"I stole it," I said. "It"s not evidence of anything."

"Well," Sunny said, giving me the eye at the "stole it" comment. "It"s a charm, a powerful one, but not elegant. Caster witches bespell charms against specific maladies or ent.i.ties. This is like slamming down a steel grate over your front door and hooking up a shotgun to the latch."

"How come it didn"t zap Wilder, then?" Bryson demanded. "She ain"t normal."

"Blood witches didn"t make it, either," Sunny continued as if Bryson hadn"t spoken. "It reacted to blood as if it were a threat, so . . ." She shrugged. "It"s a ward against evil. That"s the plainest way I can say it."

"Really? You couldn"t be just a hair more vague?" Bryson threw up his hands. I stepped on his foot, hard.

"Be polite," I murmured when he started to complain. "Sunny, that really doesn"t help us much. If we knew what this woman was afraid of . . ."

"I just told you," said Sunny. "Evil. This is some sort of tribal magick, using totem spirits or power pulled out of crystals or feathers or animal forms. It predates casting and blood rites. It predates everything. That"s why it packs such a punch, despite being simplistic. Whatever she was afraid of, it was nasty enough to warrant a serious working in a magick that"s pretty much a dead art. I"d be worried, if I were you."

"Sunny, always the optimist," I said. "Um . . . you can keep the screamy charm o" evil . . . it kind of gives me a headache."

"You"re not going to tell me what this is about?" Her forehead crinkled. I always told her what it was about, whether it was strictly legal to or not.

"The boyfriend of the woman this belonged to was killed," I said before Bryson could feed Sunny the party line. She"d helped me enough times to be trusted with case details, at the least. I owed Sunny a lot, more than I could ever repay. "He was killed by an attacker who shot him and then managed to vanish into a fog that just sort of magically appeared out in the forest preserve. We think it was a hit man. Hit thing. Nasty, either way."

"How awful," said Sunny. "I wish I could tell you more, but this type of magick doesn"t require any sort of formal training . . . just a talent, and a willingness to use it. And there are so many sects and subsects of old Romany paths, native religions . . ."

"I get it," I said. "We"ll just have to use what we"ve got. Thanks, Sunny." I hated just using what I had. It gave me the distinct feeling of walking around an unfamiliar room in the dark, banging my shins on the furniture.

"Luna, may I speak with you for a moment?" she said when we turned to leave. Bryson took a hint for once in his life and went out, and I faced my cousin.

"What is it?"

"I thought you transferred to the SWAT team?"

I shifted back and forth from the b.a.l.l.s of my feet to my heels, trying to smile in an innocuous, carefree manner. "I did."

"Then why are you working on a homicide with David Bryson, of all people?"

c.r.a.p, I sucked at this.

"I"m just helping him out because the case involves some dead weres and Bryson is not exactly equipped," I said, crossing my arms. "Strictly extracurricular stuff."

"What does Dmitri have to say about all this?" Sunny asked, picking up the charm and putting it into the freezer. "Ice and iron," she explained. "Preserves the magick."

"Dmitri doesn"t have anything repeatable to say," I told her shortly. "He"s just all up in arms because I won"t become his Redback Barbie doll."

"I"m sure he doesn"t mean that," Sunny said. "That"s not Dmitri."

"Yeah, well, you haven"t lived with him for the past six months," I muttered. "Things change."

Bryson"s car horn sounded from outside, and Sunny ran over to give me a quick, tight hug. "Promise you"ll call me sooner than next decade."

"Sure," I said, disentangling myself. "I gotta go, Sunny."

In the car, I turned off Bryson"s cla.s.sic rock. "Okay," I said. "Laurel Hicks had a reason to be afraid of big nasty evil. She may not have seen what killed Bertrand, but she was d.a.m.n sure scared of it."

"This case was supposed to get simpler, not weirder," Bryson muttered.

I leaned my head on the pa.s.senger"s window. The sun glared down at me and I put a hand over my eyes. "I think that we have to accept that fact that Lautrec"s killer may not have been a were."

Bryson hit the steering wheel. "Hex me. What, then? The Invisible Man snuck up and put a round in his head?"

"It could have been a blood witch," I said, thinking of some of the things I"d seen Alistair Duncan do. "Or a familiar, or a daemon, or even just a very, very skilled plain human." I rubbed my forehead. "What matters is that Laurel believed she was being stalked by something, which means she knows more than she told you."

"You believe she was?" Bryson said.

