I nodded even though I had no idea how to duplicate her efforts.

“I don’t sense anyone other than the Medium,” she said. “Not anyone living, I mean. She didn’t bring an army or even a bodyguard. Not that I can feel at the moment, at any rate.”

“You’re always suspicious of foul play, then?”

“Yes. Always. You never know when some dipshit will turn on you and try to stick a knife in your skull. I know this for a fact. My old roommate was a real piece of work.” She got out before grabbing her backpack from the rear passenger seat. “Come on.”

I glanced at my purse, resting at my feet. Then at the dirty house with people crowded at the windows, staring out like they were starving and there was a pizza logo painted on the car.

Shivers raced across my skin. Those people would try and latch on to me with desperate abandon, I could already tell. They’d yell at me, anxious to be heard. They’d clutch at my arms, wanting to be felt. They’d cry, trying to find peace.

That house was filled with torment.

Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t signed that contract. That I hadn’t agreed to take this job.

“Hey.” Bria wrapped on the window with her knuckles, her skull ring with the two rubies for eyes clattering against the glass. “We’re good. There aren’t any surprises. We’ve got a boring afternoon ahead of us. Let’s go.”

She had no idea what she was in for. Nothing but surprises awaited us in that house.

“Hello. Bria?” I heard through the glass as I pulled on the door handle.

A woman in her fifties, wearing a burgundy pants suit with the jacket flaring away from the white blouse beneath it, stalked forward with a smile. The combination of her tight, shoulder-length curls and her large red cheeks made her look like a doll. Her smile showed a chipped front tooth.

“I’m Clare Lawson. I’ll be working with you today.” The woman reached Bria and stuck out her hand.

Bria shook it without ceremony. “Hey, Clare. Did you get briefed?”

“Yes, yes.” Clare glanced at me. “And this is Alexis?”

“Exactly. Alexis has a unique way of working with spirits, so she’ll do her thing while you do yours, and I’ll see what’s what.”

“Well, great.” Clare puffed out a breath with her smile, a little winded from striding over.

Dreading this with everything I had, I crawled out of the car, taking my phone but leaving my bag behind.

“Oh, there’ll be a clean place to set down personal affects,” Clare said, noticing.

I shut the door firmly. “It’s okay. I don’t need anyone’s grubby paws on it.” I pointed at the surly face staring at me through the window.

“Oh...” Clare’s smile melted away in confusion as she turned to see what I was pointing at. Her confusion intensified.

“Let’s do this.” Bria stalked forward, her camo backpack slung across her shoulder.

“Yes, of course.” With a last worried look at me, Clare followed Bria.

This in no way looked like a magical neighborhood. The desolate street boasted not a single car besides the Beemer, the sidewalks were cracked and the curbs were crumbling, and the abandoned houses sagged helplessly. On many of them, the siding and boards swung loose, blackened with dirt and covered in chipped paint. Weeds choked front yards and bare tree branches twisted into the blue sky.

We were in a ghost town.

Without consciously intending to, I started down the disheveled sidewalk, moving away from the house we’d come to see. A strange buzzing permeated my senses. It seemed to emanate from the houses, vibrating along the rotted wood siding, draping over the doors and windows.

Three houses down from the first house, I held my hand up to one of the doorways. The buzzing beckoned me, asking that I enter.

No. Not me. The squishy part in my center. It was tugging at my spirit. My soul.

“Is this the spirit trapper?” I asked quietly, thinking about the magical electricity I’d encountered in the government building. It hadn’t beckoned to me, but when I’d focused on it, it had buzzed.

A strange scratch between my shoulder blades invaded my thoughts, the feeling of being watched Bria had mentioned. I usually equated that feeling to dangerous things. But Kieran had vowed to protect me.

“Jack, is that you?” I called, stalling. If it wasn’t, I’d be running.

“Yes,” a deep male voice whispered. “I’ve got your back.”

“Do you know if there is anyone in these houses?”

A soft rustling preceded Jack popping up like a jack in the box right next to the porch.

I jerked back, surprised. My foot hit a soft spot in the wood. A loud crack barely prepared me for my foot breaking through the porch.

“Shi—” I windmilled my arms, trying to shift my weight.

“I got ya.” Jack was beside me a moment later—his huge arms wrapped around my middle, his legs braced wide.

