the finns and the garzas were families of mages. they'd been good friends at first. the originators of the feud had even gone into business together, developing spells and artifacts that were still in general use today. one of my favorite spell disks, the mudder, a handy little spell that turns solid ground into deep, wet mud, was a finn patent. they made money hand over fist.

until something went wrong.

the textbooks said it was a dispute over a patent, and maybe it was. but i doubted it. business disputes generate lawsuits. feuds are more ... personal.

whatever the initial reason, the two clans set to killing each other.

connor finn was one of the last two surviving members of his family. the other was his son, jack, who'd been born during his father's trial for having loosed a blood curse on the garza family. anyone else would have been executed for that crime, but because of his "value" as a mage, connor had been granted clemency in exchange for providing our government with the spells needed to keep us from losing our last war. he was serving a life sentence-with no possibility of parole-in the needle, the high-security supermax prison in the middle of death valley. the needle had been created to house mass murderers, terrorists, certain serial killers-the worst of the worst.

my professor had been completely obsessed with the creativity with which each family had wreaked havoc on the other. i had been treated to detailed descriptions of each and every spell used by either side: connor's curse that burned people alive, juan garza's spell that tore them into pieces no bigger than a dime.

connor finn had unleashed his curse at the wedding of juan garza and a pregnant maria santiago. every single person present with garza blood in his or her veins was destroyed. the baby in maria's womb was saved only because maria killed herself as the spell struck. the baby was delivered by postmortem c-section. the child, lucia santiago garza, disappeared from the hospital shortly after her birth, never to appear again.

until now.

because if connor finn was somehow behind these attacks, i'd bet my last dime that the intended victim was a garza, and suit-suit was probably his son, jack. like father, like son.

"you look sick. are you okay?" charles asked.

i felt sick. remembered images from photographs of the carnage flashed through my mind. the man who'd done that was the man who was threatening me.

i'd been scared before.

now i was freaking terrified.

"i'm fine," i croaked.

"liar." alex made the accusation sound kind.

charles shook his head. "connor finn is in the needle, in solitary. there's no way in hell he's responsible for this."

"pretty to think so," alex said.

"have you seen that place, heather?" he snarled. "i have. it's impossible. maybe connor's son is behind it, or some copycat who's obsessed with the feud. but it isn't connor. it can't be."

he was so certain. i wasn't. connor finn has one of the most brilliant minds of all time. his iq scores are off the chart. his magical ability and creativity are infamous. and he is a psychopath, a murderer with double-digit kills to his credit.

charles sighed. "look. i've got at least a dozen witnesses who saw you in the restaurant when the shot was fired. i've got your statement of what happened. why don't you go home and get some rest? i'll check back with you later."

he opened the car door and started to climb out. heather, however, didn't move. "are you okay to drive?" she asked me.

"yeah. i guess so." i looked down at my hands. the blood on them, michelle's blood, was drying and starting to flake. it looked so gross.

"you know what, you look a little shocky. why don't i drive you home?"

i wasn't up to an argument, so i agreed, though i was getting tired of being in situations where alex had to look after me. "okay. but first i need to wash my hands." she reached into her purse, retrieved a small package of diaper wipes, and passed them over the seat.

"here, use these. now scoot over."

i climbed over the gearshift to the passenger side while she moved from the back to the driver's seat. as she pulled out of the parking lot, i began using wipe after wipe to clean the mess on my hands. soon i had a dozen filthy wipes and nowhere to put them, so i stuffed them into the cup holder in the passenger door, promising myself i wouldn't forget to take them out later.

i slept, or passed out, or whatever. one minute i was fastening my seat belt, the next thing i knew we were pulling into the driveway. i rolled down the passenger-side window to lay my palm against the reader and line my eye up with the retinal scanner, glad there were security checkpoints on both sides of the entrance. i said my name and the gate swung open. we drove through, and before we'd gone more than twenty feet, the gate closed and locked with a clang.

we parked in the usual spot. i grabbed the wipes and hurried into the house, since i'd already been burned once that day and hadn't reapplied sunscreen since. it was a real relief when i stepped through my front door and into the living room.

minnie mewed a greeting but didn't leave her sunbeam. i was fine with that.

