Zoe Brill attracts strange people, especially peculiar and annoying men. She has learned how to handle them, so she thinks, until a particularly nettlesome Lothario engages her in a conversation she wants to cut short: The man who'd paused by the cafe railing to speak to Zoe this evening reminded her of a fox. He had lean, pointy features, dark eyes, the corners of his lips constantly lifted in a sly smile, hair as red as her own, if not as long. Unlike her, he had a dark complexion, as though swimming somewhere back in the gene pool of his forebears was an Italian, an Arab, or a native American. His self-assurance radiated a touch too shrill for Zoe's taste, but he seemed basically harmless.

This man is Gordon Wolfe, and he does not take kindly to Zoe brushing him off.

"I'm the bringer...