Archer said automatically, “The beads don’t belong to you.”

“I assure you, halfling, in the human realm they most certainly do belong to me. And I’ve the bill of sale from Christie’s to prove it.” Gaki stared at the beads sinuously twining themselves around Archer’s fingers. “The baubles seem to share your misconception. Can it be true? Are you the last of the Greenwoods?”

“In any realm but this one my claim would be recognized.”

“But we’re in the human realm, where a piece of paper counts more than blood oaths and family ties.” Gaki smiled. “The only question now is, since I’ve caught you, what shall I do with you?”

Archer said nothing. He couldn’t seem to think past Rake’s betrayal.

“I should, of course, turn you over to the grimly conscientious Commander Rake, but what a waste. Would you like to reconsider my more than generous offer? Before you answer, think. This is what mortals call an offer you can’t refuse.”

“I am refusing.”

“By all that is powerful, why?”

“I already told you. I no longer believe in SRRIM’s methods. I’m not even sure I believe in their motives. It looks to me like you’re just stealing a lot of artifacts for yourself.”

Gaki smiled again, though it was rather pained this time. “I see. I keep forgetting how very young you are. I eat little boys like you for breakfast. That is, I used to. We’re all a great deal more civilized these days. By human standards, anyway.”

“I know what you are,” Archer said scornfully. He was not feeling particularly warm toward demons just then.

“Among other things, I’m an excellent negotiator. Let me help you consider your options. Option one: I call the police. Alas, you’ll be dead by the time they arrive. So sad. Option two: I break my diet and have you for breakfast tomorrow.”

The security guards glanced uneasily at each other.

“I’m joking,” Gaki told them. “I wouldn’t dream of breaking my diet. I’ve lost ten pounds already. Option three: you stop behaving like a rebellious teenager and join us once more. In return, I’ll give you those baubles you’re holding on to like worry beads. I’ll give you other things as well. Lovely things. Things that will make the occasional ping of your half-human conscience all worthwhile.”

Archer stared at Gaki’s implacable smile. He stared at the guards behind him.

He decided to give option four a try and flew to the star-shaped window. A foot away, he recoiled. There was cold iron in the casement.

Not something one ran across much in modern construction.

He backed away from the window.

“I don’t pay you to stand there,” Gaki told his security guards.

One guard drew his pistol. The other leaped after Archer who did his best to evade him in the small tower room while keeping an eye on the guard with the pistol. He didn’t know much about firearms, but he did know that being shot with a lead bullet would probably be fatal. Not because lead was in itself dangerous to faeries, but being shot with any bullet was probably not going to be healthy.

“This is ridiculous,” Gaki said after thirty seconds of watching Archer dodge and duck the much slower guard. “Shoot him.”

The guard promptly fired, sending a bullet past Archer’s head and into the gold-framed triptych.

Gaki roared and raised his arms above his head. His dressing gown began to tear as fearsomely muscled limbs lengthened and turned black green. The security guards and Archer stopped, staring as if mesmerized, while Gaki’s hands curved into razor-taloned claws and his features twisted into something from a nightmare.

The guard with the pistol dropped his weapon and bolted from the room. The other man backed away and knelt, gibbering below the window, as Gaki advanced toward Archer.

Archer’s heart pounded in terror, but he couldn’t seem to lift his feet from the floor as Gaki stalked toward him. The demon’s tail whipped up and the tip was barbed like the tip of a spear. It loomed up over both Gaki and Archer, and Archer remembered the naga skin.

“It was you,” he said faintly.

The glowing red eyes showed no human comprehension.

He was going to die in the next second. He should have listened to Rake. Except it was Rake who had made his death a certainty. How twisted, then, that his final thought should be a sudden longing for Rake.

The star window shattered and glass blew into the room like silver rain. With it came bits of iron and wood and plaster as the whole wall exploded.

Another demon stood in the ruins of the tower room. Through the opening of where the wall had once been, Archer could see official vehicles parking below. Black-clad Irregular forces rushed the house, battering the doors.

The roar of the second demon sent chunks of the remaining ceiling raining down. His red gaze swept the wreckage, found Archer.

“I thought you’d never…” Archer’s voice cut out.

For a fleeting instant, Rake’s demon form wavered, showed human.

Gaki didn’t miss his chance. He launched himself forward with a bellow. The house shook beneath the force of their collision. Archer sprang clear of the lashing tails, the deadly sweep of shining bat-like wings.

 Go, he thought. Go now. You have what you came for.

Archer’s gaze was drawn to the strands of beads looped around his hand and wrist. He had them at last.

Gaki snarled as Rake’s fangs sank into his shoulder. Green blood squirted. He clawed at Rake’s face. Rake howled and tried to disembowel Gaki with the talons on his feet. One of his wings knocked the Mesopotamian chest off the platform and box and jewels tumbled, glittering, through the night.

Archer looked at the door. He had to go now. The badges were coming. He could hear the thunder of their boots down below.

He had to go. Anything else was stupidity. Madness.

He couldn’t go. Not while there was any doubt to Rake’s fate.

He jumped out of the way again as Gaki, heavier, broader, managed to flip Rake. They landed on the rack of candles. The remaining tapestries and rugs caught fire and went up in a blazing whoosh.

Gaki’s massive head dipped and green blood spurted. Had he bitten Rake’s throat? Archer couldn’t tell. In terror he leaped onto Gaki’s wide back and whipped the strands of beads around his thick throat, yanking them tight.

Tighter.

He used all his strength until he could feel the breath strangling in his own lungs.

Gaki threw him off as though he were no more than a gnat. Archer went sailing and crashed through the remaining section of wall and into darkness.

Miles and miles later, he heard a voice he thought he knew.

“Archer. Can you hear me? Sweeting...” Rake’s voice called to him from down a long, smoky tunnel.

Archer tried to answer, but he could never make himself heard across all that distance. He closed his eyes.

Chapter Nine

“Any way you look at it, that was pretty stupid,” Sergeant Orly said, folding her hands on the file in front of her. Implication being that this case was open and shut.

Archer shrugged. She was right, and in any case, he didn’t have energy for more. The bump on his head had been taped and the hospital had released him back into police custody. In handcuffs and shackles. He’d never been in handcuffs before. Let alone shackles. These were made of special cold iron. They didn’t look like much, but they pressed on Archer as though some giant force was crushing him. He could barely walk; running was out of the question—as was escape. But he already knew that.

They were sitting in the interrogation room at Irregulars HQ. Just him and the dour Sergeant Orly. No sign of Rake, but that was a relief, really. Every time he remembered his foolish, impulsive behavior at George Gaki’s estate he burned with humiliation. And he was not thinking of his ill-advised attempt to recover the beads.