He rolled his eyes. "Pretty much. It's fine, though. Gives me a chance to work on my reading exercises. I am so down with Venn diagrams."

"God, I love it when you talk dirty." I leaned against the edge of the console. I wasn't going to tell him about the dream-the old nightmare that I'd been having for years. He didn't need to hear about my neuroses, especially when they probably had nothing to do with the case.

And besides- nobody knew about Eve.

Nobody remembered her either.

"Earth to Tess." Derrick looked at me oddly. "You still here?"

He held my hand for a moment, but his expression didn't change. I couldn't feel anything. I could hardly ever feel him digging around in my mind, and that thought scared me a little.

"Stop that." I yanked my hand away.

"You seem okay, but something's wiggy."

"I'm just not sleeping very well." I looked away.

He leaned back in his chair. Derrick was one of those gay men who had once been unattractive and out-of-shape, but had managed to earn a pretty decent physique for himself through exercise (possibly) and dancing to house music (probably). But he still had that boyish uncertainty about his body that only comes when you remember what it was like to be the one picked last for the volleyball team, the one that nobody wanted to go to the prom with. That hesitation, that little flicker of discomfort and sheepishness, was damn attractive, and he knew it.

"What are you grinning about?" He'd noticed my lapse in concentration.

"Oh-I was just remembering junior year. That party we went to at Patty Hornburger's house."

"The night where you drank B-52s and barfed out your retainer?"

"Yeah. We were so cute back then."

"Seriously, Tess." His brown eyes narrowed. "You've been working yourself into the ground lately. You're not a cyborg. You have to sleep, and I know you've been staying late at the lab, hogging all the good microscopes."

I thought of telling him about my "conversation" with Marcus-more of an ultimatum, really-but decided not to. No sense in worrying him.

"Well, someone's got to do it," I mumbled.

"There are lots of other OSIs out there."

"You mean younger ones."

He sighed. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. I know the drill, Derrick. I've been getting the speech for the last three years now. Tess, you're too old for this sort of work. Tess, you've got to move up in the world. You can't work the front line forever."

"Well, you can't."

"And why not? It's ageism. It's discrimination."

"Tess, those guidelines are in place for practicality's sake, not to make you feel oppressed. You know as well as I do that young mages have more power."

"But I've got more experience! I can run circles around those little Michelle-Jessica-Parker girls with their goddamn Hello Kitty cell phones."

"Your cell phone has a Morrissey dial tone."

"That's not the point!" I smoothed my hair as a reflexive calming action. It was getting short, so there wasn't much to smooth. "I'm getting old and embarrassing, and nobody wants to patrol with me anymore, and why did you let me get this haircut?"

"You said you wanted to look like Julianne Moore."

"But she's got that translucent Irish skin, and I've just got"-I scowled-"frizzy red hair. I look like Peppermint Patty with a hangover."

"No you don't-"

"I do! I look"-I stared at him-"oh God, Derrick, I look twenty-four."

He put his arm around me. "You are twenty-four, sweetie. And that's okay. There are all kinds of support groups."

"I just don't want to be told what I can't do. I don't want to be told that I'm getting long in the tooth, like some horse-"

He groaned. "I don't see why you're always complaining anyway. You've got your whole career ahead of you. Nowhere to go but up. You've got good friends, a great family, a job that's pretty much everything you ever dreamed of."

"So why can't I sleep at night?"

"Ha." He smiled bitterly. "Join the club. That's one thing the CORE never promised us, right? A clear conscience."

I closed my eyes. "I have to go home."

"Why, did you forget something at your apartment?"

"No, I mean home-to Elder."

He winced. "Bring a cross and stake. And sensible shoes."

"I'm bringing you. Marcus said."

His grin faded.

"How much do you hate me right now?"

Derrick glared at me. "It would be one of those google-plex numbers."

I smiled. "Thought so."

