That, at least, I was sure of.

Ruji had once again accused me of being a menace to property, but he’d done it with a twinkle in his eye. Monty was chewing Tums by the bucketload; he was the one who had to deal with the media showing up in droves and demanding an explanation.

And I was ready to explode from frustration.

“Start at the beginning,” I said, and Robbie shot a nervous glance at Saul.

“You wanna come in and eat something?” Saul looked down at the alley floor, his shoulders hunching. It was a show of submission, almost shocking in a Were much taller and bulkier than me.

I must have been wearing my mad face.

“I don’t think Wu-ma would like it if I showed up all bloody.” I was trying for a light tone. She’d probably feed me MSG just to express her displeasure, too.

His nostrils flared. “You stink.”

“Thanks. I just had a run-in with something big and hairy that looks like a Were on steroids and reeks to high heaven.” I eyed Robbie the Juicer, who was beginning to tremble. “Relax, Robbie. I’m not going to hurt you. As a matter of fact, I’m your new best friend. I’m going to keep you alive.”

“Very goddamn kind of you.” Robbie’s voice was thin and reedy. His shock of dark hair was greasy, and he smelled like dumplings. “What the fuck happened?”

You do not want to know, civilian. Trust me. “Who did you tell? About the other night?”

His shoulders trembled. He stared at me like I was Banquo’s ghost. “Couple people. Shit, man, after that I was happy to be alive. Got a cigarette?”

“I suggest we take him somewhere safe.” Saul straightened, his eyes reflecting green-gold for a moment in the dimness. “I don’t like this.”

“I heard that.” Even this alley wasn’t likely safe. “Micky’s? The bar, not the front?”

He nodded, the silver shifting in his hair; the little bottle of holy water at his neck sparkled summer-blue once, maybe reacting to the scar still pulsing hard and heavy under the cuff. Or maybe it was because I smelled of hellbreed, Perry’s etheric fingerprints all over me from the work he’d done patching me up. “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

I didn’t argue.

Robbie stared into his coffee cup while I scrubbed at my hands with baby wipes. I’d changed in the bathroom, into fresh pants and a T-shirt kept in the Impala’s trunk, but my coat was still tacky-wet with blood and my boots were squishy. It had dried under my short bitten nails and crusted in my hair.

Thank God it was only my blood. One thing to be happy about: no civilian casualties. I’d managed to keep anyone innocent from being hurt.

It wasn’t as comforting as it should have been, but it was enough for me.

The bartender, Theron, brought me a stack of damp washcloths and a beer. Ther was tall, lean, dark, and intense. He also happened to be a Werepanther. I’d only seen him shift once, during a fight with a nest of Middle Way Chaos-worshipping wannabes out on Chartres Street. I didn’t want to see it again. Panther jaws can crack bones, and Theron was big; Weres tend to run bulkier than both humans and beasts but some of them just look too huge to be real. He was good backup but extremely unpredictable; not someone to call unless you wanted to play it his way. Still, he was a good sort, and part of the reason why nobody stepped out of line in Micky’s.

“Stinks,” he said, giving a nod to Saul.

Who visibly bristled. “I know, Theron. Thanks.”

“Want a shot, Saul?”

“No. Thanks.” Saul was extraordinarily still, his shoulders spread wide and his eyes luminous. Theron gave him a toothy smile, and retreated. In the dominance game between Weres, Saul and Ther were roughly equal; sometimes Ther pushed it a little, moving in on me, getting a little too close. It was a Were’s version of social game-playing, and I didn’t like being a chit in the middle. Another night I might have been amused.

Not tonight, though. Getting almost-canceled will cut your sense of humor dead short.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Robbie?” My temper was fraying badly. Saul’s arm pressed against mine; I stopped wiping at the blood on my hands and leaned my head against his shoulder. He leaned back, subtly, then turned his head, his chin rubbing across my still-damp hair.

My chest eased a little bit. The shaking in my hands began to go down.

Robbie glanced up, looked hurriedly back down at his coffee. “I got ta the field at about ten-thirty. I wasn’t drunk, but I was tired. So’s I wanted a place where I could think, right? I pissed about back and got my sleeping bag all set up, got my stuff situated. Then I settled down and I was almost asleep, man. I thought of lighting a J to get myself all nice and mellow, but I was finally warmin’ up. It was a cold fuckin’ day, I tell you, out on the streets.”

Well, yeah, we’re past New Year’s and in the chilliest part of the year. I sighed. Saul slid his arm around me, pulled me into his side. I wiped at my face with the first wet washcloth, scrubbing the wet terry across my cheeks, digging at my closed eyes. I can be covered in filth, but I like my face clean.

Call it a quirk.

The silver charms in my hair shifted, chiming softly. Saul’s braid bumped my cheek as he turned his head, taking in the bar.

“So I dunno what time it was, but I heard an engine. And not a cop car or anything, just a very soft, nice purring engine.” Robbie’s dark eyes were wide, his spotted cheeks pasty. He was sweating, and he smelled like too few showers and too much drinking, with a healthy dash of fear-sweat on top. His fingernails were brutally short but still grimy.

The scar on my wrist tingled. Perry. What had he been doing out there? He didn’t usually leave the Monde, preferring to sit in the middle of his web like a big fat waxy-pale spider.

That mental image made me shudder, and Saul kissed my temple.

“I got this weird feeling. Just a weird feeling. You live on the street long enough, you start to get a kind of feel for the nutzoid things. Like when the crazy shit is gonna start going down. Sometimes you don’t get no warning, but most of the time there’s this feeling before crazy shit starts up. Y’unnerstand?”

I certainly understood that. One of the things a hunter looks for in an apprentice is a certain amount of psychic ability; I wouldn’t have survived to become an apprentice if I hadn’t had more than my fair share to begin with. “Like instinct,” I supplied.

His face brightened a little. He grinned into his coffee, with yellow teeth. “Yeah, instink. Thatza word. I just got that feeling. So I got up, and I went to the end of the dugout, real low-like. Creeping. And I looked out.”

His fingers tightened on the cup; dirt grimed into his knuckles and under his short-split nails. “I saw this black van sitting there. Just sittin’. And then I notice it ain’t got no license plate, and I think maybe the cops are doing a sting, and I’m getting ready to get my ass out of there nice and quiet-like. Then the door opens up, and out jumps this thing. And damned if it don’t look like a goddamn ape, but it hunches down—like them things you see in movies. You seen that movie, where there’s these things, they look human, but they don’t move no human way?”

Honey, I don’t need movies. I see them in living color. “I guess so.” I didn’t want to lead the witness, so to speak, so I didn’t give him more.

“Like this movie where guys change into werewolves, and they run on their hands and feet, but their shoulders are all funny. And they’ve got weird-shaped heads. Lots of teeth. Anyway, the goddamn thing hopped out, and started snuffling. And I started thinking maybe it could smell me, ’cause I could smell it. Smelled like a wet dog puking its guts out in a whorehouse.”

That was a revolting but extremely apt way of describing it. I leaned into Saul’s side, for once not caring that my hair was crackling with drying blood and my toes were damp inside my boots. “Okay.”