Night Broken

11

Wulfe’s house was in a housing development that had been an orchard ten years ago. The houses in this one almost escaped that “we were all designed by the same architect and you can pick one of three house plans” sameness. It had been in place long enough for hedges and greenery, but not quite long enough for big trees.

The neighborhood was firmly middle-class, with mobile basketball hoops in front of the garage doors in driveways and swing sets in the backyards. The people who lived right next door to Wulfe had a giant cedar kid’s activity center—it was way too huge to be merely a swing set—and an aboveground swimming pool in their side yard. The side yard right next to Wulfe’s house. Those hadn’t been there the last time I’d visited.

Wulfe’s neighbors had a yappy little dog that started barking as soon as we pulled into Wulfe’s driveway. No lights turned on, and I bet that it yapped at cars driving by, cats trespassing in its yard, and bugs flying past the window. There is nothing more useless than a watchdog that barks at normal things the same way it does at a thief at the door.

“This is where Wulfe’s home is?” asked Adam, turning off the engine.

“I know,” I told him. “Blew my mind, too.”

He looked at the swimming pool. “I feel as though I need to warn them about what occupies the house next door.”

“If it helps,” I said. “They are probably the safest people in the Tri-Cities. He’s not going to feed so close to home—and you can bet that nothing else is, either. Unless their yappy dog drives Wulfe crazy; then all bets are off.”

Adam shook his head and hopped out of the SUV. I jumped out of my side, too. I couldn’t see the ghosts. Vampires’ lairs always have ghosts, but they only show up when the vampires are asleep. I could feel them like a dozen eyes watching me from the shadows.

I met Adam in front of the house and let him approach and knock on the door while I kept an eye out behind us for an ambush. The man who opened the door had a line of big hickeys on his neck and wore nothing but a pair of jeans. When Adam wore nothing but his jeans, it was sexy; this guy was just disturbing. He wasn’t fat, but there was no muscle on him, just loose skin and softness where muscle should be, as though someone had siphoned all the muscle out and left him … dying. His eyes were dead already.

He didn’t really look at us. All of his attention was focused behind him even though his eyes were on us. “My master says you are to follow me,” he told us.

We entered the house. Though it looked spotlessly clean, the interior of the house smelled. I remembered that from the first time I had visited here, but it was worse than I remembered, as if I’d filtered some of it out in my memories. My nose caught the charnel-house odors of blood, meat, feces, urine, and that odd smell of internal organs. Faintly but pervasively, I could smell an underlying scent of something rotting.

Adam took point, and I followed, watching behind us as I had on the porch. Wulfe’s sheep led us into the kitchen, where we were treated to the sight of Wulfe lying down on top of one of those 1950s chrome and green Formica kitchen tables. There were three chairs that matched the table: two of them were knocked over, and the third was tucked in where it belonged on the side of the table where Wulfe’s head was.

Like the guy who was ushering us into the house, Wulfe was naked from the waist up. Wulfe had been about fifteen when he was made a vampire, old enough to hint at the man he would never become. His ribs showed, and his skin was almost powder white, a shade paler than his hair. Last time I’d seen Wulfe, his hair had been buzzed, but it was longer now, maybe half an inch long, and it had been shaped.

He lay faceup, back slightly arched and eyes closed. One foot, wearing a purple Converse tennis shoe, was flat on the table, pushing his knee up. The other leg was outstretched, that foot bare and pointed like a ballet dancer’s. He’d painted his toenails green, and they matched the color of the Formica tabletop. I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not.

The light over the dining-room table was on, and someone had put daylight bulbs in the fixture because the tabletop looked more like an operating table than a place people might sit down and eat breakfast.

“Wulfe,” Adam said dryly. “It’s what’s for dinner.”

“Yes!” Wulfe said, suddenly sitting cross-legged and facing us. “See, Bryan? I told you he would get it!”

“Actually, you said she would get it, master,” the man who’d let us in said.

Wulfe looked at him thoughtfully. “Am I still allowing you opinions?”

The man blinked at him.

“How long have you belonged to me, Bryan?”

Bryan had been the name of my foster father. There were lots of people named Bryan. It shouldn’t bother me so much that they shared a name, this man who was the victim of a vampire and my foster father.

“Two days?” Bryan sounded unsure.

“That’s right,” said Wulfe. “I let you think until the third night. What happens on the third night, Bryan?”

