I pointed my own raggedy-nailed finger at her cute b.u.t.ton face. "Don't move." Spinning on my heel, I banged into Mac's office.

"Don't even start with me, Wilder." He held up a hand at the sight of me. "Wasn't my idea. Morgan requested her transfer before you came back on duty."

"And no one told told me?" I sputtered. "Mac, I cannot be partnered with the living, breathing incarnation of Barbie. All she needs is a pink convertible and a giant hairbrush!" me?" I sputtered. "Mac, I cannot be partnered with the living, breathing incarnation of Barbie. All she needs is a pink convertible and a giant hairbrush!"

He reached into his right-hand drawer and pulled out a crumpled pack of Camels. "I haven't had one of these since you went on leave, but suddenly I have a feeling this night can only degenerate."

"Mac, you can't..." I started.

"Wilder, it is out of my hands!" out of my hands!" he snapped. "Now if you want to screech at somebody, go find Morgan. Otherwise, take your new partner and go do your job." he snapped. "Now if you want to screech at somebody, go find Morgan. Otherwise, take your new partner and go do your job."

Hah, right. I slammed his door behind me hard enough to shake gla.s.s and barreled down the hall to Morgan's office, where I rapped and didn't wait for her clipped "Enter" before barging in.

"What the Hex are you doing a.s.signing me some Vice bimbo?" Very subtle, Wilder. Way to get her on your side.

Morgan removed her gla.s.ses and bored into me with a glare that would have reduced a lesser woman to a puddle. Good thing Morgan only came close close to being the scariest thing I'd encountered in my life. "Detective Wilder, if I wished for the officers under my command to question my judgment I would put a suggestion box outside my office." to being the scariest thing I'd encountered in my life. "Detective Wilder, if I wished for the officers under my command to question my judgment I would put a suggestion box outside my office."

"But I've never had a partner!" I said desperately. "I've been solo ever since I came to Homicide!"

"Detective." Morgan rapped her knuckles on her desk to punctuate the word. "I don't know what kind of house Wil Roenberg was running, but the fact that he allowed someone at your level of instability to careen around the city without backup is sufficient comment. Every detective in every precinct I am a.s.signed to will have a partner. Including you."

Since I was on a roll with the bad impulses for the evening, I opened my mouth to object again.

"You are not a special case because you are were, Ms. Wilder!" Morgan hissed, standing. She only came to my shoulder, but she was wide-bodied and had an expression on her face that Ghengis Khan might have envied. "I will not tiptoe around your condition! Follow orders or get out-those are your choices. Which do you choose?"

My palms tingled and the were slid to the forefront of my consciousness as it felt my dominance being tested. I ground my teeth, and worked the tendons in my neck with a pop, and managed a tone that was verging on normal. "Thank you for your time, ma'am."

Morgan strode back to her seat and picked up the papers she had been reading. "The next time you disrespect me will be your last as a member of this department, Detective Wilder. Clear?"

"Clear, ma'am," I whispered, looking at my shoes because if I looked at Morgan, I was going to rip the b.i.t.c.h's head off.

"Then we're done here." She motioned me out, and I left, shutting the door carefully behind me.

CHAPTER 5.

Shelby was looking over the lab results Kronen had given me when I got back to my desk. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the folder from her hands and slammed it onto my desk with a bang. "Let's get one thing straight, miniskirt. I don't want you, and I'm not inclined to like you, so don't expect some sisterly bonding experience while we catch bad guys and make the world safe for justice and puppies, all right?"

She didn't react to the slur except to shake her head slowly and smile. "Whatever you say, Luna. I'm here to do my job. If you have some sort of issue about partners that's your thing."

Hex her. What gave her the right to be so laid-back?

"I see that you're working a possible OD case," Shelby said, picking up the folder again. "What's our next move?"

I wondered if tearing her throat out would be cla.s.sed as justifiable homicide once a jury heard her talk?

"Don't tell me you don't have any leads," said Shelby in a snippy tone. "Have you talked to his dealers, his shooting partners?"

"It's an accidental death," I said. "The ME is going to rule it that way as soon as the autopsy goes through." And then, I had the perfect way to get rid of Shelby for the night. "All that's left for us is family notification."

No cop in their right mind wants to be the one to ring the bell and tell a mother or husband or child that their loved one is dead. Especially when that loved one had more tracks than a railroad yard and showed up dead in a sleazy part of town. I figured Shelby would remember a pressing manicure appointment or have a waxing emergency as soon as I brought the subject up.

