Knowing that Stefan would become a shifter like his father, Wolf didn't argue. Stefan was better off at Volek House. Possibly Samara would be, too. In any case, he was sure Morning Quail had made up her mind what she meant to do and wouldn't change her decision.

"I'll bring your belongings to you at sunrise," he told her finally.

She nodded her thanks and held out Druse for him to take. Morning Quail helped the other three children down the loft ladder but went no farther than the door with them. Holding Druse in one arm, Wolf scooped Stefan into the other, ordered Arno and Ivan to hold to his belt and headed for the house without Morning Quail.

Liisi, he found, had turned the morning room into a makeshift bedroom with the kitchen cradle for Druse and blankets on the floor for the other children. Sergei was propped on the settee, eyes closed, his face and hands no longer blood-stained. Liisi had obviously tended to his head wound.

"So you couldn't change Morning Quail's mind," Liisi said as she helped Wolf settle the children into the blankets and quilts.

"She said she was leaving at sunrise," Wolf told her. Liisi nodded.

"Perhaps it's best. She was never happy here. Her twins stay, of course."

"Yes."

"Wolf." Grandfather's voice made Wolf start.

"Sit by me," Sergei ordered.

Up close, Wolf noticed Sergei's head wound still gaped open with no sign of healing. Blood no longer oozed from it but he knew that might be due to one of Liisi's spells. Blood-stopping was a noita skill.

"You let her in," Grandfather said.

Wolf sank to the floor beside the settee, head hanging. "Yes." He remembered how Sergei had scolded him after Druse was born, saying how he regretted that young men were foolish enough to let their pricks rule their heads.

God knows he'd made the same mistake again. For the last time. But that was small consolation for the dead. For Mima. For Natasha. For the Kelloggs. Suddenly he realized he didn't know what had happened to Cecelia. She hadn't been in the barn; she wasn't here. Was she dead, too?

He braced himself for Grandfather's harsh words. Words he deserved. In fact, he should be dead rather than Mima, who'd died in his place. Tears welled into his eyes. Mima had been his friend, his foster mother, his teacher, his lover and the mother of his daughter. His lust for another woman had killed her.

"You've already suffered the consequences of your rashness," Grandfather said and lapsed into silence.

After a time Wolf looked up at him. Was this all the punishment his grandfather meant to deliver? "Was--was Cecelia killed, too?" he asked at last.

Liisi answered. "She says she locked herself in her room after the first shot. When I spoke to her, she refused to come out. You can hardly blame her."

"What's going to happen?" Wolf asked.

Again it was Liisi who spoke. "Sergei's a friend of the sheriff. We'll work it out."

"I heard her," Sergei said without opening his eyes. "I was sleeping in the dressing room off the Kelloggs' bedroom because Guy and I were taking turns watching over Annette. Samara's screams woke me, then I heard voices.

"'I followed you from France, Annette Kellogg,' the stalker said. 'Death to all shifters!' I leaped up but she shot them both before I could stop her. Then she shot at me and that was the last I knew."

Wolf found nothing to say. There was no excuse for what he'd done. Bemused by her caresses, he'd answered all the questions Linden had asked about the house and told her who was in which bedroom. He'd provided a map for her as well as letting her into the house. He'd done everything but pull the trigger of the gun for her. How could he have been so foolish?

"Searching for the Kelloggs, the stalker must have opened Natasha's door by mistake," Liisi said.

Recalling how loud he'd spoken when he chided Linden for going into the hall, Wolf wondered if his voice might not have roused Natasha. Perhaps she'd come out of her room and listened to them. Hearing a woman's voice in his room would alarm the fearful Natasha. Had she rushed back and hidden Tanya in the wardrobe for safety, planning to warn Sergei a stranger was inside Volek House?

When Linden crept out for the second time she'd have silenced anyone who might have interfered with her plan to kill Annette Kellogg. If she'd seen Natasha coming from her room....

The bitter taste of bile flooded Wolf's mouth. He'd not only caused the death of Mima, the woman who meant more to him than anyone except Grandfather, he'd also as good as killed poor Cousin Natasha. Plus the two Kelloggs. Whatever their problems, they didn't deserve to die.

"Samara knew the stalker was in the house," he said when the silence grew threatening. "That's why she screamed." "She sees." Liisi's voice was sad. "I don't envy her that talent but I'll help her adjust to it, if I can."

Wolf wondered how many of the children lay awake in their blankets on the floor, listening. But there was no way to keep the night's horror from them. Sooner or later, each of them would have to face whatever their Volek blood brought them. Face it and learn to live with the consequences.

