He took the paper, his skin flushing pink even in the dusky light, wrote on the scrap, folded it three times, and handed it back to me. “Thank you.”

With a quick nod, I stuffed the note into my purse. Looked up, and he was gone. I peered down the road that led up to the gates, and there was no lanky figure walking along. Nothing.

Like a ghost.

I dug the paper out of my purse and flipped it open, half expecting it to be blank. But his name was there. Eric, with a phone number and a request to be called ASAP.

So maybe not a ghost?

But he’d disappeared like one, and I had muttered Gran’s prayer of seeing.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

I touched a hand to my head, wondering. She’d always said part of the reason so many people didn’t see the shadow world was because they didn’t believe in it. That lack of belief kept their minds and eyes closed. Gran had said even those who wanted to believe often didn’t see because there was another part to the shadow world.

Well, I was embracing it now, even if it was about twenty years later than she’d hoped. I wished she could see me here and now; she’d be clapping her hands and cheering me on. A smile flitted across my lips. Gone a split second later.

I needed this job, and if I took it, I suspected I’d be plunging myself directly into the world I’d spent so many years denying. Although, Eammon had refused to tell me much about the company and the fact the business card had led me to this side of the river to an unnamed, uncharted cemetery across from Bonaventure Cemetery, had presented rather strong evidence.

I’d told myself it might be some gimmicky tour company, but I damn well knew the job was going to be related to the shadow world.

I put a hand on the gate and gave it a rattle, irritation flowing faster now. “Hello? I’m here for the interview. Hollows Group? Eammon gave me his card, said I’d be a good fit.”

If this wasn’t the weirdest interview I’d ever been to, I’d eat my purse and everything in it. Then again, if Eammon had been truthful, the pay was better than anything out there. He’d told me I could make upward of twenty thousand a month—more than enough to buy Gran’s house. Himself had said he was going to sell it, and even though it was mine by rights, I didn’t have a choice. I had to buy it back and do it in a way that he didn’t know it was me, or no doubt he’d charge me double. Or not sell it at all. He’d manipulated the divorce paperwork in an outrageous manner, moving my signature from the papers I’d thought I’d signed to new divorce papers that gave him everything.

I frowned, something tugging at my mind like a word on the tip of your tongue. I couldn’t quite pull the thought forward. Something to do with the paperwork. I shook my head. Nothing I could do about it right then. I had to keep my focus on point.

Which was why this opportunity sounded so tantalizing. Since arriving in Savannah, I’d had three phone calls from the debt collectors for a debt that was supposed to belong to Himself, and I’d been officially divorced less than a week. I was going to have to get a new number to avoid them.

I worried at my bottom lip a moment before I shook it off. Forget waiting around; I needed this job, and if that meant I needed to be a bit more aggressive, then so be it.

I took a look at the gate lock, gave it an experimental twist and then nodded to myself.

Gran’s training had included some practical skills, useful in any world. Lock picking was one.

A quick rummage in my purse produced a couple bobby pins that had been in there for God only knew how long. I bent them at different angles and slid them into the lock. “A bit on the sticky side, but I’ll get you,” I muttered.

The pressure on the pins from the tumblers in the lock gave me a moment of fear that I’d snap them off. A sudden click and the lock popped open. Grinning, I unlatched the chains holding the gates shut.

Score one for the old broad.

There was always more than one way to skin a cat, or pick a lock, so you could get into an interview in a graveyard. Gran would be proud of me, watching over me from wherever she was. I did a mock salute to the stars, just in case.

The chains slithered across the wrought iron, clanging as they went. Not that I was trying to be quiet. I let myself in, then shut the gate and slid the chain back into place, dummy locking it, so I’d be able to get out. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I started down the hardpacked dirt path. There were stones here and there that said it had been cobblestone at some point, but most of those rocks were gone.

Eammon hadn’t said to bring a flashlight, but I’d snagged one from the entryway of the place I was staying until I could get a place of my own. My current living situation was not ideal, but at least I had a place to sleep and hadn’t ended up on the street. A definite possibility after I’d been evicted from my home in Seattle.

Even if my temporary roommate was Himself’s black sheep of a cousin, Corb. Again, a bit of a story how it all happened. This one involved an elevator, an airplane, and an unintentional friend request. Joke was on him, though—I’d taken him up on his offer of giving me a place to live while I got back on my feet. Through him I’d met Eammon.

