“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” I asked.

He wiped his hands on his T-shirt. The man was covered with red clay. It was on his shirt, the front of his jeans, and both hands. “You called? When? I got your message about going up to San Francisco. How’d that go?”

“Not that. I called you again several times over the last couple of hours on the ride back.” I stepped forward to wipe a small streak of clay off his chin that was staining one side of his mustache. He flinched; guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like people touching me. “Hold still,” I reprimanded. My motherly attention didn’t help the streak, it only transferred some of the clay to my fingers. “What the hell are you doing with all this? Wait, this isn’t normal clay—it’s red ochre.”

“I must have had the ringer turned off, and yes, it’s red ochre. Slightly hydrated hematite powder, if you want to get technical. Don’t breathe it in. It’ll irritate your lungs.”

“Holy shit! I’ve never seen it in this kind of quantity. There must be a small fortune here!”

He shrugged. “I get it from a local mineral supplier who mines it in Russia.”

“Lon?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’? What the hell are you doing with all of this?”

His face relaxed as a grin spread across it. “I’m putting up a moat around your castle.”

I arched a brow and waited for the rest.

“A ward,” he clarified. “The same one I put up around my house last spring. The one motor-mouth spilled the beans about yesterday.”

“Ah, that one.” I tapped the flat of my blade against my thigh. “Jupe is at home, I take it?”

“Yep.” He turned away to continue dumping the damp hematite powder into the wheelbarrow.

“And?”

“And what? You want me to cite the source I got the ward from?”

“Maybe for starters. Then you can tell me how you managed to charge it.”

He finished emptying the hematite and folded up the empty plastic bag before stuffing it inside a trash can. Correction, my trash can. He’d taken it hostage. “Don’t just put that in there like that,” I complained. “The city won’t take it away unless it’s inside a garbage bag. Anything loose in there, they leave behind.”

“Well, then, can you please put that knife down and bring me a garbage bag?”

“Fine.” I pocketed the dagger and hiked through the yard.

“While you’re at it,” he called out behind me, “you might want to change into something grubby. This shit is messy as hell.”

“I never volunteered to help.”

“Then I guess I’m going to have to charge you.”

“I didn’t request your landscaping services—I’m not paying for something I didn’t order.”

“Bring an old spoon too,” he added as I rounded the corner to unlock my door.

After changing clothes, I returned to find Lon using a dolly to tote a large white plastic bucket toward his wheelbarrow. When he lowered the dolly, with some effort, the contents of the bucket made a sloshing sound. I opened up one of the black garbage bags I’d brought with me and fished out the loose bags from the trash can.

“So, how did you charge this ward the first time you did it, and how long have you been practicing magick … and what else can you do?”

“You look cute with your hair up,” he said in response. “Jupe’s right—Bride of Frankenstein.”

I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or giving me a compliment. Either way, I resisted the urge to straighten my ponytail, which sat high on my head. “You’re a strange man,” I muttered as I squatted down to pick up one of the shovels he’d brought. “How far away does your empathic ability work?”

“Why? You plannin’ to whack me on the head with that shovel?”

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“Only a couple of feet away. Maybe five feet max, if the emotion is clear and strong. It’s much easier for me to read a person if I’m touching them.”

“Note to self, always maintain a five-foot distance,” I said with a smile.

“Only if you have something to hide.”

“I don’t.”

“You sure about that?” he asked with a suggestive smile that sent an unexpected ripple through my chest. Christ, could he sense that?

“So sure,” I answered, forcing away the unwanted feeling. “How does this ward work?”

He studied me for a moment longer, the corners of his mouth twitching once, then dropped his eyes. “It emits a strong suggestive vibration. Anything that comes within a couple of feet of it with the intent to do you harm will be dissuaded. Most will just give up and leave.”

“And if they don’t?”

“If they cross the barrier completely, first you’ll see that the ward’s been breached. A network of blue lines will appear. Then a high-frequency sound will drop them to their knees. It’s like a dog whistle—you won’t hear it, but they will. If they persist, the sound will incapacitate them.”

“Hmm, sounds good. Now tell me how you charged a ward this big.”

He bent down over the white bucket and made repetitive digs around the lid with a small metal object to slowly pry the lid off. “I hooked myself up to a small electrical generator.”