MY OFFICE OCCUPIED A SMALL, STURDY BUILDING ON Jeremiah Street, in the northeast part of town. Jeremiah Street used to be called North Arcadia Street, until one day a Southern preacher walked out in the middle of the intersection of North Arcadia and Ponce de Leon and started screaming about hellfire and damnation. He called himself the second Jeremiah and demanded that the passersby repent and cease their idol worship. When the crowd ignored him, he unleashed a meteor shower that leveled two city blocks. By the time a Paranormal Activity Division sniper shot him with a crossbow, the street was a smoking ruin. Since they had to rebuild it from the ground up, they renamed the street after the man who’d demolished it. There was a lesson in there somewhere, but right now I didn’t feel like looking for it.

Once technically part of Decatur and now just part of the huge sprawling mess that was Atlanta, Jeremiah Street wasn’t as busy as Ponce de Leon, but tinker shops and a large auto repair yard sent a lot of traffic past my place. I left my Jeep idling in the street, got out, unlocked the chain that secured my parking lot, and drove in.

My office must’ve been a house at one point. The side door from the parking lot led into a small but functional kitchen, which in turn led to the large main room, where my desk waited for me. At the back wall wooden stairs offered access to the loft on the second floor complete with a cot. Several smaller rooms branched from the main room. I used them to store my herbal supply and equipment, both of which currently excelled at collecting dust.