"I wish--" he said and stopped. What good did it do to say he wished he'd never met Linden? That he wished he hadn't been so brainless as to be taken in by her?

"I knew death followed the Kelloggs," Liisi said. "And I'd heard Sergei's tale of his near-fatal encounter with the Russian stalker but unfortunately I didn't put the two together. I didn't think of a stalker."

Grandmother Liisi mustn't blame herself!

"It's all my fault," Wolf insisted.

Nobody disagreed.

Suddenly unable to bear being in the house, Wolf rose from the floor and strode from the room. At the back door he hesitated. He'd promised to gather Morning Quail's belongings. Turning, he climbed the back stairs. Liisi had closed all the doors but the stench of death hung in the corridor, turning his stomach.

After he'd made a bundle of Morning Quail's surprisingly meager effects, Wolf stood for a long moment with the bundle in his hand, thinking. At last he nodded.

When he opened the door to his room he smelled roses. Linden's scent. He gagged, retching until sour fluid filled his mouth. He spat it into the slop jar. Yanking a blanket from his bed, he flung a few clothes and other belongings into it and rolled the blanket into a bundle. As he started to turn away from the bed, he noticed the dim light gleam on metal peeking from under his pillow. Puzzled, he reached underneath.

He drew out a small silver dirk with a needle-sharp point. Hers! As he stared at the deadly little weapon, it occurred to him why she'd hidden it under his pillow. She'd meant to kill him first. While he made love to her. He closed his eyes, shuddering.

When he recovered, he quelled his impulse to fling the dagger as far from him as he could. Instead, he thrust it into the holster that sheathed the Colt Grandfather had given him. He wouldn't leave this reminder of her to taint Volek House.

Easing quietly down the front stairs with the two bundles, he thought of Druse asleep in the cradle and a lump came into his throat. He hesitated, then shook his head. Like Morning Quail's twins, his daughter was safer here than anywhere else.

And, like the rest of the Voleks, better off without him.

Chapter 5.

Was he making a mistake? Sergei asked himself as their horse-drawn cab passed yet another streetcar. Market Street had grown into a jungle of streetcars, wagons, buggies and people. The tangle of wires overhead defied belief. Cecelia Kellogg gazed entranced at the bustle around them--obviously cities were her milieu just as surely as they were not his. He didn't doubt her ability to cope with the city and the people of San Francisco, what worried him was that Wolf might have been right. If Cecelia was a latent shifter, leaving her here in San Francisco would be a terrible mistake. But he didn't know what the hell else he could have done with her.

He couldn't keep her locked away at Volek House forever. For one thing there was no proof she'd ever shift--five full moons had passed and she'd showed no inclination to change shape. For another, if he didn't try to help her realize her dream of dancing, eventually she'd run off and try on her own because she hated living in the country. God knows the world was not a safe place for a young girl of eighteen alone.

The excitement of the trip had lifted Cecelia's gloom and he realized how much prettier she was when her expression became animated. For six months she'd been drooping about, interested in nothing and of not much use in the household. He hadn't expected her to recover quickly from the death of her parents but since she'd locked herself in her room at the first sign of trouble she'd been spared the worst of that terrible night.

Wolf and Morning Quail had fled Volek House without so much as a farewell, leaving Liisi and him to reassure the frightened children and take care of the dead. The task fell mostly to Liisi, since his head wound took weeks to heal and he'd run a fever much of the time. Cecelia, who might have helped, didn't lift a hand.

A crime of passion, the sheriff had called the murders--with a bit of encouragement from Liisi. She'd concocted a dramatic tale of a discarded woman traveling halfway around the world to extract revenge by killing her lover and his wife. Mima, Natasha and Sergei, Liisi said sorrowfully, had been accidental victims because they'd tried to stop the deranged woman from carrying out her dreadful deed.

Sergei had tried to soften the truth when he explained to Cecelia what had happened by saying that the killer had been a enemy of her parents. He didn't know what he might have told her if she'd asked questions but she didn't. Nor would she discuss Guy and Annette at all. It was as though they'd never existed.

"She won't face what happened," Liisi had said to him, "because she can't admit to herself that her mother was a shifter."

Sergei knew Liisi was right. He could only hope Wolf was wrong and Cecelia hadn't inherited the trait. She not only refused to discuss it with him, she burst into tears and fled if he brought up the subject. When and if she ever decided to marry he'd have to make her listen.

"Why the hotel truly is as big as a palace!" Cecelia exclaimed, recalling him to the present.

