Текст книги "Night Broken"

Автор книги: Patricia Briggs

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Adam laughed ruefully. “Shouldn’t take you long, then.”

“That’s what I told her,” Honey said.

“Any word on the fire?” I asked.

“Arson is confirmed,” Adam said, “though there seems to be some confusion about the accelerant used. Whatever it was, it got really hot, really fast.”

“Do you think he’s done this kind of thing before?” I asked.

“The fire investigator seemed to think so. We’re looking for suspicious fires tied to an overzealous lover. We’re also looking at the European angle. There’s another trail, too. Warren got descriptions of this man’s dogs out of Christy. Looks like they are some sort of mastiff. She said they were valuable and difficult for anyone except Juan–her stalker–to handle.”

“That doesn’t sound like a mastiff,” I told him. “There’s a guy in the Montana pack who was breeding all sorts of big dogs. The mastiffs were mostly big sweeties.”

“I’m not sure she’d know a poodle from a sheepdog. But Juan Flores apparently took special pleasure in pointing out that both of his dogs outweighed Christy, who is a hundred and ten pounds.”

Hah. Christy was at least twenty pounds heavier than that.

“Hah.” Honey snorted with derision. “Christy is at least one thirty or one thirty‑five.”

“Big dog,” I said.

Adam laughed. “I’ll let you know if there is anything new, and Mercy?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t do anything too interesting.”

He disconnected before I could reply.

“Don’t underestimate Christy,” Honey said. “She’s not nearly as helpless as she pretends to be.”

“I know that,” I said. I glanced at Honey, then looked back at the road. “I thought you liked her.”

She growled. “Helpless bitch had the whole pack–Adam included–hopping to her tune. Couldn’t mow the lawn, change a tire, or carry her own laundry up the stairs. Even Peter fell for it, and he usually had better sense. She didn’t like Warren–I thought at the time she was worried he was going to make a play for Adam, but mostly, I think, he didn’t fall over himself to be her slave. Darryl’s helpless against her, but at least he knows it. All that might not have been too bad, but she played them all off each other. I had my own private celebration when she left Adam.”

Her lips twisted. “I don’t like you,” she told me, but there was a lie in her voice, and she stopped talking, looking almost surprised. She started again, her tones softer than they had been. “I don’t enjoy change,” she said. “And you are change, Mercy. I am comfortable with the old ways, and you are tossing them aside whenever they don’t suit you, while Adam looks on with satisfaction. But one thing I’ve always known is that you were trying your best to make things better. Christy, she looked out for herself first. I don’t imagine that has changed. Only a fool would say the same about you–though I frequently disagree with your methods and goals.”

I cleared my throat. “So. Do you want to see a man about some dogs?”

5

I pulled into Joel’s driveway, and our presence was announced by a chorus of barking fit to wake the dead. Joel might work in the vineyards and fix cars as a hobby, but dogs were his passion. He and his wife bred, showed, and trained dogs. I figured that he might be able to help us figure out what kind of dogs Christy’s stalker had. It was a shot in the dark, but I was willing to do anything to shorten Christy’s time in my house. I’d called Joel, and he’d told me to meet him at home.

Mostly, the dogs barking at us were just excited, but I heard the true anger of a dog whose territory is breached in at least one bass voice.

“Maybe I should wait,” Honey said. “Dogs are afraid of me.”

I shook my head. “Most dogs get over their fear of werewolves pretty fast, given a chance.”

I hopped down out of the Vanagon. While I waited for Honey to come around the vehicle, the front door opened, and a small woman came out of the door with a leashless dog that was nonetheless at heel. The dog was white, female, and looked to be a purebred Staffordshire terrier. The woman greeted me in Spanish.

I get mistaken for Hispanic a lot.

I shook my head, but didn’t bother objecting to her assumption. “Sorry. No hablo Español. ¿Esta Joel aqui?”

She stopped when she was about ten feet away, and the dog sat as soon as she quit moving. All of the dog’s attention was on the woman.

“No,” the woman said, then paused. Maybe she’d had to take a moment to switch languages. “You must be Mercy. Joel called and told me what you wanted. I told him to stay at work because I know the dogs as well as he does.” Her English was good, with only a touch of accent.

She gave Honey a slightly wary look, and the dog focused on her, too. “I am his wife, Lucia. Joel tells me that you are the Mercy who keeps him in parts for his old cars. Come into my house, and I will help you as much as I can.”