I flicked the flashlight on and swept the beam around. There was no obvious person waiting for me. I tucked my résumé into my bag and pulled out the card Eammon had given me.

On one side was the name of the company “Hollows Group” and the address. On the other side was Eammon’s scrawl.

Be bold. Show what you’ve got. We like brains.

Brains, I had those, and one of Himself’s major complaints was that I was too loud and brassy. Bold was an easy step to the left of that, and surely my lock picking qualified. I lengthened my stride as the sun dropped and the evening cooled, scaling back the humidity that never quite died this far south. My mind whirred through the events of the last twenty minutes.

The locked gate, the absence of anyone waiting to greet me. Maybe this was some sort of test.

As soon as I thought the question, I knew I was right. Which meant I needed to figure out just what it was they wanted me to figure out.

How long had it been since I’d even thought about the shadow world? Too long, and I was going to be as rusty as that lock out front if I didn’t pull myself together.

A slow circle with the flashlight and something danced off to my left, just out of sight, ducking behind one of the few gravestones that hadn’t given in to gravity.

I froze, my gut clenching with that fear of the unknown that my grandmother had instilled in me. All the Irish in me reared its very superstitious head.

Bad enough that part of me thought Eammon was a leprechaun.

Not just think, you know he is.

I gritted my teeth and ignored that inner voice that sounded so much like my gran. Gran as she’d been in her prime, filled with love for the darker side of things, a love she’d instilled in me. It had all seemed so far away when I was on the West Coast. It had been easy to think Himself was right, that she was eccentric and maybe a little crazy.

“Crazy old lady, before you know it, she’ll be overrun with cats and that house will be taken over by the city, ruining the value,” he’d said more than once. The value of the house always being the key point. What a ducking douche.

But here I was, stepping willingly into the same crazy waters that my gran had lived in. A part of me wondered if it wasn’t a mid-life crisis kind of thing. You know, suddenly you start dancing under the moonlight and chanting together as you burn incense and eat mushrooms that make your head spin.

The other part of me knew I’d just opened the door I’d asked Gran to shut all those years ago with that simple prayer I’d whispered. Because seeing bogies in the dark of a graveyard wasn’t something I’d experienced in a long, long time.

And that was exactly what I was seeing—a figure that wasn’t human.

Maybe it had been, but it surely wasn’t now.

What in the world was I getting myself into?

2

“Yeah, I see your scrawny butt over there.” I swallowed hard but kept my voice as steady as my flashlight. I’d come to this interview knowing in my heart that I’d be stepping into a world that would show its monsters to me if I asked. I’d asked, hell, I’d prayed for it.

Now the monsters were there, looking back at me.

Didn’t mean I wasn’t sweating like a pig in a hothouse.

“Come out. Right now.” There it was, Gran’s voice coming out of my mouth.

Sharp. Authoritative. I’d channeled her no-nonsense, kick-your-hind-end-if-you-don’t-listen-to-me tone.

“No.” The whisper-growled word sent a chill straight down my spine.

Be bold.

“Do not make me come over there, or you will be very, very sorry.” I snapped the words. “I am here for an interview, and if you make me any later, so help me. God in heaven will not save you from me . . .”

The rustling behind the gravestone made every hair stand along the back of my neck and my bare arms. I kept the light unmoving as the person slid to the left. Head down, long hair covering his face and eyes, scraggly clothes that hung off a whip-thin frame that made the Eric fellow from earlier look fat.

“That’s better,” I said, even though the image was anything but better. He swayed side to side, rocking himself faster and faster. “Do you know where Eammon is?”

“Noooooo.” Drawn out more this time, the voice was not . . . well damn, it was not human, but it wasn’t aggressive either.

This was not just an actor dressed in a costume to freak me out. This was the real deal.

Holy crap.

“Fine. I don’t know where anyone is either, so here’s the deal: you’re going to help me find them,” I said.

The gate rattled behind me, and I did a half turn, seeing someone I knew stepping through, although he hadn’t noticed me yet. Tall, broad across the shoulders, a very distinctive jaw I had thought about all last night as I lay in the room he’d let me have in his loft. Corb was Himself’s black-sheep cousin, as previously mentioned, and about the only person who offered to help me get back on my feet. That being said, he hadn’t wanted me to so much as talk to his buddy and co-worker, Eammon, when they’d had their visit the day before. Which was why Eammon had taken me out for tea unbeknownst to Corb.