Hunting Ground

CHARLES stood where he was, the icy water covering his paws and a few inches beyond. He'd been waiting for the goon squad and gotten the beauty instead, and it left him oddly defenseless.

She walked along the shoreline, her muddy shoes splashing in the water that covered the rocks. Above them, beyond them, and to both sides, docks stretched out into the black water. Four or five docks down there was a ship being loaded, and he could hear the men talking in the grunting rhythms that working men have. They were far enough away that they would not see a woman and her very large dog walking along the water's edge.

He decided she was getting too far from him, and so he followed, padding behind her to make sure she was safe. He hadn't killed the Beast who threatened her... a growl rose in his chest at the thought. He should have killed him. Should have torn his head off so he would no longer hurt the weak and helpless ones. Not hurt his Anna. No matter that she was proving to be neither weak nor helpless.

Brother Wolf scented the air, but the scent of the other wolves was distant. Ahead of him Anna had found a log that had washed ashore, now a throne for his lady. But first she had to climb all over it.

He detoured around it, making sure it would stay stable-and found it difficult to close the distance between them.

She had seen him in action before, had seen him kill, and she had not flinched from him. But this had been different, Charles knew it. This had been... not unprovoked, but certainly not necessary either.

Chastel thought too much of his own hide to try anything while in the middle of a pack of enemy wolves. He wouldn't have hurt her, not right then. None of that had mattered to Charles, though-all he could see was those fangs buried in Anna's throat and him all the way across the building and too freaking slow.

He looked at her, just to make sure his vision hadn't happened. She'd found a comfortable spot and stretched out on it, her face tilted toward him, resting on her extended arm.

Anna had said she wanted to talk about some things. She hadn't sounded angry or, worse, disappointed.

And there were things he needed to know. Like why there weren't dozens of wolves bringing him in-he'd heard Dana call for his hide, had expected them. Why Anna said she had left Angus in charge-though he expected that it had something to do with the pull he'd felt from her shortly after he'd left the warehouse.

If Brother Wolf hadn't been foremost, he'd have simply waited for the other wolves, acting for Dana, to attack him in the warehouse. But Brother Wolf had demanded the chance to choose the battleground. That meant down to the shore, so the deep water at his back kept him from being flanked-werewolves don't swim, they sink.

And Dana's element was freshwater, not salt.

But Anna had pulled the rug out from under his battle plans. They weren't coming after him-and Angus, not Dana, had been left in charge. Anna, who was all alone on her log, watching him out of the corner of her eye while he paced.

He kept his distance for a while longer. While he was wolf and Anna a good distance away from him, she couldn't tell him that... what? She was disgusted by his attack on Chastel? That he'd scared her? Or, possibly even worse, she enjoyed watching? She wouldn't say any of it, and he knew her well enough to understand that.

So he didn't know why he came to her as wolf and not man. She sat up and patted the log in front of her. He hopped up and she hugged him, long fingers playing with his ears and the sensitive spots on his face.

She leaned against him. "Love you," she said.

That was what he'd needed. He took a deep breath and changed. She backed away, giving him space.

"How come you don't have four dozen red or blue T-shirts and fifty pairs of boots?" Anna asked when he was finished. "And do you think this mate thing would work well enough that I could change back to human with clothes instead of stark naked?"

He glanced down at himself, fully clothed as usual. No other werewolf he'd ever heard of could clothe himself coming out of the change. He didn't know if it was werewolf magic or a bit of the magic of his shaman grandfather. He only knew that it had started happening when he was fourteen or fifteen and being naked was considered shameful in his mother's tribe. Then it had been buckskins-he could still do those if he thought about it.

Charles turned around so he was facing her, looked hard at her grinning face, and took it in his hands and kissed her as if he could fill himself with her. She opened her mouth and let him in, welcoming him with warm touches and small sounds. They had not been together long enough for even the most basic touches to become routine-but he didn't think he could ever take her kisses for granted, the touch of her tongue, teeth, and lips.

When he pulled away, he left his face against hers as he said, "I don't know. We'll just have to see-keep a count of the red T-shirts, maybe."

"Why red?" she asked. "Why not green or blue this time? I've seen you do blue. Do you pick?"

He laughed, needing this, small intimacies he'd never had before Anna. "I don't know. No one ever asked, and I never paid attention."

She put her mouth against his ear, and the feel of her breath in his ear certainly made him pay attention. "I bet they wondered, though. Too scared of the big bad wolf to ask."

He laughed again, the relief of her presence-not just Omega but his Anna-making laughter necessary, whatever the excuse.

She pulled back, her eyes still smiling. "Dana is a water fae, isn't she? The ones who lure men into the water and drown them."

"Yes."

"How did she do it? Was it compulsion-or was it some sort of manipulation?"

He couldn't read anything in her face. "I don't know. Why are you asking?"

