Tera took charge of the situation while I held Harris's gun and kept watch down the alley. She and the two young men made a litter for one of the wolves out of Harris's jacket, and the other Tera simply picked up with a flexion of wire-tight muscle and carried, though it must have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. The wounded wolves yelped piteously, and Tera and the two young men cast dark glances at the downed Harris while they headed down the alley, and over toward the beach, leaving me alone with the kid.

I hunkered down beside him and slapped his face until his eyes rolled open. He blinked once and then jerked, as though he was about to sit up. I stuck the barrel of the semiautomatic in the hollow of his throat and said, in a calm voice, "Hold still."

He froze, staring up at me with wide eyes.

"I'm going to ask some questions, kid. I think I've got the answers already, but you're going to talk to me, quietly and honestly. Or I demonstrate point-blank bullet impact for you right here and now. Got it?"

Harris's mouth twitched a few times before he managed to speak. "If you kill me," he said, "Denton won't stop until you're dead."

"Give me a break, Roger," I said back in a reasonable tone. "Denton wants me dead anyway. I could kill you now and it wouldn't make any difference in what he has to do."

Roger licked his lips and rolled his eyes about without moving his head, as though hoping for rescue. "How did you know? About the belt."

"I saw Denton's inside. And I saw that before you all changed, you had to reach inside your jackets for something. I figure that first night, Agent Benn was reaching into her jacket to touch the belt and tear Murphy's head off, when she got mad. But she managed to remember not to do it in time and drew her gun instead. Right?"

Harris's head twitched in a slight nod.

"The bargain," I said. "You're Hexenwulfen, so you've made a bargain with someone to get the power to change, to get the belts. Who is it?"

"I don't know," Harris said, and his eyes widened. "God, I don't know. Denton handled all of it."

I narrowed my eyes at him and drew back the hammer on the gun.

"Please," he squealed, breathless. "I don't know. I swear to God, Denton handled all of that. He just came to us, asked us if we wanted to back him, if we wanted to nail some of the scum that kept getting away from the law, and I told him I did. Jesus, I didn't know it was going to lead to this."

"Lead to what, Roger?" I asked, my tone frosty. "Start from the beginning, and make it quick."

"Marcone," he said, eyes on the gun. "It was all about Marcone. Denton wanted to take him down."

"You mean kill him."

His eyes flickered up to me. "He told us there was no other way to get to him. That he was doing more to poison this city than anyone alive. And he was right. Marcone's bought enough influence in this town to stay clear of city police forever, and he carries weight on the national level, too. The bureau has had more than one investigation on him called off. He's untouchable."

"So you planned to use the belts to kill him."

He nodded. "But there would be evidence. No one would believe he'd just been mauled by wild dogs. There would be a full investigation, forensics, the works."

I understood and nodded. "So you needed someone to make it a neat package. Let me guess: the Streetwolves."

Harris showed his teeth. "A gang of felons and troublemakers with a wolf motif. Murder of a criminal figure by persons with a wolf motif. No one would bother to check the figures on that one. It's obvious. And we get one more dangerous group off the street."

"Yeah, Roger, except that they'd be innocent of that particular crime. Did you think of that? Innocent like those other people who died the nights around the full moon last month. You killed them. You and the rest of Denton's team."

He closed his eyes, his face going pale, and he shuddered. "The change. When … when you're changed, when you're a beast, it's so incredible. So much speed, power. Your body just sings with it. I tried coke once, in college, and it was nothing compared to this. The blood …" His tongue flicked out again over his bloodstained lips, a thirsty motion this time, rather than a nervous one.

"I think I'm starting to see. Denton didn't tell you about that part. About how your thoughts are influenced. He probably didn't know himself. And when you've done it once …"

Harris nodded emphatically. "You just can't stop, man. It gets to where you're pacing the room at night. And it's better than sleep, when you get finished hunting, you feel so alive." He opened his eyes again, staring up at me, pleading. "I didn't mean to kill those people. We started off with criminals. Some gangsters dealing drugs. We were just going to scare them, but it was too much. They screamed and ran and we were after them, and … We killed them. And my God, Dresden, it was beautiful."

"And it happened again," I said. "A couple of times. Innocent people. Just poor schmucks in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Harris turned his head away from me and nodded. "Denton said that we could salvage it. He said that we could pin those killings on the Streetwolves as well. Make everyone think they had done it. And we just went along with him."

I shook my head. "That doesn't explain why you dragged MacFinn into this."

"Denton," the kid said. "It was all him. He said there was someone else we could also set up to take the blame, to be certain we'd be in the clear. That he had the man for it. We broke into MacFinn's house, and there was all this occult stuff. We messed up some of it and left. And … the next night, more people were dead. And more, the next night. That's when we went after that slime Marcone's business partner, and wasted the bastard and his goon."

"And then you laid low for a month."

Harris swallowed and nodded. "Denton took the belts. He hid them from us. He'd held out better than anyone. And my God, poor Benn was so far gone, it was like she wasn't even human anymore. Wilson wasn't much better. But we lasted out the month."

"And then you killed Marcone's bodyguard at the Varsity."

Harris's eyes flared. "Yes. You should see his record. The things we know he did, but that we can't get through a court. My God, Dresden, he had it coming."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Who are we to judge?"

"Who are we not to?" Harris demanded. "The power was in our hands. We had a responsibility to use it for the good. To do our jobs. Hell, Dresden. If you're such a do-gooder, you should be helping us, not getting in the way. These men are untouchable and you know it."

I shifted my weight uncomfortably. "I don't agree with your methods. With setting people up to take the blame for your killings."

Harris sneered. "Like MacFinn has never killed anyone. Hell, he's a murderer now, isn't he? After that scene at the police station, anyone would be convinced he was a killer."

"Except me," I said. "MacFinn would never have been there if you hadn't messed up the circle that held him."

"Yeah," Harris said, a spiteful, frustrated edge to his tone. "Except you. You got to poking around in our business. Christ, that crazy report to Murphy even talked about the belts. That was when Denton started taking you seriously. If you had any brains at all, you'd pull that trigger and get the hell out now, before Denton and the others come out of the haze and come after you. Because you know way too much."

"Why the Streetwolves?" I said, instead of shooting him. "Why send me off to check them out?"

"Denton figured they'd kill you," Harris spat. "And get you out of our hair."

I nodded. It figured, that someone else had been trying to kill me the whole while, and I hadn't really noticed. "And he knew that they were after me, after I got away from them the first time."