Bryan’s heartbeat picked up. For a moment I thought it was fear, but then I caught the scent of arousal. “You drink me dry,” he said in the same breathless voice that six-year-olds talk about Christmas.

“Go away, Bryan,” Wulfe told him. “Go sleep until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Bryan agreed, and hurried eagerly past Adam and me. After a moment, I heard a bedroom door slam.

“You feel sorry for him,” Wulfe accused me.

“You intended me to feel sorry for him,” I assured him. “Mission successful. What do you want in exchange for the address?” I couldn’t rescue the vampire’s victims without starting a war, and it was too late for this Bryan anyway. If I were sure that war would confine itself to Marsilia’s seethe and our pack, I might try it—but my connection to Bran and Marsilia’s to the Lord of Night who ruled vampires the way Bran ruled the werewolves held the danger of escalation. If there was a war between werewolves and vampires, everyone would lose.

Still, if one of their victims ever asked for help …

Wulfe lowered his eyes as if he were a little shy. “I want a drink, Mercy. Just a little sip.”

“No,” said Adam, and the word was echoed by another No—Stefan’s voice in my head.

I’d let Stefan bind me to him once, because another vampire had been feeding from me, and I didn’t want to belong to that one. Belonging to any vampire was bad—all anyone had to do was look at Wulfe’s victim, his Bryan, to understand that. Belonging to a vampire the other vampires called the Monster would have been worse than bad, so I’d asked Stefan for help and he’d tried. But Stefan’s hold had been broken when the Monster had taken me again. When he died, all of the ties between the vampires and me were gone. Stefan had told me so. I’d known him a long time, ten years and more. Until this moment, I’d have sworn he wouldn’t lie to me.

I wanted to be shocked at proof that he’d lied—but … he’d spoken in my head a few months ago, when I was fighting the vampire Frost, who wanted to take the city from Marsilia. I’d been hoping it was a leftover effect, a glitch, something that wouldn’t happen again, so I hadn’t talked about it to him or Adam. When nothing else happened, I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.

I’d evidently been wrong.

Adam heard that second no as well, because he looked at me, his eyes widening. Before he could say anything, though, Stefan was just suddenly there in the kitchen, standing between us and the vampire on the table.

There are some powers all vampires have. There are others that only a few gain as they age. Stefan could teleport. As far as I knew, he and Marsilia were the only vampires who could do that.

He had gained weight since I saw him just a month or so ago at one of the bad-movie nights Kyle and Warren hosted. Not enough to bring him back to where he’d been before Marsilia had nearly broken him, but close. He wore a dark blue t-shirt and faded jeans.

Wulfe started giggling as Stefan grabbed him by the throat and growled, “Mercy is off-limits.”

Shivers slid down my spine, and my knees weakened. All this time, Stefan had been listening in. Could he call me, too? Make me come to him, no matter what I wanted to do?

“No, she isn’t,” Wulfe said triumphantly. Stefan’s hold on his throat didn’t seem to be having any effect on his ability to talk. “She’ll never be off-limits to you, isn’t that right?”

“His tie to her was broken,” said Adam.

“It must have been a strong link,” said Wulfe, hanging limply from Stefan’s hands. “It must have been strong if the Monster couldn’t take it. But then a lot of people underestimate our Soldier, our Stefan. Even so, a stronger vampire than Stefan should be able to supercede the blood bond he has with you, Mercy—we could fix that for you. Who would you rather serve, Mercy—Marsilia or me?” Wulfe giggled some more.

“Stefan?” I asked, wanting Wulfe to be wrong about the tie between Stefan and me, but empirical evidence suggested otherwise.

Stefan’s back was to us. He set Wulfe down on the table. Wulfe quit laughing as soon as he was free. Face abruptly expressionless, he confronted Stefan. “Did you think that I wouldn’t tell her? You think to keep her, and that keeps you from rejoining Marsilia because through you, Marsilia would have access to Mercy.”

Adam’s arms came around me, and he pulled me to him as I absorbed what Wulfe had just said—and that Stefan was not protesting. This was why Wulfe had insisted we come to his house—because he wanted to confront Stefan. I hadn’t missed that Wulfe watched me as much as Stefan. He’d also wanted me to attack Stefan for lying to me—to give Stefan no one to turn to except Marsilia.

“I will not betray her,” whispered Stefan, eyes on Adam.

“We know that,” Wulfe said, but he’d been watching me, not Stefan when Stefan spoke. Wulfe thought Stefan was speaking of Marsilia, but Stefan’s eyes had been on Adam. He’d been talking to Adam about me. “Come, Stefan. With you in the seethe, Marsilia will fight to protect Mercy because she is needed to keep you in line. You have been Marsilia’s Soldier for four centuries and more. Marsilia needs you. You’ve been hiding your secret bond from the coyote-girl. Now that she knows, you have nothing more to hide. Marsilia will give her word that she will not touch the bond you share with Mercy, won’t try to claim her for herself—no matter how useful a tame walker would be.”

“I will not take that chance,” Stefan said. He raised his head and met my eyes. “Mercy,” he said. “Never say yes when Wulfe asks if he can bite you. It will open doors you do not want open. I am sorry I didn’t tell you the blood bond between us wasn’t gone. I didn’t want you to know because I knew it would chafe, this tie between us. If the Monster couldn’t sever it, then the chances are good that neither Wulfe nor Marsilia could do it, either. Though, as Wulfe pointed out, they could probably take the tie from me and tie you to them.” He hesitated, then said, “With you bound to me, Marsilia would not dare kill you because her actions hurt so many of those I protect—I would kill her, or she would be forced to kill me.”

“They are sheep, Soldier,” said Wulfe contemptuously. “Sheep are for using.” He started to raise his hand, and I felt magic gather. Then Stefan moved, drawing a blade from somewhere and bringing it down over Wulfe’s hand in a swift, overhand chop. Wulfe’s unattached hand dropped to the floor.

“Not on my watch,” said Stefan.

“Darn it,” said Wulfe mildly, looking at his severed hand while grasping the maimed limb with the hand that remained useful. He squeezed to slow the bleeding. “Look what you’ve done. It will take them all day to get the blood off the floor.”

“How did he lure you here?” Stefan asked. I don’t listen to you all the time, his voice in my head told me. Wulfe called me on the phone five minutes ago and told me you were in trouble.

It was as if he’d picked up just what was bothering me the most—which I guess he had. Not surprisingly, that understanding didn’t make me feel any better.

“Wulfe promised us information,” Adam growled, shaking his head as if he’d heard that secondary message from Stefan, too. “We need an address.”

“I’ll get it,” Stefan promised.

“I counted you my friend,” Adam said, his voice icy.

“I am,” said Stefan. “We’ll speak of this later.”

“Yes,” said Adam. “We will. There is one way to cut such a bond.”

“No,” said Stefan sadly. “No. I would only take her with me at this point. She accepted the bond willingly, and that makes it a lot stronger than one that is forced on someone. Go now, Adam. Morning is near. I’ll come by tomorrow night, and we can talk.”

He and Adam stared at each other, Adam with near violence and Stefan with patience. If what he’d said was true, I could almost understand the lies he’d told me because he was right: knowing that we were tied together was going to bother me a lot.

“I tied the whole pack to a vampire,” I said numbly as Adam drove us back to Honey’s house.

“No,” Adam said. “He can’t use you to influence me. The bonds will not be superceded like that.” He glanced at me, then back at the road, but his hand took mine. “I have your back on this one, love.”

I grunted.

Adam laughed.

I frowned at him, and he said, “Sorry. That’s my grunt you stole. I’ve been thinking, and you should have, too. If Wulfe is right, and I see no reason to doubt that, the tie between you and Stefan has been going on a long time now. And he has never used it—except this once, to protect you.” Twice. He had used it twice. “Stefan tries to be honorable, as honorable as his condition allows.”

“Condition?” I said wryly. “That makes it sound like he has rabies or distemper.”

“Rabies has a lot in common with vampirism,” said Adam.

I grunted again. He was being too casual about all of this despite the growly interchange he’d just had with Stefan. “You knew,” I said. “You knew it wasn’t gone.”

Adam was still, then said, “Yes. I’ve been around a little longer than you, dealt with the vampires more.” He glanced at me, then away. “And I can smell him on you sometimes, just a whiff now and again when I know you haven’t seen him in days or weeks.”

I thought about that for a while. “And you didn’t tell me?”

He shrugged. “What good would that have done? Stefan is more than a little in love with you, you know that, right? It’s what makes Marsilia hate you so much. If he had known a way to break it, I think he’d have told you. I know that such things are not easily destroyed—and that if the Monster had really held the reins, you’d have been in worse shape when he died.”

Adam was right. All that Stefan had done with our link was to help me twice. But Stefan was right, too. Knowing that the tie was still there chafed. Knowing that Adam had known about it and not told me … that chafed me even more.

Our lawyer, Ms. Trevellyan, who had told us to call her Jenny, watched the disc Adam had handed to her. It was from Camera Two in the garage and showed pretty much everything I’d seen when Guayota had come to visit. It also showed, to my relief, the dog changing into a man in the background while Guayota and I fought.

She watched it from beginning to end, and her poker face was flawless. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that she saw fights between volcano gods and mechanics on a daily basis. Her assistant, a bright young thing, had yet to acquire a mask that could cover her fascination.

“Good one,” the assistant breathed at the point where I stuck the mop handle into his head. It looked more disturbing on-screen than it had been at the time. I suppose I’d been worried enough about survival to get too squicked then.

When the disc finished, she added, “You’ve done a lot of karate, right? That looked like an outtake from some of the old martial arts shows—before they learned to get the actors to slow down so the audience could see what they were doing.”

Jenny Trevellyan cleared her throat. Gently.

A light flush rose in her assistant’s face. I hadn’t caught her name, and now I regretted it because I liked her. “Sorry. But you’re lucky you survived. Seriously, that guy was scary.”

Jenny folded her hands and stared at Adam. “Okay. What happened later that made you erase the end of the video?”

“An unfortunate glitch in the equipment,” Adam murmured. “We have three discs from different cameras, but something, maybe the excess heat, made them all quit recording around the same time.”

The lawyer’s assistant, who was scribbling down notes, lit right up. “Magic is supposed to affect electricity like that. I’ve read that wizards can’t be in the same room with things like computers and stuff.”

I knew where she’d read that. I bit my lip. It was to our advantage to spread a little misinformation whenever we could.

“Convenient as that explanation is,” said Jenny dryly, “I would like to know what would happen if Cantrip magically figures out what the cameras would have shown if they hadn’t … glitched. I am your lawyer; I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth.”

“Someone came in with Adam and saved my skin,” I told her. “The means that someone used would make that someone very valuable to the military or any number of other disreputable types who might resort to kidnapping to get that kind of power under their control. I’m just glad that the glitch happened when it did. That way, we can just give the credit to my husband and ensure that a Good Samaritan doesn’t suffer for saving my bacon. We’d like to leave that person out completely.”

“Okay,” she said. “If the opportunity comes up, I might remind Cantrip that there is already one video in existence showing exactly what Adam is capable of.” She wasn’t looking at me, and I was glad. Adam had, in a graphic fashion, destroyed the body of the man who’d assaulted me. The video of that had been released so that neither Adam nor I was charged with murder. It was only supposed to go to certain people, but it had been seen more widely than it should have been. “And,” she continued, “that a second example wasn’t wanted. That way, no one will be looking for another reason for the glitch. Is that acceptable?”

“Fine,” said Adam.

“You gave me a brief statement before we watched the video. Now tell me again who this is that broke into the garage and why he attacked Mercy.”

I folded my arms and put my forehead down on the desk while Adam talked. The next thing I knew, Adam had gathered my hair in one hand and tipped my head sideways. I blinked at him.

“She needs to see the burn on your face,” Adam said.

It took me a moment to process what he said, then I sat up and showed her myself. I showed her the burns on my hands and arms and the one on my ribs. I’d put Bag Balm on them, and they felt better, despite what the EMT had said.

“You shot the dog first,” Jenny said, “the one that … er … turned into a man? Then he threw some sort of fire magic at you and burned your cheek—that’s not on the disc I saw, but Adam told me that it’s on the second disc. Then you fired five times at him, three to the head, two to the chest. You jumped on the car, looking for a way out, and when it became obvious that there was nothing available, you engaged in battle with Juan Flores, who apparently is a Canary Islands volcano god named Guayota?”

She was scary good. She got out the last part of the sentence without any inflection.

“Almost,” said Adam. “First, he broke into the garage with a crowbar. We have that caught on the outside camera.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’d like to wait until I’ve had a chance to review all the discs available, but, as you’ve pointed out, there is the worry that in the meantime some poor law-enforcement officer will run into him without knowing what he is. We need to let the law-enforcement agencies know what they might be dealing with. With that in mind, and with your permission, I’ll send copies of the discs to the police immediately.”

“And,” I added because it seemed an important part of the narrative, “he admitted to me that he’d killed seven women whose bodies were discovered yesterday … no, sorry.” Just because I hadn’t slept didn’t mean that time hadn’t passed. Her assistant handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. I took it and drank a quarter of it down. “It was the day before yesterday, Thursday. The police took me out to the crime scene to see if werewolves were responsible for the massacre.”

Her right eyelid twitched. “That’s the first I’ve heard of this. When did he admit that? I didn’t see it.”

“That’s the ‘trouble in Finley’ I was talking about,” I told her.

She took in a deep breath. She made me go over all that I knew about the seven women and assorted horses and dogs that Guayota had killed near the hayfield in Finley. At some point, her assistant took over the questioning, though I’m not sure she was supposed to.

“You mean all the dead women looked like Mr. Hauptman’s ex-wife? That’s … that’s right out of a profiler’s book.”

Jenny snorted her coffee, wiped her nose, and gave her assistant a quelling look. “You might curb your enthusiasm over the deaths of seven women, Andrea. It isn’t really appropriate.”

“Poor things,” said Andrea obediently. “But this is like being in the middle of an episode of Criminal Minds.” She paused. “Okay. That’s dorky. Sorry. But most of our cases are like somebody’s kid got drunk and hit a fence and wants to make reparations but would rather not lose their driver’s license. The only murders we’ve been involved with have been those ‘everyone knows who did it,’ and our job is to get our client the lightest sentence possible … and I’m talking too much.” She blinked at us. “It’s just that I moved here hoping I might get the chance to see a fae, because the reservation is just over in Walla Walla. And here I am talking to a werewolf about a fire demon who is killing people and burning down buildings.”

Jenny covered her mouth, and when she pulled her hand away, her face was stern. “She actually is very, very good in court.” Her voice became very dry as she said, “You wouldn’t recognize her. And, in case you were worried, nothing comes out of her mouth in public that she doesn’t want to say.”

“I am discreet,” agreed Andrea.

“So,” Jenny said in a we’re-getting-back-to-business manner, “you want me to set up a meeting with Cantrip and the police.”

“That is correct,” Adam agreed.

“Okay. I’ll get something set up for this afternoon, hopefully here, but probably down at the Kennewick police station.” She looked at us and smiled. “In the meantime, I suggest you get a few hours of sleep.”

In the end, we checked into a hotel. Honey’s house was filling rapidly with even more pack members as the story about last night’s fight got out. Sleeping there during the day was out of the question.

Adam put us in the hotel nearest the airport. The room was clean and quiet, and for the four hours we were there, it was perfect for sleeping. Well, after we remembered to put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign—and after I put the fear of me into the second maid who apparently couldn’t read the sign.

I wasn’t exactly chipper when we woke up to head in to our afternoon appointment with Cantrip and the police, making a quick stop at the mall to grab clean and appropriate clothing. Apparently, Cantrip was still jockeying for position and fighting with the local police, so our lawyer’s office was acceptable neutral territory.

The Cantrip agents, Orton and Kent, were waiting for us, smugness radiating off them both. Jenny and her assistant Andrea were there along with a gray-haired man who was balding and so thin and fit that he must have made a real effort at keeping in shape. It was hard to tell for sure, but I thought he was maybe twenty years older than our lawyer, which would put him in his late sixties or early seventies. His face looked slightly familiar, and he exchanged courteous nods with Adam, so I assumed he was someone from the firm whom Adam knew. Jenny didn’t introduce him, beyond his name, Larry Torbett.

Jenny gave us a small, controlled smile. “I suggest that we start. I have the originals of three discs from the security video at Mercy’s garage from the night in question for you, gentlemen. I have copies for my files and, of course, I have already sent copies over to the police as well. Detective Willis called to tell me that they found the video enlightening, but that they would, regrettably, be late.

“The outside camera clearly shows Mr. Flores, who is wanted in connection with murder and arson in Eugene, breaking into the garage with a crowbar after hours when only Ms. Hauptman was inside. The other two are views from two different cameras in the garage. I will show you one, the one that shows, more or less, Ms. Hauptman’s view of the events. The last camera shows Ms. Hauptman’s actions better. They are time-stamped.”

At the conclusion of the video, Orton looked grimly satisfied and the younger Cantrip agent, Kent, triumphant (presumably because any altercation between the wife of a werewolf Alpha and a fire demon put the case in their jurisdiction).

“Well,” said Larry Torbett, “wasn’t that something watching the agents come, Jenny?”

“There is more,” she said. “There is no sound in this recording, and Ms. Hauptman has a lot of pertinent information that is not apparent. Ms. Hauptman?”

By this time I could have told the story in my sleep, but four hours of napping had removed that temptation. I told the whole thing from beginning to end. The Cantrip agents didn’t ask for any clarification, which bothered me. Only when I had finished entirely did the Cantrip agents stir.

“Ms. Hauptman,” said Agent Kent genially, “I know that you are on record any number of places stating that you are not a werewolf.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s right.”

He tapped the discs. “Are you human?”

“Are you?” I asked.

“You move very well for a human,” said Agent Kent, who didn’t seem nervous or green today. The change was so great that I wondered if the appearance of being a rookie was one he used for effect.

“Thank you,” I told him. “I’ll tell Sensei that you were impressed.”

“My wife takes lessons in Shi Sei Kai Kan. Additionally, we spar in various styles several times a week. I do not intend that anyone hurt Mercedes again.” Adam’s tone was cool, and the warning in his last sentence was clear to anyone who was listening.

“We are familiar with the … alleged assault,” said Agent Orton.

“Have you seen the security footage from that?” asked Torbett before Adam could speak.

I got my heel on Adam’s foot, but he’d cooled off considerably and frowned at Torbett.

“No,” said Orton. “However—”

“I have.” The older man’s voice was cool. “I assure you that an assault took place, and the bastard got what was coming to him.” It was nice that he agreed there had been an assault, but was there anyone in the whole world who hadn’t seen me assaulted? Anyone except Orton, that is. Maybe we should have just put it up on YouTube. I forced my hands to unclench before anyone noticed.

“The issue remains,” said Agent Kent, taking up the charge as the senior agent stalled out. “That we believe, Ms. Hauptman, that you have not been entirely forthcoming about whether or not you are human.”

“Are you?” I asked again. Because my nose told me that he was not.

“Yes,” Kent said, believing he told the truth. “How about you, Ms. Hauptman?”

“No, you aren’t,” said Adam, intrigued. His head tilted, and he took a deep breath, so everyone would know what sense he was using to determine it. “Fae. Though you aren’t even a half-blood. Maybe one of your parents?”

Agent Kent just stared at him.

“You might talk to them and ask,” I suggested. “Do you have trouble with metals?”

“I have a nickel allergy,” he said defensively.

“This isn’t about Agent Kent.” Orton had had time to recover. “We’ve determined that Ms. Hauptman is a potential threat to the public safety, and we are bringing her in as a murder suspect who has supernatural powers that make her too dangerous to be incarcerated in the usual ways.”

“Under what authority?” asked Jenny.

“Under the Humanity Act that established the agency I work for, Ms. Trevellyan, and the discretionary detention provisions in the Patriot Act. We can detain Ms. Hauptman indefinitely as a possible terrorist.” Orton’s tones were smug.

I wasn’t afraid of their taking me. But I was terrified of what Adam would do to ensure that they did not. Adam, though, wasn’t tense at all. I frowned at him. Why wasn’t he upset?

“Are you acting on your own, sir?” asked Larry Torbett.

“I have my orders,” said Orton repressively. “Ms. Hauptman, you aren’t going to give us any trouble here, right?”

“I’m not,” I said, still watching my husband, who seemed pleased. “But I wouldn’t go counting your prisoners before they are safely in your detention cell.”

Larry Torbett smiled at me. “Well said, Ms. Hauptman. Mr. Hauptman, you should know that I have in my possession documentation that someone in high places would like a pet werewolf and was not opposed to kidnapping to achieve his desires. How presumptuous of him to try to use the law to enable him to do so. Who is your supervisory agent, Agent Orton?”

Orton frowned at him. “Supervisory Agent Donald Kerrigan. Ms. Hauptman, I would advise you not to resist arrest. That will only add to your troubles.”

“Allow me to clarify matters, before this goes too much further, gentlemen,” said Jenny. “Agent Orton, Agent Kent, Mr. and Ms. Hauptman, this is Larry Torbett, Ph.D. Dr. Torbett is teaching a four-day seminar at WSU Tri-Cities on fae-human relations. He retired two years ago from a government think tank in Washington, D.C., though the president called him back to help deal with the mess last year when the fae retreated to their reservations. He was also my law professor, which is why he is staying with me. He asked to join us out of curiosity and boredom, I suspect.” She smiled at the continued clueless looks she was getting. “But the layman would better know him as L. J. Torbett, editor of the Watchdog Times.”

The Watchdog Times was an influential Web-based magazine that wrote and recirculated pieces about government mischief. Recently, it had engineered the forced retirement of a state judge in Pennsylvania caught giving harsh jail sentences in return for kickbacks from the privately run state penitentiary and was responsible for the highly publicized trial of a federal official who was spending ten years in jail rather than the cozy estate in the Bahamas he’d used tax dollars to pay for.

The Watchdog Times had also cleared the name of a conservative senator who was accused of having sex with a minor. They hadn’t saved his marriage, but they’d saved his career, mostly, and certainly rescued him from a jail sentence when they proved the whole thing had been set up by his political rival—and that the boy in question had been a very young-looking twenty-three-year-old who’d been well paid to act his part.

If he said he had documentation, L. J. Torbett had documentation.

“You were asleep when Jenny asked if I’d mind if her old friend joined us,” murmured Adam to me. “Jenny said he’d thought that it was odd that Cantrip Agents were first on scene, and asked to sit in this afternoon.”

I leaned against him and watched the old lawyer turned journalist wipe the floor with the Cantrip agents.

“This,” he said, “is a disgrace. That government agents who should be above reproach lend themselves to such a scheme is appalling.”

“You can say what you’d like,” said Orton with dignity. “But that doesn’t change my orders.”

“Yes,” Agent Kent said heavily. “Yes, it does. Unless you want to be dropped to junior-janitor rank for the rest of your tenure in Cantrip, it does. Kerrigan is a political rat, and if he’s behind this, he’d sell us down the river without a qualm. If he’s not behind it and it is from higher up, he’ll sell us even faster.”

Torbett nodded at the younger agent but looked at Orton when he continued talking. “There are larger issues at stake, too, gentlemen. Do you know that the fae are talking to the werewolves, trying to gain their support for an alliance against the government of the US?”

Orton gave a short nod. It wasn’t a secret.

Torbett said, “What do you think would happen if you forced the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, one of the most prominent packs in the US”—that the humans knew about, anyway—“to defend his wife against government agents? The man who gave you your orders doesn’t understand what he’s messing with. A man like Hauptman, a werewolf, will die defending his mate. He would never have let you leave with her. He tried to tell you that. Did you miss the part where Mr. Hauptman said he wouldn’t let anyone hurt his wife?”

He gave them a moment to digest that. Then he said, “Do you want to be famous, gentlemen? I assure you that your names would have gone down in the history books as the idiots who forced the werewolves into a confrontation with the federal government.” He leaned forward. “Do you know that Hauptman has been doing his level best to keep our relations with the werewolves from reaching the boiling point, as they did with the fae?”

“I think that we are going to regret not eliminating the werewolves while we have a chance,” said Agent Kent.

I thought about Bran and wondered what made Agent Kent think that they ever had a chance at eliminating the werewolves.

“Whatever you might think of the legality, Dr. Torbett, I believe this is a matter of survival. Having Hauptman and his pack under our control would have been the best thing for everyone—even the wolves,” Kent said heavily.

“Under whose control?” asked Torbett genially. “And do you know what they were planning to do with the werewolves? I do. I have”—he smiled—“interesting documentation that is eventually going to see some public servants and an elected official in jail.”

“It sounds like Mr. Hauptman is trying to blackmail us,” said Agent Orton, his voice gravelly. “We can’t take his wife in because he’ll start a war?”

“Is it blackmail to tell a child that he’ll burn his hand if he puts it in a fire, Agent Orton?” asked Jenny. “This is, I think, the same thing.”

“Orton,” said Kent, sounding tired, “we are done here.”

“We have orders,” the older agent said.

“No,” Kent told him. “This isn’t the army. We were given instructions and gathered new information that made those instructions unwise.”

“Gentlemen,” said Jenny, “I trust we are finished here. If you have further questions, please feel free to call me rather than bothering the Hauptmans.”

That’s when Detective Willis came in, looking exhausted. “Sorry to be late. We’ve found three more dead women, and the press has found out about all of them.” He looked at Adam. “We’ve watched that video and read the letter Ms. Trevellyan sent with it. We are satisfied that this Juan Flores is our killer, whatever he is. I’m supposed to tell you that if you have any more information on him, we’d like it, including where he can be found. For my part, I just hope you have more of an idea of how to handle this thing before it kills again than we do.”