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“As I recall, the Sub Rosa like to eat, just like regular ­people,” Kasabian says. “We don’t have the money to pay a civilian, a Sub Rosa, a Lurker, or your aunt Sadie.”

I reach over and take the letter out of his hands.

“I know what this is. It’s the fucking White Lights. They’ve been around long enough they probably have all kinds of connections to crooked county pricks and lawyers. If they can’t kill us, they’re going to ruin us.”

Candy says, “Let’s show the letter to Julie. She’ll know what to do.”

“What if you’re wrong?” says Kasabian.

“How am I wrong?”

“You talked to the Augur, right? Told him you didn’t want to work for him.”

“Yeah. So?”

“What if you pissed him off and this is his way of getting back at you.”

That little rat bastard. I hadn’t thought of that.

“It doesn’t matter. We still have to show the letter to Julie. We can worry about who sent it later.”

I give Candy the letter.

“I don’t want to leave,” she says. “The only other home I had around here was Doc Kinski’s clinic, and they burned that down. Now someone wants to burn us out of here.”

Kasabian looks past us at the storage room.

“Too bad we can’t let Vincent loose on these ­people. We have the Angel of Death in our pocket and we can’t even keep the doors open.”

“No one is going anywhere,” I say. “First, we show the letter to Julie and see what she has to say. After that, I’m going to clean my guns.”

“Can’t you just talk to the Augur and apologize?” says Kasabian.

“We don’t even know it’s him. And if it is, caving without a fight doesn’t give us anything to bargain with.”

“I’m getting dressed. You get dressed too. We’re going to the office,” says Candy, tapping me on the shoulder with the letter.

“Yeah. We can hear what Brigitte found out too.”

Vincent opens his door and comes out.

“Good morning. Is there something wrong? You all sound tense.”

I start back upstairs.

“Nothing’s wrong. Someone’s just looking for a fight is all. Stay here with Kasabian and open the store. Act normal.”

“I don’t know what acting normal means,” says Vincent.

I stop on the stairs.

“None of us do, so just keeping doing whatever it is you do.”

“Maria called,” says Vincent. “She asked if you’d found Dash.”

“Fuck Maria’s ghost. Unless he went to Harvard Law School he can fucking hang until we get this shit sorted.”

“I’ll just tell her that you’re still looking.”