I teased Seb at some length – he deserved it. And I might even set a fairy on him, but I hadn’t seen any for a while. Maybe they hibernated. Or were hiding in Faerie until things warmed up. If they were ever going to.

Given Father Will was apparently covering for me, I decided not to head over to the church, not unless I needed his specific expertise. They were probably reading some really dry old books anyway. Researching something they would be really excited about but which would make me fall asleep even to think about it.

Of course, Kanesha might want to join them. She was big on the book stuff too. I wasn’t – maybe I should fix that, but I wasn’t in the mood to start with something Will would be researching with an efreet.

Nope. I decided to leave well enough alone and worry about our other problem. Clara and the Coven. That sounded like a band name, I thought wryly. Not a very good band, either.

A bad band…no, given some of the scandals around rock and pop stars, I was pretty sure a band would be just as much trouble except for hopefully not having magic involved.

Or Satan summoning, anyway. Backwards lyrics and all. No, wait, it was backwards recordings. Such a trope. I was fairly sure that wouldn’t summon a demon unless you embedded a true name in it or something.

So, yeah, I was worrying about Clara and her problems when I got ambushed. I didn’t get time to reach for my gun; and that was probably a good thing. I put the first of them on his butt with one smooth motion, and then whirled on the second.

He thought better of it, turning to run. I grabbed his friend and hauled him to his feet. “What was that about?”

“Uh…uh…”

“Tell me it was just about my purse,” I said with disgust. “My foster dad’s a cop.”

He turned pale.

That reaction told me it was just muggers. They were lucky I hadn’t killed them – probably lucky I’d had a recent experience with people who weren’t entirely culpable for attacking me.

“I see we understand each other.” I kept one hand on the front of his shirt and tapped 911 speed dial on my phone with the other.

I couldn’t go after his friend, but one of two was better than nothing. My blood was up, though. I wanted a real fight, not pathetic losers like this.

I was almost wishing the efreet had turned out to be an actual threat. But I talked to the dispatcher without letting go of this guy – not an easy feat – and handed him over to the uniforms when they showed up. Then I decided I was going to go find myself a nest of vampires.

Of course, you can never find things like that when you actually want to.