I stared at the WELCOME TO ELDER: THE SUNSHINE TOWN! sign, and felt my stomach beginning to lurch. "Great. Just great."

We began to pass familiar landmarks. The tourism center, which looked suspiciously like a red barn. The Cherry Lane mall, whose parking lot was now deserted, which gave it a strangely haunted look. The Greyhound depot, where every bus was always late, and the coffee could actually bore a hole through your intestines.

Derrick turned left onto Yale Street , and we headed into the residential neighborhoods. We drove past the satellite campus of ValleyCollege, which was actually an old converted motel that seemed-I remembered-to require constant fumigation. Past the Lighthouse Inn, which was nowhere near a lighthouse (or a body of water, for that matter), and whose suites looked out onto the scenic Vedder Bypass Road . Past the abandoned gas station on the corner of Yale and Hocking, which had been mysteriously boarded up due to some zoning conflict for the last two years. Past the Schnitzel House restaurant, where my dad had almost choked to death on a scallop when I was eight years old.

"God," Derrick said. His voice was almost a whisper. "The streets are almost completely empty. It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone."

"It's after seven thirty," I explained. "Everybody's home from work by now, sitting in front of the television."

"Holy Stepford."

"Just drive, city boy." I scowled. "You know, just once, I'd like evil to take root in some nice seaside town, or on the beaches of Santa Barbara. Why is it always in the suburbs? Is a sweet vacation too much to ask?"

"Well, if it's any consolation, we may get killed on the job soon," Derrick replied. "That's sort of like a vacation. In whatever heaven-dimension we're both destined for."

"I'm not going to heaven," I said glumly. "I'm staying here. For eternity. Eating at the Dairy Queen with my parents. "

"That's funny. My private version of hell is being stuck at the Water Street Cafe with my parents, eating crab bisque and talking about how I should have gone to an Ivy League school."

"I'll trade you any day."

We drove down First Avenue , then turned onto Crescent, which was one of those tiny cul-de-sac streets with manicured lawns and puppies playing around sprinklers. The houses were three-story colonials, with balconies and bay windows. They made my parents' town house look like a pita shack. Cassandra Polanski, it seemed, came from money. Or at least from a family trying to look like they had money. I saw plenty of that in the city, but it still existed in the suburbs as well. Oh, sure we can afford that big house with the pool on our teaching salary. No problem! Maybe that was the case here.

I sucked in my breath. "Ready for the sweep?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

We both got out of the car, and I took another look at Cassandra's house. I could see the glow of the television set through one of the living room windows. And the sound of laughter. Was it coming from the TV, or was there really a happy family in there, laughing and talking with each other?

"So," I asked, "spiral or grid?"

"Spiral." Derrick grinned. "I'm feeling kind of twisted right now."

"Your puns always suck."

"Oh yeah? So does your face."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Okay, let's actually try to be serious for once."

I began the sweep by walking in concentric, expanding circles-widdershins for the traditionalist, spiral search pattern for the OSI-scanning the grounds for any hint of material psychic power. Like prints, which could be visible or latent depending on the nature of the transference, mystical and psychic energy might be lying in plain view, or buried deep underground. I didn't sense anything in the driveway, but most people laid complex materia down closest to their front door.

As I got closer to the porch, something dark and immense brushed against my psychic boundaries, and I instinctively took a step backward. It wasn't a defensive spell per se- more like a declaration of power, a rune drawn in blood on the very surface of the air. For anyone mage-trained, it was the equivalent of waving a flag, or setting off a flare gun: Keep away.

Great. Necromancers, vampires, and psionics-we almost had a musical.

5.

"Well." Derrick appeared behind me. "I can certainly feel that. Someone's put out the BEWARE OF DOG sign."

"Selena didn't say anything about mages being involved in this." Derrick was fidgeting. He always fretted and fussed like a bird when he was nervous. "I thought it was strictly a vampire thing."

