“His tie to her was broken,” said Adam.

“It must have been a strong link,” said Wulfe, hanging limply from Stefan’s hands. “It must have been strong if the Monster couldn’t take it. But then a lot of people underestimate our Soldier, our Stefan. Even so, a stronger vampire than Stefan should be able to supercede the blood bond he has with you, Mercy—we could fix that for you. Who would you rather serve, Mercy—Marsilia or me?” Wulfe giggled some more.

“Stefan?” I asked, wanting Wulfe to be wrong about the tie between Stefan and me, but empirical evidence suggested otherwise.

Stefan’s back was to us. He set Wulfe down on the table. Wulfe quit laughing as soon as he was free. Face abruptly expressionless, he confronted Stefan. “Did you think that I wouldn’t tell her? You think to keep her, and that keeps you from rejoining Marsilia because through you, Marsilia would have access to Mercy.”

Adam’s arms came around me, and he pulled me to him as I absorbed what Wulfe had just said—and that Stefan was not protesting. This was why Wulfe had insisted we come to his house—because he wanted to confront Stefan. I hadn’t missed that Wulfe watched me as much as Stefan. He’d also wanted me to attack Stefan for lying to me—to give Stefan no one to turn to except Marsilia.

“I will not betray her,” whispered Stefan, eyes on Adam.

“We know that,” Wulfe said, but he’d been watching me, not Stefan when Stefan spoke. Wulfe thought Stefan was speaking of Marsilia, but Stefan’s eyes had been on Adam. He’d been talking to Adam about me. “Come, Stefan. With you in the seethe, Marsilia will fight to protect Mercy because she is needed to keep you in line. You have been Marsilia’s Soldier for four centuries and more. Marsilia needs you. You’ve been hiding your secret bond from the coyote-girl. Now that she knows, you have nothing more to hide. Marsilia will give her word that she will not touch the bond you share with Mercy, won’t try to claim her for herself—no matter how useful a tame walker would be.”

“I will not take that chance,” Stefan said. He raised his head and met my eyes. “Mercy,” he said. “Never say yes when Wulfe asks if he can bite you. It will open doors you do not want open. I am sorry I didn’t tell you the blood bond between us wasn’t gone. I didn’t want you to know because I knew it would chafe, this tie between us. If the Monster couldn’t sever it, then the chances are good that neither Wulfe nor Marsilia could do it, either. Though, as Wulfe pointed out, they could probably take the tie from me and tie you to them.” He hesitated, then said, “With you bound to me, Marsilia would not dare kill you because her actions hurt so many of those I protect—I would kill her, or she would be forced to kill me.”

“They are sheep, Soldier,” said Wulfe contemptuously. “Sheep are for using.” He started to raise his hand, and I felt magic gather. Then Stefan moved, drawing a blade from somewhere and bringing it down over Wulfe’s hand in a swift, overhand chop. Wulfe’s unattached hand dropped to the floor.

“Not on my watch,” said Stefan.

“Darn it,” said Wulfe mildly, looking at his severed hand while grasping the maimed limb with the hand that remained useful. He squeezed to slow the bleeding. “Look what you’ve done. It will take them all day to get the blood off the floor.”

“How did he lure you here?” Stefan asked. I don’t listen to you all the time, his voice in my head told me. Wulfe called me on the phone five minutes ago and told me you were in trouble.

It was as if he’d picked up just what was bothering me the most—which I guess he had. Not surprisingly, that understanding didn’t make me feel any better.

“Wulfe promised us information,” Adam growled, shaking his head as if he’d heard that secondary message from Stefan, too. “We need an address.”

“I’ll get it,” Stefan promised.

“I counted you my friend,” Adam said, his voice icy.

“I am,” said Stefan. “We’ll speak of this later.”

“Yes,” said Adam. “We will. There is one way to cut such a bond.”

