“Maybe I should talk to Lex,” Portia offered.

“Absolutely not. No one is talking to Lex.” Ever again, I added silently. Fool me once, shame on you…

Rain lashed the windows as the summer storm voiced its opinion, and thoughts of the last rainy night I’d spent in my apartment kept buzzing around in the back of my mind. Pulling out my smokes, I lit a cigarette and sighed as I exhaled.

“Well someone clearly needs to talk some sense into him-” Portia started, but was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. Frowning, the faerie zipped up from her perch on the couch and flew over to the door. Hovering in midair, she peered through the peephole out into the hallway. “Lord and Lady, what is he doing here?”

“Who?” Smashing out my cigarette, I got to my feet. I sniffed the air for magic as I approached the door, but only caught the scent of cinnamon wafting off Portia. “Lemme see,” I ordered as I less than gently nudged her out of the way. I spotted a stranger on the other side of the door. A slender young man in a dark gray suit tapped his foot as he waited, glancing about the hallway. Short black hair stuck out in all directions in small spikes, and his eyes were hidden behind round sunglasses with smoked lenses. I sniffed the air again, expecting to catch a whiff of sorcerer, but still only smelled faerie. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

“Yes?” I called out.

“Miss Baker?”

“Don’t talk to him,” Portia demanded in a loud stage whisper.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because he’s a shadowspawn.”

“What’s a shadowspawn?” I’d never heard the term before, and it didn’t sound pleasant.

“A faerie who has been outcast for doing acts of great evil.”

Evil faeries, just what I needed. Well, at least he hadn’t called me Morrow. I’d had more than enough of that from Cecelia lately. “What do you want?” I asked him through the door.

“May I come in?” he replied.

“Why?”

“I believe we have something important to discuss.” Pulling his hands out from behind his back, he held an object up so I could see it: a black felt fedora, slightly sweat-stained around the brim.

I unlocked the door.

“Kitty!” Portia gasped in shock. I couldn’t blame her, I was vaguely surprised by my stupidity as well, but I had to know why the stranger had Mac’s hat.

The shadowspawn faerie breezed past me into the living room, twirling the fedora in his hands. I eyed him warily-he was certainly no cousin of mine, but I had no idea what clan he belonged to. Though he smelled strongly of faerie, leaving no doubt as to what he was, he seemed faded somehow. Less vibrant.

“Ah, I see you are a smoker. May I?”

“No,” Portia answered, hands on her hips.

“Sure, go ahead,” I said. “So, who are you?”

Setting the hat on my coffee table, he reached into his jacket and withdrew a black and silver cigarette case. “You may call me Faust. I am here on behalf of my employer, who wishes to extend an invitation to you to meet with him.” Selecting a slender black cigarette, he placed it between his lips and the end spontaneously ignited with a tiny pop of magic.

“Who’s your employer?” With a name like Faust, I was pretty sure he wasn’t working for the good guys. Faust exhaled a stream of smoke that was bright green, and I blinked at it in surprise.

“Zachary Harrison. I believe you’ve met.”

“I’m not surprised,” Portia said archly. “His entire family was exiled from Faerie, no wonder they’ve taken up with monsters.”

“Your family’s history is not as pure as the driven snow as you would have others believe, Silverleaf. You should be careful who you insult.”

“How dare you!” she snapped. The temperature in the living room dropped, as though I’d suddenly come into the possession of an industrial-grade air conditioner.

“Hey, cut it out, both of you. Now I remember, you were in the Underhill’s great hall. You sponsored Dorian, didn’t you?”

“I did, yes.”

“Guess you backed the wrong horse.”

“It would appear so,” Faust said, smiling thinly.

“So what does Harrison want?”

“To meet with you, nothing more. He promises you safe passage to and from the meeting, and that you will not be harmed at any time.”

“A vampire’s word has no weight, they have no honor,” Portia hissed.

Ignoring her, I eyed Faust. “Uh-huh. And why would I want to meet with him?”

“Because he is in possession of something you hold dear, and if you don’t meet with him, the consequences will be…unfortunate.”

Suspicious, I glanced at the hat on the table. “He has something of Mac’s?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“A manner of speaking?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Come now, Miss Baker. It was my understanding that you are a clever girl.” Picking up the hat, he handed it to me. The fabric was wet from the rain. Cigar smoke and the dry papery smell of librarian clung to the fedora, but there was something else as well, a sharp, coppery tang. I turned the hat over in my hands and noticed that my fingers were stained with blood. Startled, I gasped.

“But…how?” It couldn’t be Mac’s blood, not this fresh, after all this time. This was a trick, had to be. I handed the hat to Portia to get her opinion, and her deep blue eyes widened in surprise the moment she touched it. From her expression alone I knew-Mac was alive. Alive, and bleeding.

“They never found the body, did they?” Faust asked, and I shook my head. “There is a car waiting outside for you.”

“Give me a few minutes to grab my stuff.”

The faerie vanished, leaving only a cloud of green cigarette smoke in his wake.

“You are not going with him,” Portia ordered.

“But Mac-”

“We can find Mac and rescue him.”

“Before they can hurt him? Or kill him? What if they’re holding him somewhere you can’t go?”

“Well…then…”

“Then I’m going. And you can rescue me later.”

Surely it was a trap of some sort, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. If Mac was alive I couldn’t abandon him. Rushing around my apartment, I threw on as many charms and talismans as I could manage, filled my pockets and my purse, hugged my cousin goodbye and then headed out into the night.

Of course I hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella in my hurry to leave, so I wandered out into the downpour unprotected. I don’t mind a good storm, and as a water sign I usually enjoy them, but I started to look like a candidate for a wet T-shirt contest in short order. With my head tilted down to keep the brunt of the drops off my glasses, I concentrated on running to the waiting car. As I soon realized, car was really an understatement, because it was in fact a white stretch limo. The driver opened the door for me and I ducked inside.

The interior was leather, the cabin was spacious, and I thought I spotted a bar off to my left. Good, I could use a strong drink. Faust popped into the seat next to me, and I noticed there was a woman sitting across from us. She was pale, bright like a ghost in the night, and hair so blonde it had to come out of a bottle hung straight down her back.

The all-white outfit made me realize who she was: Lovely Laura Barrenheart. White was her trademark-it made her stand out among the other vamps who preferred black, black, and more black in their wardrobes. I blinked at her, wondering what the hell she wanted. Maybe to complain about how I’d killed her pet, but surely my father hadn’t meant that much to her. Laura was a council member-she probably couldn’t take a step without tripping over one of her toadies.

My shields snapped in place around me. “Well, if it isn’t the Wicked Bitch of the Southwest Side. What the fuck do you want?” I asked. Faust made a noise that sounded almost as though he’d swallowed a bug, and then started coughing. Laura’s gaze darkened, which was quite a feat considering her eyes were the palest gray I’d ever seen, so much so they were almost colorless.