“We go right in. If he’s the shape-shifter, we’ll need the surprise. If he’s not-” He shrugged. “We’ll just apologize. He won’t give a damn when he sees it’s us.”

He was right. Ramsey would be so thrilled by the thought of being in on something exciting that he wouldn’t care that we’d just waltzed in uninvited, even though that’s unforgivable by practitioner etiquette.

Victor looked up and down the door, examining the warding. You can’t actually see warding unless you’re another practitioner, and even then you don’t exactly see it. You feel it and sense it, in a way ordinaries can’t. It’s an overlay, and for someone like Victor, or even myself, it’s as obvious as a new paint job on an old rusted car.

The warding was not only over the door but the entire side of the building. Quite ambitious, but pitiful even for someone as unskilled as Ramsey. Worse, he hadn’t kept up with it-warding doesn’t last forever; it needs to be maintained. I’d neglected that myself a couple of years ago, much to my sorrow. I’m a lot more conscientious these days.

“Give me a hand with this,” said Victor, pointing to a spot right over the door.

The warding there had completely degraded to the point where it was nonexistent. He reached out with his talent, I did the same, and together we peeled the rest of the warding off like loose skin off an onion. Victor reached under his jacket and brought out the Glock. He motioned toward the door with it.

“Kick the door. Hit it right next to the lock, and hit it hard.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just knock?” I said. He looked at me in exasperation.

So I was to be the muscle. I don’t mind being the B player in the movie, but Victor is the one with martial arts skills. He doesn’t often use those skills; he prefers simple weapons like guns, things that won’t mess up his hair. But he’s got those skills in reserve if he needs them, and even though he’s not a very big guy, I’m sure he would have done a better job at door crashing than me. But he had the gun and wanted to stand back, ready in case anything came flying out. Or maybe he thought it would be good for my self-esteem to feel useful. More likely he just wanted me in front if things went sour-sometimes I think he feels that in the grand scheme of things I wouldn’t be that much of a loss.

I was still wearing my heavy boots, though. I gathered myself, got my balance, and unleashed a side kick, striking the door just above the lock right next to the doorjamb. I could feel the shock all the way up my leg. The door remained stubbornly fast, and I bounced off and lost my balance, falling to the ground.

Victor smirked at me and stepped forward. He spun around with one of his tricky martial arts moves and hit the door, which of course obligingly flew open. It was like the pickle jar, I was sure. I’d softened it up, almost breaking my foot in the process, and then he stepped in. It would have flown open if he’d simply breathed on it. One good thing-he was now the first through the door.

I scrambled to my feet and followed him inside. We didn’t have to secure the room-it was tiny, consisting of a kitchenette with a ratty table and plastic chairs, plus an additional living area no more than six feet square. It made my in-law space seem like a mansion. Stairs led to an upstairs room that clearly couldn’t be any larger than the downstairs.

There was that familiar taint of corruption in the air, along with the musky odor of a bear’s den, but I wasn’t sure it came from any creature’s lair. Bags of overflowing garbage were piled up in the kitchenette, leaving almost no floor space. The burners of the electric stove were crusted over with a year’s worth of spilled soup and ramen noodles. In one corner near the stove was a shriveled piece of bacon, so old even Lou wouldn’t have touched it. It looked like it could have been there since the earthquake of ’89, if not the big one a century earlier. Maybe it was a lair, but more the one of a total slob than of a monster.

Victor was up the stairs in two seconds, not waiting for me, and back down in less than a minute.

“Not here,” he said.

So the trip was a bust, a big anticlimax. I wasn’t that displeased; I was tired and sore and the last thing I wanted was another deadly confrontation. Maybe I’m getting old, but I prefer a good night’s rest before battling monsters.

But it wasn’t over yet. As we stood crowded together in the tiny apartment, the sound of steps echoing on concrete reached our ears. They stopped outside the door, and then it slowly swung inward. Ramsey was home.

USUALLY IT’S UNWISE TO BREAK INTO THE HOUSE of a fellow practitioner. There’s a universally accepted convention that anyone who does deserves whatever they get. And every practitioner, no matter their level of talent, is stronger on their home turf. Partly it’s psychological-the small dog syndrome where a little dog will drive off a larger dog who dares to enter its yard. But it’s more than that-strength is absorbed from home base in a very real way, and even a very ordinary practitioner can be dangerous on his home territory.

There were two of us, though, and even on his home ground there wasn’t much Ramsey could have done to either of us. I’d expected him at least to ask indignantly what we were doing there, but he surprised me. His eyes darted back and forth between us, and when he finally spoke it was a total non sequitur.

“I don’t know where she is, honest,” he said.

So he immediately assumed we were looking for Ruby. Interesting.

“Bullshit,” Victor said. “Spill it.”

I looked over at Victor and mouthed, “Spill it?” in mock amazement. He must have been watching too many late-night movies on TV. Ramsey didn’t seem to notice.

“Really, I don’t. I haven’t even seen her for days.”

Of course he hadn’t. Ruby was dead. But why would he assume we’d broken into his place to look for her? Or was he the shape-shifter after all, stalling for time? Then I had that intuitive flash, the one that’s almost always right.

“You knew,” I said. “She wasn’t using you-you knew all along what she was.”

He tried on several expressions-bewilderment, fear, defiance-before settling on the truth.

“No, not at first. I swear it. I ran into her one day, and she seemed to like me. Then I started doing little things for her, just to hang around, you know? I mean, she was out of my league, really.

“I just thought-I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think much about it, really. I was afraid to, if you know what I mean. And then she… Well, the sex was incredible.”

There was an image I could have done without. Victor looked puzzled.

“But Ruby was gay.”

“Maybe Ruby was,” Ramsey said. “But the shape-shifter wasn’t, at least, not completely. She was addicted to sex-couldn’t go long without it and didn’t care who it was or what gender they were. Something in her makeup, I think.” He paused, and a faint smile came over his face, showing even through his fear. “She could become anything, or anyone. You have no idea.”

So he’d been screwing her all along, knowing she was a monster, but not caring. Now, Ramsey was bound to have been hard up for sex, but this was beyond belief. I try not to be judgmental, but the very thought was enough to make me feel sick. I could barely wrap my mind around it.

“But you knew what she was,” Victor said. “How long did it take you to figure it out?”

“A while. By the time I figured it out, I was in a bind. I was afraid to leave; I was afraid to tell anybody. She would have killed me.” He shuddered. “And eaten me.”

“So you helped her out? Helped her find her victims, helped her avoid detection?”

“Never,” he said. “Not the victims. Swear to God.”

I didn’t believe that. But I did believe it was the real Ramsey we were talking to. If it was a shape-shifter, it was more than a fine actor. Then again, if it had killed and eaten Ramsey, it would in essence be him. So how could we tell the difference? Even Lou couldn’t tell, if it had consumed someone’s essence. Victor was thinking along the same lines, I was sure. Earlier, he might have tied Ramsey up and taken him off to Bertram for some special questioning, but after the debacle with me, he wasn’t quite so eager to go that route. Ramsey looked back and forth at Victor, then me, twitching like a lizard.