"wow, that's a lot of flowers," alex said, sounding mildly awed.

she was right. yesterday i'd been too preoccupied to really take it in. now, looking around, i was seriously impressed. the living room, kitchen, and part of the hallway looked as if a florist's shop had invaded. there was a riot of color and the scents were nearly overpowering. every flat surface was covered, as was most of the floor. there were small arrangements, large arrangements, and two that were so spectacularly huge they nearly blocked access to the kitchen.

i remembered those. the yellow and peach one was from queen lopaka and gunnar thorsen; the purple and gold was from king dahlmar and queen adriana. there were live plants, too. i love flowers and plants, but this was ridiculous. maybe i could call david and yolanda and see if they wanted to take some of them up to the main house.

"come close to dying and they really hit up the florists for you," i joked.

"not funny, graves." alex's face sobered. "these people are playing for keeps."

i dropped the wipes into the nearest wastebasket. "alex, please. do you really think i don't know that? after what they did?" she opened her mouth to argue, but i kept talking. "i have to joke about it. if i don't, i'll lose my nerve. i can't afford to do that. my job isn't just what i do, it's who i am. i believe in it. i'm good at it. and i am not letting these bastards take that away from me."

18

michelle andrews was not my client. nobody was paying me to take care of her, and some very scary people had made it abundantly clear that they wanted me to stay away from her. they'd let me know that i could be absolutely certain that my safety depended on it. there was no logical reason for me to protect her.

i'm not always logical.

she was a kid. yeah, i know, she was in her twenties and i'm not all that much older. but i've lived a harder life than michelle andrews and it showed. i'd been less of a kid at twelve than she was at twenty-three. if i didn't protect her, she was going to die. it was that simple. besides, these guys had seriously pissed me off.

so i made what might, admittedly, be a stupid, self-destructive decision and called kevin. after i filled him in, his first words were, "what do you want me to do?"

"find out what hospital she's in. make sure the police have someone on her door. if they don't-"

"i can stand guard until morning. but if it's a magical attack, there's not a lot i'm going to be able to do. have you hired a mage yet?"

"yeah, i did. look, if we're doing this, there needs to be a team and some organization. e-mail or text dawna and me when you get the information. i'm going to be working on the other end of things, trying to neutralize the threat at the source. i'm putting you in charge of the team." i still had to figure out who the hell was on the team, but hey, one thing at a time, right? "dawna will coordinate things between us. expect her to get in touch with the details after a bit."

my next call was to dawna. "get your cousin up to speed and put her in touch with kevin. he's in charge of the team protecting michelle andrews."

"we took the case? michelle's the client?"

"not exactly," i admitted. "michelle got shot in the chest in front of la cocina. i expect it's all over the news. kevin's going to the hospital to make sure the cops are guarding her door. if they're not, he'll stay. we're going to need to set up a team in shifts. i'm putting him in charge of it."

"for a woman who's not a client."

"for a twenty-three-year-old kid whose mother was murdered and who just got shot by a sniper."

she sighed, then said, "i'll take care of it."

"thanks."

"we'll need more than two people-particularly since you're not going to be working a shift. you're not working a shift, right? you just got out of the hospital."

i grunted. i didn't like admitting i wasn't up to taking a shift, but i really wasn't. damn it. "i'll deal with that tomorrow. i need to get some sleep."

"all right. you rest up. i'll take care of things."

"thanks."

"you're welcome."

we hung up. i fed minnie and threw a plastic bowl filled with beef juices into the microwave for dinner. when it was ready, i drank it, then used a double chocolate diet shake to wash down a pair of sleeping pills. it was still early, but i was exhausted. too much had happened. i needed rest. so while i normally avoid taking pills, i gave in to the temptation in the hope that i might have a night of deep, dreamless sleep.

it was a wasted effort.

i knew i was dreaming. but i was too deeply asleep to control or change what was happening. so i had no choice but to go along when i found myself with my eye to the scope of a rifle pointed at the exit of la cocina. i waited for my target, smiling in satisfaction when she ... also me, stepped out into the light.