I step out of the car, crack all my knuckles in succession. The air feels like turpentine, the In-N-Out sign thick and huge in the psychic landscape. I close my eyes so hard my cheeks hurt, and try to sift through all the garbage to the burglar in our minds.

"Someone latent?" Paul suggests. "Scanning without knowing what they're doing.

I thrash my head back and forth. "Too strong."

I feel recalcitrant kids in the car next to ours, a tipping-point argument across the parking lot, but they're too dull, too colorless. Not our bogey. There's a shuffle next to me, and Arabella's hand is in mine. With our link-up sizzling full of guesswork, we scan.

Me: an old man on the benches outside McDonald's, stacked with loneliness. No.

Her: a spike of teenage cruelty. No.

Me: a cuckolded husband. Her: a boy drunk on two different girls. No.

A mugger; a stoner; a clerk; an autistic; we dredge each of them and come up with no signal, one or two of them latent at best, the rest as silent and spooked as anyone. Then into our brainwave patter comes Paul, a drugged-out smirk with legs.

"Denny's."

All at once, like a bad comedy troupe, we turn.

The sign reads even bigger than In-N-Out, bright yellow and reeking of midnight. And just past it, buried under decades of speed freaks and truckers, is the signal.

I grit my teeth against the astral static. "Anyone else getting that?"

"Wish I could say no?" Arabella's spine is a piece of rebar.

We head in at a measured clip, Paul billowing out smoke and me and Arabella doing our young-couple act. We think about chicken strips and milkshakes, nonchalant as can be, defenses off despite the needles prodding our brains. The scan cuts off once we're inside, and I somehow manage not to laugh.

The building is layered in green carpets and sleep deprivation, and smells like condensation and grease. I can't accept that we're in here before 2 a.m. The seats are just warm enough to discomfort; the menu looks like a heart attack, and I'm pretty sure mine was used to hit someone. There's a reason psychics cook at home.

"Who is it?" I murmur, menu hiding my lips.

"Guy by the door?" Paul suggests. "I'm getting interference, think our bogey ducked under a shield."

"Guy by the door is unshielded," I reply. "Felt him on the scan, he's the one being cheated on."

"Two booths down, behind you," says Arabella.

I'm miffed she won the scan race, but I still follow her gaze. Past the businessman on his seventh cup of coffee, past an empty booth stacked high with fry baskets, there's a man who looks like a flannel-clad hamster shoving his bill at the waitress. He bites his lip and drums on the table as she walks away from him; I manage to swing back to the table before his attention comes my way.

Arabella looks at me, smug. "Who was worried about me coming along for field work?" Her foot brushes the arch of mine; in a different universe, she might have winked.

"Nice work, Holmes."

"You're a cokehead?" Paul asks her.

My eyes roll so hard I go dizzy. "Arabella, you work up an excuse to keep him from leaving. Paul, you think up some better material. I'm goin' in."

"I await your display of manly prowess," she says. "Swoon on deck."

I sneer at her, and make like I'm headed for the bathroom as I get up. I wait until the last second, when our bogey's heart is slapping up around his chin, and dump myself sideways into the guy's booth. He's a shade prettier this close up, but the way his jaw drops in panic when I sit down doesn't help.

"Shit."

"Got that right," I say. "You a peacekeeper?"

"I..."

The waitress shows back up, bill in her hand and confusion on her face. I give her my counterculture smile and nod toward my prey with familiarity.

"Sorry for the shift in seats. Old friend of mine. Could I grab a cup of coffee and I'll just pay with that crew back there?" I point a thumb at Paul and Arabella.

"Oh, oh sure," she says, still wary. "Be right back with that. Here's your receipt," she says to my target, more businesslike. "Have a nice day."

He accepts with an inaudible stammer, scribbles a signature on the receipt with shaking hands. He nearly slams the check shut on his knuckles.

"Hope I didn't undermine your dating life," I say.

He shuts the check, slides it to the edge of the table. He's got a sense of indignation that could club a man to death, but he's locked up trying to gauge if he can take me. Good.