"No," I said. "I don"t believe in nameless evil. There"s enough of it that has a face. We"ll find the perp."

Bryson swore again, but before he could get up a good head of steam his cell phone shrilled. He jabbed the SPEAKER b.u.t.ton. "Yeah?"

"Detective Bryson?"

"Speaking."

"This is Laurel Hicks, Detective." Her voice was cloudy with tears and hysteria.

"Ah," said Bryson, rolling his eyes at me. "What can I do for you, Miss Hicks?"

"I want you to give back what you took," she whispered. "Give it back. It"s mine!"

I shook my head at Bryson, mouthing no no.

"I don"t know what you"re talking about, Miss Hicks," said Bryson. "We haven"t taken anything from you. You feeling okay?"

"It"s mine mine!" Laurel Hicks shrieked. "Now I don"t have anything . . . to keep me safe . . ."

Bryson stabbed the END b.u.t.ton on the phone and cut Laurel off mid-sob. "Crazy broad."

I didn"t say anything to the contrary as he peeled out of Sunny"s driveway.

"You owe me," Bryson stated after we were back on the highway to the city.

"For what? Would you b.i.t.c.h if I took a rabbit"s foot off some guy"s key chain?"

"If that guy was batc.r.a.p crazy and he called me about it, yeah!"

"You asked for my help, David," I reminded him. "Drop me at home."

He had to take the long way along surface roads since the Siren Bay Bridge remained closed from earthquake damage, but I still got a pang when Bryson screeched to a stop in front of my cottage. "My lady. Your palace awaits."

"You"re welcome, by the way," I said as I got out of the car. "Feel free to send a fruit basket for all the help I gave you."

"Hey!" Bryson protested. "What about those d.a.m.n weres? I"m no closer to solving this!"

"No," I said, "but you"re being a jerk and p.i.s.sing me off. Call me if you dig anything up."

"Wilder . . ." Bryson started to say something and then snorted, rolling his eyes. "Forget it. I can break this thing without you and your freaky d.a.m.n magickal sidekicks."

I smiled indulgently. "Sure, David. You let me know when you get yourself stuck in the tar pits again."

He gunned the engine and roared away, looking as mightily irritated as a guy wearing a forest-green suit and driving a dirty Ford Taurus can look. I flipped a hand after him, and then walked down to the beach rather than toward the house. Handy as Bryson was for taking out my frustration, it didn"t change what was waiting for me at home. I didn"t want to be a Redback, and that should predicate a conversation that started Hey, Dmitri, sweetie, I don"t want to be a Redback Hey, Dmitri, sweetie, I don"t want to be a Redback.

But if I said it, he might leave, and a surly Dmitri at home was better than the months and months when he"d been away from me, when I"d drifted on the currents, weightless and depressed.

"f.u.c.k," I groaned, putting my head on my knees. Used to be, the guy cheated on me, and I kicked him out, or I threw a vase at his head and he kicked me out. When had it gotten so G.o.dd.a.m.n complicated?

It had gotten dark and I went in, and felt like an idiot when I realized Dmitri wasn"t even there for me to avoid him.

Sure, a part of me would have liked to find wine and candles and a contrite apology in the form of a few hours of athletic s.e.x, but an empty house was a relief. I showered and decided to take a nap, curled up in my big queen bed alone, like I"d been doing for quite some time before Dmitri came along.

Now I stretched out my arms and legs to cover the spot where he usually lay, but it was still a long time before I fell asleep.

CHAPTER 7.

I woke from a dream about being chased through a 7-Eleven by cowboy-suited versions of Bryson, Dmitri, and Ricardo Montalban-go figure-to a small, insistent chirping.

My pager vibrated on the nightstand, ready to throw itself off the edge. I grabbed it up and saw the code for an urgent scramble of Tac-3 at the plaza. "c.r.a.p," I said, fumbling for my shoes and some real clothing. The clock on my nightstand read 11:30 PM. Another half an hour and Tac-3 would have been off their twenty-four-hour on-call rotation and I could have slept the night away in peace. But that would be lucky, and lately I was the black cat and broken mirror of luck.

Dmitri still hadn"t come home.

Was he lying in some alley, beaten beyond recognition by a pack like the Loup? Or was he avoiding me like I"d been avoiding him?

The second option seemed way more likely, considering how our last conversation had gone. I got dressed and headed downtown.

