“How high are they in the Summer hierarchy?” Bob asked.

“They’re up there,” I said. “As a group, anyway. They’ve got a reputation for killing trolls. Probably where the nursery tale comes from.”

“Troll killers,” Bob said. “Trolls. Like Mab’s personal guard, whose pieces you found scattered all over Arctis Tor?”

“Exactly,” I said. “But what I did there ticked off Winter, not Summer.”

“I’ve always admired your ability to be unilaterally irritating.”

I shook my head. “No. I must have done something there that hurt Summer somehow.” I frowned. “Or helped Winter. Bob, do you know-”

The phone started ringing. I had run a long extension cord from the outlet in my bedroom down to the lab, after Molly had nearly broken her neck rushing up the stepladder to answer a call. The old windup clock on one shelf told me that it was after midnight. Nobody calls me that late unless it’s something bad.

“Hold that thought,” I told Bob.

“It’s me,” Murphy said when I answered. “I need you.”

“Why, Sergeant, I’m touched,” I said. “You’ve admitted the truth at last. Cue sweeping romantic theme music.”

“I’m serious,” she said. Something in her voice sounded tired, strained.

“Where?” I asked her.

She gave me the address and we hung up.

I barely ever got work from Chicago PD anymore, and between that and my frequent trips to other cities as part of my duties as a Warden, I hadn’t been making diddly as an investigator. My stipend as a Warden of the White Council kept me from bankruptcy, but my bank account had bled slowly down to the point where I had to be really careful to avoid bouncing checks.

I needed the work.

“That was Murphy,” I said, “making a duty call.”

“This late at night, what else could it be?” Bob agreed. “Watch your back extra careful, boss.”

“Why do you say that?” I said, shrugging into my coat.

“I don’t know if you’re up on your nursery tales,” Bob said, “but if you’ll remember, the Billy Goats Gruff had a whole succession of brothers.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Each of them bigger and meaner than the last.”

I headed out to meet Murphy.

Weregoats. Jesus.