Which is how I ended up being the only one who could help. As a null, I don’t have any particular magic powers—just the opposite, really. I negate all the magic within a certain radius around me, creating a magic-free bubble that has me as its center. In theory, if Marko stayed within that area, I could keep him human for a short time, and he and his wife could make a baby the old-fashioned way. Assuming, of course, we could all get past the extreme awkwardness that would be involved.

It was weird, but it was far from the weirdest thing I’d done lately. The leaders of the Los Angeles vampires, werewolves, and witches all paid me a retainer to clean up supernatural problems that arose in the city. When things were quiet, as they’d been for the past couple of months, I was free to pick up freelance work.

Most of the time this involved shepherding vampires around during daylight activities, but two weeks earlier, I had been paid to attend a witch’s beach volleyball tournament so I could make sure her opponent wasn’t using magic to cheat. A few days before that, I’d accompanied a crowd-shy werewolf to a taping of his favorite sitcom, to help him stay calm in the midst of all that teeming humanity. I might have actually enjoyed that outing, except the sitcom was one of those “fat slovenly husband vs. shrill anorexic wife” crapfests. Freelance work could be kind of a gamble.

This series is wonderful.

Scarlett goes to Las Vegas (which is a vampire haven) to look into two vampires flagrantly breaking the Old World rules using their powers to … put on a Vegas show of all things. And also keep a bachelorette party safe. But it’s all for a purpose in the end. One thing leads to another, a bunch of vampires die, and Scarlett has to save the day. And then kill a new friend, because that’s what she promised.

I rolled my eyes. Ah yes, Old World politics. You can’t attack someone with a perfectly acceptable story, even if you think they’re lying. It’s not like putting up a controversial Facebook post. Proof is the only thing that matters.

Scarlett remains the big draw of this books, still just as snarky:

“And your solution was ‘violence is never the answer’?” I said, amused.

“Well, it isn’t,” he said defensively.

“Unless the question is, ‘What is never the answer?’” I pointed out.

There was a pause, and then Jesse said, “Did you actually need something?”

And complicated:

Life is funny. Wait, scratch that. People say that all the time, but what they really mean is that life is cruel, tragic, and unfair—but not without a sense of humor about it.

Well worth the read. I totally can guess where the next book is going…