The streets of Nocturne weren"t deserted at night, not by any stretch. Things crept away from my headlights on two or four legs, and plain humans stumbled drunkenly down Devere Street near Nocturne University. It was Sat.u.r.day night, it was summer, they were in high spirits. Beer and pheromones drifted past my nose.

A clutch of drunks lurched in front of the Fairlane and I hit the brakes, depressing the horn. They glared at me with bleary eyes and moved out of the way as I turned into the plaza. The lot was deserted except for Fitzpatrick"s SUV with the #1 DAD b.u.mper sticker, Batista"s sporty silver bullet, a plain van from the cleaning company, and Eckstrom"s j.a.panese bike. Allen was late, as usual.

"You oughta watch where yer goin", lady!" one of the drunks shouted at me from the entrance to the lot.

"Hex off!" I shouted back. "Keep your drunk a.s.s out of traffic and it won"t be a problem!"

He started toward me, his two friends attempting to hold him back. He was small and stocky, a ponytail and a plaid cowboy shirt with silver b.u.t.tons that shone under streetlights undoubtedly designed to make him look like a bada.s.s loner, but he didn"t scare me.

"You want to punch a police officer outside her work?" I asked him, squaring my shoulders. "Be my G.o.ds-d.a.m.n guest."

He lunged again and his friends lost their grip. I shifted my weight into a stance and turned my body to present the smallest target. Getting punched in the gut is no fun for anyone, especially when I get up and hit them back. I didn"t need an excessive-force complaint, which with the typical were strength is almost a given.

Just before he came in swinging range, I caught a whiff of his scent. He smelled like cigarettes and dust and burnt brush on a dry wind.

He didn"t smell like booze.

"s.h.i.t," I said out loud.

Peripherally, I heard the door of the cleaner"s van roll back and I whipped around to see two more men with the same dark hair and eyes and leather-colored skin egress the vehicle and come for me.

I went for my gun in its waist rig, but the drunk grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind me.

"Hold still!" he hissed. "Don"t fight with us, b.i.t.c.h."

Kicking out and back, aiming for his knee, I connected instead with Ponytail"s crotch. He was a lot shorter than me, and he went down to one knee, sweat popping along his jaw and hairline, nostrils flared out. But he didn"t fall, and he didn"t scream. Tough little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

One of the false cleaning crew wrapped his arms around my torso, crushing my rib cage and lifting me off the ground as I thrashed and screamed. Fitzy and Eckstrom and Javier had to hear me, inside their bunker of stone. Someone Someone had to notice a lone woman accosted by five men. had to notice a lone woman accosted by five men.

"f.u.c.k off!" I shrieked, struggles degenerating into panicked twitching as I lost air. My attacker didn"t seem overly perturbed. He wasn"t built but he was very, very strong. I shrieked, struggles degenerating into panicked twitching as I lost air. My attacker didn"t seem overly perturbed. He wasn"t built but he was very, very strong.

Stronger than me. Maybe even stronger than Dmitri. And that, boys and girls, is Bad News for Our Heroine.

"Let . . . go!"

"Shhh!" my attacker said. "Mauthka! She"s f.u.c.king strong! Get the injection ready!" She"s f.u.c.king strong! Get the injection ready!"

The other cleaner grabbed a black nylon kit bag, like you"d carry deodorant and nail files and toothpaste in, and pulled out a disposable syringe. He primed it like battle medics in old movies do and grabbed me by the hair, jerking my neck to one side. I felt the bird"s-wing beat of my carotid against my taut skin.

I caught the eye of the man with the needle. "Please don"t."

He looked back at me with no flicker of remorse or hesitation. "It"s the way things are, Officer Wilder," he said in a pleasantly soft voice that, in another time and place, I would have been glad to have at my hospital bedside.

The needle p.r.i.c.ked as it went in and I saw gold halos in front of my eyes. I felt my limbs deaden, and my struggles stopped. My heart beat in a slow-motion thub-thub. thub-thub.

I wondered how the men had known my name. I wondered why they had chosen me to take. I wondered if I"d be lucky enough to die quickly.

The cotton haze of unconsciousness slipped over me before I could think of any answers to my questions.

Sunlight, a bar across my eyelids that burned them to dazzling whorls, woke me.

"Ungh," I mumbled. My jaw and all my joints were stiff as if they"d been tarred, and my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth.

"Hey, hey," said a voice. "She"s awake."

"Mauthka, that was fast," said another. "Doc, how much did you give her?" that was fast," said another. "Doc, how much did you give her?"

"Enough," he said. "She won"t be doing cartwheels for another couple of hours."