“Well, good luck,” said the Wendigo. “This is where I get off.”

“I thought you wanted to help,” I said.

“I have helped. But that thing is dangerous, and it’s your problem, not mine.”

He turned and walked back the other way with a cheery wave of his hand. This was looking more like a setup with every passing moment. But if he expected me to challenge the shape-shifter on my own, he was mistaken. I’d track it to its lair and come back later with the rest of the crew. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, they say. They don’t mention how difficult it is to eat anything if you’re dead.

Lou and I continued up Haight Street, weaving our way through the people crowding the sidewalk. I didn’t see Morgan until I was almost on top of her and had to back off quickly. She was walking slowly, looking from side to side and occasionally glancing over her shoulder, obviously wary.

She stopped inside a small corner grocery and Lou and I waited half a block away where we had a good view of the entrance. A short while later, she came out holding a paper bag and continued up the street. As she passed by storefronts, she occasionally stopped and gazed in the display windows, just like an ordinary person out for a day of window-shopping. I moved up closer, trying to get a feel for what she was up to. Scoping out the area for potential victims? Picking up a Sara Lee cheesecake to tide her over until brain-eating time?

Farther down the street, she stopped in front of a pet store that featured a box of puppies in the window. I couldn’t tell what breed they were, but puppies are puppies, after all. The tumbled around, falling down randomly and launching mock attacks on one another. One of them, a black-and-white toughie, got hold of a littermate’s back leg and wouldn’t let go, even though he was dragged all over the place.

Morgan stood transfixed, and I took the chance and moved up closer. She was smiling as she watched them, with what I would call a sad, nostalgic air. Then, even though I was still a ways off, I could have sworn I saw tears running down her face. A moment later, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

I drifted back, farther away. What was going on here? There was no one watching, as far as the shape-shifter knew. Was it like method acting, where she never slipped out of character? When she took over an identity, did she experience the same emotions, feel the same griefs? Was she becoming more human, like the Wendigo?

The scene nagged at me, instilling a seed of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the shape-shifter after all. Maybe this was really Morgan, and I’d got it wrong again. It wouldn’t be the first time. But if this was really Morgan, what was she doing wandering around the Haight? What about the fake Ifrit at her home? How had the Wendigo tracked her down, and why was he so sure she was the shape-shifter? And most damning of all, why hadn’t she called me to let me know she was still in town?

She started walking again, so I kept on her tail. Whatever was going on, I was going to follow her until I came up with an answer. She was moving faster now, more purposefully, and before long we arrived at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, that infamous intersection. She hesitated a moment, then turned up Ashbury Street and followed it up the hill until it reached a residential section full of curving streets. Now that we were off the main drag, there were fewer people to blend in with, so I stayed even farther back, a block at least. Lou could always find her again if she unexpectedly turned a corner or entered a house or apartment, now that he had her in his sights.

She finally reached her destination, a lavender house at the tip of a cul-de-sac, set up high on a hillside. Below, a terraced area spread out, an urban garden filled with squash and tomatoes and herbs. A long stretch of rickety wooden stairs wound up the slope, and she climbed them and disappeared into the house at the top.

Decision time. Did I go back to Victor’s? Did I go up there and deal with her myself? The obvious choice was to play it safe and get help. But the whole business bothered me. It didn’t add up, and I wanted answers. Victor makes a great backup, but he’s also prone to shoot first and ask questions later. Then again, if I wandered up to the house alone to politely ask questions, I might just as easily end up as tonight’s dinner menu.

What I needed was an edge. The shape-shifter had shown a resistance to attacks using talent, so relying on my talent wasn’t going to cut it. But what if it wasn’t precisely an attack? That gunk-on-the-face trick up by Coit Tower had worked pretty well. Some kind of holding spell? I began to get the germ of an idea.

Something that wasn’t designed to attack or overpower. Instead, maybe something that would interfere with the shape-shifter’s ability to change-sand in the gears of the mechanism. If it was unable to change, it wouldn’t pose much of a threat-the Morgan persona had puny human teeth and delicate nails instead of long sharp canines and rending claws. As long as it had to remain Morgan, it wouldn’t matter whether I could use talent or not.

I moved up to the edge of one of the terraces. The soil there was moist, fed by a makeshift drip irrigation system. I scooped up a good-sized handful of dirt and worked it into a ball.

The next thing I needed was some DNA. However the shape-shifter managed its transformations, it had to involve DNA on some level. Even if the transformation were accomplished by purely magical means, DNA still had to be the basis of the change. And if I could interrupt the DNA process, it would stay frozen in whatever form it had already taken.

The best source for the DNA I needed would be blood-not only did it contain the necessary DNA but blood also makes a spell more potent. Black practitioners use blood the most often, naturally; they can hardly cast a spell to make water wet without some. Personally, I don’t care to use it myself. Whenever I do it always seems like I’m tiptoeing along the line close to the dark side. But I have used it.

Using my own blood and DNA wasn’t the best option, though. The same principles that make self-healing so difficult also come into play whenever you try to use your own blood. It works for some things-in fact, it’s vital for certain types of spells, but this wasn’t one of those. I could use it and it would work, but it wasn’t ideal.

I took out the Buck knife I still was carrying and looked over at Lou. He stared at me with suspicion and took two quick steps backward.

“Come on,” I said. “I just need a drop. You won’t even feel it.” He retreated two more steps, putting more distance between us.

So it was my own blood or none at all. I pricked my forearm with the tip of the blade and got a respectable bead, then smeared it off into dirt and worked it in thoroughly until it was a neat ball the size of an orange. I sealed it with a pulse of energy, set it down on the ground, let some talent flow into the knife blade, and carefully sliced the ball of dirt in half. I took one of the halves, added another drop of blood, and repeated the process. A good-sized portion of earth still remained, and that quarter now had a history. It had been cut, then cut again. It was divided, interrupted, and incomplete. If I now smeared it on the shape-shifter, it would interfere with the other DNA and block any transformation. It wouldn’t be able to effect a change until the dirt was cleaned off.

A useful trick, but to use it you have to know who the shape-shifter is ahead of time and then get close enough to apply it. That can be a tricky proposition, but this time it wouldn’t be a problem.

I climbed the stairs to the door up above. No wards, but that was no surprise. It was a shape-shifter, not a practitioner. The door was slightly ajar, so Morgan hadn’t quite latched it when she came in. Or maybe she had realized she was being followed and was making it too easy for me. When you’re hunting monsters, there’s a fine line between being careful and giving in to rampant paranoia.