Joubert gave an animal yelp as Dmitri threw him across the room to hit a wall, landing in a rain of plaster. I saw long, curved razor claws blossom from Dmitri's fingers and he walked after Joubert in that same measured, even pace.

My bleeding head was slowing, and although my skull still throbbed I thought I might live. How many concussions did that make for the week? Never mind, my head was clear enough to realize we needed Joubert alive. I opened my mouth to say so, but Irina came bolting through the door and threw herself at Dmitri, screaming, "Stop! Don't kill him!"

Dmitri shook her off like one kicks away an annoying terrier, and Irina landed on her a.s.s for the second time that day. "Stay out of my way," he told her, swiveling his head slowly to lock her eyes. Irina wilted like a cheap bouquet, real fear coming alive in her expression.

I was feeling it too, seeing the Dmitri I knew replaced by this icy facade with the dead man's eyes. Joubert was whimpering in the corner, his dominance well and truly gone. Dmitri paused over him, hands hanging loosely at his sides, then he reached out and lifted Joubert up, the hairy were's feet dangling a good foot off the ground.

Never in my life have I wanted to walk away from a fight as much. But I got up instead, swaying badly but conscious and reasonably functional, which was all I could hope for these days, and went to Dmitri. "Don't."

Dmitri purred in his chest, the small expression I knew to be his prelude to an explosion of temper. "He hurt you. He tried to claim you. You're mine." mine." His hand tightened on Joubert's throat, the black talons digging in. His hand tightened on Joubert's throat, the black talons digging in.

Well, halle-freaking-lujah. At least the daemonic Dmitri realized he still cared about me. Overjoyed as I was, I still had his mating instincts to contend with.

"I know," I said. "He's a piece of s.h.i.t and he deserves to die. But not now. Now I need you to let him go."

Dmitri shook his head. "I want to kill him for you. I'd like it."

As would I, truth be told. Nothing like hacking up the compet.i.tion to show a girl how much you care. I ignored the frisson of heat Dmitri's planned action sent through me and touched his arm, firmly, pressing down to make him release Joubert. "We need him alive if he's going to talk. After that, you can do whatever you want."

He met my eyes and his black gaze burned like an oil fire on a winter sea. "Whatever I want?" he rasped.

"Anything." I nodded, my mouth dry. Hex it, why did he have to be so G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned attractive when he was homicidal?

Dmitri blinked and released Joubert, who tumbled to the floor. He glared up at us and ma.s.saged his throat. I pointed a finger in his face and said, "Don't you twitch."

"What the Hex happened?" Dmitri demanded. His voice was back to normal, dusty and irritable. He blinked and his eyes were green again.

"You don't remember?" I said cautiously.

"Not really," Dmitri admitted. "Just remember smelling blood, and busting in." He looked at Joubert. "What's his problem?"

All the primal l.u.s.t that had been generated as I stood there trying to convince him not to kill Joubert disappeared on the cold wind of reality. "Get him up," I said, gesturing at Joubert. "After I question him, you and I need to have a talk."

Dmitri looked uncomfortable, hitching at his jeans like a teenager on a date. "Problem?" I snapped. I was embarra.s.sed, and I react to most bad situations by getting b.i.t.c.hy.

"No," Dmitri muttered, his face coloring slightly. "I'm just... er..." He adjusted his fly and folded his arms across his chest. "I'm fine."

Irina hauled herself to her feet before I could fully pa.r.s.e that the near-bloodshed had gotten both Dmitri and me hot, and what exactly that would mean to my next therapy session. "Dmitri, let me take you outside. You are not well."

"I'm fine! Hex it, Irina, stop hovering!" he snapped. She pulled back like he'd slapped her.

I grabbed Joubert by the collar and hauled him into his dining room, sitting him in a chair. He growled when I touched him, but it was halfhearted. "The Loup will kill you for this if they ever find out."

"And I'm supposed to believe you'd tell your pack that you got your a.s.s kicked by an Insoli and a Redback?" My turn to laugh. "Buddy, you are so lucky your windpipe isn't lying halfway across the room right now."

He glowered. "What do you want, cop?"

"Vincent Blackburn," I said. "I know his death was murder. I know the O'Hallorans set it up, for whatever reasons they have." Still working on that one. "Who did the dirty work?" I asked Joubert. "You? He screws you over and you decide to get in bed with the caster witches' revenge?"

