"Dahlia," he said, and bent to kiss her on the cheek.

Dahlia hugged him, taking care to be gentle. It was so easy to break their bones.

Clifford was blissfully unaware of her restraint. He turned from Dahlia to Taffy. "Wife of my packmaster," he saluted her formally. He bowed his head, and Taffy sniffed his neck, as she was supposed to do. She rolled her eyes at Dahlia while Clifford couldn't see her. Then Taffy gave the young Were a little lick, and he straightened. "What do you beautiful ladies want me to do for you?" He spoke to both of them, but his gaze was on Dahlia.

"We need you to film a third-grade classroom," Taffy said.

"We need to know if there's anything suspicions, or simply different, about the way the teacher treats the children. The teacher will be the young woman you saw tonight in the restaurant. Just in case, we need some leverage."

Clifford flinched. "You think she's, like, abusing the kids or something?"

"Oh, probably not," Dahlia said. Clifford didn't seem reassured. "Let me warn you, Clifford, you must have a story to tell, and it has to be a good one, a credible one. This woman is a witch and she can do awful things to men, if her predecessor is any example to go by."

Clifford brightened. "Hey, I'm a shaman and a Were," he said proudly. "If she's a woman—and I know that she is—I can charm her out of her pants."

The two vampires raised their brows, clearly skeptical.

"Well, maybe it wouldn't work on you ladies," Clifford conceded. "But a witch? Piece o' cake."

The two vampires exchanged glances. It was true that many young Weres possessed a lot of physical charm. And if their suspicions were correct, the witch had already proved susceptible to that particular brand of charm. They looked at Clifford, and they nodded simultaneously.

The next night, Clifford rang the mansion doorbell just after the sun had gone down. Taffy, who'd been waiting anxiously since the second she'd risen, gaped up at the young man. He now had grayish-white horns sprouting from his forehead. They were about half the size of a longhorn bull's, and they were sharp-pointed. Dahlia, who'd heard Clifford's voice and come to greet him, put her hand over her mouth.

"Piece of cake," Taffy said. She turned away because she was trying not to laugh. Even Dahlia's lips curved in a quick smile. She preceded Taffy and the Were down the hall to her room. "Please sit down, Clifford," she said, trying to make her voice as level as ever. "You seem to have acquired a burden." They passed a yawning male vamp on their way, and his mouth fell open when he took in Clifford's new head decorations.

The young Were was trying hard not to look as chagrined as he must have felt. "Well, okay, stuff happened. I filmed in several classrooms," Clifford began, but had to stop and rearrange himself in the chair. The unaccustomed weight of the horns put him off balance unless he sat absolutely straight. "So that part was okay. The school seemed happy that the university film class was making a short feature about children. But after I filmed Kathy's kids, I hung around while they were on the playground, trying to make a pass at her. I got her address and phone number, so she went along with it, up to a point. But when she realized I was a Were, and she figured out I knew what she was, she felt free to show her real nature. I pushed a little too hard with the sexual innuendo, maybe." Clifford shrugged, and his horns wobbled. He had to reach up to grab his head to make it balance. "She twiddled around with her fingers and said a few words in some language I didn't know. I felt okay at first, but by the time I got home, the horns had started growing."

The two vampires stared at the young Were without saying a word. Then they burst into laughter, and he glared at them while they rocked back and forth.

"Well, we know she's the real deal now," Taffy said to Dahlia.

"Yes. Let's watch Clifford's film."

"You'll find it interesting," Clifford said, though he wouldn't elaborate. Payback for the laughter, of course. He passed Dahlia a disc.

Dahlia had a television and a DVD player in her room, and it was the work of a second to start Clifford's morning project. In a moment they were watching Kathy Aenidis's third-grade class. The children all looked well scrubbed and neat, which was a surprise to Dahlia, who had kept up with the progress of modern education through the newer vampires.

Taffy said, "They look so tidy."

"Yeah, the kids in her room did look better than the kids in the adjoining rooms," Clifford agreed. "Shoelaces tied, clothes clean, shirts tucked in. But you'll understand why in a minute."

Kathy Aenidis, also known as the Circe, passed through the rows of desk doing her teacher thing. Her red hair was coming out of its low ponytail, and her glasses were sliding down her nose. Her long skirt came down almost to the socks and Birkenstocks on her feet.

Dahlia shuddered, and Taffy said, "Ewwww."

While the camera followed the young teacher around her classroom, Kathy patted, corrected, encouraged, and chided. But all the while, her fingers were moving unobtrusively by her side.

"I see," said Dahlia.

"See what? Aha!" said Taffy a moment later. "There, you see? She's spelling them as she goes."

"Their test scores are significantly higher," Clifford said as his hands shot up yet again to still his wobbling head. "The principal told me so. The whole staff thinks Miss Kathy is the greatest thing since sliced bread."

"She's definitely got another side," Dahlia murmured, her eyes fixed on the image of the plump and sweet Circe, whose fingers flickered constantly as she taught the children arithmetic. "I'll give her this. The teaching job is good cover. Who would believe a word anyone spoke against her?"

"Oh, we would," Taffy said. Taffy took things literally.

"I sure as hell would," Clifford said. "Ladies, what am I gonna do about these horns? If I go to my instructor, he'll laugh his ass off and make it a dinner story for years. And I haven't had enough experience to attempt anything like this myself. I might vanish my whole head. These horns are throwing my skull off balance! What do you think? Ideas, please."

"Cut them off?" Dahlia suggested.

Clifford flinched. "Don't even say that as a joke," he said.

"They actually look good on you," Dahlia said, eyeing Clifford with some appreciation. She felt better than she had since Todd's death. She'd enlisted the services of exactly the right witch, and she was going to have her vengeance. As for her glimpse into the morals of the Circe, Dahlia wasn't overly concerned. After this job was done, she wasn't planning on having dealings with the witch again.

Taffy wasn't so distracted by dreams of the future as Dahlia. "Come on, Clifford," she said. "We'll go see the Ancient Pythoness. She'll fix you up."

"If she's in her right mind today," Dahlia said quietly while Clifford was busy pulling on his coat and opening his umbrella, the only thing that would halfway conceal his horns.

"I called the Depository," Taffy whispered back. The Depository was the vampire headquarters for Rhodes, the place where all the secret ceremonial things were kept—and anything or anyone that the vampires wanted to hide or imprison. The Ancient Pythoness, who'd been turned when she was a very old woman, was one of the artifacts who needed to be hidden, for her own good. She was still quite a seer and quite a witch, but her powers were erratic and poorly controlled. Making a magical person a vampire had been a bad idea.

"While you're there," Dahlia said, struck by a sudden thought, "ask her if she can see where the current Circe hides her grimoires."

"They really keep books? Full of spells and stuff?"

"Yes, they do. The current Circe said as much."

"Oh," Taffy said. "Well, that's very interesting. Are you thinking we could steal them and hold them for ransom? And she wouldn't be able to use the spells, because we'd have them."