Instead she shrugged and said, "Okay. We can grab some dinner on the way back."

Hex it, I was really starting to hate her.

In the car Shelby said, "You haven't mentioned my last name yet."

I kicked the Fairlane up to fifth as we merged onto the expressway and heaved a sigh. "Am I supposed to be impressed by the great O'Halloran moniker? Quiver in awe, perhaps? Genuflect?"

The O'Halloran family is Nocturne City's fairy tale-poor Irish immigrants who started as servants and laundresses and grew to be a worldwide banking conglomerate. There was also the business of Siobahn O'Halloran, a member of the original family, stabbing the wife of a prominent society man to death back in the 1880s. And the rumor that the O'Hallorans were caster witches, every one of them.

"You have have heard of us?" said Shelby in the same tone her rich relatives probably used on the maid. heard of us?" said Shelby in the same tone her rich relatives probably used on the maid.

"I've heard of you, and I've heard all the rumors too," I said. "If you're expecting me to be afraid, forget it. My cousin's a caster witch."

Shelby laughed, brushing her honey-streaked hair behind her ears. "If we're trading rumors, Luna, should I mention the ones I've heard about you?"

My fingers tightened on the wheel and the Fairlane slipped slightly to one side. "What have you heard?"

"Just that you're a were," said Shelby with a sly grin. "And that you were phased when you killed Alistair Duncan. Under the law, that makes it murder."

I turned my eyes on her, and the dry sting told me they were blazing gold. "You want to see the truth firsthand, Shelby?"

"Oh, relax." She flapped a hand at me. "I'm just getting under your skin. Fair play for that 'miniskirt' remark."

"Word of advice, Shelby. You don't want to find out what's under my skin."

"I apologize." She sounded sincere. "I didn't know you had so little ... control. I've never spent any time around weres."

I reminded myself that she wasn't insensitive, just dumb as a bag of hammers, and that thought helped me succeed in not killing her until I got to our exit just outside the city.

The dead junkie's name had been Bryan Howard. The address listed on his DMV record was in the Bottomlands, the swampy former landfill west of downtown along the bay, where the city smoothed out to scrub trees and strip malls. Occasionally a sinkhole opened and swallowed one of the cheap wood-frame houses whole, and a sobbing welfare mother sued the city, and there was a scandal until a story that didn't involve putting poor people on the evening news came along.

The Bottomlands reeked of tidal flats and that ever-present scent of decay that makes the air heavy and the people hopeless. Howard's address led us to a shingled duplex rife with damp rot and a yard containing a rusty swing set and an abandoned doghouse. The porch light was shot out but in the dusk no one appeared to be home.

I picked my way between discarded plastic toys and stifled a chuckle when Shelby stumbled and cursed. Night vision came with the were package. I pulled the rusty storm door aside and pounded on the inner. "Police!"

"We shouldn't be here," Shelby told me, casting a look up and down the silent street.

"I couldn't agree more. I'm going to have to burn these clothes when I get home."

"No," said Shelby urgently, pointing to a gang sign sprayed on a street-lamp pole. "We really shouldn't be here."

I pounded again. "Mrs. Howard? Anyone? Open the door!"

"Hex me," Shelby muttered. I took another look at the gang sign and felt a familiar twist in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't a gang tag, it was a sigil-a blood witch marker indicating ownership of the territory.

"s.h.i.t," I muttered, too low for Shelby to catch. Shelby was a caster witch, their natural rival. The bloods would see her as an invader, badge or no.

"So how does a caster witch become a cop?" I asked her to take my mind off the fact that we might die horrible sacrificial deaths before the night was over.

Shelby looked at her feet and kicked a rusty toy fire engine away. "When she's not a witch."

I raised an eyebrow. "You didn't get the blood?"

"No one in my family can figure it out," she said. "My father practically disowned me-said it must be my mother's fault."

How well could I relate to that? The only were in a family of witches. The only child of the drunk father. The only woman in the academy.

"I can't believe I just told you that," Shelby muttered. "Forget it, okay? Suffice to say I don't enjoy my family's financial favor and I have to make my own way."

Figuring it was a lost cause, I knocked on the door once more and then let the screen slap shut. "Why Vice? That's a rough a.s.signment for a woman."

"Imbalances of power bother me," said Shelby simply.