Joubert snorted. "h.e.l.l no. Vincent wasn't smart enough to screw me. That kid was such a junkie, he would've worn a dress and humped a goat if it'd get him dope. Always broke, always a waste of s.p.a.ce."

"Listen," I said. "If you don't tell me who killed this kid-and I know you know, or have a reasonably good idea-the city is going to burn down and the next time you move a kilo of c.o.ke will be in six months, after everyone is done cleaning up from the f.u.c.king riots."

Unmoved, Joubert sighed and stared up at the ceiling. "Why Vincent?" I murmured. "He was out of the family. What could he possibly have done to deserve a death like that?" Remembering Vincent's curled-up body, I had an unwelcome flash of what his last minutes had been like-senseless pain and agonizing death. I'm violent by blood and instinct, but the casual, calculated causing of pain to another living thing is foreign to me.

"I said he was always broke," said Joubert, patting his pockets and bringing out a squashed pack of cigarettes. He lit one up and exhaled. "The club gets a lot of high-profile clientele. Vincent, the dumbs.h.i.t, decided that selling c.o.ke to 'em wasn't enough. He was gonna make a buck on the back end with dirty videotapes and stained panties."

And like a wave breaking on sh.o.r.e, I saw in the clean light of logic why Vincent had been murdered. Not for a magickal war. Not for revenge, or honor or anything lofty like that. "Blackmail."

"Yup," Joubert nodded. "The dumbs.h.i.t," he said again. "We had a decent sideline going. Just like that fairy to go f.u.c.k everything up."

"Who was he squeezing?" I asked. "Give me the names and we'll leave you alone." Or I would, at least. I couldn't vouch for Dmitri, who was skulking in the doorway to the dining room like a surly shadow.

Joubert stood nervously and paced away from me, scattering ash on his antique rug. "I can't do that. It'd be bad for business."

"I don't have all freaking day," I said. "If it makes you feel better you can just write them discreetly on a pad and I'll pretend I found it among all my love letters from Dmitri here." Someone close to the O'Hallorans. It could be anyone in the city-anyone respected, or rich, or whose face showed up in the Inquirer Inquirer often enough to get embarra.s.sed about their penchant for adult-sized diapers and baby bonnets. often enough to get embarra.s.sed about their penchant for adult-sized diapers and baby bonnets.

Joubert took a long drag on his smoke, killing it down to the b.u.t.t, and exhaled. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall and heaved a sigh.

"I'm not going away," I said. "Get cracking."

I'll never know how fast it really happened, but one instant Joubert was staring morosely at his unattractive reflection and the next his fist had flashed out, shattering the mirror and raining gla.s.s shards all over the dining room.

"Hex it!" Dmitri said. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing, Joubert?"

Joubert didn't answer him. His body was rigid and his throat was working like he was trying to speak. He turned like a toy soldier doing an about-face, jaw still twitching, and I smelled his blood before I saw the jagged piece of mirror clutched in his hand.

"No," I said. "No ..."

Mechanically, Joubert raised the gla.s.s shard, every inch of his stubby body straining against the motion. He gave a strangled groan and I saw a blood vessel burst in one of his eyes, the red stain spreading across the pupil.

I looked to Dmitri.

"Do something!" he yelled at me, always the helpful one.

"Joubert, don't do this." I started for him, palms up so he wouldn't feel threatened. I considered telling him he had a lot to live for, but he was a middle-aged drug dealer who had back hair and lived in a house that looked like it had been decorated by Bizarro Martha Stewart. Somehow I figured that would just make things worse.

As soon as I was within grabbing range, Joubert lashed out at me with the piece of gla.s.s.

"Hex me!" I jumped backward and felt the ragged mirror shard catch on my coat. Another jacket ruined. "Joubert," I pleaded. "Just put it down."

He looked right at me, with his bloodstained eyes, locking me in with a gaze so terrifying I will carry it with me until the day I die. His eyes were trapped, terror-stricken, begging someone to help him even as he raised the mirror shard and cut his own throat.

Someone screamed, and I saw Irina bury her face against Dmitri's chest as Joubert collapsed, no longer stiff as his life ran out onto the carpet in a brilliant red cloud. I just stood, shocked beyond movement for two or three seconds, and then my training took over and I ripped the stained cloth off the dining room table and fell beside Joubert, pressing against the deep half-moon wound in his neck with all my strength.