"It's not like you to freak out like that-not without planning it better. And Chastel. He is how old? His modus operandi is more subtle than it was tonight, right? He takes out little kids and human women in front of people too weak to hurt him. You, he would never antagonize like that, not where you would be justified in attacking him face-to-face."

With Anna here, Brother Wolf settled down into a contented presence. Charles could think more clearly, consider tonight's oddities.

"Not quite true. He is reckless sometimes-and no coward, really. He likes to play games: his lunge at you that would have been fatal if he'd wanted it to be-that is very much the Beast of Gevaudan." But she was right in that the Frenchman's behavior had been odd. "But that moment when he laid the bag, his prize, at your feet, that was unusual." He thought a moment. "Romantic, even. I don't know that I've ever heard Chastel had a partner. Women, mostly, he kills. Children, too. It's as if their fragility calls out the worst in him."

"He told Ric and me that he was the opposite of the Omega. All the violence, none of the protective spirit."

Charles felt his eyebrows go up. "That's perceptive," he said. "I would have just called him a sociopath. My father calls him evil."

" 'Evil' works for me," Anna muttered. She played with the bark of the tree: mostly rotted from its immersion in the water, it virtually dissolved under her fingers.

"But the thing with the bag wasn't typical of Chastel," Charles said. "And... what I did wasn't usual either. Not like that. It felt like he had done it, ripped your throat out-even though I knew very well that he hadn't touched you. You think the fae had something to do with it?"

"I think I read bloodlust on her body when you attacked Chastel. The first thing out of her lips was an accusation-of something you actually hadn't done. Stupid fae hadn't remembered that once the bells sounded, the hunt was over." Anna's nails dug into the tree as if she had claws, and her voice was hard. "She wanted you as her prey."

And he knew, suddenly, that the reason Dana hadn't gotten him was sitting beside him on this log. She didn't look tough, his Anna, with her freckled face and body that could still stand to gain ten pounds even though it was considerably more sturdy than it had been the first time he'd seen her. But she was tougher than old shoe leather, and what was hers, she took care of.

"Dana didn't know who she was messing with," he murmured, charmed and awed at the same time.

"Damned right," Anna said. "She was hunting tonight. I don't know who was her initial prey... it might be like when a dominant comes into a new pack and looks for the nastiest brute around to fight and so establish his place. I don't know if it was a planned thing or if it just happened."

Charles caught a scent and turned his head. "Angus," he said, as the other wolf walked up to them.

"Let you scent me," Angus said, a little defensively.

"Thank you." Charles decided that wasn't enough as Angus still looked uneasy about interrupting them. "I appreciate it. What do you know?" Because the wolf had been there a little while, and likely would have ghosted back up the hill without saying anything if he didn't have something to contribute.

"I heard a bit of that," said Angus. "Anna's right. I tasted fae magic at work, but I didn't realize what she'd done until you attacked Chastel. She attempted to make you kill Chastel."

"I thought they couldn't do that," Anna said.

"Obviously it's not impossible," said Charles. "And I don't know why they don't. Just that they don't. Ever. They don't break their word, and they don't lie. Can't is how I've always heard it. Always. But she did."

"Ask the Marrok," suggested Angus.

Charles reached for his cell phone, then stopped. "No cell phone," he told them.

Anna giggled. "All those red T-shirts and no cell phone? I don't have mine either, left it in the car."

Angus handed his over to Charles. "Red T-shirts? Do I want to know?"

"Probably not," Charles told him as he dialed and put the phone to his ear. Then his da answered and he busied himself laying the whole story before the old bard. Bran listened all the way through without comment. When Charles was done, there was a small pause as his father sorted out what he wanted to discuss.

"Six vampires hunting together," he said finally.

It wasn't a question, but Charles answered it anyway. "Yes."

"I'll look into it. There've been a few stories-I'll check them out more thoroughly. They sound like mercenaries to me: assassins for hire. Angus hasn't had trouble with the Seattle vampires for a good long while-and Tom would have recognized them if they were local. Vampires in a minivan says rental to me-"

"I have the plate numbers," said Anna. "But it looked like a rental car to me, too. American minivan less than five years old." She rattled off three letters and three numbers.

The joy of phone calls with sharp-eared werewolves was that all phone calls ended up being conference calls whether he wanted them to or not. At least Charles didn't have to repeat everything anyone said.

He could hear pen running across paper as his da wrote the license-plate number on a piece of paper. "I'll check it out," he said when he was finished writing, "but I suspect she's right. We'll find them faster by other methods. You think they're trained by a werewolf?"

"They fought like a pack," Anna said. "Made their choices like a wolf pack would. Brought in magic that felt just like pack magic."

"That was Tom's assessment, too," Angus said. "Tom's been in a few fights-and can wield pack magic with the best of us."