“No,” said Stefan sadly. “No. I would only take her with me at this point. She accepted the bond willingly, and that makes it a lot stronger than one that is forced on someone. Go now, Adam. Morning is near. I’ll come by tomorrow night, and we can talk.”

He and Adam stared at each other, Adam with near violence and Stefan with patience. If what he’d said was true, I could almost understand the lies he’d told me because he was right: knowing that we were tied together was going to bother me a lot.

“I tied the whole pack to a vampire,” I said numbly as Adam drove us back to Honey’s house.

“No,” Adam said. “He can’t use you to influence me. The bonds will not be superceded like that.” He glanced at me, then back at the road, but his hand took mine. “I have your back on this one, love.”

I grunted.

Adam laughed.

I frowned at him, and he said, “Sorry. That’s my grunt you stole. I’ve been thinking, and you should have, too. If Wulfe is right, and I see no reason to doubt that, the tie between you and Stefan has been going on a long time now. And he has never used it—except this once, to protect you.” Twice. He had used it twice. “Stefan tries to be honorable, as honorable as his condition allows.”

“Condition?” I said wryly. “That makes it sound like he has rabies or distemper.”

“Rabies has a lot in common with vampirism,” said Adam.

I grunted again. He was being too casual about all of this despite the growly interchange he’d just had with Stefan. “You knew,” I said. “You knew it wasn’t gone.”

Adam was still, then said, “Yes. I’ve been around a little longer than you, dealt with the vampires more.” He glanced at me, then away. “And I can smell him on you sometimes, just a whiff now and again when I know you haven’t seen him in days or weeks.”

I thought about that for a while. “And you didn’t tell me?”

He shrugged. “What good would that have done? Stefan is more than a little in love with you, you know that, right? It’s what makes Marsilia hate you so much. If he had known a way to break it, I think he’d have told you. I know that such things are not easily destroyed—and that if the Monster had really held the reins, you’d have been in worse shape when he died.”

Adam was right. All that Stefan had done with our link was to help me twice. But Stefan was right, too. Knowing that the tie was still there chafed. Knowing that Adam had known about it and not told me … that chafed me even more.

Our lawyer, Ms. Trevellyan, who had told us to call her Jenny, watched the disc Adam had handed to her. It was from Camera Two in the garage and showed pretty much everything I’d seen when Guayota had come to visit. It also showed, to my relief, the dog changing into a man inthe background while Guayota and I fought.

She watched it from beginning to end, and her poker face was flawless. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that she saw fights between volcano gods and mechanics on a daily basis. Her assistant, a bright young thing, had yet to acquire a mask that could cover her fascination.

“Good one,” the assistant breathed at the point where I stuck the mop handle into his head. It looked more disturbing on-screen than it had been at the time. I suppose I’d been worried enough about survival to get too squicked then.

When the disc finished, she added, “You’ve done a lot of karate, right? That looked like an outtake from some of the old martial arts shows—before they learned to get the actors to slow down so the audience could see what they were doing.”

Jenny Trevellyan cleared her throat. Gently.

A light flush rose in her assistant’s face. I hadn’t caught her name, and now I regretted it because I liked her. “Sorry. But you’re lucky you survived. Seriously, that guy was scary.”

Jenny folded her hands and stared at Adam. “Okay. What happened later that made you erase the end of the video?”

“An unfortunate glitch in the equipment,” Adam murmured. “We have three discs from different cameras, but something, maybe the excess heat, made them all quit recording around the same time.”

The lawyer’s assistant, who was scribbling down notes, lit right up. “Magic is supposed to affect electricity like that. I’ve read that wizards can’t be in the same room with things like computers and stuff.”

I knew where she’d read that. I bit my lip. It was to our advantage to spread a little misinformation whenever we could.

“Convenient as that explanation is,” said Jenny dryly, “I would like to know what would happen if Cantrip magically figures out what the cameras would have shown if they hadn’t … glitched. I am your lawyer; I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth.”

