Moon Dog just whined again and dropped his nose to his paws.

When we got back to the pier, I waited outside the building while Moonie changed back. When he came outside, he was trying to wipe away the blood matted in his beard with a dirty rag. For whatever reason, I hadn't even noticed the blood on the werewolf's muzzle.

I pulled out my roll and peeled off five bills. "Moonie, thanks for helping me out back there. You didn't have to get involved, and I want you to know I appreciate it." Moon Dog grimaced and took the money like it was a job application.

"That was fucked up, Domino."

"Fuck those guys, Moonie. I went out to talk and they tried to put me in the ground."

Moon Dog didn't seem to want to look at me. He was quiet for a minute. "I did a lot of fucked-up shit in the Nam," he said finally. "Had to, or thought I did. I didn't have to like it, though. Thing is, some guys did." He looked at me then-more like squinted at me.

"Jesus, Moonie, I didn't like it," I said, trying it out. It didn't sit quite right.

Moon Dog nodded. "That's good, babe. Most of those guys never made it home. They just kept going back, one tour after another, until they finally got to stay there. Some of them came back when the government made them, but their minds are still in the bush. Always will be."

"And you, Moonie?" Without the juice buzz, it probably would have seemed like a rude question.

Moonie chuckled. "I guess I made it out of the bush but never quite made it home. That's all right. I got no complaints."

"Well, me, either. I guess I won't turn into some psychotic baby-killer just because I decided not to let a few gangbangers shoot me."

Moon Dog flinched at the term "baby-killer," but he seemed to have put in enough words for one day. He just nodded, told me to be careful and wheeled himself back into his hole. The whole experience hadn't been too good for him. His PTSD was probably acting up.

By the time I got home, the buzz was gone and my mood was foul. I slammed the door, slammed myself onto the couch and stared at the peach-colored wall. Then I got up and went to the kitchen, grabbed a beer and slammed the refrigerator door. When I got back to the living room, Honey was hovering there.

"Bad day?" she piped. Her cheerfulness was annoying. I dropped back on the couch and drank my beer.

"What happened?" Honey landed on the coffee table and looked at me, concerned.

"Nothing much," I said, and glowered.

"It doesn't look like nothing much."

That pissed me off. "I don't want to talk to you right now, Honey."

"Yes, you do."

That really pissed me off. I thought about yelling, but I couldn't work up the energy for it.

"You're hurt, Domino," Honey said. She lifted into the air and hovered near my shoulder. She started to reach out, and then drew back.

I craned my neck to look at my shoulder. I'd forgotten about it. "Thanks for reminding me. Now it hurts like hell." I got up and went to the bathroom, grabbing the bottle of aspirin from the cabinet. I returned to the couch, reached for the juice and chased down a handful of the pills.

This time, the spell didn't come together at all. The juice and the tablets both made it halfway down. The juice burned off and faded away, but the tablets stayed there and I damn near choked on them. I finally forced them down with beer, and then slammed the empty bottle on the table, coughing.

"Let me, Domino." Honey flew over to the French doors and wrestled with the doorknob. She pulled open the door to the balcony and went out to her garden.

"What are you going to do, roll me a joint?"

"Don't be sarcastic, Domino. Take off your shirt." Honey came in with an armful of green stuff and flew off to the kitchen. I wasn't in the mood to be helped, but I wasn't in the mood to hurt, either. I stripped down to my bra, wincing and cursing.

I heard cabinets opening and closing and pots rattling in the kitchen. Then Honey started singing. It might have been chanting, but it sounded like music. I didn't recognize the language. It was either something humans didn't speak anymore or something humans had never spoken.

After about ten minutes, Honey came back in carrying a saucer that was almost as big as she was. She set it on the couch beside me and I saw there was some kind of yellowish paste on it.

"Looks like honey, Honey."

"I used honey for the base." She rubbed her hands in the paste and then held them up, like a surgeon who had just finished scrubbing. Pixie dust drifted down from her hands. "Now relax," she said. "This isn't going to hurt, but it might feel a little strange."

I grunted. Honey came to me and started rubbing the salve into my wounds. It didn't hurt, but I still flinched the first time she touched me.

"Jesus, that's cold!"

"Relax, Domino."

And it did feel weird. It felt like my flesh had gone as liquid as the salve, like Honey was moving it around, smoothing it out with her hands. She went back and forth to the saucer, working on my shoulder, arm, neck and scalp. I didn't look until she was finished. When I did, my skin was liberally coated with the salve, but it was a healthy, undamaged pink underneath.

"Jesus," I said. "That's a hell of a lot better than my aspirin spell, even when it works."

Honey shrugged. "It's glamour. I'm pretty good at it."

"Glamour," I said. "You mentioned that before, about the walls. What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means the magic will come undone if sunlight touches it," Honey said.

"Really?"

"No, I'm just kidding," she said and laughed. "It's just what we call fairy magic. It's as real as yours, just different." I relaxed my eyes, unfocused my vision and looked at my shoulder.

"I can't see it," I said. "I can't see the magic." I looked at the walls Honey had painted, and I couldn't see any magic in them, either.

"It's not the kind of magic you can see. You can't see it any more than a normal human can see yours."

The pieces finally clicked together in my mind. "Honey, that's why I couldn't see the magic the spirit used to squeeze my guys! The killer didn't clean it up, I just couldn't see it."

"Of course you couldn't," Honey said. "The spirit would be channeling magic from the Beyond, not from Arcadia."

"Huh," I said. "Well, I can see what you did with it, and I can feel it, and it rocks. Thanks, Honey." I tried a smile.

"No problem."

A thought occurred to me, and I frowned. "Any, uh, charge for that?"

"Yeah, you have to take a shower with me."

"Honey-"

She laughed. "I'm joking. That was on the house, just because we're friends."

"Yeah, okay. Well, thanks." I looked around. "How are you doing, settling in, I mean? You got everything you need?"

"Yeah, it's great! Did you see my place?"

"What place?"

"In the kitchen. You know, my nest." I hadn't even noticed it when I got my beer. I shook my head.

"Come on, I'll show you!" Honey flitted into the kitchen and I followed.

The nest looked like Barbie's Fantasy Island, if there'd been such a thing. The entire kitchen table was covered with what looked like a miniature forest. There was a sparkling pool in the middle, and a rocky hillside climbed away from it and into the kitchen wall. A shimmering waterfall tumbled down from it and splashed into the pool.

"Jesus Christ, Honey. This is amazing." The trees and foliage looked like they were alive. Everything was perfect, right down to the moss and lichen growing on the rocks.

"Thanks, I really like it. I wanted to make a cave behind the waterfall, but I'd have to cut a hole in your wall."

"Screw it," I said. "Go ahead. This is incredible." I didn't ask where the waterfall was coming from, or why the pool didn't fill up and overflow its banks.

"Okay, thanks. And I'm sorry about your table. It kind of got out of hand."