Too late, of course. He'd severed his artery and he only twitched once as he bled out, heartbeat becoming thready and then nonexistent under my now-crimson hands.

I rocked back on my heels. "s.h.i.t."

Dmitri pulled me up and away from the body, giving Irina a terse, "Wait for us in the car." He guided me out of the dining room and held my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him. "What the Hex was that?"

Under his touch, I realized I was shaking. "I think we both know what that was, Dmitri."

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. I didn't want to deal with the truth any more than he did-that what we'd seen Joubert do to himself could only be daemon magick, something human witches weren't supposed to be able to use.

Of course, Alistair Duncan had proved that wasn't always the case.

"Has to be a blood witch, right?" said Dmitri, falling into his old role of asking me questions until I answered my way to the truth.

"Right," I said. What I didn't say was that the Black-burns killing Joubert didn't make any sense. They could barely afford to buy cup noodles, never mind patronize an exclusive fetish club to the point where they'd be ripe for blackmail. Hex it, what would you blackmail them for? Their jars of blood and black leather pants? Unless Joubert had been the one to dose Vincent-and he struck me as the kind of guy who only went after small, helpless things in a violent manner-they had no motives.

"Let's toss the house," I said, pushing my half-baked collection of bad hunches to the back of my mind. "Try to find out who the other partner in the club is."

"Never thought I'd actually be saying this, but shouldn't we call the cops?" Dmitri asked.

I turned my back on Joubert's body and the sick stink of were blood, and went into what turned out to be the kitchen. It smelled bad in there too, but it was bearable. "Not yet," I said. "I don't want my captain busting in just now." Under stress, I have this unfortunate tendency to get rude and hostile and sometimes kick people in the shins, none of which I thought Morgan would appreciate.

"Fair enough," said Dmitri. He opened the fridge and winced, his nose wrinkling. "Hex me. Somebody needs to deal with the science experiments in here."

"At least it's not heads. Or fingers. Or-"

Dmitri held up a hand. "I get it."

"Why did you take Irina as a mate?" I blurted. "How could you not know what it would do to me?"

Dmitri sighed, his back to me, leaning against the closed door of the fridge. "We've been over this, Luna."

"I know, I know." My voice took on a bitter edge I hadn't known I was capable of. "You have to do what your pack says. Wouldn't want to get put on a choke chain."

He hit the fridge hard, with a closed fist, and I jumped. "You think I like like this?" he snarled, turning around. His eyes were ink-stained again, black overtaking the green in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. "You think I woke up one day after a night of wrestling with this thing and said 'Gee, I wonder how badly I can hurt Luna today?' Is that what you think I did?" this?" he snarled, turning around. His eyes were ink-stained again, black overtaking the green in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. "You think I woke up one day after a night of wrestling with this thing and said 'Gee, I wonder how badly I can hurt Luna today?' Is that what you think I did?"

"I don't know," I said, sticking my chin out. "But I think getting to screw Irina out of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g me must have been a definite perk."

I was p.i.s.sed off, and I didn't care anymore what Dmitri thought. He'd stomped on me just like any other pack were, and like any plain human a.s.shole guy, he'd traded up for a newer, s.l.u.ttier model.

Dmitri growled and came at me around the kitchen table, backing me up against the sink.

"Get off me," I snapped, pushing at his chest with the flat of my hands. "Go wait in the car with your wh.o.r.e."

He roared and pinned my arms down at my sides, squeezing my wrists so tightly I felt the bones shiver.

"Don't call her a wh.o.r.e," he whispered.

"Then what should I call her?" I struggled against him, refusing to allow the dominate I could feel rolling off his smoky gaze to take hold. "What is she to you, Dmitri? Your one true love?" I bit off the last three words and spat them.

Dmitri slammed his hips into mine, my wriggling having aroused his attention. His face was an inch away, his scent seeping into my every pore. I wanted to rage at him and I wanted to sob. I wanted Dmitri, no matter how c.r.a.ppily our last time together had ended. I hadn't ached this badly for Trevor or any of my plain human boyfriends.

I hadn't even needed Joshua this badly.

"What is she?" I whispered again, tears working down my cheeks.

Dmitri dipped his head into the curve of my neck just behind my ear, and scented me with a deep shuddering breath that mimicked my heartbeat. "She's not you," he said.

