Whenever humans have discovered evidence of our existence, we’ve suffered. They’ve hunted us. They’ve tortured us. They’ve killed us. Would it be any different today? No. Most people today are enlightened enough not to burn us alive, but they’d still want to control us, test us, contain us. Having the power of numbers, they could do it.

Maybe the guy yelling at Jaime was mentally ill. We aren’t as susceptible as humans to things like schizophrenia, but it does happen.

If he was mentally ill, though, he was high functioning, because by the time we got to the road, he was gone.

We jogged to the theater parking lot, hoping to see him peel out. No luck. He’d delivered his message and made his escape.

“Damn,” I said as we walked back. “I was really hoping he was nuts. No one listens to crazy people.”

Adam shrugged. “As far as most people are concerned, anyone talking about raising the dead is crazy. I doubt he’s worth worrying about, but the council will need to follow up. This will help.” He lifted his cell phone. He’d snapped a photo of the sorcerer. It was a decent shot, enough to confirm that I’d never seen the guy before in my life. Adam sent me a copy, and I filed it away to pass around to some contacts later.

We waited for Jaime in her dressing room.

“Well, that was a new one,” she said as she walked in. “Normally supernaturals give me crap for being too open with my powers. Did you catch up to the guy?”

I shook my head. “Adam got a photo and we know his type—sorcerer, though that was obvious from the fog spell.”

“He seemed to recognize Savannah,” Adam said uneasily.

“And, for once, it wasn’t just someone mistaking me for my mother. He said my name. Made me feel special.”

“Just what you need.” Adam grabbed a bottle of water from the tray. “Anyway, if Hope’s feeling up to it, we should get her to run with the story.”

Hope’s day job was working for a tabloid. Specifically, she covered the paranormal, everything from Bigfoot sightings to alien encounters. Having her write about the incident might seem ill-advised, but that was how we handled a lot of exposure threats. Hope covered it, sprinkling in enough false information to throw serious paranormal investigators off the trail. Something like this was bound to hit the Internet, and nothing made people say “bullshit” like having the story featured in True News.

“There’s something we need to talk to you about, too,” Adam said. “The real reason we’re here.”

He glanced at me and, for a second, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then it all rushed back.

“What’s up?” Jaime opened an icy bottle of water as she settled into a chair. “Jesse isn’t suffering from any lingering effects, is he? That kind of possession can leave serious psychic bruises. They’ll take time to heal.”

“He’s fine. It’s me. I . . .” I’ve lost my spells. My power. It’s gone. The words stuck in my throat.

“Are you okay?” She tightened the cap back on the bottle and rose. “I’m sure you’re not, but—” She stopped, gaze shifting to the right in a look I knew well.

“Ghost?” I said.

She nodded, then rose and turned to the newcomer. “If you were sent to protect me, you’re about an hour late.”

“Hey, Mom,” I said.

I said it casually enough, but it didn’t feel casual. It never does. When my mother first became Jaime’s spirit guide, the Fates had threatened to end the relationship if Mom had too much contact with me. God, how I’d hated that. Threw tantrums. Screamed at the heavens. Cursed the Fates the way only a fifteen-year-old would dare.

Over the years, I’d come to realize they were right. If we couldn’t be together, we couldn’t keep pretending we were. We both had to move on. Still I loved being able to have some contact with my mother, and it was hard, knowing she was right there and I couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her, couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t be with her.

“It’s not your mom, Savannah,” Jaime said.

Not Mom? Who else would come to protect her? No, not come. Jaime had said “sent.” Who would be sent to protect Jaime?

“My father.”

When she nodded, I turned to the empty air and said, “Hey.” Again. It was as casually as I could say it, but there was nothing casual about it. I couldn’t even say “Hey, Dad,” because Kristof Nast had never been my dad. I’d only met him a few days before he died. Died at my hands. Caught up in a storm of grief, thinking he’d had Paige killed, I’d launched a knockback spell so hard it threw him against a concrete wall. I’d been in a trance state, so everyone thinks I don’t remember what happened. But I do.

So does he, I’m sure, but when I brought it up once through Jaime, he stuck to the fiction that he’d died when the house collapsed. He said it was his own fault, that he’d screwed up trying to get custody from Paige, and he regretted that. But he was with my mother again so he was happy, even if he did miss his sons and the chance to really get to know me.

I missed that, too. Sometimes I think about what it would have been like if Mom was still alive and Kristof had come back into our lives. I knew from my half brother, Sean, that our father had been everything he could have wanted in a dad, maybe everything I would have wanted, too. Only I’ll never get the chance to find out. Not really.

Anyway, awkward. Just all-around awkward.

“If you guys need to talk,” I said, “we’ll step out and—”

“No, he’s here for you,” Jaime said. She glanced his way, listening. Then she blinked, startled. “Can’t you just—?” A pause and her cheeks flamed. “No, of course. Right. Okay, well . . .” She forced lightness into her voice. “Just take good care of it. I put a lot of work into making it just the way I want it.”

“What’s he—?” I said.

Jaime’s head jerked back. The water bottle fell from her hand.

“Savannah.”

Jaime’s voice was pitched low, the inflections wrong. She’d let my father take over her body. Full-channeling, something she’d once claimed she’d never let a ghost do. Since then she has a few times, with my mother. She trusts her. My father? Not so much.