"I'm growing up, Mom." I curled my lips and gave him a light punch. "It was bound to happen."

He stopped walking, but the leaves kept falling. "You're my brother, Cal. You're my family. You are my only true family. Do not leave me out of stupidity or carelessness." Then, as I turned to face him, he said something I only very rarely heard from him. "Please."

The last time he'd made that request he'd shaken me nearly senseless. He'd been furious, and behind that fury had been concern. This time the situation was less urgent, but the concern was the same.

He had raised me. My brother. I wouldn't insult him by calling him mother or father, not after the ones I'd had, but he'd filled the roles. Brought up my ass and kicked it when it needed it. Truthfully, he hadn't kicked it quite as often as it needed it. He was tough, but he knew what my life was. And what it wasn't—what it could never be. Normal. He'd cut me slack, more than I deserved. I was alive because of him. More importantly, I was sane because of him—no Bloomingdale Insane Asylum for me. Without Niko, I couldn't have said that with such absolute faith.

"I'll be careful. I promise." I said it with that same faith and I meant it. For Nik, there wasn't much I wouldn't do. Shit, there wasn't anything I wouldn't do.

"Good." He walked on, the leaves seeming to drift with him. "I'm glad banging your head against a trailer wasn't necessary this time."

"You're all about the love, Cyrano. Don't let anyone tell you different." I grinned.

Boggle, it turned out, disagreed with that.

Strongly disagreed.

It took a while to cross the park and through the particular grouping of trees to arrive at the clearing that held Boggle's home. The boglets were in the trees all around us. Their orange eyes blended in with the last of the leaves. Their muddy hides were also good camouflage against the bark of limbs and trunks. They were completely quiet, the only sound the occasional flake of mud tumbling down to the ground, and only Niko was ninja enough to hear something like that.

But at least I spotted the eyes and smelled them. That saved me a punishing swat and fifteen blocks extended onto our daily run. "What are they doing?" I asked quietly.

"Guarding their mother," he answered as softly, not bothering to look up at them or draw his katana. I had the odd feeling he didn't want to insult them by "spotting" them. "They're honorable children."

He was right, in both respects. When we reached the mud at the edge of the water, they flowed, after leaping from tree to tree, down the trees to surround us. Still in silence, they stalked back and forth, keeping between us and the pit. "We apologize," Niko said, raising his voice this time, "for the harm done to your mother."

The silence ended and the growling started. A pack of gators with longer legs and arms, more agile, smarter, and far more pissed off than your average swamp dweller. "I don't think they accept." I pulled the Eagle. "And you sounded really sincere to me."

I didn't blame them for being less than forgiving. I didn't think boggles loved or liked or had any emotions besides "hungry now" and "bright-shiny." But even without what we might consider affection, Boggle had raised her children, fed them, kept them alive. As boggles went, I thought she probably qualified as a good mom. And we'd sent her back to them skinned alive. If someone had done that to my family, done that to Niko, inadvertently or not, I wouldn't have been too goddamn happy myself.

"Boggle." Niko swung his blade lazily in the air, sketching a silver line in the metaphorical sand. Do not cross. "We don't want to engage in violence. We only wish to see that you're recovering and find out if you learned anything about Sawney while doing battle with him." Ever the practical one, Niko, mixing compassion with curiosity.

There was a moment when I thought his words weren't going to mean a damn thing—to the smaller boggles or the larger one. The boglets were slithering closer and the thick crust of mud remained unmoving. It looked like someone was going to have to go down, and, half-grown kiddies or not, it wasn't going to be Nik or me. I aimed the Eagle and put pressure on the trigger.

"Leg?" Niko murmured.

"Do my best," I muttered back. Mary Poppins with a gun, that was me. If a spoonful of sugar didn't do the trick, a legful of lead just might.

That's when Boggle finally came up for air. One clawed hand thrust up through the mud and water, then the other. Using the edge of the solid ground, she pulled herself up through the thickened surface. Mud coated her peeled chest, but it seemed looser there than on the rest of her … as if there was more liquid. As if her skinned raw flesh was weeping. Jesus.

Sawney—he had done that. It was good to keep that in mind. If anyone was to blame, it was him. Boggle had been paid, she'd agreed to the task and the price. She had understood the dangers. I lowered the gun. "Look, kiddies. Mom's up. Let's everybody calm down."

The orange eyes were dulled, but there was still a spark behind the film—a murderous gleam that made her offspring seem like a litter of playful pups. "You. You come here. You dare."

"We were concerned." Niko's grip had firmed on his sword. "Remember that Sawney is the one that did this to you, not us."

He was echoing my thoughts, but Boggle didn't seem to buy it. She came on to solid ground; slowly, but she came. The boglets gathered momentarily, growling and hissing, then scattered. "I am hurt. I will not heal for many days. Many that I cannot hunt, because of the Redcap." The gums were mottled an unhealthy gray with the black, but the teeth were the same as they'd been before. Impressive. "Because of you."

All our best intentions were fast heading down the tubes. We could retreat, but she could follow, as could the brood. We would have to hurt someone, most likely kill someone. It wasn't what we wanted, but it looked like that's what we were going to get. "Boggle," I said, "don't do this, okay? Just fucking don't." I'd almost said Boggy. I'd almost forgotten for a second this wasn't our old boggle.

She lowered her head, chuffing a humid breath and ripping the earth to deep furrows with random strokes of her claws. "Can't hunt. Can't hunt."

Food wasn't the problem. The kids were capable of bringing in all the muggers needed. They were old enough and big enough, but, as I'd thought before, this boggle wasn't like the last. She wanted to hunt, needed to hunt, and in her eyes we'd screwed that up for her. Temporarily certainly. And right now, she was tempted to deny that fate with us.

The hand flexed again and more dirt flew. "Can't hunt." It was said mournfully this time, and she deflated as the eyes shifted from my gun to Nik's sword. The puffing of muddy scales settled and she decreased in size by a third, not that she wasn't still huge. "Cannot hunt. Cannot roam. Cannot be."

Now I really did feel like shit.

"You will heal," Niko said. "You will hunt again."

Her homicidal mood shifting, Boggle settled onto the ground. "He cannot suffer enough. Never enough."

"I think you'd be surprised how much we can make him suffer." Niko lowered his blade in slow, wary increments. "He was burned at the stake once. We'll make him wish for that day again."

The orange eyes burned with sudden clarity through the clouded lens. "He cannot be killed. Cannot."

"We will kill Sawney," Niko countered with certainty. "That, I promise you."

Then he told her how.