There was no Oshossi, but there were three ccoas. They were quick and had been predators since they weaned from their mama’s teat. They were dangerous as hell, and from the dripping saliva, also hungry. I saw the two at first; the third came from above. If they could climb a tree in the jungle, they could climb a fire escape here. And if they could leap from a rocky ledge onto their prey, they could do the same from the upper loft. It came down like an avalanche, as deadly and a whole lot faster. I’d switched back to the Glock .40 from the Desert Eagle, which hadn’t done as much good as I’d hoped it would. As he struck the floor, I put ten in the head just like I’d thought with the last one, and swear to God, I almost hated to do it even though the last one had nearly turned me into lunch. It seemed more like an animal than a monster, a smart and beautiful animal. I didn’t like killing it, but I did. There was a scream of pain that sounded oddly human, and a tumbling of black and silver fur over a sleek line of muscle. Then there was nothing but a big, dead cat. I shook it off. If it had landed on me, I’d be one dead son of a bitch, my throat ripped out before I could’ve pulled the trigger. It might just be an animal, but it had been one damn deadly one.

Robin was holding off another with his sword while Promise and Cherish did the same with the third. Promise’s crossbow bolts only enraged the one attacking them. The cat was quick enough that Cherish had only struck three blows that I could tell. They were deep blows, but not deep enough to stop it. Nik was with them in seconds. He took the cat from behind. It whirled before he managed to slice it, but that didn’t last long. From the corner of my eye, I saw him strike one paw aside, then evade the other, dodge the enormous snap of mouth, and impale it in the heart with his katana.

That was impossibly quick.

I knew Nik could fight. I knew he was better than I was, that he was better than nearly anything or anyone you could name. But sometimes when you saw him in action, you almost couldn’t believe it—that a human could be that fast and that lethal. He’d worked at being that way since he was twelve, but I honestly thought he was born that way as well. A genetically superior athlete who could’ve gone to the Olympics. Instead, for me he became a killer. Too bad for him that they didn’t hand out the gold, silver, or bronze for that.

I turned toward Robin to see him just finishing off his as well. And there we were. . . . Three dead ccoas. It sucked. Monsters were one thing, but this was something else. Oshossi didn’t give a damn about his pets, and I’d sure as hell rather be killing him than them.

So why wasn’t he here with them? He was smart, but that didn’t seem smart. If he wanted Cherish so badly and his ccoas had tracked her down, why hadn’t he come with them?

Cherish’s teeth were bared as the ccoas’ had been, and her sword dripped blood onto the floor. She realized it and covered the fangs with lips painted as red as the silk top she wore. “You came.” It was said with a gratitude I wouldn’t have guessed she had in her. She was coming around. She might have more Promise in her than any of us thought. “Madre said that you would, and you did.” She gave a formal dip of her dark head. “My thanks.” Raising her eyes to Niko, she said with a trace of amazement, a fellow predator’s respect, “You are every bit the swordsman Madre said you were. I’ve seen nothing like it. Not in my life. Not ever.” The dimple appeared. “Perhaps you could give me lessons.”

“If you’ve seen nothing like it, then obviously you weren’t watching me.” Robin frowned at the blood spatter across his pants. “And I do it with unparalleled panache and style, but of course that wouldn’t be noticed while you’re so occupied ogling your mother’s property.”

So Robin wasn’t getting anywhere with Cherish. That had to sting. I didn’t think he’d not gotten anywhere with anyone he wanted except for Niko. Robin was lethal too, in a whole lot more ways than one. In the bedroom, out of the bedroom—he bragged about both. For a guy who practically excreted Rohypnol out of his pores, this had to be pissing him off like crazy. I gave him a grin to let him know I knew, and he gave me a silent snarl back. Moving over to Niko, I asked, “You okay? I know traveling isn’t such a hot feeling when you’re not an Auphe.” Which, I thought, was why it didn’t bother me.

I might not have said it aloud, but he heard it anyway. “You are not an Auphe,” he said between clenched teeth, clenched probably to keep his lunch down, although the muddy color of his skin was fading and returning to normal. “And I’ll recuperate. Give me a few minutes.”

“Yeah, okay.” It wasn’t a lot to ask considering he’d gotten a good feel of what was inside an Auphe, and, like it or not, what was inside me. It was an unnatural thing, ripping a hole in the fabric of reality. You knew that as soon as you saw it, but to pass through that rip, you felt the unnatural twist of it to your bones. It wasn’t right. It was unwholesome and awful and it wasn’t right.

I’d used to feel that. . . . Like Robin had. Like Niko. The wrongness of it.

I didn’t anymore.

Whatever that meant, whatever it said, it wasn’t good.

But you play with your Auphe half and you can’t expect it to stay buried. It wanted to play, a lot more than you did.

Robin laid his sword on the dining room table, folded his arms, and sighed. “What now? Samuel and his happy-go-lucky band of game wardens? Or are we pushing our luck there, making them our personal janitorial team?”

“I’ll take them.” We really didn’t want to push the Vigil into thinking we were their version of overt. That was all we needed on top of everything else. And if the Auphe could get rid of an eel the size of a truck, I could get rid of three panthers. “I’ll open a gate to the river. If it’s good enough for the Sopranos, it’s good enough for us.”

I didn’t wait for Niko to object, and he would have. Risking sharpening the Vigil’s attention on us versus me playing with Auphe fire, he’d take the first any day. But that wasn’t the right thing to do. Everyone was already in danger from the Auphe because of me. I wasn’t going to add the Vigil to that. Who knew how long they’d listen to Samuel that we were okay, that we weren’t going to get noticed. I squatted down to study the nearest ccoa. Because, let’s face it, we did shit that had a damn good chance of getting noticed.

And we did it a lot.

“What do you think? Two hundred and fifty pounds? Three?” I opened the gate absently.

That was a mistake, thinking it was as simple as the small amount of effort involved. Thinking that I didn’t need to pay attention. Forgetting how much my Auphe side did want to play.

But it had gotten so easy. Once it had brought pounding headaches and unconsciousness. Two weeks ago it had brought blood gushing from my nose or ears. Now it was like turning a key in a lock. Normal. No pain. No exhaustion. Just the feeling of doing what I was meant to do.

Maybe what I was meant to be.

The last male Auphe.

It was back . . . the cold touch, the slither of bloodthirsty satisfaction. I laid a hand on wet black fur, still warm, and lifted it back up to stare at my red palm and fingers. I had killed, I would kill again. And, hey, was that such a bad thing? Was that so wrong? To do what you were born to do . . . to follow the fire and ice that burned and seared your blood. To touch blood, to wear it, to spill it, to taste it . . .

No.

No. Absolutely fucking not.

This was not going to happen. That’s not who . . . what I was going to be. I took all the control I had, made the massive effort, and shoved those alien thoughts out of my mind. They had to be alien . . . otherwise they were mine. All mine. And that couldn’t be. It couldn’t, damn it. Luckily, I pushed them out or down before Niko clocked me one. He’d been across the room; now he was kneeling beside me, looking grim. “Control,” he said.