"Let's go," I said, and saw her shoulders relax. I hadn't seen anyone else on the street, but she was really fearful. I could smell it rolling off her underneath her deodorant and perfume, like fumes of molten copper. I suppose if I had been raised in a family of witches I might be paranoid too, but with my grandmother, I was more afraid of the magick that she'd showed me existed than of what might might be lurking out there in the unknown. be lurking out there in the unknown.

The door behind me swung open and Shelby jumped a mile. I turned fast, hand going inside my jacket to touch my gun.

The stringy-haired woman staring at us through the screen blinked once. "What do you want?"

"Are you Mrs. Howard?" I asked, flashing my shield at her. She looked at it for a few seconds and then back at my face.

"I called in."

Shelby fidgeted next to me, casting looks back at the street every few heartbeats. I shot her a glare as I said, "Called who, ma'am?"

"Dirk Bukowski, my parole officer. He sent you, right? 'Cause he said I didn't call in?"

I didn't know anything about Bukowski, but it didn't surprise me that the dirty, skinny woman peering through the rusty door had a record. Her forearms were bruised with circular cl.u.s.ters from large-bore needles, and her ringers quivered where she held onto the door handle.

"Mrs. Howard, we're not here to violate your parole. I need to talk to you about Bryan."

"Then stop calling me Mrs. Howard," she sniffed. "He's my brother."

"Can we get this over with, please?" Shelby hissed at me.

"Excuse me," I said to Not-Mrs.-Howard, turning on my unwanted partner. "What the Hex is the matter with you?"

"I can't be here!" she said frantically. "This is blood witch territory and she she is a blood donor!" Whatever that meant. is a blood donor!" Whatever that meant.

"I don't have room in my job for your bulls.h.i.t," I murmured to Shelby, pitching my voice low and dangerous so she got the message. "Either you can handle Homicide or you can't. And if this bothers you that much, you can go wait in the car."

She stiffened at that, and crossed her arms defiantly. "Just hurry it up, Detective."

"I'll do the best I can, Detective," I told her with a wide fake smile. Flighty wench. As soon as I got the notification over with, Shelby O'Halloran and I were due for serious words.

"What happened to Bryan?" said the Howard woman from the door. "He get picked up again?"

"I'm afraid..." I started, but a man's voice bellowed from inside the rotting house.

"Stella! Close the f.u.c.kin' door, it's freezing!"

"Cops are here, Dusty!" she screeched back. Dusty appeared a few seconds later, a lanky wastoid with a ponytail and yellowed skin that looked like moldy paper.

"What the Hex are you doing here?" he demanded. He saw Shelby and I were both of the female persuasion and curled his lip. "I forget to pay a parking ticket? This the meter-maid patrol?"

I focused back on Stella Howard. "Ma'am, I'm sorry to have to inform you that your brother Bryan was found dead last night."

Stella folded at the knees, sinking down onto the linoleum floor with a wail. Dusty stepped back as if she might contaminate him.

"Not Bry!" Stella howled. "Oh, Bry ..." She crumpled in a ball, shoulders heaving. I opened the screen door and reached out to touch her.

"Hey!" Dusty exclaimed. "You can't come on private property! Get the f.u.c.k out! Stella, shut up!"

I pointed a finger at him. "One more word and I will put my foot where your few remaining teeth currently reside."

"I warned him," Stella sobbed. "I told him that junk would kill him." She raised her face to me as I rubbed her back. She was bony and cold through her thin shirt.

Shelby stepped up to Dusty and asked, "Are you also aware that Mr. Howard died of a heroin overdose, sir?"

Stella looked at me with a gla.s.sy gaze. "That true?"

"It appears so," I murmured. "He was dead on the scene." I left out the part about the unidentified drug and the petichial hemorrhages.

"Figures," Dusty muttered. "I told him that stuff would bring his dumb a.s.s to bad ends."

"Stop talking about him like that!" Stella screamed. "It wasn't his fault!"

"Woman, I am gonna smack your mouth if you don't shut it!" Dusty shouted.

"Shelby, get him out of here," I snapped. "And if he slips and falls I'll be inclined to look the other way."

She put a hand on Dusty's elbow and escorted him into the next room with an iron grip.

"Do you need somewhere to stay the night?" I asked Stella gently. She shook her head.

"I gotta go to the free clinic tomorrow ... have to be there by six a.m. to stand in line."