Zoe’s scream sliced through the bookstore. She shrieked and stumbled in the aisle, knocking the travel books to the carpet. The wolf, skeletal, merciless, hunched it shoulders, readying to spring. Harry’s spirit whispered a curse. In spite of everything, pity surged through me for the woman. But I didn’t turn away. I saw the animal spirit tear at her neck. I saw Harry’s malformed ghost reach into her heart. I saw the sheriff grab Zoe’s wrist. In a back-and-forth motion, the g

Zoe slid the Necronomicon inside her shiny olive jacket. “Drop the belt.” The sheriff unbuckled her utility belt. Her holstered gun thunked to the thin, gray carpet. A cool draft twined about me. My hands dug into Bailey’s fur. Something was here – Harry? – but I couldn’t see it. “You were outside my house last night,” I said. “Yes,” Zoe said. “Now into the storage room.” “Why?” the sheriff asked casually, and this time the chill I felt rattled my bones. The sheriff didn’t wa

“I’ll take that.” With her gun-free hand, Zoe took the book from the counter. She almost looked military in her olive bomber jacket, her pelt of thick, short hair. “Join the sheriff.” She waggled the gun at me. Slowly, I walked around the counter. A wraithlike face blurred its shiny surface. I looked away, a chill rippling my skin. We weren’t alone. But a ghost wouldn’t stop Zoe. I would. “Did you bomb my station?” the sheriff asked. Zoe’s angular face set with fury. “Tom. T

A glittering carapace of snow covered Main Street’s cars and the old west buildings. Movements jerky, I tugged on cotton gloves and stared at the malignant, leather-bound book open on my counter. A weight pressed against my ankle, and I smiled down at Bailey. The beagle’s owner had been happy to leave him here while she shopped. Heart hammering, I bent, studying the autograph through a magnifying glass. Since I’d become a rare book dealer, I’d learned to verify author signatu

Rasputin. I raced downstairs, grabbing the baseball bat in the umbrella stand by the door. My aunt had woven protective wards around the house, and I’d maintained her spells. If Rasputin – or Tom, or whatever his name was – was a dark magician, he wouldn’t cross the property line. Chest heaving, I charged onto the porch. Icy knives of wind pierced the loose cables of my sweater. I shielded my face with one hand. A wiry, masculine figure loped down the road. My hand tightened

My phone rang, jangling me, and I half-fell from the futon. I scrambled across the attic’s rough floorboards to the phone. “Hello?” “It’s me,” Connor said. My shoulders collapsed in relief. “What happened? Are you okay?” “I’m fine,” he said. “So’s the book.” “I don’t care about the book.” I clambered to my feet and stared out the attic’s octagonal window. A cloud drifted in front of the waning moon. “It’s you I—” My throat thickened, choking off the words. “What happened?” “W

Frantic, I called Connor. “We’re sorry,” a mechanical voice droned, “you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel this—” I hung up and dialed the sheriff. “We’re sorry, you have reached a number—” My breath burst raggedly in and out. They were okay. They had to be. I strode to the front door, grabbed my ivory parka off its hook, wrestled the door open, stared. My neighbor’s pine lay across my driveway. The massive tree had crush

“Do you have information on the murder?” The sheriff’s voice was flat. I leaned against my tile counter and stared at the lights dangling in the window, listened to the screaming wind. Normally I enjoyed a good storm. But I couldn’t tonight, my palm moist on the phone’s slick plastic. “That book you found – is it a Necronomicon?” A long pause. “I thought you didn’t touch the body.” “There’s a photo on Harry’s Instagram—” She sighed. “What part of don’t-interfere-with-an-inves

Blocked. I hadn’t even found Lower World. Chest taut, I paced the attic. Usually, when magic didn’t work, it just didn’t work. But something else had happened tonight. Pages, rustling paper… a book? A Necronomicon? Impossible. The storm rose, howling. So Harry had a photo of a supposed Necronomicon. It didn’t mean that had been the book found on his body. “Urgh.” I stomped downstairs and booted up my computer in the kitchen. My usual sources didn’t have anything on a faux-Nec

The storm blew, a swirl of white. I struggled with the door to my stone and shingle home. An unnatural, colder draft flowed through the open door and past my ankles, “my” dead cat escaping for the night. Turning to the yard, I let my focus drift, stretched my sight into middle world. But the cat’s spirit remained invisible. I rubbed my temple. Would I see ghosts again? I was no detective. I needed that world’s aid now. Toeing off my shoes, I climbed to the attic. This had onc

I turned the sign in my window to CLOSED and switched off the lights. The street behind the damp glass brightened into view. Snow spun downward, softening the scene. What did that book have to do with me? I needed to know. Relaxing my gaze, I steadied my breathing. The holiday lights blurred. I reached with my other senses for Middle World, the world of the spirits. Doyle dated to the Gold Rush, and its streets were thick with ghosts. An SUV rolled past. Tourists, hand-in-han

The next day, I sat behind my counter and packaged a first edition Edward Gorey. Customers ambled through the bookstore, flipped pages, read covers. Selling rare books in an ordinary bookstore kept me the right amount of busy. I almost didn’t think about the dead man. A woman banged a dictionary onto the counter. She had Annie Lennox hair, blond, thick, short. She towered over me, and there was muscle definition beneath her mannish blue blazer. I forced my muscles to unbunch.

I rushed to open the bookstore’s front door. Connor strode inside. He pulled me into his corded arms, and for a moment, it was only us. No dead man. No book pointing to me as a possible killer. Just me enfolded in his woodsy scent. His sheriff’s parka rustled as we broke apart. I smiled up at him. “About time you got here, Hernandez.” He walked with me to the counter and laid a dried leaf on the book open upon it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. The sheriff had me tied

I don’t know why the sheriff let me go. And I never got to see that book. But I guess I couldn’t blame the sheriff for that. New Year’s Day, bleary eyed, I sat behind my bookstore counter and read old emails. A query from a competitor pretending to be a client (nice try). A New Year’s e-card from my sister, Karin. An author asking to do a book signing (yes). But no requests to meet in the forest or examine a rare book. The man had been a stranger, not from Doyle. Was the book

Sheriff McCourt planted her hands on the metal table and glared, an overgrown Shirley Temple with wide blue eyes and curly blond hair. I crossed my arms and pretended I hadn’t shrank backwards an inch or three. The metal chair creaked, giving away the lie. “Again,” she said. “I was in the woods—” “Alone? On New Year’s Eve? Did you and Deputy Hernandez break up?” I inhaled slowly and regretted it. The cinderblock interrogation room smelled of disinfectant. “It was a year walk.

How do you know you’re broken? When does suspicion become truth, or worse, self-pity? My boots sank into the powder, ice welding me to the earth. Moonlight silvered the clouds, mirroring the snow. Was I up or down, earth or sky? Mouth dry, head achy and spinning, I paused. For a moment I felt the other, roots extending from my feet into the hard earth, and hope sparked in my chest. Was this my vision? But the thought banished the strangeness of the scene. It was only me. The