I stopped, ignoring the curses of a middle-aged couple that crashed into me.

Headaches. They’d started when I first went to the commune, then seemed to come and go at random. Only it wasn’t random. It happened every time the witch-hunter was near me.

I looked out over the sea of faces—

A hard blow to the back of my knees made my legs buckle. I fell against an old woman and she tumbled off the curb with a shriek.

Headlights flashed. Someone screamed. I wheeled to yank the woman back. The headlights veered out of the way as the truck driver swerved for the middle of the road. Metal crunched. Glass shattered. Hands grabbed onto me. Adam dragging me onto the sidewalk, the old lady, too.

He released the old woman and kept tugging me along. I wrenched out of his grasp and looked around for the witch-hunter. But the crowded sidewalk was a mob now, pressing in from all sides. People shouted. Cameras flashed. The stink of burning rubber filled the air.

I pushed my way back to the curb. The old woman sat on it, another woman crouched before her, asking questions. She seemed fine. In swerving to avoid her, though, the truck had hit a delivery van. The van driver lay across his steering wheel. One man yanked on the jammed driver’s door as a woman cleared glass from the broken windshield so they could pull him out.

I started forward.

Adam caught my arm. “Nothing you can do,” he whispered. “We need to go.”

six

My parents might want me to lie low, but I was old enough to make decisions for myself. The accident outside the theater told me I had to get this witch-hunter bitch. I had enough deaths on my conscience already.

To my relief, Adam agreed. He also agreed that we shouldn’t tell Paige and Lucas yet. They’d be back from Hawaii in two days, and I had to warn Paige first, but until then, they should continue enjoying their vacation.

We got a hotel room for the night. A good hotel this time, on a floor requiring elevator card access. Far from perfect security, but it would slow down the hunter if she came for me.

We shared a room. Hardly the first time we’d done that. I used to wish it was a problem, suggesting that Adam found the situation a little too tempting. He didn’t. That night, I was glad of it. I didn’t want to be alone.

It was past midnight by the time we got the room. I took a shower to clear my head while Adam called for takeout pizza. By one thirty, we were stretched out on one of the double beds, each working on our laptops, eating pizza, and drinking beer from the mini bar.

While Adam researched witch-hunters, I checked out the information “Amy” had put on her cookie-cult application. We talked as we searched. Neither of us is good at doing anything in silence, a fact that drives Paige and Lucas to distraction in the office, as we call out our finds between the reception desk and Adam’s office.

“She’s not Amy Lynn Tucker from Phoenix,” I said, turning the laptop to face him. “Surprise, surprise.”

He glanced at the Facebook photo on the screen. “Looks similar, though.”

The girl who was hunting me was about the same age as Amy Lynn—nineteen—and had the same mousy brown hair, sallow skin, and thin build.

“Could be related,” Adam said. “I’m going through the information my dad sent”—he’d asked his father for everything he knew on witch-hunters, without suggesting we’d found proof they existed—“and there were a couple of old reports of incidents in Arizona. Did the girl have an accent?”

“I don’t think I ever heard her talk.”

I pulled up a list of Tuckers from the Arizona DMV—Paige has us hacked into most DMVs in the country. There were no more Tuckers at the address given on the application. None with a driver’s license, at least. There were hundreds in Phoenix, though. Way too much work to survey without proof that our witch-hunter was a Tucker.

The application also listed a high school and references. The school was in Mesa, Arizona, meaning it was probably Amy Lynn’s alma mater. As for the references, I supposed they could be connected to the actual witch-hunter, but a preliminary search didn’t turn up anything and it was far too late to phone. So I started surfing for something else in our office database.

After I’d been quiet for a few minutes, Adam glanced over.

“Case files?” he said. “I’m sure if we’d had witch-hunter investigations, we’d remember them.” He looked closer. “Oh.”

My search was for all cases where we’d helped someone who’d been screwed over by demons. Not surprisingly, they comprised a healthy portion of our business.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.”

He paused, then said, “All right.”

“I’m oka—” I inhaled. “No, I’m not okay and you know it. But if I think about it too much, I’m going to really not be okay. I just want to concentrate on the case and try not to stress out until I’m sure there’s something to stress over.”

“Agreed. So focus on the witch-hunter.”

He shot a pointed look at my laptop. He was right. My parents had much more experience with demonic pacts, and they were on the best side of the veil to investigate them. Let them handle it. Concentrate on the immediate threat.

I shut my laptop.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Whatever happens, you’ll be okay.”

I nodded, chugged the rest of my beer, and headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

The next morning, I called one of my black-book contacts. Molly Crane, a dark witch. Molly always had time for me. Not because she was a good friend. Not even because she’d been good friends with my mother. No, Molly had time for me for the same reason I had time for her. I was useful. She was useful. Sometimes, in our world, that’s what it comes down to.

When I asked whether she’d ever heard of witch-hunters, her sigh was so loud, I swore my phone vibrated.

“Not that bugaboo,” she said. “Let me guess. Paige told you about them. Typical Coven witch bullshit. She may think she’s above that, but let me tell you—”

“It wasn’t Paige.”

“Oh. A client, then? A witch claiming someone wants her dead just because she’s a witch. Dig deeper, Savannah, and you’ll find that she’s crying racial profiling to cover up the fact that she’s done something to deserve being on a hit list.”