“Someone came in with Adam and saved my skin,” I told her. “The means that someone used would make that someone very valuable to the military or any number of other disreputable types who might resort to kidnapping to get that kind of power under their control. I’m just glad that the glitch happened when it did. That way, we can just give the credit to my husband and ensure that a Good Samaritan doesn’t suffer for saving my bacon. We’d like to leave that person out completely.”

“Okay,” she said. “If the opportunity comes up, I might remind Cantrip that there is already one video in existence showing exactly what Adam is capable of.” She wasn’t looking at me, and I was glad. Adam had, in a graphic fashion, destroyed the body of the man who’d assaulted me. The video of that had been released so that neither Adam nor I was charged with murder. It was only supposed to go to certain people, but it had been seen more widely than it should have been. “And,” she continued, “that a second example wasn’t wanted. That way, no one will be looking for another reason for the glitch. Is that acceptable?”

“Fine,” said Adam.

“You gave me a brief statement before we watched the video. Now tell me again who this is that broke into the garage and why he attacked Mercy.”

I folded my arms and put my forehead down on the desk while Adam talked. The next thing I knew, Adam had gathered my hair in one hand and tipped my head sideways. I blinked at him.

“She needs to see the burn on your face,” Adam said.

It took me a moment to process what he said, then I sat up and showed her myself. I showed her the burns on my hands and arms and the one on my ribs. I’d put Bag Balm on them, and they felt better, despite what the EMT had said.

“You shot the dog first,” Jenny said, “the one that … er … turned into a man? Then he threw some sort of fire magic at you and burned your cheek—that’s not on the disc I saw, but Adam told me that it’s on the second disc. Then you fired five times at him, three to the head, two to the chest. You jumped on the car, looking for a way out, and when it became obvious that there was nothing available, you engaged in battle with Juan Flores, who apparently is a Canary Islands volcano god named Guayota?”

She was scary good. She got out the last part of the sentence without any inflection.

“Almost,” said Adam. “First, he broke into the garage with a crowbar. We have that caught on the outside camera.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’d like to wait until I’ve had a chance to review all the discs available, but, as you’ve pointed out, there is the worry that in the meantime some poor law-enforcement officer will run into him without knowing what he is. We need to let the law-enforcement agencies know what they might be dealing with. With that in mind, and with your permission, I’ll send copies of the discs to the police immediately.”

“And,” I added because it seemed an important part of the narrative, “he admitted to me that he’d killed seven women whose bodies were discovered yesterday … no, sorry.” Just because I hadn’t slept didn’t mean that time hadn’t passed. Her assistant handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. I took it and drank a quarter of it down. “It was the day before yesterday, Thursday. The police took me out to the crime scene to see if werewolves were responsible for the massacre.”

Her right eyelid twitched. “That’s the first I’ve heard of this. When did he admit that? I didn’t see it.”

“That’s the ‘trouble in Finley’ I was talking about,” I told her.

She took in a deep breath. She made me go over all that I knew about the seven women and assorted horses and dogs that Guayota had killed near the hayfield in Finley. At some point, her assistant took over the questioning, though I’m not sure she was supposed to.

“You mean all the dead women looked like Mr. Hauptman’s ex-wife? That’s … that’s right out of a profiler’s book.”

Jenny snorted her coffee, wiped her nose, and gave her assistant a quelling look. “You might curb your enthusiasm over the deaths of seven women, Andrea. It isn’t really appropriate.”

“Poor things,” said Andrea obediently. “But this is like being in the middle of an episode of Criminal Minds.” She paused. “Okay. That’s dorky. Sorry. But most of our cases are like somebody’s kid got drunk and hit a fence and wants to make reparations but would rather not lose their driver’s license. The only murders we’ve been involved with have been those ‘everyone knows who did it,’ and our job is to get our client the lightest sentence possible … and I’m talking too much.” She blinked at us. “It’s just that I moved here hoping I might get the chance to see a fae, because the reservation is just over in Walla Walla. And here I am talking to a werewolf about a fire demon who is killing people and burning down buildings.”