“Zee’s insights into the problem with Beauclaire and the walking stick have showed me I need to start thinking outside the box more,” I said.

“Oh?” Adam glanced at me, then back at the road.

“I thought we should apply that kind of thinking to the matter of Christy’s stalker.”

He gave me a skeptical look.

“No, really,” I said. “Now that we know that Flores is really this nasty, fiery, superpowerful nothing-can-kill-me demon from hell, maybe we should consider just giving Christy to him?”

He laughed.

“I’m serious,” I said. And I was. Really. If only a little bit.

“Right,” he said affectionately. “I know exactly how serious you are. We’ve got a twenty-minute drive ahead. Why don’t you close your eyes and rest up?”

It sounded like a plan. My hands hurt, my hip hurt, my cheek throbbed, and someone had thrown a finger at me—and I hadn’t eaten today. Adam’s hand curled around the top of my knee, and I relaxed and let myself drift off. Nothing was so bad that Adam’s touch couldn’t make it better. Even if he wouldn’t let me give Christy to the fire-dog from hell.

8

Kyle let us in with a sincere, heartfelt gratitude that didn’t speak well of his guests.

He frowned at my face.

“The EMT told me the cheek will probably scar, but putting stuff on it won’t help,” I told him. “He also advised avoiding fights where throwing fire is involved.”

“I know of something that might help,” Kyle said. “I’ll talk to my hairdresser and see if I can’t get you some. Of course, if you keep fighting with people who throw fire at you, it’s unlikely to be of any help in the long run.”

“Let’s get through with Gary Laughingdog first,” said Adam. “And then I’ll tell you what happened tonight at Mercy’s garage.”

“I know most of it,” Kyle said. “Warren called a while ago and gave me a play-by-play. But the conversation was in my bedroom, and I haven’t passed anything along just yet.”

He ushered us to the ground-floor sitting room, where the defensive posture of our newest wolf put Adam on edge. Zack had pushed himself as far into the corner of the sofa as he could get. Gary Laughingdog, barefoot and dressed in jeans and a stained white t-shirt, was sitting on the back of the same couch, though right in the center of it. But he was leaning toward Zack, using body language to put pressure on the wolf.

“So,” Laughingdog said as we came into the room, “do you swing the same way as your host, Zack? I usually go for women, but you’re cute enough I could do you if you want.”

“No,” Adam said, and he wasn’t answering the question Gary had raised.

Laughingdog turned to look at Adam, his posture relaxed. He’d known we were coming in, and the pressure he was putting on Zack was to see what we would do. His eyes widened as he took in Adam. “I’d do you, too.” He wasn’t lying. “Almost-Sister, you picked a real catch.”

“It was I who caught her,” Adam said softly. “It took years. And no, not interested, and neither is Zack. If you don’t back off him, we may never find out just what it is that you have to tell my wife. That would be too bad.”

“Zack doesn’t mind me,” said Laughingdog with one of those false-friendly smiles he’d used on me. “Do you, Zack?”

“One,” said Adam coolly.

“You’re going to count to three? Really? How old do you think I am?”

Kyle stalked over to the couch, grabbed Laughingdog by the back of his t-shirt, and jerked him all the way off the couch and onto the floor. I’d have thought such a fit of violence was completely out of character for Kyle, but somehow it didn’t seem forced. Maybe Gary Laughingdog had the same effect on people that I occasionally did.

“I told you to back the f**k off,” Kyle snarled. “You are a temporary guest in my house, and I am done with you.”

Laughingdog, sprawled out on the floor, didn’t look the least bit fussed. “Sorry,” he said unrepentantly. “I can’t help but push them when they squirm.”

“Uncomfortable is one thing,” said Kyle, who also tended to push people when they squirmed. “Scared is another.”

Laughingdog froze and glanced up at Zack, who hadn’t moved from his corner and was not looking at anyone. He was, in fact, barely breathing. Submissive wolves don’t go around cringing. Peter, Honey’s mate, had been a good fighter. Submissive means a wolf has no desire to be in charge.