There was another pause, then the Marrok said in that light pleasant tone that warned everyone who knew him that all hell was about to break loose. "Can you prove Dana caused the fight?"

Charles looked at Anna.

She shook her head. "No. You had to have been there."

"That's so," said Angus. "I saw it, but I doubt anyone else was looking who would recognize what they saw. She would have sent me after Charles, you know, after I refused to go. Bespelled me with my true name. I haven't answered to that name for nigh on a hundred years-and a hundred years ago I was no one. Not Alpha at the time, not even in this country. Be interesting to know how she found out what my birth name was. I doubt there are ten people who'd know after all this time."

"True-named, and you didn't follow orders?"

Angus threw his head back and laughed. " 'For God Almighty himself, Bran. I got my first look at the shivering little thing that is your daughter-in-law quaking in her boots in an auditorium filled with predators and thought your son had found a wererabbit."

"Thank you," said Anna with a nasty edge to her voice.

Not intimidated in the least, Angus grinned at her. But when he talked it was directed at Bran. "I thought she wasn't up to his weight. But that was before she killed a vampire and set that old fairy on her heel. Here's me bespelled by that fae-'Stop,' Anna told me. And damned if I didn't have to listen to her, fae compulsion or no fae compulsion. Broke Dana's hold just as certain as if you had broken it your own self."

"You should have seen her kill the witch a couple of weeks ago," Bran said affably. "Asil had been fleeing from this one for two hundred years, and my son's little 'rabbit' killed her while in human form and armed with nothing more than a knife."

"Asil?" asked Angus, suitably taken aback. "Asil the Moor?"

"That's the one," said Charles.

"Suddenly I don't feel so bad at being rescued by a rabbit," Angus said cheerfully.

Anna narrowed her eyes at him. "One more rabbit comment, and you'll regret it."

The Marrok spoke into the silence that followed Anna's threat. "If I come now-"

"No," said Charles in instant rejection.

His father sighed. "You did note the 'if,' didn't you?"

There was no good answer to that, so Charles just waited.

Satisfied that his son had been properly brought to order, Bran said, "I do not think it would help at this stage. It certainly wouldn't make any difference to the negotiations. Chastel did exactly as he intended-and we'll work around him."

"I am sorry, sir," said Charles.

"Not at all. It would not have mattered if I had been there. Until one of the Europeans decides to rid the world of Chastel, we'll all have to work around him. It would have been... very unexpected had he played ball with us."

"He's not an anti-Omega," said Anna. "He's an anti-Marrok."

Charles explained the reference, and his father laughed easily. Some people might think that would mean he wasn't angry-they'd be wrong. "I suppose both are correct."

"Why don't you take him out?" asked Angus suddenly.

"Not my place," Bran answered. And then said, proving he'd thought of it, "And then I'd have Europe to take care of, too. I can assure you that my plate is more than full. I do not need anything more to do. Are you looking for a job, Angus?"

"Hell, no." The Emerald City Pack leader grinned appreciatively. "Not that I could take on Chastel, anyway. Your son is a nasty, infighting, rat-bastard. I've seen him fight cold before-you should have seen it when he's enraged. Took him all of two minutes to have Chastel on the ground."

"Charles's fights are always fast," said Bran. "Most serious fights are. We aren't cats to play with our food."

Charles heard his father draw in a deep breath as he changed the subject. "So. Your job, Charles, as I see it, is to find the vampires who killed our poor Sunny. Eliminate them and find out who hired them. Conduct business as usual tomorrow-and understand that no one can agree to accept help, but they will listen to what you have to say. And we'll help them as we can. This is the only way we can let them know that we'll do so. And keep Dana from making you kill anyone you don't intend to."

"She's broken her word," Anna said.

"We can't prove it," Bran answered.

"What happens when a fae breaks her word?" Charles asked his father. "All I've ever heard is that they don't."

"I haven't the faintest idea," said his father. "I'm not fae-and we have nothing on the fae for keeping secrets. I've never known a fae to break his or her word-bend it, twist it into a pretzel, yes. Break it, no. I would have expected lightning to strike her down from on high. Since that hasn't happened, your guess is the same as mine." He paused. "Be careful. And you might consider wearing your crucifix and finding something that would work for Anna. It's not foolproof, but it is helpful when you're dealing with vampires."

And he rang off.

"You know," Anna said thoughtfully, "I'm kind of disappointed. I thought he knew everything."

"Not everything," admitted Charles. "He's just very good at giving that impression."

"And ad-libbing," said Angus. "Though I've never really caught him at it." He paused. "You know, I'm thinking that he might be that lightning bolt. Hope I'm there to see it."

Charles yawned. "So, tomorrow is one more meeting. I'll pull out some of the more creative things Da kept for last, then... perhaps an early end to the negotiations, which are useless now."

"Sunny's death," