"Gee, David, between them threatening to kill me and falling off a fire escape, it sort of slipped my mind." I fired again, and a cl.u.s.ter of papery black flowers appeared on the target"s head ma.s.s. I ejected the Glock"s clip, cleared the chamber, and called the target back.

Bryson whistled appreciatively when the half-shredded human outline came close. "Nice work. Almost as good as my stuff. You know I had the highest score in my cla.s.s when I went to the academy?"

"David, you shot yourself in the foot last year. With a flare gun."

He turned red. "There was a lot going on in my life back then. My concentration slipped."

"Whatever." I holstered the Glock and waved good-bye to Batista and Eckstrom before pulling David out of the alleys and into the antechamber. "Did you have some reason to come down here other than to interrupt my work with stupid bragging?"

"Actually"-he flourished a file at me-"I did. But the bragging was definitely a fringe benefit."

I pushed my protective gear over the counter to a uniform and signed myself out. "Get on with it, then. Since you slithered back onto my radar I"ve been having a really s.h.i.tty time, and this isn"t helping."

"Boyfriend got one of those personal problems? They make pills for that."

"Too bad they don"t make pills to cure rampant stupidity," I said. "Focus, David. What do you want?"

He opened the file and showed me a picture of a pretty girl, brunette, a short bob framing a round moon face and a turned-up nose. "Bertrand Lautrec had a girlfriend."

I took the photo and examined the sheet cursorily. Laurel Hicks. She was a nurse, her prints on file with the DEA. She lived in the unfashionable section of downtown and she was twenty-four years old. "She"s not Loup. Not even the born ones look this good. Another pack?"

Bryson grinned salaciously. "Human."

That stopped me. Weres from different packs isn"t unheard of-it"s how alliances are made and broken. Alliances between pack weres and Insoli weres aren"t accepted, but it"s not impossible. Dmitri and I were proof of that. Sort of. I pushed away thoughts of the silence and towering black cloud of anger waiting for me at home.

Weres and plain humans, though? It doesn"t happen. No human would be crazy enough to risk exposing herself to that without comparative were strength and quick healing. Plus, there"s the off chance your beloved might tear you to shreds if you walk in during a phase. Some plain humans get off on magick, and witches intermingle freely, but I"ve yet to meet a plain human who would willingly go with a were.

"Okay, you got my attention," I told Bryson.

He grinned. "Thought that might do it. I"m going over to interview her. Wanna come along?"

I did. I did so badly that my stomach did a little flip at the thought of working through a case again. But if things with Dmitri were bad now . . .

"Sure," I said. "Let me get my stuff."

Laurel Hicks"s apartment building would make a clown want to kill himself. One of those boxy gray numbers from the 1960s, exactly like every other boxy gray tenement in the surrounding street. Dust and oppressive summer heat pressed down over the street like water and made me sweat just by virtue of exiting Bryson"s car.

A homeless man dozed in the building"s doorway, mumbling about smoke and shadows. The lobby smelled like bleach and the arthritic elevator smelled like vomit.

"Cheerful G.o.dd.a.m.n place," Bryson muttered, punching the b.u.t.ton for the third floor.

"I"ll let you do the talking," I said as we rode. "Until you start f.u.c.king up, of course, at which point I"ll step in."

"You"re too kind," Bryson said, favoring me with a toothy grin. We knocked on Laurel"s door and heard a cat meowing within. Bryson fidgeted.

"Don"t like cats?" I asked.

"I"m allergic," he said shortly. I hid a grin by pretending to cough.

"Who is it?" A voice as colorless as the cardboard-colored walls and carpet around us barely penetrated the scuffed apartment door.

"It"s the police, Miss Hicks," said Bryson. "Could you open up, please?"

"I"m afraid this is a bad time," said Laurel Hicks, suddenly sounding alert and panicky. "Could you please come back?"

"Can"t do that, ma"am," said Bryson. "This is an urgent police matter."

"No . . . no, I really think it would be better if you came back later," she said. "I . . . I just can"t . . ."

"Laurel," I said, stepping close to the door. "We want to talk to you about Bertrand. Just talk. I promise that the Loup will never know we were here."

A long silence reigned. Bryson glared at me. "Nice work."

"Just wait," I muttered. Laurel snuffled on the other side of the door.

"I don"t know what you"re talking about."

"Yes, you do," I said. "And I don"t blame you. Now please open the door."

Another small eternity later, the deadbolt clicked back and Laurel"s pale face appeared in the crack of the door. "You can"t stay long. I have to get to my shift at the hospital."

She was still in her pajamas, eyes puffy and hair ratty, but I smiled politely and pretended to believe her lie. "After you," I told David.

He showed Laurel his shield, and she gestured us inside with a tired, boneless motion. As we pa.s.sed the threshold magick p.r.i.c.kled over my skin, and I looked up to see a twisted black root nailed over the door frame with a steel roofing nail.

A little bit gothic for someone who seemed strictly pastel.

"I can"t tell you anything about Bertrand," Laurel said immediately. Her apartment was a tiny affair, low popcorn ceilings and a vinyl floor made to look like wood. A sad chintz sofa and ratty hooked rug hunched in the corner.

I scented another body in the place and a calico cat leapt to the back of the sofa, puffed up to twice its size, hissed at me, and took off into the bedroom.

"I"m sorry," said Laurel. "I don"t know what"s wrong with her."

"Don"t worry about it," I said. Bryson cleared his throat at me and frowned so hard his eyebrows merged.

"Well, speak up then, boy," I said, stepping back and letting him close in on Laurel.

"Thanks," he hissed at me. "Miss Hicks, I just need to clear a few things up."

"You might as well sit down," she said in the same tone you"d use to talk about knee surgery. She flopped back on the sofa and dabbed at her eyes with a well-used tissue.

Bryson awkwardly took a seat in the threadbare velvet armchair across the way and I stood at his shoulder, trying to look laid-back. Also, standing behind Bryson gave me a dandy vantage into the rest of the apartment, which consisted of a pocket-size kitchen and bedroom, with a bathroom done in Pepto pink off it. All cops are inveterate snoops. Never leave them alone while you pop into the washroom.

"Miss Hicks, why didn"t you contact the police when Bertrand . . . pa.s.sed away?" Poor Bryson had slept through sensitivity training, that much was obvious.

Laurel stared at the wall and sniffed heavily. "Never thought you"d need anything from me."

"Miss Hicks, when someone dies it"s customary to be a little more broken up about it than you are right now. You getting me, sweetheart?" Bryson leaned forward like a pit bull smelling hamburger meat.

My eyes roved over the countertops, which were covered in empty pizza boxes and Lean Cuisine containers, a dish of cat food, and a pair of orange prescription bottles.

I whacked Bryson on the shoulder and he winced. "The h.e.l.l, Wilder!"

"Laurel . . . may I call you Laurel?"

She lifted one shoulder. "Whatever you want."

"Laurel, is it true that you didn"t get in touch with the police because of Bertrand"s involvement with the Loup?"

She looked me over, her eyes swimming up from their sedated depths to really examine me. Finally she asked, "Bitten or born?"

"It doesn"t matter," I said. Rule One was keep the focus on the victim. Get your subject to empathize with him, and with you. "But I know how hard it can be to be an outsider with a pack, put it that way. Why are you afraid of Bertrand"s pack?"

Bryson gaped at me and I snarled under my breath, letting my eyes flash gold, which he wisely interpreted as the signal to shut the Hex up.

"Gerard Duvivier is a nasty little worm," Laurel said, feeling making its way into her voice for the first time, "but I"m not scared of him. I"m a psychiatric nurse. He can"t rattle me."

"Good for you," I said. "Now explain to us why you didn"t come forward. You cared about Bertrand, didn"t you?"

She shook once, like a plucked string, and started crying again. Bryson whipped out a monogrammed handkerchief, bright white against the stained tones of the apartment, and handed it over. Laurel took it and buried her face in it while she sobbed.

"I . . . only knew him . . . a couple of months," she managed. "But he . . . I think we would have fallen in love, if he"d . . . he hadn"t . . ."

"I understand," I said. "And it"s shattering when someone dies suddenly, I know. How did you hear about it? Did the pack threaten you?"

"No," said Laurel, gulping in air. "I was there."

Bryson sat bolt-upright in his seat, and I felt my own heartbeat pick up.

"What?" Bryson managed. "What?"

"I was there," said Laurel impa.s.sively. "We were camping in the Sierra Fuego Preserve."

"Why did you run?" I asked Laurel softly. She met my eyes.

"You"d run, too, Detective. Believe me. A human and a were, with his pack already in upheaval? How would that have looked? I"d be in a cell and I have patients who need me. It was too dangerous to stay."

"Oh?" I sat on the arm of Bryson"s chair, ignoring his grunt, and didn"t correct her on the "Detective" a.s.sessment. "What"s happening in the Loup?"

"Bertrand was about to challenge Gerard for dominance," Laurel said. "To be pack leader. Bertrand had more right to it or something, he said. The Lautrecs have been in Nocturne for a long time."

"Fascinating as that history lesson is," Bryson said, "I"m gonna need you to come down to the Twenty-fourth Precinct and make a formal statement. Can you handle that, Miss Hicks?"

She looked to me. "Only if she comes along."

"Hex me," Bryson muttered under his breath. "All right, fine. You game to pay a visit home, Wilder?"

"Not my home anymore," I said. Going back to the Twenty-fourth ranked just above sitting on a bed of nails watching a snuff movie marathon.

"Wilder, for the love of the G.o.ds in the pantheon, will you please just go along with me so the skirt will come make a statement?"

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. This better not take long, though. I"m on call."

"If a Eurotrash terrorist tries to rob the O"Halloran Tower, you"re free to leave," Bryson said. "Miss Hicks, why don"t we get you ready to go and we"ll take my car."

He followed her into her bedroom, standard procedure to make sure witnesses and suspects don"t grab a gun and shoot themselves, or us. He left the door open, but his back blocked me from Laurel Hicks.

I grabbed the armchair and scooted it over to the door, yanking at the root charm until it came free of the dry-wall with a slimy grasping at my skin. I hate how magick feels. I wrapped the thing in the edge of my T-shirt before transferring it to a pocket, where it couldn"t rub against my skin and cause me to accidentally Path its ambient power, which would result in unpleasant side effects like phasing and for all I know, shooting lasers out of my eyes.

I hadn"t tested my Path abilities to draw in magick and use it to exacerbate my were side except for once, when a caster witch had me in his grasp and was squeezing for all he was worth. I didn"t want to do it again. Too much bad happened when I dipped into the pack magick that my bite had given me.

Laurel came out of the bedroom with a coat and purse over her pajamas, Bryson trailing after her. He shot me a look and I gave him an innocent smile.

"What the h.e.l.l are you up to?" he whispered when he pa.s.sed me, guiding Laurel out the door by the elbow.

"Tell you when she"s not around," I muttered back.

"Crazy G.o.ds-d.a.m.n woman," Bryson muttered. Coming from him, it was almost starting to sound like an endearment.

CHAPTER 5.

The Twenty-fourth Precinct appeared as it always had, a slightly dusty red-brick firehouse with patrol cars parked out front and dirty windows hiding what went on inside.

Today, though, the tenor of the place had changed and when I walked inside, trailing Bryson and Laurel Hicks, my insides jerked like I"d just gone over the first drop of a roller coaster.

Even the burnt-coffee smell mixed in with dirt and the acc.u.mulated stench of thirty years of felons pa.s.sing through the place was wrong, and so very different from the bland, filtered air of the Justice Plaza.

"This sucks," I said, soft enough so only I heard.

"Interrogation Three," Bryson told the uniform, who gave Laurel Hicks a visitor badge and spirited her away. It was daytime, so Rick the night sergeant wasn"t working. Thank the G.o.ds for small things. Rick would want to talk. Catch up.

Sh.e.l.ley, the day sergeant, barely looked at me. She and I had never really gotten along, due to her thinking weres were a menace and me thinking she was a b.i.t.c.h who wore tacky press-on nails, and I never thought I"d be so happy about that fact.

"Hey, so what the h.e.l.l is up?" Bryson asked me when we stopped at his desk in the bullpen. My old desk was still vacant. I didn"t know whether to be flattered or disappointed.

I pulled the root out of my pocket and showed it to him.

"That thing stinks," said Bryson, his nose crinkling. "Like old-man deodorant." He was right, but I pressed on to the important bits.