“Ah, damn it all,” Laughingdog said, sitting up. “I didn’t catch it. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up and not notice what my nose tells me. I know what ‘no’ means, kid. No always means no.”

“Mercy,” Adam said. “You and Kyle take Laughingdog somewhere else and let me talk to Zack. Evidently ‘no’ doesn’t always mean ‘no.’”

Zack came to life at that. “I’m fine,” he said hurriedly.

“No,” said Laughingdog softly. He pushed himself across the floor until he was on the other side of the room from the couch. “I don’t think so, man. But no harm will come to you here, right?”

Adam looked at Zack, then looked at me. “What do you think?”

“I think I overreacted,” said Zack before I could say anything. He sounded humiliated. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, kid,” said Laughingdog. “Not overreacting when you don’t know me. But someone needs to teach you to do something more effective than just locking down.” He frowned at me. Apparently it was my fault that he’d scared Zack.

Kyle sat down on the other end of the couch from Zack. “Give him space and leave him alone,” he said.

Kyle was a divorce attorney; he had experience dealing with broken people. I’d only been a broken person, so Kyle was the person to listen to.

I nodded at Kyle to give his assessment my support. Adam, after looking around, pulled a wingback chair over until the back was resting against the edge of the couch. When he sat in it, it put him between Zack and everyone else in the room, and it gave Zack a barrier between him and Adam. I sat on the chair arm.

Laughingdog moved to a chair that was across the room but still gave Zack a good view of him. He looked at Kyle.

“You know,” he said, “I can do a little rough since that seems to be your thing—and you look like a man who likes the boys rather than the girls.”

“Not interested,” said Kyle shortly.

“See,” said Laughingdog to the room at large, though there was no doubt to whom he addressed his words. “That’s how it’s done. ‘Go soak yourself in oil and light a match’ in two short words.”

“What did you want to talk to me about, Gary?” I asked. If I let Laughingdog keep talking without direction, someone was going to get hurt.

He looked at the burn on my cheek. “Ithink you met the guy I came to warn you about. If you put Bag Balm on that, it will feel better. Might even keep it from scarring. I was hoping to find you before he did, but making phone calls from”—he glanced at Kyle—“making phone calls to tell someone that an angry volcano god is going to attack her is hard enough when you know her well enough that you do have her phone number. It also takes me time to come off a Seeing like the one I had when you came to visit me. Took me a little longer to decide I had an obligation to find you and give you a little clearer warning. Getting here … well, for such as you and me, it wasn’t a big thing, but it took time, too.”

Don’t tell Kyle the lawyer that the man talking to us had just escaped from prison. I got the message, not that I needed it. Adam had told me before we came in that Kyle’s best defense was not to know that Laughingdog had escaped from prison.

“What do you know about this ‘angry volcano god’?” Adam asked slowly.

“Some. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that you can find out more. I got a lot of random information. Do either of you know what ‘El Teide’ means?”

Kyle frowned. “In reference to what?”

“To Guayota,” Laughingdog said.

“Coyote?” asked Zack.

“No. Guayota,” said Kyle. “Starts with a ‘g,’ and it’s the name of one of the gods of Tenerife.”

“Tenerife?” I asked.

“The Canary Islands?” asked Adam. “Tenerife is one of the bigger islands in the Canaries, right?”

I’m a history major, so once Adam jogged my memory, I pulled up a few random factoids—I am a magpie of history trivia. Spain had conquered the islands that were not far off the coast of Africa over the course of a century, just in time for them to be used as supply ports for Columbus and most of the Spanish explorers of the New World.

I knew a couple of other very random things. First, at the behest of the King of Spain, Canary Islanders had settled what became San Antonio, Texas, and set up the first official government in Texas. Second, the original natives of the islands hadn’t been of African phenotype. That and the local island story that there was a mysterious island among the Canaries that disappeared and reappeared had been used to fuel all sorts of Atlantis rumors.

