"Well, we've been chasing this asshole across the goddamn country, I'm ready for a change." Harp yawned. "I'm hungry." She actually sounded plaintive.

"Working on it," Dustcircle replied, easily. "So what is the plan, then?"

I was hoping you'd ask. The warehouse echoed and rang around us, its midday song of a building ticking and expanding under the sun's weight. "I put in a call to the hunters up in New York and ask them to dig, tell 'em it's urgent. Set them to finding out exactly why this Cenci left and what her story is, and why a high-up hellbreed out there is so all-fired set on getting her back—because something about that smells, there's a piece we're missing. You three go down in the barrio and rouse every Were you can, get them spreading through the city to flush the rogue out."

"Wait a second—" Harp tried to dive in. If I was a Were I might have let her have the floor.

But I'm not, so I rode right over the top of her. "Meanwhile, I start burning hellbreed holes out here until someone comes forward. She can't hide in my city without someone knowing about it, and I'm going to find out." I straightened and stretched my legs out, sighing. I was already beginning to feel more like myself. I didn't have to see Perry for another month.

Small favors, but I'd take it.

"Saul goes with you." Harp said it like it meant something. "It's a rogue Were, and you're not going to handle one of those on your own. We leave the hellbreed to you, you leave the rogue to Saul."

"I don't need a babysitter." I rose to my feet in a smooth wave, charms tinkling and shifting in my hair. "And where I'm going tonight, Weres aren't welcome."

"So he'll wait outside in the car like a good little boy." Harp folded her arms and glared at me. "Don't make me sit on you, Jill. This is serious."

"You think I don't know that? You got eviscerated, I got clipped, and we lost thirty-six hours because of it. Someone else could be dead right now, or dying. Or several someones." My voice rose a little, I took a deep breath and contained myself. "I might have to move quickly tonight, Harp. He won't be able to—"

The country Were in question decided to pipe up. "I can keep up," Dustcircle said dryly. "Believe me, I don't want to tangle with any hellbreed. I'll leave them strictly to you, and stay out of your way. Now if you'll excuse me, I think the pot roast needs attending."

Pot roast? Just what did they put in my fridge? I folded my arms and glared back at Harp. But she had a point. Hellbreed I could handle—hopefully. A berserker Were gone over the edge and looking for meat I might not be able to take without losing some serious blood. If I ran across them both together a little backup might be nice.

I really wanted to leave the country boy at home. But part of being a hunter is being allied with Weres, and the idiot had apologized. I'd be rude and stupid if I kept this up, and while I don't mind being the first, the second can get you killed.

"Fine." I gave in. "You're right. Backup's far from the worst idea when it comes to something like this. But still, it bothers me. Why would a hellbreed be cleaning up after a rogue? It just doesn't make sense."

"Unless she's not cleaning up, she's somehow directing him." Harp leaned back on her hands, looking relieved. Dominic let out another gusty sigh and began to purr, the throaty rumble shaking dust out of the couch. He was relaxing.

I restrained the urge to pat his belly like a cat's, touched a knife-hilt instead. "If she was directing him, she'd have picked better targets. Killing cops in a hunter's town is just asking for trouble, and none of the victims have any nightside ties at all."

"There is that." Dominic sighed.

The phone shrilled, and I let out a curse, striding into my bedroom to pick it up. "Lo." I stared at the fall of sunshine through a skylight, my abdominal muscles tightening as if expecting a punch. I was still sore as hell. The scar's channeling of etheric energy meant I healed a lot faster then even the ordinary hunter, but I never felt quite right while my body was knitting itself back together. The food helped, but the sheer animal part of the body doesn't bounce back so easily from a wound that could have been mortal.

Each time you get close to death the body gets a little nervous.

"Jill." It was Monty, again, and my back went cold and prickling with gooseflesh. But he had good news—sort of—for once. "Saddle up. The rookie's awake. You want to talk to him?"

Luz General rose like a brooding anthill. It isn't a Catholic hospital like Sisters of Mercy, but it's still an old building, and the ER doctors there know me. Eva and Benito usually brought their exorcism cases here to be checked out afterward, but they were probably in bed at this hour.

"You scared the shit out of Forensics." Monty didn't mince words, running his hands back through his thinning hair. The bags under his eyes could give mine a run for their money. "You were bleeding pretty bad. What the fuck happened?"

You're better off not knowing, Monty. "Do you really want me to tell you?" I matched his stride as we set off down the corridor. Harp and Dominic would finish dinner and head out into the barrio once dark fell, to gather the Weres and start hunting.

Behind me, Dustcircle's footsteps were almost soundless. Whatever Monty thought of a big man in a brown leather jacket who looked like Crazy Horse in white-man drag shadowing li'l ol' me, he didn't say a word. I was oddly, pointlessly grateful. It's good to work with normal people who might not understand but don't actively fear you.

It reminds you of what you're fighting and bleeding for every night on the streets.

Monty sniffed. "Guess not. The Psych Department is earning its cookies on this one, that's for damn sure. I had to send four of the techs in for trauma counseling."

"Seeing the unexpected does tend to knock the wind out of them. Sorry."

"It wasn't you. It was the goddamn werewolves."

"Cat Weres, Monty. Your pop culture is showing." My trenchcoat made a slight whooshing sound as we turned a corner. Fluorescent light coated the walls and linoleum floor. It was unforgiving glare, harsh and institutional. Or maybe the smell of Lysol and suffering in the air made it that way.

"Fuck you." He said it a little louder than he'd intended to, as we passed a bustling nurse in the hall. The heavyset woman gave him a glance of disapproval, her graying hair cut short in a cap of curls. I smelled disinfectant, pain, and the smell of filth that always lurks under the bald edge of sanitation in a hospital. "I never get used to that," he muttered. "How do you stand it?"

"A finely developed sense of the bizarre. Plus a good bottle of booze every now and again." The human mind is amazingly adaptable, Monty. You'd be surprised at what you can live with once you see it often enough.

"Christ, it's that easy?" Monty pointed, and we went through the glass doors to the ICU.

Immediately the air turned thick with tension, and I felt Dustcircle draw a little closer to me. It was, dare I say it, almost comforting. "It's not that easy. But the booze and random sex help a lot." I heard my own tone, hard and falsely bright. "What's our lucky boy's name?" I should have asked before now, but Monty didn't even shoot me a disapproving glance.

"Cheung. Jimmy Cheung." Montaigne had gone pasty-pale. He pointed again, with a nicotine-stained finger. He'd smoked cigars for years before his wife made him give it up, but old habits and addictions die hard and he still chomped a Cuban or two when the going got really rough. "He knows you're coming. Down there, in room 4."