I dangled for a moment, catching my breath, before tapping his Popeye forearm. “Thanks. I’m good.”

“Sure, yeah.” Jack lifted me while swiveling. My feet bumped down in front of the door. “Watch where you’re stepping. If anything happens to you, the boss’ll kill me.”

“What’s going on?” Bria called from near the first house, heading my way. “Are we going on a walk-about?”

“He paired you with the crazy Necromancer,” Jack said, stepping to the side. “I heard that. Tough luck.”

“Tough luck, yeah.” I couldn’t help but get sidetracked. “Is she really…with Zorn?”

“Yeah. Don’t try to make sense of it, there is none. And don’t engage if it’s ever brought up. That shit is crazy. Best not to look it in the eyes.”

My chuckle at his flabbergasted tone dried up quickly, the strange buzz recaptured my focus. I gestured with my palm to the gaping doorway. “Is there anyone in these houses?”

“Squatters, maybe,” Jack said, staring in. “Want me to check it out?”

“Yes, please.”

He extracted a long knife from a holster in his leg before drifting into the house’s murky low-lit interior.

“Wait, did you feel anything when you walked in?” I asked.

“Nah,” Jack said. “Felt like any old doorway.”

“What have we got brewing up here?” Bria stopped on the sidewalk in front of the house, her hands loose at her sides. If she was annoyed that I’d taken a detour, she didn’t show it.

Clare, on the other hand, had thunderclouds rolling across her face. She stomped up the sidewalk toward us, her bag tinkling against her side.

“Okay. Go check it out.” I waved Jack off.

“I don’t sense any souls,” Bria said, stepping onto the brittle front yard. “What’s got your attention?”

“Isn’t it odd that all these houses are deserted?” I asked her, closing my eyes to concentrate on that hum. After a moment, I felt something else, throbbing beneath the buzzing spirit welcome mat. Almost like a warning. It told me I did not belong, that the living had no business in a place of death. A place of rot.

I furrowed my brow. I’d never felt anything quite like it. But then again, had I ever concentrated this hard on a place?

“Not really,” Bria answered. “This area housed a weird magical cult a while back. A self-proclaimed high priest sacrificed humans for power, and his disciples put their hands out for the scraps. It went under the radar for a while until they were caught kidnapping an influential Chester. That’s when Valens finally put a stop to it. He was getting heat from the Chester government.”

“How’d he put a stop to it? Let me guess, he killed them all?”

“Obviously, yeah.” Bria made a funny face. “If you can kill Chesters and get away with it, fine. But when you get caught, he makes an example out of you.” She narrowed her eyes at me before lowering her voice. I wondered if she was trying to keep Clare from hearing. “You know he’s a ruthless kind of crazy, right? That he’s unhinged and kills at the drop of a hat? I’d hate for this to be a surprise, being that you might be stepping on his toes.”

A reminder I didn’t need.

Jack drifted back into view, a graceful sort of lethal. Shadows slid across his large frame. All the training he’d done that morning with the kids, and still he looked ready for battle. The man was in great shape.

“Clear,” he said, hovering near the inside of the door. He correctly assumed I was coming in.

“And no one else wants these fixer-uppers?” I asked, affecting a light tone as I crossed the threshold. An electric zing sizzled through me, tugging at my squishy center. The cage of my body held my spirit—my soul—in place, not allowing the force field, or whatever it was, to pull it away.

“Weird.” I put my hand to my sternum, my mind churning.

“What?” Bria stepped up onto the porch. She eyed the doorway. “What am I missing? And what magic are you using, or do you know?”

I made a circle in the air with my finger. “If you come through, you don’t leave.”

“Like hell you don’t,” Jack murmured.

“No, I mean—” I screwed up my face and shook my head. I wasn’t used to talking about this stuff. Up until recently, I’d had little to do with magical folk. As far as my power went, things just randomly happened and I largely ignored them. I’d never had to piece together a bigger picture before. “Spirits are invited in, and once they’ve crossed the threshold, they can’t leave. It’s a trap, like at the government building, but this trap actually invites them in.”

Bria stepped up to the doorway and put out her hands, but her expression didn’t change. She stepped through, her gaze finding me, and then stepped back out. She shook her head. Just like Jack, she didn’t feel what I was talking about.

The crisp sound of a bell interrupted my thoughts. The medium was hard at work creating racket for no reason.