None of what I knew appeared to be useful in the present situation, so I kept my mouth shut.

“That’s right,” Kyle said. “My folks used to vacation there every year—still do for all I know. I haven’t talked to them much since … well, since. Anyway—” He spoke quickly, to get the attention off events that were still painful. Kyle seldom spoke about his family, who had disowned him when he’d told them he was gay. “There was this old woman at my parents’ favorite hotel who watched kids so that the adults could go play. The native Canarians who worked at the hotel swore she was a witch—there are a lot of witches on the Canary Islands. Before I met Warren, I pretty much dismissed all of that as superstition, but now … anyway, the story of Guayota was one of her favorites. One hellish vacation, I heard it five times in three days.” He frowned. “She’s the only one I heard it from, so you should check it out somewhere else. I’m pretty sure she made parts of it up.”

“Keep going,” I told him. “We’ll consult Wikipedia and the library later. Promise.”

“It would be nice,” Laughingdog said with feeling, “to hear something to put what I know in context. It might even help me make some of the odd things more useful. Please, tell us this story about Guayota.”

“Okay,” Kyle said. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.” He leaned forward, and I don’t know how he did it, but with a bit of body language and a little warble in his voice, he called to mind a little old lady. I’d always thought that he’d had some drama training at some point. “There is a huge old volcano on Tenerife called El Teide. It’s the tallest peak in Spain and one of the tallest volcanos in the world. The old people who once lived on the island called it Echeyde, which means either ‘hell’ or ‘the gates of hell’ depending upon the person you ask. Guayota lived in El Teide, either guarding the door, ruling there, or both. Only the old ones could tell you for certain, and they are gone long, long ago.”

His voice softened as he talked, and he pulled an accent out of his memory and added it to the story. The chair arm I sat on was uncomfortable, so I slid off it onto the floor. The floor was better, especially when I set my back against the chair and leaned my head against the arm. I’d gotten the post-danger jitters over with while we waited for the Cantrip agents to figure out that Adam wasn’t going to talk until he was good and ready. Now I was just tired. The nap in the car had made it worse, and my eyelids fought to close.

“Now Guayota was, like the Greek Titans, a violent and impetuous creature of great power. He roamed the mountain in the shape of a great, black, hairy dog with red eyes, and tragedy befell any who met him in his runs because he would eat them up. One bite for children, two for mothers, or three for big warriors who came to fight him.”

Hairy? I thought about it. Maybe the way his skin had seemed to drip and crack could be described as hairy, or maybe he had another form, too.

“Charming story to tell children,” said Laughingdog.

“I thought so, too,” agreed Kyle cheerfully in his own voice, then there was a little pause as he remembered that Laughingdog didn’t deserve a cheerful reply. He continued in a more guarded tone. “My littlest sister had nightmares. And when my parents arranged a sightseeing tour up the side of the old volcano, they couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t go.”

Kyle recloaked himself in the persona of the old woman, and continued, “Guayota was terrifying, but he was also lonesome. Every day, he would look up and see Magec, the sun, running her path in the sky. He thought her beautiful and wondrous and him so lonely and miserable on that mountain. So that old Guayota, he plotted to take her for his own.”

Hadn’t Guayota made some reference to the sun when he was talking about Christy? I tried to visualize Kyle’s story, to put Flores in the place of Guayota, but all I could see was a wizened old witch with a roomful of kids that she was scaring. Witches feed off other people’s pain; I wondered if they could feed off terror as well.

“So one day, he jumped, the old devil, he jumped out of the top of El Teide and captured her for himself. Loud she cried and hard she fought, but she was no match for old Guayota. She could not burn him with her fierceness, for though she was the fire of day, he was born in the fire of the earth, which is more ferocious even than the sun. Nor could she blind him with her bright beauty because his eyes were used to the molten rock of his home. And when she got too bright for his eyes, the old dog, he just closed his eyes and used his ears and his nose, which were as sharp as any shepherd’s dog’s and more so.