"Are you a peacekeeper?" he asks, all stares.

"Says so on my passport." That's a smack right to his face. I keep on swinging. "Why, you trafficking stored memories without a license?"

"There's no license for memory trafficking," he sneers back.

"Which is a real problem. Makes you wish we had demons in Congress, doesn't it?"

He starts to return fire, and is cut off by the waitress bringing me my coffee. I smile across at him as I pour in cream and sugar, and watch his head of steam sputter out. The waitress doesn't even notice.

"Of course," I continue, full speed, "we probably do have demons in Congress—"

"I'm sorry," he blurts out.

I take a quick sweep of his mind. There's sorrow there, a sense of frustration. He's overwhelmed.

"Listen," I all but whisper, my own good cop, "apology accepted. Provided, of course, that you tell me why you scanned us."

"Scanned?" he tries to ask.

"You didn't bat an eye at peacekeepers or demons," I say, knife-quick. "So don't try to pretend you didn't know what you were doing."

The guy's aura is lit up pure white, with a crimson penumbra as his frustration builds. He looks at me with a face like a Missing poster, and I catch a remembered glimpse of an old man in a wheelchair. Apparently we have something in common.

"I'm supposed to be the perimeter," he murmurs, taking careful stock of his water glass.

I take a long, discomfiting slurp of my coffee. "Perimeter?"

"Master Gary asked..." He shakes his head in disbelief. There's Wheelchair Guy again. "Master Gary asked some of us to spread out south and north. Keep a scan up for any psychics and parasites headed Mendocino way, keep him informed." He weighs his next words with an atomic scale. "Try to catch whoever did it."

I play dumb. "Did what?"

"Made that peacekeeper disappear, you know, the thing you must be headed up to investigate?" He looks out the window, into the kitchen, anywhere but at me. "Master Gary didn't tell us you'd be coming..."

A warm bath flows over my brain.

"You're a pinch hitter," I say, pieces clicking. "Peacekeepers in Mendocino got their balls cut off and you were called in to play the role." I raise my cup in front of my face. "You're scabs."

"Don't use that word," he snaps back. "Things are a little nuts up there." I see haunted houses in his eyes. "Trapped memories getting seeded all over the place, demons going after worse food than normal. It's a small town." I think he's whining. "It needs to be quiet. Master Gary is beholden to the agreement just like you, he has to—"

"Stow it," I say. "If you pretend the agreement is like the law that just means you don't care about either, and I'm not in the mood to wring you out like a sponge."

"You don't have the juice," he responds.

"Very mature," I drawl back. "You must be a Lit major, you've got pretending you're knowledgeable down pat."

That sends shock rippling across him. I cock my head, give him a stare like an arc welder.

"What's your name?"

He tries to answer, and stops mid-syllable. King Randall is displeased.

"I could just pull it out of you."

Every molecule of him squirms. "Matt."

"Matt." I run a psychic finger over him. "Matty," I say, more satisfied. "So, what's up with you? Summer break? Drop out to see the world? Never went?"

"Summer break," he replies. "Humboldt State."

"Nice. Good program?"

He stares at me. Once you get past the nerves he's got sardonic down pat.

"I needed a job," he says. "Master Gary was paying nicely. Hazard pay." He's clearly quoting the joke that won him over.

"Didn't even ask yet," I murmur. "You got skills." I grip my cup tight, slide myself out of the booth. "Listen, I'm up to talk to the actual peacekeepers in Mendocino. You seem like a good kid"—I grind that word in hard—"so I'll be sure to let them know you aren't a threat or anything. That way they shouldn't pull your head off if the higher-ups come down on your Master."

"Come down on him for what?" The indignation's back.

"For pretending he's got something shaped even remotely like jurisdiction."

Matt smiles, but it's mostly to show me teeth. My joke struck true. "Money and power get you a lot of jurisdiction."

"I know people with more of both. Seeya, Matty."

I leave him in a storm cloud full of worry, consequences already playing out in his head. I wait until I'm in the booth next to Paul before I let myself go pale.