He looked like he wanted to say more, but I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled our mouths together, kissing him so hard I cut my lip on my bottom teeth. Dmitri licked up my blood, his hands sliding around my waist and pulling me flush with his whole length. I moaned as he broke off and trailed down my neck, nipping at the skin in ways I never imagined could feel so spectacular.

"What in seven h.e.l.ls h.e.l.ls is going on?" Irina demanded from the doorway. is going on?" Irina demanded from the doorway.

Dmitri stepped back abruptly, putting an arm's length between us. "I told you to wait in the car."

"You took a long time," said Irina, her bottom lip trembling. "And now, I tell you that you can walk back to our f.u.c.king apartment." She turned on her heel and strode out, the fury on her face compounded when she slammed the front door hard enough to knock objects off the kitchen shelves.

I straightened my shirt and smoothed out my hair. Nothing to be done about the flush on my face. Dmitri hung his head, scuffing the linoleum with his boot. "I think she forgot we came in your car."

"Sorry," I said, even though I didn't really mean it. The small, nasty part of me was gratified to see the same hurt I'd felt written on Irina's face. That part whispered the b.i.t.c.h had it coming. More of me just felt foolish for falling into the trap of my instincts yet again. Way to go, Luna. Way to stay professional and keep your cool.

"Don't worry about it," said Dmitri. "My fault as much as yours."

"I'm almost done here," I said neutrally. Don't look at Dmitri. Don't think about what almost happened. Don't you Don't look at Dmitri. Don't think about what almost happened. Don't you dare dare think this changes anything. think this changes anything.

While lecturing myself, I quickly glanced into each of Joubert's myriad drawers. Most held oddments of flatware or food. I found a snub-nosed .38 revolver in the drawer nearest the sink. An old rotary-style phone sat on the counter above it, and an address book was open to the C's.

"Finally," I muttered. In reality, suspects rarely hide their good secrets inside clever cubbyholes or a box of Cap'n Crunch from 1986. Most of the time, they're just as dumb and obvious as the rest of us and leave things lying around in plain sight. The page held only two entries-a place called Cat's that I a.s.sumed was a strip club or a brothel and a smudged number where Joubert had scribbled Carrie-Koffe Kart # Carrie-Koffe Kart # next to it in handwriting that would make a nun weep. next to it in handwriting that would make a nun weep.

The Koffe Kart was the lobby restaurant in the O'Halloran Building. Coincidence, I might have believed before I got Vincent's autopsy results. Now this was something incriminating. Besides, it was fun to imagine one of those prissy caster witches cozying up to Joubert.

I tore the page out of the book and shoved it in my pocket, nudging Dmitri. "Let's go."

Once we'd gotten out of the hushed house, I called in the suicide and then turned to Dmitri. "Need a ride back to downtown?" I was hoping he'd say no, because being in a car with him would be the most awkward thing in the world right now.

"Can you just drop me in Waterfront?" he asked. Waterfront was his old pack territory, and belonged to whoever the new pack leader of the Redbacks was now. Going there was practically begging for an a.s.s-beating.

I started to say no, then thought of Irina and the way Dmitri had shoved me away when she came in. "Sure," I said. "Hop in."

CHAPTER 19.

I left Dmitri standing on the sidewalk on Cannery Street and I can't say I felt bad about it. Traffic was bad, so I parked at the precinct and walked down Highlands, letting myself stare at the skysc.r.a.pers of downtown and think about the O'Hallorans.

No caster witch I knew of was capable of using black magick, no matter how much they wanted it. They couldn't use their own blood as a focus, and by its very nature their magick focused toward positive outcomes. Sure, they were as b.i.t.c.hy and insular as the next group of magick users, but as sure as I was that an O'Halloran had killed Vincent and Joubert, I couldn't for the life of me glean how, and it was giving me a headache.

Seeing the snarled knot of honking cabs and p.i.s.sed-off civilians on foot ahead, I turned onto Devere. Nocturne University loomed at me, black bricks gloomy even in the sun. A hobo with a shopping cart shoved it toward me. "Got any change? Anything at all?"

I handed him a dollar and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, tucking it into his coat pocket. I shivered. Cold wind always seemed to whip down Devere, an east-west street lined with narrow old buildings. "Thanks," said the b.u.m. "Wouldn't need no money, 'cept Wylie ripped off my bottle earlier today. Said he needed it more on account of fall bringin' out his arthritis. d.a.m.n fool."