Their cab, on Montgomery Street now, turned in and passed under an arch into Grant Court--the Palace Hotel's seven stories were built around the court.

Though nothing in America, according to Cecelia, came close to the perfection of Paris, Sergei thought she'd have to admit that the 800 room, lavishly furnished Palace surpassed anything Paris had to offer. Every room in the hotel boasted a fireplace, closet and a private toilet. Cecelia was delighted by the ornate lobby and their ride in one of the hotel's five elevators to the top floor where he'd reserved a suite--two bedrooms separated by a sitting room.

The oriel windows faced the bay and he pointed out Shot Tower and the spire of the Masonic Temple. Still she remained silent.

"I imagine you'd like to freshen up," he said.

Cecelia nodded, started to turn toward her bedroom and paused. "You've been very patient with me, Mr. Volek. I am grateful."

Sergei watched her walk away before turning back to the windows. She moved gracefully--a born dancer's gait, Liisi called it. Cecelia had never mentioned gratitude before. What he'd heard from her at Volek House were complaints.

"In Paris," she'd say dramatically, "I took lessons from the finest dance instructor in all of Europe. She told me that one day I'd be a famous dancer. But now it's hopeless. Hopeless."

He'd finally written to Fred Douglas, a business acquaintance in San Francisco, inquiring about reputable dance instructors. The letter had led to a correspondence, the upshot being that tonight he and Cecelia were to have dinner with the Douglases in their rococo mansion on Taylor Street, an address Mrs. Douglas claimed was "smarter" than Nob Hill.

The Douglases had, at his request, found a respectable apartment for Cecelia to live in and Ada Douglas planned "to keep an eye on her" while Cecelia took dance instruction from a Madame DuJour, said to be from Paris.

Sergei hoped the arrangements would work out. To tell the truth, he'd be glad to have the girl gone from Volek House. Not only was she unhappy there but she was a constant reminder to Sergei that he'd failed his old friend Guy.

He blamed himself more than he blamed poor Wolf, trapped by a woman's wiles. The boy should have known better but, after all, Wolf had told him about the pretty young woman he'd rescued when her horse bolted and threw her.

If I'd thought to ask a few questions, Sergei told himself, the massacre might never have happened.

He'd lost Wolf just as surely as if the stalker had killed him, too. Until Wolf was gone, Sergei had never realized how much he'd come to depend on his grandson for companionship. He loved Liisi but she didn't fill the gap. Noitas, he suspected, never made good companions, being a bit too other-worldly.

Paul McQuade, his neighbor and business partner, was the closest he came to having a friend but a shifter didn't dare encourage closeness with humans.

McQuade hadn't the slightest idea he was anything but human. He doubted Paul would call Sergei Volek friend if it was discovered what he really was. Wolf, though, knew. Wolf had seen him shift, had faced the beast without fear and still loved him.

Damn, but he missed the boy. His twins, Arno and Ivan, were only seven-too young to take Wolf's place. If only the silver bullet hadn't made him so sick. If he'd been well, he'd have realized Wolf planned to leave and would have convinced him that he was not only wanted but needed at Volek House.

Wolf understood in a way no one else did. Liisi couldn't grasp why President Garfield's assassination in March had upset him so. "But you never met the man," she'd said.

He could have told his grandson how the President's death made him relive Lincoln's assassination all those years before--Lincoln, the greatest President of them all. Wolf would have listened and nodded solemnly. Damn it, he'd know how Sergei sorrowed.

He'd searched for Wolf in vain. He could only pray the boy was all right and that time would heal him and bring him back home.

Sergei sighed, turned away from the window and began to get ready for the evening's dinner.

Two days later, he was alone, strolling down Kearney Street toward Clay, looking for a present to bring home to Liisi. Cecelia was off his hands and settled for the time being. She'd seemed excited by the idea of living in the city and he hoped the illusion of being on her own plus the dancing lessons would speed her recovery from her parents' death. He'd arranged for her to receive a generous monthly allowance through his bank so she'd have no financial problems. He could well afford it--business had never been better. Hell, they were rich.

Rich because of Liisi. He'd mention a possible investment to her and she'd disappear into her tower room for an hour or two and, later, tell him yes or no. She'd never yet been wrong. What could he buy her today that would show her how much she meant to him? Jewelry? She seldom wore any. He wished Liisi was here, walking with him. If she were by his side, he wouldn't mind the city quite so much. His special sense was no use in crowds--with so many people around he couldn't separate one aura from another and that made him uneasy.