"Plot twist."

I spend the next half-hour behind the steering wheel, my eyes glued to the back of a lumber truck while Arabella exchanges sharp questions with my cell phone. The debate peaks as we're passing through Cloverdale, and comes to an end shortly before I pull into a gas station and KFC that are trying very hard to pretend they're downhome. Arabella hangs up with a face like a noose, and looks in her lap at the pad full of jittery notes.

"Dr. Barg says to tell you you're a loose cannon. Feel proud of yourself?"

"Ecstatic. What do we know?"

"That you drive faster when you're nervous." Whatever's on her face, it's not a smile. "'Master' Gary Callahan," she says to her notepad. "Old-school Mendocino native, lives in one of the sub-backwaters. Used to head a group called the Children of the Shining One."

"Cult," I say, in a tone reserved for discussing barnyard rape.

"I'm guessing he prefers a euphemism," Paul says from the back.

Arabella glances icicles his way. "Public-facing group around the turn of the century, Doc says. Nothing special, maybe a drug connection, but no convictions."

"They have an angular connection?" Paul asks.

"Isn't that your specialty?" I grind.

"Hey, who's supposed to be annoying who?"

"Both your groins are large and picturesque," Arabella says in stride. "Astral involvement isn't certain but Gary himself is definitely one of us. One of the first West Coast psychics to spread the gospel of the agreement."

"We're calling that gospel now?" Paul asks, leaned up between the seats. "Somewhere the ghost of Glide Memorial is crying."

"Yours is even bigger," says Arabella.

I change the subject before our thoughts fill up with penis. "So, pro-agreement, in the know and allowed to be, trying to mind the farm while they're down an able hand. Makes sense, oh, except for the part where it's totally fucking suspicious."

"Suspicious enough it's gotta be the genuine article," Paul says.

Arabella and I both turn and stare at him. Paul can't possibly be as surprised as he looks, but then, I guess that's the point.

"Use your tiny gray brains," he says. "After Kincaid, the angle men are at Defcon One. If they thought Reverend Jones and his posse were a danger that kid would've been too busy being nailed to a fencepost to talk to you."

I look out the window, shake my head. "I'd love to disagree, but you're right."

"Thinly-veiled resentment, party of one."

Arabella rests a hand on my shoulder. "Let me: Paul, shut up."

That gets a snicker out of both of us.

"So glad you're here, Ara," I say.

"Arabella," she replies, all huff. "I'm guessing Master Gary's just misguided. Heart in the right place but too used to keeping his head low."

"And having people under his thumb," adds Paul.

"That too. He took initiative and got secretive without any forethought, didn't bother to let us know he was pitching in."

My eyes hurt. I slump against the window and debate my excuses. "What'd Barg say when you mentioned all the shit hitting the fan?"

Out comes a rueful smirk she's been saving for just this moment. My stomach's bottom drops out.

"Oh, you're gonna love this." I can hear her words before she's even fully thought them. "Dr. Barg says we should consider ourselves on duty for the duration. Any troubles the locals have—"

My forebrain crinkles. "Oh, for—"

"Brilliant," Paul coughs. "Fucking brilliant, even. Maybe motherfucking—"

"Paul," I cut in.

He shrugs. "Just sayin'."

"On duty," I mutter. I look out at the highway and the spindly mountains up the road. Stress and sarcasm pile into my dimples. "No, Paul, sorry, I think you were on track with the swearing." I put the key in the ignition. "Anyone want anything before we head north?"

Arabella shakes her head. "Is it ironic that I'm suddenly not hungry?"

I turn the key, let the engine kick over. "Ironic would mean it wasn't expected."

I pull back out of the gas station, and drive through the chain-linked wastes outside Cloverdale until I find an on-ramp. We're all conjuring little snapshots of a riot: burning trashcans, demons chasing people up streets. We all know they're exaggerations, but that doesn't stop us from imagining ourselves with billy clubs. Except Arabella, who has seen fit to imagine us all bleeding our guts out in an alley.

This drive just got a whole lot longer.