About the Author
Praise for the Graves Glen Series
Also by Erin Sterling
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Last Christmas Eve
Queen’s Head Pub, London
Elves really were dickheads.
Not the one currently grinning at Bowen from the chalkboard near the pub’s entrance, a wee little guy sketched out in red and white, grinning dementedly next to the evening’s special of venison lasagna and something called merry yule nog!
That fella, with his jaunty cap and overly big eyes, seemed like he might need to lay off the caffeine a bit, but tonight Bowen’s grudge was against real elves. The wankers with their long white robes, mysterious mountain homes in the wilder parts of Scandinavia, and nearly indecipherable language that he had just spent the better part of a bloody week trying to read, only to realize what he’d spent hours poring over in a dusty back room of the British Library was actually a recipe for fucking mead, something that didn’t seem to require more than a hundred pages of text, and yet.
Bastards had better be glad they all fucked off about five hundred years ago, he thought darkly as he sipped his pint and watched passersby hurry down slick streets as Christmas lights twinkled overhead and cars threw up sheets of freezing water.
Over the pub’s speakers, a singer warbled about chestnuts and open fires just as a group of shoppers burst through the front door, laughing and talking all at once, and Bowen felt his shoulders creeping up closer to his ears.
A week in the city was about six and a half days too long for Bowen’s taste, but he had one more little bit of business in London tonight before he could head back to his house—well, “hut” was a better word—in the mountains of Wales. It would be freezing and dark and lonely, and he would be far, far more comfortable.
Of course, now that this elf thing had turned out to be such a waste of time, he’d have to go back to the drawing board on Declan’s spell, but that would be all right. He was always happier when he was working anyway.
Thinking of work had Bowen glancing back at his phone: 4:58 p.m.
They were supposed to be here at five, but you never knew with these types. Bowen had dealt with more than one “Acquirer” in his day—humans who sold magical artifacts. It was a shady business, deeply secretive by requirement, and too many of them didn’t take the time to actually learn about what it was they were selling. Bowen had once bought a crystal goblet from an Acquirer. It had been crafted sometime in the thirteenth century, and it had the ability to poison any drink within a fifty-foot radius.
The idiot had been keeping it with his coffee mugs.
So no, Bowen didn’t have the highest opinions of humans who meddled in things they didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny that they were useful. Unlike witches, they weren’t tempted to keep the things they acquired, and there was no history with these kinds of people, no tangled family feud from centuries back that could lead to issues.
And the one he was meeting tonight, this “TLB Acquisitions, Ltd.,” had been especially good. Thanks to their work, for the past year or so, Bowen had gotten his hands on a grimoire no one had seen since 1832, a tarot deck that had once belonged to the sorcerer John Dee, and an album that could cause an outbreak of St. Vitus’s dance.
All of it done quickly, discreetly, and, yes, fucking expensively, but worth it as far as Bowen was concerned.
Which was why he’d asked for a meeting with T from TLB. Thankfully, it turned out they’d both be in London at the same time, and now, as the clock ticked over to five, he glanced toward the door.
As though Bowen’s thought had summoned him, a man strode through the door, jangling a bell overhead. He was wearing a smart suit, his bald head gleaming under the lights as he shook off an umbrella there in the vestibule. With his shiny shoes and rimless glasses, he looked like a banker, which meant he was almost certainly an Acquirer.
They all looked like that.
Bowen lifted his chin, but the man only glanced briefly at him before his face broke out into a wide smile as he waved at someone off to Bowen’s right and hurried to a table of other similarly dressed men.
Bowen watched him pass with a frown, then heard the bell sound again and looked back to the door just as a small figure that seemed to be made entirely of white fur came barreling in. A gust of wet sleet rattled on the slate floor before the door slammed closed again, and the human-sheepdog hybrid shook itself slightly as it reached up to unwind a tartan scarf from around its head.
Soft brown hair spilled out over the white fur, and the woman turned, her eyes searching.
They landed on him.
And . . .
Fuck.
It was like a battering ram to the chest.
A tankard to the temple.
A . . . Christ, he couldn’t come up with any more similes, because this absolute vision in fake fur was now smiling at him and walking to his table, St. Bugi’s balls and all his other bits.
As she approached, he could see that her eyes were the same rich brown as her hair, and she had dimples in each cheek, deep ones, and Bowen was suddenly very glad he’d decided to grow a beard all those years ago, because he was pretty sure he was blushing.
Blushing—kill him now.
His thighs bumped the table in his hurry to stand as she approached, but she didn’t seem to notice, offering him a gloved hand that he took without thinking.
“Bowen,” she said, and how did she know his name?
Had he died? Was this pub heaven? No, he’d done studies of the afterlife in various cultures, and he didn’t think he’d ever heard it described as a pub anywhere, and she had an American accent, which seemed odd for an angel in a Welshman’s heaven, but surely such things are possible, and—
“Tamsyn Bligh,” she went on. “So nice to finally see the face behind the emails!”
Then her eyes moved over him, and she frowned a little.