Her house, when she ushered us in, was not fancy or large, but it was clean enough that I would have eaten off any surface. We sat on an old leather couch while Lucia retreated to her kitchen.

The big white dog who’d accompanied her outside followed her into the kitchen, leaving us under the watchful care of the three lesser dogs who were occupying the living room. All of the living‑room dogs were male and all the same brindle tan. One of them ignored us entirely as he tried to destroy a hard rubber bone. One sat across the room and stared at us. I fought the urge to stare him down and nudged Honey when she started to do just that.

“We’re guests,” I reminded her. “Neutral territory.”

The third dog, the biggest of the three, sat on my foot and put his chin on my knee. I rubbed him gently behind the ears. He closed his eyes and made snuffly‑content noises. The dog who’d been staring at us heaved a disgusted sigh and wiggled around until his back was to us, not happy about the intruders but too well trained to object.

None of the dogs seemed to have an issue with having a werewolf in the house.

There was not a lot of furniture, but what there was was good. Some of it handcrafted, so maybe Joel did some woodworking. Maybe Lucia did the woodworking. On the wall across from me was a framed Texas state flag flanked by good amateur paintings of dogs. One of them could have been the big white dog that followed Joel’s wife around, and the other was a yellow Lab with a Frisbee in its mouth. There was a case with a display of championship ribbons. On a bookcase were a number of trophies, some of which had dogs on the top of them.

The dogs Joel bred were expensive, well trained, and obtainable only when he was certain the person buying them was capable of taking good care of them. They were good dogs–better, he’d told me seriously, than most people he knew. He had no use for idiots who didn’t respect the damage dogs could do when left untrained or put in situations where they felt they had to defend themselves.

In addition to breeding, he and his wife rehabbed the “aggressive” dogs that were brought to the local shelters that would otherwise have just put the dogs down. Joel had scars on his arms and a huge one on his leg from a terrified, half‑grown Rottweiler who now, Joel had assured me, lived happily with a huge family. Mostly, they had success, he’d told me, but a few were too badly damaged to ever be safe in human company.

The Marrok took damaged werewolves into his pack, where he could control the conditions under which they interacted with the rest of the world. Joel had told me with tears in his eyes about a battered pit‑survivor he’d had to put down a few months ago. He was as passionate in his desire to save his dogs as the Marrok was to save his wolves.

Joel’s wife brought in three glasses of sun tea and sat down in the chair opposite the couch while I explained about Christy’s stalker–and how I thought that if the dog breed he had was rare, maybe we could find someone who knew him in the dog world. I gave her the bare‑bones description Christy had given me.

“Molossers,” Lucia said, then gave Honey a grin. “It is a type, not a breed. It includes mastiffs and Saint Bernards. How familiar is your husband’s ex‑wife with dog breeds?”

I called Adam’s cell phone.

Christy answered yet again. “Adam’s phone,” she said. “He–”

“So how much do you know about dogs?” I asked her without giving her a chance to tell me why she was answering his phone–again–and why he couldn’t talk to me.

“I grew up with golden retrievers,” she said.

“Do you know what a molosser is?”

“No,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Ask her if she could recognize a Newfoundland,” Lucia suggested.

I decided this three‑way had gone from awkward to ludicrous, and I handed the phone over to Lucia. Eventually, Christy got on the Internet to look at dog breeds.

“Cane corso,” Christy said. “They look right.”

“Cane corso are smaller than you describe,” Lucia said. “Also, they usually have nice temperaments. But poor handling can turn even a Labrador into a dangerous animal. We will keep the cane corso as a possibility. You said these dogs were black.”

“Yes,” Christy agreed. “Really black. In the sunlight, it looked like they were black striped on black.”

After twenty minutes of questioning and checking out various breeds, Lucia’s tones changed from cautiously professional to profoundly sympathetic. Christy was good, even over the phone.

“What language was the dog’s name in?” Lucia’s voice was soothing.

“I don’t speak any foreign languages,” Christy apologized.

“She’s been to Europe,” I murmured.

“Did it sound German?” Lucia asked. “The Broholmer might fit.”

“Not German,” Christy said even more apologetically. “Maybe it was Spanish or even Latin.”

Lucia stared at her white dog as she thought. Finally she said, “The fila Brasileiro–a Brazilian mastiff–might fit. They are rare and very much one‑person dogs. They can be very aggressive if not socialized when they are young.”

