, hung himself over her shoulder, and said, “You’re going to need those brain cells, Shadows. We’ve got to do something about that ghost thing.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Sylvie said. Self-loathing scalded her throat.

“Follow Odalys,” Wales said. “You said Odalys promised it a body? It’s gonna keep hounding her until she makes good on that promise. Loan sharks are more forgiving than the dead when it comes to debt.”

“And then what?” Sylvie said. “Shoot Strange? Didn’t work so well before.”

“Graveyard dirt mixed with salt,” Wales said. “A handful of that—”

“Yeah, familiar with it,” Sylvie said. “It slowed her. Didn’t stop her. Nearly killed Wright.”

Wales furrowed his brow, hunched tighter over the steering wheel. “Then it’s just as good I didn’t have the stuff on me, or we’d all be lyin’ in the street while she played sippystraw with our souls.”

“Useless,” Sylvie said again.

“Don’t take it to heart,” Demalion said. It had to be Demalion. “Frustration makes her vicious.”

“Good thing I think better that way,” Sylvie said. “Odalys stole my truck.”

Wales shot her a wide-eyed glance. “Why does that sound like good news?”

“It’s distinctive,” Sylvie said. She was dialing Suarez even as she spoke. “Lio? It’s Sylvie. I need to report my truck stolen. Can you get eyes out for it? Also? Zoe’s gone again.”

He growled in her ear. “I am not your sister’s keeper, Shadows. I brought her to you once. Where’d your truck get taken from?”

“Calle Ocho, Invocat. Odalys Hargrove stole it. And she’s . . . dangerous, Lio. The source of our problems. You arrest her, and things get better, fast.”