He assured himself that as far as stalkers were concerned, he was at no more of a disadvantage in San Francisco than he'd be anywhere else. If a stalker tracked him, city or country, crowds or lonely wilderness made no difference because stalkers had no aura at all--at least none his special sense could read.

He'd heard the woman stalker tell the Kelloggs she'd trailed them from France. In six months he'd seen no evidence she'd had any companions, but he couldn't relax. The Voleks must never forget the danger of attracting a stalker, as Annette had evidently done when she hunted in the shifted state in a Paris park. He no longer felt entirely safe anywhere.

The day was overcast. Though the sun had shone earlier, by noon high fog had drifted in to settle over the twin peaks at the upper reaches of Market.

Typical San Francisco weather. He preferred his own valley. As he walked, he was continually on the alert, watching for any sign he was under observation or anything else unusual.

He noticed a Chinese vegetable vendor coming toward him, carrying his huge baskets on either end of a long flexible pole over his shoulders and, because of the crowded streets and sidewalks, having difficulty maneuvering. The man was dressed in the usual blue cotton tunic and pants, with padded shoes and a round, brimless cap. Chinatown was down around Dupont so it was odd to see a Chinese in this neighborhood. No sooner had he thought this than a whistle blew, men shouted and the Chinaman flung down his pole and bolted. As he fled past his hat flew off and Sergei saw he wasn't a man but a boy of maybe twelve or thirteen, his face distorted by terror. Sergei also got a fleeting impression of a violet-tinged aura rather than the normal human reddish one. An aura similar to Wolf's. Intrigued, he picked up the hat, black with a wide red silk stripe at the bottom, and hurried after the boy.

Behind him other pursuers shouted, "Stop the Chink!" Sergei glanced over his shoulder and saw, half a block behind, a heavy-set man pushing through the shoppers, brandishing a Colt. Two younger men ran with him. When Sergei faced forward again he didn't see the boy at first but then he caught a glimpse of telltale blue disappearing into a barrel sitting on end just inside the entrance to an alley. He hurried to the barrel and said softly, "Don't move; I'll help you." He tossed the hat into the barrel, then leaned against it.

While he waited he wondered if the boy understood any English and also if he'd been too impulsive in trying to help him. Violet-tinged aura or not, for all he knew the boy might be a member of one of the deadly Chinatown tongs.

The three pursuers came even with Sergei and paused to glance down the alley. "Seen a Chink?" the heavy-set man asked.

Sergei pointed across the street. "One ran between those two stores."

When the men disappeared into the narrow opening between the buildings, Sergei turned, reached into the barrel, yanked the boy out and, pulling him along, sprinted down the alley, trying every door he came to until the knob of one turned under his fingers. He pushed it open, stepped inside, shut the door, locked it and looked quickly around.

A storeroom. The floor was littered with straw from half-unpacked crates of dishes and glassware. Before he could decide what to do, a man dressed in a dark blue pinstriped suit with a lighter blue vest, stepped through the drapery blocking the back room from the rest of the store and stopped, staring.

Deciding he was a clerk, Sergei reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He peeled off four and set them on top of an unopened crate.

"I want you to deliver a crate to the Ferry Building," he said to the man. "Above and beyond that, I wish to order a twenty-four place setting of your finest china, with all the extra pieces thrown in--to be sent to an address in Thompsonville. Payment, of course, in advance."

The clerk closed his mouth and blinked. "Yes, sir," he said finally.

"How much will it cost?" Sergei asked. "Hurry, I haven't much time."

"But--but I don't know what pattern you desire," the clerk said.

"Anything with flowers. My wife likes flowers. You choose."

"Yes, all right. That will come to--" He pulled a pad and pencil from his pocket and began figuring.

The boy hadn't said a word through all of this. Sergei hunched down and looked him in the eye. "Do you understand English?" he asked.

"Little," the boy whispered.

Sergei pointed to one of the empty crates, all stamped Fragile, stacked along the wall. "I'll put you in a crate. That man--" he gestured at the clerk--"will send you, inside the crate, on a wagon to the Ferry Building. I'll be there to let you out and then you'll be free to go home. All right?"

"Two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars, sir," the clerk said. "Including the shipping fee." Sergei rose, peeled off more bills and handed them over. "Now, for the money I've laid out on that crate, here's what I want you to do." When he finished telling the clerk essentially what he'd said to the boy, the clerk glanced at the four hundred dollars and nodded.

"Yes, sir. I'll be glad to arrange for a wagon."