Christy made her spell it out so she could look it up. After a few minutes, she said, “No. These dogs … their heads were more in line with their body size. And the fila Brasileiro look like bloodhounds to me. Kind of friendly. There was nothing friendly‑looking about his dogs. This is sort of stupid, but I just remembered something.” She paused, and said, sounding embarrassed, “The dog’s breed. It sounded like a bird’s name.”

“Perro de presa Canario,” Lucia said immediately. “Some people call them dogo Canarios, presa Canario, or just presas or Canarios.” She spelled it for Christy without prompting.

After a minute Christy made a disappointed noise. “No. These dogs’ ears are too small. His had long ears, like the last breed we looked at.”

“Presas usually have their ears clipped–like boxers or Doberman pinschers. They do it to the American Staffordshires like my own dogs, too. I chose not to. They say it is because they are used with livestock–to prevent damage. We had a Doberman once who was not ear‑clipped, and he always had trouble with his ears being sore where they bent over. But the primary reason for clipping is that it makes them look more fierce. There are people who breed presas who do not crop their ears. See if you can’t find a photo of one with natural ears.”

“I will keep looking…” Christy’s voice trailed off. “There’s one with unclipped ears. That’s it. Presa Canario.”

I took the phone back. “I’ll call Warren and let him know what he’s looking for.”

“I’ll let Adam know, too,” Christy said brightly. “He’ll be glad I figured it out.”

“Sounds good,” I responded after sorting through the things I’d rather have said to her and remembering that I had resolved not to be spiteful or petty today.

I disconnected my phone.

“So,” I asked, “just how rare are presa Canarios?”

“They are rare in the US,” Lucia said. “But a few years ago there was a man who wanted to breed them for pit fighting. He was put in jail, and his lawyers ended up with a pair of his dogs. The dogs had been mistreated, and the lawyers had no idea of how to handle them. The dogs killed a woman in their apartment building who was coming home with her groceries.” Lucia’s pretty mouth tightened, and her white dog bumped her leg to comfort her. “Do you know what happened?”

I nodded, because I remembered the incident, though I hadn’t known what the breed of dog had been. “They became suddenly popular.”

She made a growling noise, and the big dog who had been sleeping with his back to us turned around so he could see her. He didn’t get up, but he remained alert. The dog whose head was on my knee leaned on me a little harder and sighed, groaning a little as I let my fingers search out another good itchy spot.

“Canarios are not evil dogs,” Lucia told me, “any more than my Amstaffs are evil. Canarios are guard dogs, bred to protect their people, their herds–and to hunt for food by taking down big animals. Trained and raised with common sense, they are useful and valuable members of the family.”

It sounded like a rant. I have a few of those, usually involving idiots who try to replace fuses with pennies, people who text while driving, and tax codes so Byzantine not even the IRS really knows what they mean–so I nodded sympathetically.

“I know that you are married to the werewolf,” Lucia told me. “You understand about animals who can be dangerous under the right circumstance. If your friend’s stalker has Canarios–he could train them so that they kill on command.”

Honey bared her teeth and growled. All four dogs rose to their feet and surrounded Lucia–but they didn’t act upset, just ready. Dogs are better than people at reading body language.

“Big dogs are just dogs,” said Honey. “I am a wolf.” She looked at the Amstaffs, who returned her look unafraid and ready to defend their person if they needed to.

“But you, little brave cousins,” Honey said, half‑amused under their regard, “you I would take with me on a hunt.”

Not many people could call Lucia’s dogs little and mean it. I would guess that it took a werewolf to feel that way; they looked plenty big to me.

Lucia, far from being intimidated by Honey, smiled. “Brave? Yes. They will take on anything to defend Joel or me.” Her smile dropped away. “Your friend”–Christy had promoted herself from my husband’s ex to my friend–“said that this man’s dogs were difficult, but he had no trouble with them. That tells me that they are hisdogs and that they are very well trained. His dogs then will be as mine. They will not know that he is a man who attacks women who cannot fight back: a man who is a coward. They will only know that this man is their god, the one they must listen to and protect. Canarios are courageous. They will not run from you just because you are a werewolf.”

“I’m not actually a werewolf,” I told her apologetically. “But I appreciate the insight. Do you know anyone who raises Canarios? Someone we can talk to about other breeders?”

She nodded. “I do.” She left and returned with a card. “These people live in Portland and breed Canarios. They are very well‑known and reputable. If Christy’s stalker is a breeder or an avid fancier, they will know of him.”

I called Warren as soon as we were in the van. He took the information and assured me that he was doing his best to find Juan Flores, so Christy could go back to Eugene.

