"All right, all right. I can lie low if I have to. But there are some things that need doing. Caliban's brother, Goodfellow—they're going to make trouble," I pointed out with annoyance. "You have to see that."

"Not if they cannot find us or you. And if you keep your rapacious ego in rein, they will not." The pointed jaw worked with the effort to keep from burying those shiny teeth in my throat. "You will do as you've been told or the next thing you animate will be your own bloody bile."

The Auphe did not usually waste their time on threats. They simply killed and went on. A threat really wasn't part of their belief system. Promises, however, were. But it was a different story now… a different situation. Whatever I did, whomever I wasted—and even if I danced in the streets buck naked—the Auphe couldn't harm me. Without me they had no plan. Without me they had no options. So I took this all with a grain of salt, smothered a yawn, and solemnly promised to be a good boy from then on. With a satisfied growl, he pulled another gate from thin air and disappeared back to the Batcave or wherever; I didn't much care.

Trying to instruct me as if I were a child. Trying to tell me how to do my job as if I hadn't been doing it since time had blinked its first sleepy eye. Trying to rein me in. I felt a muscle in my jaw bunch. Forget that I wanted to kill Nik and Goodfellow just on general principles. Never mind that seeing their blood pour free would give me a chubby of enormous proportions. That wasn't the point. I was a professional, and I knew that if those two weren't taken care of, they would ruin things. Nik's relentless determination combined with Goodfellow's sneaky ways could very well throw a wrench in the works. The Auphe might not see that, but I did. And I would do what was needed to take care of the matter. If the bosses didn't like it, they could suck my dick. If it ever reappeared, that is.

Room service finally came nearly twenty minutes later. After I cleaned the plate, I went over to the climate control with a jaw-cracking yawn and comfortably full stomach. I cranked up the heat as high as it would go. I wasn't cold-blooded anymore, but I still had a lingering appreciation for warmth. Whether it was basking in the sun or a sweltering four-star hotel room, it was all good. I blinked torpid eyes and settled bonelessly on the bed. Sinfully decadent heating, it was another amenity to soon bite the dust. A spark of genuine mourning pierced my chest. All this luxury doomed to nothingness before I barely had a chance to enjoy it. It was enough to make you cry. Or take a nap. I picked the second option. There was time enough later to wreak havoc and foment chaos. All the time in the world.

Pun intended.

Chapter Sixteen

Dogfights—if you wanted one and looked hard enough, you'd find one eventually. If you were lucky, you'd lose only your money. If you were unlucky enough to stumble onto the wrong one, you could lose a whole lot more than that. Some fights had a very selective clientele. Those were the ones where the dogs usually bet on themselves. It made for interesting odds.

I had a word with the bitch at the door. She hovered halfway between wolf and woman, frozen into a mutated shape, not one or the other. A fiercely thick uni-brow shadowed amber yellow eyes. Her jaw, while of human shape, was longer than usual with an underbite to make an orthodontist cringe. Her brown shaggy hair was pulled high into a bushy ponytail. It was the same color as the hair that showed in abundance from the neck and armholes of her sleeveless T-shirt. She had that European look nailed.

It was a myth that werewolves are made. They're not. They're born. But not all are born equal. Among a certain stratum of werewolf society, inbreeding was the norm. They felt it brought them closer to pure wolf with less of the contaminating human element. That was their theory, anyway. A normal Were could switch from human to animal at will, completely human to completely animal. For these that wasn't enough. Total wolf at all times was the only acceptable goal. This lovely lady was the less-than-ideal result. I chatted her up a bit and she could smell the difference in me right away. Good noses on the wolves, even better than those of the Auphe. Her eyes practically crossed at her first whiff of me. Not Auphe, not human, not Darkling. None of those things, yet somehow all three. It must have been an interesting scent. She snuffled my hair with splayed nostrils repeatedly as we talked, and rumbled happily deep in her throat. As long as she didn't start humping my leg. I'd caught the distinct jump of fleas in her hair out of the corner of my eye. You knew you were in trouble when you had to dump the condoms and go for a flea collar instead.

I slipped her a fifty and she slipped me two names. Passing her, I went down the stairs to a dark basement filled with people, some furry and some not. The air was thick with the coppery tang of blood and the smell of wet dog. There was a circular cage roughly constructed of chain link fence in the center of the room. Inside it two wolves were going at it. More lupine than the female at the door, they were given away only by a missing tail on one and a pair of purely human blue eyes on the other. Fur and blood flew as fast as the buzz saw snarls, and I watched the fight for a moment. I was appreciative of the unleashed savagery and not a little envious of the clean slash that ripped one throat to a red ruin. Wishing I'd dropped a dime on baby blue eyes, I headed through the crowd for the far corner. Two figures hunched around a small table, sharing a bottle of cheap wine. The male could've passed for human if it hadn't been for a mouthful of jagged ivory teeth and an overabundance of facial hair. The female had a smooth face, round light brown eyes, and slightly pointed ears tufted with thick pale blond hair.

Stopping beside them, I smiled and said lightly, "Fido, Bowser, hear you're looking for a job."

The woman's blond ears twitched with annoyance. Ramming a thumb against his broad chest, the male growled. "It's Wolfgang and Fang." His broad nose sniffed the air with suspicion as he regarded me with either squinting myopia or intense stupidity. The two looks were remarkably similar. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh yeah, that's less of a cliche," I snorted. "I'm the guy who has enough cash to keep you in chew toys for a long time. That good enough for you, Spot?"

Wolfgang, apparently not a fan of straight talk, cocked his head and narrowed his eyes to icy slits as the growl that slid up his throat from his chest vibrated the table itself. Blunt nails scored the wood as knuckles flexed with an obscenely painful popping sound.

"Okay, you're a canine of few words. I respect that. Look, I'm not here to bust your balls." I'd leave that to the vet of his choosing. Pulling up a chair, I dropped into it. Removing my dark glasses, I met belligerent eyes with serene silver ones. "But, buddy, you do not want to get into a pissing contest with me, I promise you that." I put a hand in a pocket to remove a thick wad of cash. Dumping it on the tabletop, I continued, my eyes still fixed on his. "You look like a good doggy. And a good doggy would take the money, shut his trap, and listen."

The growl transmuted into a bass roar, then faded to silence as slender fingers fanned the green in Wolfgang's face like a winning hand of poker. As with most couples, Fang had her grip firmly on the finances of the relationship. With a grumbling sigh and after pulling his head back turtle fashion between arching shoulder blades, Wolfgang snarled, "Okay, okay. So talk already. What do you want us to do?"

"What comes naturally. Snack." Hands behind my head, I tilted back in the chair and raised my eyebrows. "After all, isn't that what big bad wolves do? Eat up grandmas and little girls?"