She didn't offer us anything to drink. Instead, she pointed us toward a pile of cushions on one side of the living room, then stood with her back to her altar and her gun trained on Lucas. I didn't blame her, if I'd been human it's what I would have done.

Her eyes kept flickering over to me, no matter how steady the gun was. "So it's true," she said finally, her voice low and pleasant and reeking of terror. Her tat shifted and strained uneasily under the skin of her left cheek.

"What's true?" I didn't sit on a cushion but I did try to keep my aura close and contained, not wanting to scare her more than was absolutely necessary. After all, she'd just let a part-demon, a Necromance, and Lucas in her front door. The Necromance she was probably sure she could handle-Leander was human, just like her. But still.

Lucas gave me a slanting yellow-eyed look, pushing his lank hair back from his forehead. His breathing had evened out, and he was back to looking like every psion's worst nightmare. "Just tell her what you told me, Carlyle."

She licked her lips, examined me. The gun shook just a little, her sleeve trembled, and her aura shivered right on the edge of going hard and crystalline, locking down. Her pulse throbbed under the damp mortal skin of her throat. Was that what I looked like when I met Lucas in Rio? Was that what I looked like to Japhrimel? So fragile, and so scared?

And the even more uncomfortable thought, Do I still look that way to him? Does he smell my fear, and does it taunt him like hers taunts me?

"This cancels the debt?" Her voice shook. There wasn't a psion in the building, but the psychically-dense atmosphere kept her shields from being seen. She was almost perfectly hidden, like a scorpion under a rock. Not many people would brave both the Tank and the filth of the building outside to intrude on her privacy. Even if she did have to live with the psychic noise and stench of so many angry scrabbling people, it was a fair trade-off.

I wondered what type of work she did, and I also wondered how she'd managed to turn this apartment into such a clean, luxurious nest. She was combat-trained, the way she held the gun-the way she moved-toldme as much. It struck me that I was looking at someone very much like the person I had been.

Before Rio. Before Japhrimel.

"Mostly," Lucas rasped. "I did you a big favor, Carlyle."

That made her aura turn sharp and pale. "I paid you," she insisted. "I may not be able to kill you, but I can hurt you plenty."

Irritation and impatience rose under my skin, spiked and deadly. Will you two just get on with it so I can do what I have to do? I took a deep, sharp breath, kept a firm hold on my temper. The vision of Gabe's body retreated just a little.

Just a very little. I wasn't going to be able to see Abra before the next sunset, so I might as well spend my time getting some information on demons and A'nankhimel.

I was hoping like hell she knew something about hedaira too. It would be a regular Putchkin Yule down here in the Bowery if she did.

I was suddenly aware of three pairs of eyes on me. Gray Magi eyes, Lucas's almost-yellow, and Leander's dark worried gaze a weight I could feel even though he was behind me. I must have been radiating, despite trying to keep my aura close and contained. "I don't have time for petty bargaining," I finally said, softly. "So if you two could finish up sometime this week I'd appreciate it. I've got a lot of business to handle."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Tell her what you told me, Carlyle. I promise I won't make any sudden moves. Unless you get jumpy again." His smile, stretched over his pallid thin face, was enough to send a faint shiver down even my back.

She cleared her throat. The perfume of her fear made the mark on my shoulder throb, pleasantly. Was it because she was a Magi? I'd damn near drowned in Polyamour's pheromones before; this was a sharper feeling, like synthhash spiked with thyoline.

A stimulant, like Chill.

She cleared her throat. "There's talk going around. There are demons boiling through the Veil to our world. Imps have been sighted in ever-growing numbers, and there've been some… disturbing signs, at the collegia meetings."

Her eyes flicked over me again. "Gods. It's true," she whispered. "It has to be. You're… you were chosen."

My eyebrows threatened to nest in my hairline. Imps coming through, and she's mentioned collegia. I thought they were a myth, secret societies of Magi getting together to work collective magicks across Circle affiliations. Wow. My pulse abruptly slowed to its usual regularity. At last we're getting somewhere. "Chosen for what?" I kept my tone absolutely dead level, reined in. Controlled. Still, the husky honey of my voice turned the air dark. Not like it needed any help-the only light was from the novenas ranked under Ganej, his eyes twinkling merrily in the flickering gloom.

"To be a… human bride. A fleshwife." Her pupils dilated, and the salt tang of her fear filled my mouth. Goddammit, none of the bounties I hunted made me feel like this, psion or normal. What's wrong with me?

"I believe the proper term is hedaira," I corrected, dryly, as if I knew what the hell I was talking about. My emerald spat a single green spark, and she flinched. "Why don't you tell me everything you know about it, and everything you know about what's going on with the imps and these `disturbing signs'? I'm sure Lucas will be very satisfied with that."

She eyed Lucas, eyed me, her cheeks were cheesy-pale under the even caramel. Then, far braver than I would have been in her shoes, she eased the hammer of the gun back down with a small click. "I don't know much. But what I do, I'll tell you. And this cancels the debt, Villalobos." Her sharp chin lifted defiantly. "If anyone, Magi or demon, knew I was talking to you like this, my life wouldn't be worth a bag of Tank trash."

"You got it," Lucas rasped. "I'll even let you talk to her alone." His grin was wide and chilling in its good-natured satisfaction. "Your kitchen still in the same place?"

Her hands were shaking, but she glared at him. I was beginning to like her. "Don't drink all the wine, you greedy bastard. Go. And don't touch anything else. You, too, Necromance." Her lip didn't curl when she said it, but she still sounded disdainful. I wondered why, it wasn't like a psion to be so dismissive of another.

Then again, precious little about this woman was normal even for a Magi.

Lucas shuffled out of the room, deliberately noisy with his worn-down bootheels. Leander touched my shoulder before he left, an awkward gesture that oddly enough didn't irritate me.

Immediately, Carlyle became a lot calmer. She holstered the gun at her hip and took a few steps away from the altar. "When did it happen? The change. You're not Magi, how did you convince the demon to do that? Which demon was it? Can you call him anytime you want, or-"

What the hell? "I came here for answers, not to be interrogated," I said frostily. The smell of kyphii made me think of Gabe, and the sharp well of pain behind my breastbone made water start in my eyes. "Keep it up, and you'll owe Lucas more."

She actually flinched, again. Her hair fell down over her forehead in a soft wave. Then she collected herself. "May I see it?"

See what? "See what?"

Was she blushing? She appeared to be blushing. "The… ah, the mark. If it's not in a sensitive… place."

Huh? I reached up with my right hand, pulled the neckline of my shirt out of alignment, popping a button so she could see a slice of the twisting fluid scars that made Japhrimel's mark in the hollow of my left shoulder. "It hurts sometimes." I let go of my shirt. So having the mark is something that's supposed to happen. But I got it from Lucifer when he made Japh my familiar. On the other hand, it's the only scar that stayed after Japh changed me. And it seems to be a link between us. I wonder, does the link go both ways? He said he could use it to track me, to find me, and I can see through his eyes if I touch it. That qualifies as both ways. "What can you tell me about hedaira? And A'nankhimel?"