“Thank you,” I told him sincerely, and he laughed as he rang off.

Honey was thoughtfully silent on the drive back to her house. I stopped in her driveway, and she opened the door. But she stayed in the van for a moment as she looked at her house. “Maybe I need to get a dog,” she said.

Between the prison trip and Lucia’s help with the dogs, I managed to come home very late on Tuesday and escaped quality Christy‑time, for the most part. Though I hadn’t planned to, I left before breakfast was made the next morning. I had a last‑minute fix Wednesday night that kept me nearly an hour later than usual. The thought occurred to me that if I could avoid home long enough, maybe I wouldn’t have to talk to her before she left.

I went home, confident I’d be too late for dinner, but when I came in the door, Christy met me with a smile.

“You are in luck,” she told me. “Adam had an errand to run so I waited dinner for him. You have about fifteen minutes to shower.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Thanks,” I said, as if she hadn’t just sent me off to clean up. I’d intended to shower because I was sweaty and dirty. I wasn’t going to behave like I was thirteen and refuse to do it because she’d told me to. No matter how strong the impulse.

I was in my bathroom, pulling off my clothes, when I heard Adam come into the bedroom. I didn’t want to have him see how agitated she’d made me, so I just continued to get ready to shower.

“Three days since Christy got here, and we’ve made no progress, Mercy.” Adam’s voice came, slightly muffled, from the bedroom. “It’s not that Juan Flores doesn’t leave traces–it’s that none of them mean anything. It’s starting to look as though he might really be someone dangerous. My connections with the DEA tell me that they have ten Juan Floreses on their watch list–none of them up high enough in the money to be Christy’s Juan Flores.”

He neared the bathroom, and I heard him open a drawer. “They say it might mean that he’s not a drug trafficker, or that he’s so big no one talks about him. I’ve worked it out with a few of my people so I can work from home until we find him.” He paused, then said in a low voice, “You should know that Christy asked me to stay home because she doesn’t feel comfortable with the wolves if I’m not here.”

I turned on the shower to let it warm up as well as give me a chance to think about what I wanted to say to Adam. But when I turned, I was confronted by a large plastic see‑through box covered with sparkly pink rhinestones that held a huge collection of makeup. Christy’s makeup was in my bathroom, on my counter, next to my sink. At least, I thought, she hadn’t put it next to Adam’s sink.

“Don’t we have another bathroom upstairs that Christy could use to store her makeup?” I asked.

There was a long silence, then Adam said, “There wasn’t room for her stuff and Jesse’s stuff in the smaller bathroom.” Another pause. “I told her you wouldn’t mind.”

I got in the shower and stuck my head under the hot water, so I couldn’t say anything I would regret. Coyotes weren’t as territorial, as a rule, as werewolves, but we still had our hard lines. Having Christy flouncing in and out through my bedroom into my bathroom crossed one of my hard lines. I washed my hair and tried to let things, the ugly, unpleasant things I was feeling, slide down the drain with the rest of the grime that had covered my skin.

The shower door opened, and Adam stepped in.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I shook my head and leaned against him. The feel of his skin next to mine went a long way toward restoring my equanimity.

“She probably asked you if I’d mind,” I said. “And managed to imply that only a small‑minded, petty person could possibly object to her husband’s ex‑wife moving her makeup into the larger, brighter bathroom. If you told her she couldn’t, then you’d have been implying that I was a petty, mean‑spirited person.”

“And jealous,” he added. “I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “I love you,” I told him. “I love the man you are. But her makeup is not staying here. I won’t have her in our bedroom. In our bathroom. But I will take care of it.” I smiled at him. “I don’t care if she calls me jealous or petty. Not your worry. So still no real information on Flores?”

“No,” he said, soaping up his hands and starting to wash himself off briskly. “The Reno pack sent a couple of wolves to talk to the hotel where Christy met Flores. Turns out he comes there every year about the same time, checks in under different names for which he has ID–but that is apparently not unusual despite government regulations. There’s an actor who regularly checks in there under the name of the secret identity of the last superhero he played. But the staff remembers him because of the dogs–and confirmed that whatever name he’s registered as, he still goes by Juan Flores.”

I had followed Adam’s example and scrubbed myself down as he talked. I even managed to soap my hair and condition it before the magnetic draw of Adam’s skin forced me to touch him.

