PROLOGUE
I have a habit of dying.
I’ve taken the Big Sleep at least three times that I know of,
though it never lasts more than a few minutes. Each time, I wake up
changed, but not in any way normal people can see. Next time, I
might not wake up at all, but between now and then, I have a job to
do: to protect the Grey—the fringe between the normal world and the
world of the purely paranormal, where ghosts roam and magic sings
in neon-hot lines of energy across the empty space of the world
between—and to protect the rest of the world from it. I am not a
ghost or a vampire, not a witch or a sorcerer or a mage. I am just
the unfortunate schmo who happened to touch death the right way and
get stuck with the job. I’m a Greywalker.
Of course, I don’t have that title on my
business cards or my office door. Mostly I pay the bills by working
as a private investigator in Seattle, because ghosts rarely have
checking accounts and vampires are notoriously parsimonious. Some
days I wish I could go back to just running down background checks
and looking for missing kids—except that always seems to lead me
right back to the Grey. Once you’re in it, it doesn’t let you go.
It’s hard on my friends, my family, and my love life, but it’s
necessary and, in the end, I’m good at it. And I can’t really
quit.