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CHAPTER ONE

A Doozy

Day 1

My day had already gone to shit when two angry druids stormed into my shop My blood went cold The hair on the back of my neck stood on end My palms itched to hold the handle of a weapon The presence of druids in my shop was bad Very bad Their presence made the rest of my day seem pleasant in comparison, and it’d been a doozy so far

I’d gotten exactly two hours of sleep the night before, thanks to some new scheme concocted by my best friend/arch-ne to needbecause he’d claiency, and I owed hi, I was ed ht club, bullshitting until four in the , before I’d realized I’d been duped When I’d confronted the , “I was bored It’s not like you had a date” I’d gone hoet to sleep any faster

I’d stilltime Even at seven a outside, even at that early hour, felt a lot like being assaulted by nature’s biggest hair-dryer My dark t-shirt and jeans rinkled (but hopefully clean?), my blond ponytail was messy, I hadn’t had even one cup of coffee, and I was in a dark ods, I could ht time

I was none-too-pleased to run into cops and a busted lock as I approached the back entrance of the used bookstore/coffee shop I co-oith my sister I came to the obvious, and correct, assuain We were located in a questionable area of town Though adas, every area was at least a little bit questionable Even posh areas in Vegas got robbed Vegas criminals were equal opportunity employers

I’d cursed with gusto when I saw the full extent of the robbery The robbers hadn’t gone straight for the safe, as they had the last few times The place was trashed, top to bottom Why would anyone rob a used bookstore? I had no idea There was never a lot of cash in the safe, not ever Pickings et of no less than four robberies in the last nine months My naturally paranoid ood sign, I’d concluded It was starting to look like a good ti in that direction, anyways The growing popularity of e-books would have closed us down soon enough Business had been far froh

We moved often, my sister and I We were runaways by nature Drifters by necessity And ere adaptable It was our greatest ability, as far as I was concerned We changed houses, jobs, cars, and cities on a regular basis We’d lived in several countries, and we acclimated to other cultures well That was, perhaps, why the states had suited us so well for so long And the transient population in a place like Las Vegas was a particularly good fit What better place for two accoround?

I dealt with the police, sending the and ti up my mess of a shop By nine am, both of our full-time employees had called out sick Thisthe whole shop from it’s assault, I had to run both the cafe and book portion of the store On a weekend Grrr Suffice it to say, I wasn’t intime I didn’t even bother to hide it from the customers

My sister, Lynn, still didn’t anshen I called her for the fourth tiround music for her phone She had an unhealthy obsession with that song “Bastard,” I said at the beep, and hung up She was, in fact, a bastard, but she was about as sensitive about it as I was

I went back to work still cursing her One of our regulars walked in, looking around the stilllook

I just shrugged at hiht-faced Imotion across my throat He rolled his eyes at me, and headed to the mystery section So I’m only funny to myself It’s really the least of my problems

Therush wound down, and for once I was happy to have an e one of the few bookshelves that was still busted I was rather proud that I’d ether so quickly I wasmyself on the back when the entrance bell chiht with you,” I shouted fro in the horror section at the back of the store I didn’tuntil the customers either; a Came and asked me for help, or b Asked me to check the point

Was that the lock clicking? I wondered, seconds before so, and dusting my hands off on my jeans as I did so Every part ofinthe terh, they looked like clean-cut businessmen in unifor conservative gray Most wouldn’t notice the guns they carried under their jackets And al off of their skin like steam

Druids had long held the responsibility of governing the supernatural couarded the secrets of their own race quite obsessively frouessed, hy they felt they had to help keep the rest of us hidden Help was the wrong word That h any of us had a choice in the matter We didn’t

The staying hidden from the outside world part had never been a problem for me The part where they made us submit all of our personal information into their infamous rosters, well, that part had never sat ithas I could remember, sometimes more effectively than others My history with the druids was long, sordid, te it mildly

Having two druids walk into my shop was a disaster no nize these two in particular was ht cluster-fuck And, of course, it didn’t help that they both just happened to hate uts My palms itched badly My hands just ached to hold a weapon at that ht in ht of infinite coht of one in a holster atone Mmm, I loved that, too The recoil was like an old friend But they weren’t my favorite