"We don't know specifically that it's a 'mage thing' either. For now, all I'm sensing is power, and that comes in a lot of packages."

"So knock and find out."

Shooting him a look, I walked up the short flight of steps and found myself facing the door. It was one of those huge black doors you see in the movies, with a brass knocker and a little stained-glass window at the top. My parents' door had a macrame woodpecker attached to it. I had definitely crossed a class boundary somewhere.

"Very Dickensian," Derrick supplied.

"Very creepy, you mean. What if they're reclusive millionaires or something? Doing illegal experiments?"

"Evil geniuses living in the sweet-corn capital of the FraserValley?" He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Tess."

I took a deep breath, and knocked once. Loudly.

The door swung open. A short women, a bit plumpish, probably in her midforties, was staring at me. She had steely blond hair cropped into an unfortunate bob, and a pair of glasses hanging from a string around her neck. She was wearing a flower-print skirt that probably came from Sears, and a sleeveless denim top. Something that my mom would have worn. She was also carrying what looked suspiciously like a cookbook. Suddenly, I was the one who felt like a freak. She might have been a necromancer, but if so, she was a necro who knew how to make spetzle, and that was better than me.

"Yes?" The woman blinked at me. "Can I help you?"

"Cassandra Polanski?" I suddenly felt like I was twelve years old again, knocking on my best friend's door. This was why I hated doing interviews. When it was strictly a human affair, we just announced ourselves as "Van Criminalistics" and took everyone's statement. You'd be amazed what an ID badge can do for you, especially if it's been enspelled with a charm of complacency. We monitored the police lines twenty-four hours a day for any calls that might relate to paranormal activity. Kind of like how the USA's Patriot Act monitors alleged terrorism-only less evil. Instead of listening for keywords like "bomb," we paid attention to phases like "ectoplasm" and "my grandmother just summoned an evil djinn."

Somehow, I didn't think it was going to be easy this time.

"Yes, that's me." Her eyes narrowed. "What's this regarding?"

I resisted the urge to clear my throat. "I'm Tess Corday, and this is Derrick Siegel-we're from the Vancouver Crime Lab, MCD. We're investigating a death that occurred last night in the city-"

Cassandra raised a hand to stop me. "I commute to Vancouver during the day, but I don't spend my evenings there."

"Well, I didn't say that the crime occurred during the evening."

Cassandra gave me a sour look. "Is there something you're trying to insinuate? Because I don't really have time to stand here trading semantics-I'm in the middle of making dinner for my niece."

"What's her name?" Derrick asked.

Her expression didn't improve. "Mia. I'm her legal guardian."

"What happened to her parents?"

"They died. A long time ago." Her frown deepened to a scowl. "If you'd like the details, I can refer you to the law offices that handled their estate. I'm sure that the paperwork is all in order."

Okay, different tactic. Appeal to her maternal vibe.

"Miss Polanski," I said, "the reason we're here is that we found a note in the decedent's pocket-a note with your address on it. Now, for the sake of your safety, as well as Mia's, we'll need to investigate this further. Unless"-I gave her a level look-"you think it's just a remarkable coincidence."

"There are all sorts of coincidences, Miss Corday- remarkable or otherwise." She leaned against the door frame. "Maybe this person of yours had the wrong address. Or maybe it was a robbery attempt gone bad-there are scads of wealthy homes in this area, ours notwithstanding, but perhaps we appear to be rich by association."

"If it was a 'robbery gone bad,' as you say"-I smiled thinly-"well, Miss Polanski, that would make you a suspect, wouldn't it? If you were only defending your home, the safety of your niece-"

Something glittered in her eyes. "I am not a killer. I don't know what happened to this person, whomever they might be, but I surely didn't touch them. As you can see"-she gestured wearily to her apron-"I'm not exactly a trained assassin. "

"Aunt Cassie?" I could see, over Cassandra's shoulder, that a girl was standing at the top of the stairs. "Who's there? I thought I heard my name."