“He can speak native‑quality Spanish, but his accent is weird,” Adam told me, but his voice was a little unsteady, and he braced himself against the corner of the shower. “Not from Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, or Mexico. The Argentinian maid said he sounded Colombian. The Colombian maid said maybe Venezuelan, and he used very old‑fashioned–”

“Old‑fashioned what?” I asked, letting my mouth follow my hands.

“Mmmm,” Adam answered.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Hurry up, Mercy,” Auriele said briskly. “Christy’s made her famous Szechuan chicken, but it needs to be eaten right now.”

I backed away, and Adam snarled soundlessly.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

On the way down for dinner, I collected Christy’s things and set them down in front of her door.

“You aren’t going to talk to her?” Adam asked.

“I don’t need to,” I told him. “She’ll get the message.” If I had to give it again, she’d be buying new makeup and a new case. But I was pretty sure this would be enough.

I always start work early–a habit formed in summers when the afternoon sun can heat the garage ten degrees hotter than the triple‑digit figures outside. But Thursday morning, I had left home while the sky was still dark just to get away from the breakfast Christy had been in the process of making. Nothing horrible had happened at dinner, but I didn’t want to repeat it, either. Tad didn’t show up at work until almost an hour after I did.

“No brownies?” he asked.

“Christy has taken over my kitchen,” I told him as I wrote the last check for the garage’s bills. “No stress relief for me. No chocolate for you.”

“No chocolate?” he said, leaning on the counter. “That’s terrible.” He waited hopefully, and when I didn’t say anything more, he asked, “So what did she make for us today?”

I waved him at the brown paper bag sitting next to my keyboard.

He sniffed, then opened it. “Cinnamon rolls?”

“You can eat these in here,” I said, and licked the last envelope closed. “Eat them both. They have Christy cooties.”

“The muffins were good,” he said. “So was the apple pie. I guess I can do without chocolate if the alternative is cinnamon rolls.” There was sympathy in his voice if not his words.

“Blasphemer,” I told him. “There are no cinnamon rolls better than chocolate.”

He sniffed again. “These might be.”

I left him to it and retreated to go work on cars. In my garage, I ruled without question–and had since Zee had retreated to the fae reservation. Her makeup case wasn’t going to end up in my garage.

But as soon as I put Christy out of my mind, I started fretting over my inability to find Coyote. I’d been pretty optimistic after Honey had grilled Gary Laughingdog. But I hadn’t had any brainstorms about how to be interesting enough to attract Coyote’s attention.

Last night I’d resorted to yelling Coyote’s name to the open air (well away from home to make sure no werewolves would hear me making an idiot out of myself). I’d tried talking to Coyote as if he were in the same room to see if he would come out of hiding–and wondered if I was going to have to mastermind a bank heist in order to attract his attention.

I was contemplating criminal activities when Hank called. I peeled off the stupid latex gloves, so I didn’t get grease on my phone. Christy had done that much for me: since I started wearing the gloves–my phone was staying cleaner.

“Hey, Hank,” I said.

“You talk with Gary?”

Something in his voice had me straightening my spine. “Yes.”

“Hope you got the information you needed.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Last night or this morning, Laughingdog escaped. One of his relatives called me to see if I thought you might have had something to do with it.”

“No,” I said. I wondered who Gary Laughingdog’s relatives were and if theymight be able to tell me how to get in touch with Coyote. “I don’t think so. Did you know that he has some kind of foresight?”

“Yes,” said Hank. “And much joy he’s ever gotten from it. Gets him into trouble and never out, he says. You think he saw something and broke out?”

“I don’t know him well enough to say that,” I said. “He had a couple of visions while we were there. Mostly a bunch of nonsense–” But he’d known Honey’s name. “Something to the effect of Coyote’s”–I remembered that odd pronunciation–“ somebody’schildren … breaking the night with their cries. I don’t know anyone else besides the two of us who qualify. Maybe he saw something that made his escape necessary.”

“And maybe Coyote’s kin don’t do well in lockup,” Hank said. “No more than does anyone, but Coyote was always good at getting out of places he didn’t want to be. Anyway, you can expect to see police sometime. They’ll talk to everyone on his visitors list, and there are about four of us up in the Yakama Nation and you. He’s not big‑time, but breaking out might make him more important to them. They don’t like being thwarted.” “They,” I knew, referred to the authorities of whatever flavor. Hank didn’t like people who could tell him what to do–and he avoided them by being a very law‑abiding citizen.

“Thank you for the heads‑up,” I said.

“Probably he’s just gone walkabout. Show up with another name in ten or twenty years. He does that.”

