“It wasn’t much of a risk. Superhuman strength or not, he didn’t even try to fight.” I paused. “Those handcuffs will hold him, won’t they? You said they’re specially made to hold anything supernatural.”

A moment’s hesitation. “You cuffed him?”

“So they won’t hold? Well, he’s still in that room anyway. The door’s closed and—”

“He can’t break the cuffs, Hope. That’s not the problem. I thought you knew—didn’t you—you usually know what they are.”

“Sometimes. This time, I didn’t get a vision—”

Oh yes, I had. Standing in line at the buffet, with him behind me, a vision of forest and fur and fangs and blood.

“He’s a werewolf,” I said.

“And a very dangerous one. You need to subdue him—”

“Should I? If he’s dangerous, don’t you want me to wait—”

“No time. As charming as Marsten seems, he’s a werewolf, the most brutal and unpredictable kind of supernatural, and now he’s cornered, which makes him ten times as dangerous. If he knows it’s the council who captured him, he’ll do anything to get away—kill anyone in his path.”

I swallowed. “Okay, so how do I subdue a werewolf?”

“Disable him. Knock him unconscious. Shoot him if you have to. You don’t need silver bullets—”

“I know.”

“Don’t kill him, just—”

“Disable him. Got it.”

I was already hanging up as Tristan promised me a backup team was on the way.

I made it as far as the door, one hand on the knob, the other on my gun, still hidden in my purse. I turned the handle and—

“You there!”

I dropped the gun into my purse and wheeled as a white-haired security guard strode toward me.

“What are you doing in that room?” he said.

Room? Oh, this room, the one I was clutching for dear life. I let go of the knob and stepped away. Inside, a broom clattered to the floor. The guard turned toward the door, his eyes narrowing.

“Sorry,” I said. “Guess I jostled it too hard. This isn’t the coatroom, is—?”

Something clanged against a metal bucket. Then a clacking, like nails against linoleum. Oh God. He’d changed into a wolf. Of course he’d changed into a wolf. What else would a cornered werewolf do?

The guard reached for the handle. In that split second, I saw him pulling open the door, and a wolf leaping at his throat—

I grabbed the knob and held it. “It’s jammed, see?” I made a show of jangling it. “That noise, that’s what I heard, that’s why I was trying to open it. But it’s jammed.”

“Probably locked.”

“Er, no, I don’t think—”

“The janitor has the keys—”

“Oh, actually, then, I bet you’re right,” I said quickly. “It’s probably locked. Why don’t you go find the janitor. I’ll wait here.”

The guard started to leave, then paused, and turned. “First, let me try the door. It might just be jammed—”

I backed into the door so fast my head cracked against it. The guard reached to steady me.

“Heels,” I mumbled. “I’m always tripping in them.”

I stepped forward, and let my knee give way. The guard grabbed my arm as I grimaced.

“My ankle. I think I twisted it.”

“We should get you to—”

“Please,” I said through my teeth, still grimacing. “I’ll wait here.”

“All right, just let me try the door first—”

As he turned toward the door again, I had no idea what to do, short of falling to my knees and howling in agony. He reached for the handle. Okay, one pratfall coming up—

Before the guard touched the knob, it turned. The door opened. A figure stepped out. Karl Marsten, fully dressed.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” he said with a self-deprecating half-smile. “I could’ve sworn this was the bathroom, and then the door jammed. Thank you. You saved me from the even more serious embarrassment of having to call for help.”

He shook the security guard’s hand. Then he turned to me, and with a murmured thank you, a tip of his head, and a smile, he strolled off down the hall. I took a step after him.

“Miss? Do you want me to call a doctor?”

“Doctor? Oh, right. My ankle. No, my…date…he’s a doctor. I’ll just—”

I looked up and down the hall. The guard pointed toward the party, in the opposite direction of the one Marsten had taken. Damn. I managed a weak smile and a thank you, and headed back to the gala, tossing in the occasional limp for good measure.

When I reached the party, Douglas was still with the Bairds. I tried making a beeline for the other door, to go after Marsten, but Douglas hailed me. I headed over.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just…there’s an old friend over there. You stay with the Bairds. I’ll just go talk—”

“Friend?” He perked up. “What company does he work for?”

“She’s a musician. Classical. With the symphony.”

His face fell. “Ah, well, you go on then.” He nodded toward the Bairds. “I’m fine here.”

I’ll bet you are, I thought as I hurried away. And, by the way, my stomach’s fine, too. Thanks for asking.

When I reached the corner where I’d last seen Marsten, he was gone. I switched on my mental radar to find him before he escaped with the jewelry. Yes, according to Tristan, I had far bigger things to worry about than stolen goods but…maybe I’m being naïve, but Marsten hadn’t acted like a cornered wild beast. I couldn’t imagine him ripping through innocent partygoers in a frenzied dash to the exit, especially not when I wasn’t picking up any chaos signals to suggest such a thing.

Tristan could be quite a mother hen. As he’d said, I was valuable. Expisco half-demons were rare, and one willing to work on the side of the white hats was rarer still. So I understood when Tristan did things like this, not letting me in on a takedown, keeping me sequestered from other agents, or overreacting with someone like Marsten. But understanding isn’t accepting. I knew my limitations, which were many, and I was careful. Yet I had lost Karl Marsten, and damned if I was going to sit on my butt and wait for the backup team to find him again.

So I practiced my developing bounty hunter skills. I cleared my mind and pulled up the images I’d seen at the buffet table: forest, running, fur, fangs. As I did, I tried, with debatable success, not to chastise myself too much for failing to recognize the meaning of the vision from the start.

I knew little about werewolves. Like vampires, they were rare, and kept to themselves. Unlike vampires, they also policed themselves, meaning the council had no reason to deal with them. I knew only one half-demon who’d ever even met a werewolf…and she wasn’t all that sure that’s what it had been. So I had an excuse for not leaping to “he’s a werewolf!” conclusions. But, again, I didn’t accept excuses.

After about a minute of mental scanning, I picked up Marsten’s frequency. It was faint and flat—meaning he wasn’t causing any trouble. Not yet.

I focused on the signal and followed. Down two dark halls, skirting past the gala, down another hall—the same one I started in when I’d first left the party. I reached the fork again. Marsten’s trail went left, in the direction of that chaos residual I’d been tracking when his theft had diverted me. He was heading for the back exit.

Still concentrating on his trail, I went down the next corridor, turned the corner—and was smacked by a wave of chaos.

Marsten. Shit! He was—

No, a deeper, calmer part of me replied. It’s not him. It’s here. Something happened here. Something recent.

I’d been hit by two chaos waves, both originating in this area. They had to be connected.

I pushed aside the werewolf images, and focused on this new signal. The voice came again, that gruff voice telling someone he shouldn’t be back here. The plea. Then the scream.

When the wave hit me this time, I only rocked on my heels. Half the strength of the slap I’d felt in the main room earlier, even though I was at the apparent locus of the trouble. I filed this away as a lesson in separating residuals from current chaos, then closed my eyes and pivoted, trying to find the exact location—