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This was the ht raveyard

"Aye, I put it out for you to find"

"Good lord, she really did visit you," Elyssa said

"Fine, I’ll take the ASE," I said, holding out a hand for it and hoping I didn’t have to touch Bigglesworth’s icky skin

He dropped it into htened theent, sir"

I tucked it into a pocket, unwilling to view it here where everyone could see it "Where’sto her?"

He shook his head "It ain’t for me to say, no sir Miss Ivy tells me what to do and I does it, no questions asked"

I stepped toward hi skin "Where do the Conroys keep her?"

Again, he shook his head "I’ve done my duty, sir and I can’t do no more" He tipped his hat "G’day to you both" He winked at Elyssa and smirked Turned on his heel and headed back toward the alley we’d coh a few minutes earlier

I started after him "Oh, no, you don’t"

The chubbyto lesworth turned Tipped his cap at , asped behind oop funneled into a drainage grating on the side of the alley floor and vanished inside

Chapter 4

"What," I said, "in the hell was that thing?"

Elyssa shook her head "Some kind of shifter, but one I’m not familiar with"

I looked at the oop as well Thankfully, it seelesworth had held it made me want to scrub it andon?"

"Maybe you should wait until we’re somewhere private," Elyssa said

I turned back toward Founder’s Square and noticed horns slowly growing froiant deht"

After threading our way through congested afternoon traffic, we reached Decatur and parked behind a donut shop A red X next to a smelly dumpster marked the spot

"He chooses the loveliest locations," Elyssa said, holding her nose

"Better than the one don" My nose wrinkled at theabove that hideout

I turned back to the red X I a set of stairs in the place of the reen-blooded son of a bitch" As usual, usted breath and ical energy pressed against me I repeated the spell The concrete faded away to reveal a set of stairs leading down into a lit hallway

"Shelton uses some whacked-out pass phrases," Elyssa said as alked down the stairs

"You’d have to be a nerd to appreciate it" I hurried down the narrow corridor and entered a large space the size of a school gye Shelton had partitioned the area into testing grounds, creating a e fro, that happy occasion probably wouldn’t be for another century or so

On the other side of the testing grounds, we entered a hall and the residential part of his hideout Shelton had told ic Elyssa and I passed through the hall and found Bella and Shelton lounging at the kitchen table, drinking tea and playing Scrabble

Shelton groaned as Bella forru up

Bella, a petite Arcane I’dlish isn’t even e"

"Whatever, wo Scrabble a couple hundred years longer than I have"

Bella’s violet eyes widened with hurt "Harry, you should never call a woe"