“Walkabout?” I said doubtfully. “Isn’t that an Aussie Aboriginal term?”

“An Indian is an Indian, Mercy, no matter what continent they come from,” he said with a grin in his voice. Before I could disagree, he disconnected.

So I wasn’t surprised when the police showed up in the afternoon.

“Mercy.”

“Tony?” I looked up from the Passat I was working on. There was something wrong with the injectors, but it was intermittent, and I was afraid that meant it was electronic–and probably something to do with the computer. And that would explain why the car’s computer hadn’t been able to tell me what was going on.

“Mercy, I need you to clean up and come talk to me.”

I blinked at the tightness in his voice and focused on his face. Trouble, that expression said, and in response, I backed out of the job, pulling bolts and pieces out of my pockets and putting them on the car where they wouldn’t be lost. I peeled off the latex gloves and tossed them.

“Tad?” I said.

The sound of the crawler’s hard wheels on pavement signaled his emergence from under the Vanagon he was repairing.

“I’m headed off with Tony for a bit. Don’t burn down the garage or run off the customers while I’m gone.”

Tad glanced from Tony’s face to mine, and said mildly, “Is it okay if I call in a few strippers to put on a show and charge it to the garage? I’ve been thinking it might pull in some more customers.”

“Sure,” I said as I stepped out of my overalls: in the interest of time, I didn’t bother to retreat to the bathroom. I was wearing a full set of clothes underneath anyway. “Just make sure Christy makes it over in time for the show so she can tell the pack what kind of place I run here. Oh, and tell her I took off with a hot‑looking man.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

She’d called yesterday, and, knowing how I felt about her, Tad had told her that I’d gone out for a run. Tad doesn’t usually lie, though since he is only half‑fae, he can, and he is a fair hand at misdirection. I had been in the garage bay, and he’d answered my cell in the office, where I’d left it.

Next thing I know, I was getting a call from Adam, who was mad because he thought that I had been running without protection. Grocery stores and other public places were unlikely spots for kidnapping the Alpha’s wife. Running I had to do with company for safety’s sake. I regretted it, but I understood the necessity.

I’d explained that Tad had been mistaken when he talked to Christy. I took the blame for it–thus putting myself firmly in the wrong. The pack figuratively–maybe literally, for all I know–patted Christy on the head for being so worried about my well‑being.

“Not your fault,” I told Tad–Christy would have found something else to make me look bad anyway. “Though this time you might mention that the handsome man is an armed police officer who will keep me safe as a fox in a henhouse.”

Tad gave me a mock salute while I followed Tony out.

“Trouble?” Tony asked.

“Adam’s ex‑wife has a stalker, so she is living with us until we can figure out what to do about him,” I told him as matter‑of‑factly as I could manage.

He stopped and looked at me, and finally lost the odd distance I’d sensed–as if I’d been a stranger he’d been sent to fetch. Maybe he was worried that I hadhad a hand in Gary Laughingdog’s escape.

“Adam’s ex‑wife is living with you?” he asked incredulously.

“Her stalker is dangerous,” I told him. “We are pretty sure he killed a man and burned down the building her condo was in. Until someone can find him and arrest him, Christy is staying with us because even a violent man might hesitate to face off with a pack of werewolves.”

I had added the “arrest him” part because it sounded good. I was pretty sure at this point that any arrest would be postmortem. Maybe it had been a mistake because something in the last sentence put the distance right back between us.

“I can see that,” he said, and continued walking to his car.

I followed and, when he opened the passenger door for me, I got in. We sat in front of the garage for a minute, and I waited for him to ask me about Gary Laughingdog’s escape from prison.

“I saw what you became,” he said instead. “Over at Kyle Brooks’s house, when the body that was in the trunk of the car broke out, and you and Adam tried to chase it down.”

I looked at him. Yep. That cat was out of the bag for sure. I’d changed into my coyote shape to go chase after a zombie and had forgotten about all the people watching. Tony hadn’t been the only one who’d gotten an eyeful. I’d grown used to having more people know what I was and hadn’t even thought about what I was doing and who I was doing it in front of.

In most ways, it wouldn’t matter if I shouted out that I was a coyote shapeshifter, a walker, to the whole world. I wasn’t alone anymore. In other ways, though, it was possibly disastrous. If the public realized that the fae and the werewolves were just the top of the anthill of Other that lived hidden among the human population, it could be bad. Bad for humans and bad for everyone else, too.