Sarah noticed my grimace of pain, and leaned even closer. "Are you sure you're all right? Maybe I shouldn't have brought you tonight. What with the virtue and Theo and that horrible storm you conjured up—"

"Will you stop? I didn't conjure up anything. The pub owner himself said it was perfectly normal for storms to whip up like that."

"Yes, but he couldn't explain the way it completely disappeared a minute later. Nor why just the lights at the pub went out, and none of the other buildings nearby."

"The fuses were blown, nothing more. It's quite common in buildings close to a ground lightning strike."

"Hrmph."

Mystic Bettina (the name had me snickering softly to myself when we were introduced) returned to the round glass table with the others. Milo, Sarah, and I were already seated; Mystic Bettina took an elaborately carved chair I mentally dubbed "the throne," flashing a smile around the table. There were only five of us attending the séance—Milo and his wife, an elegant black woman who clutched a tattered bible, Sarah, and me. "Are we all settled, then? Very good. I'd like to welcome all of you to my mystic circle. I am sure that we will have a very good experience tonight with the spirits. They always know when people sympathetic to their beings are present."

I was going to say something, but Sarah was still miffed at me for the way I had driven off Theo the kidnapper.

"I'm afraid one of us here is a skeptic," she said, shooting me an accusatory look.

"Oh, but everyone is welcome at my table," Bettina said quickly, turning her overbright smile on me. "Even non-believers. Especially non-believers! It is perfectly healthy to be skeptical of something so beyond our grasp as the spirit world."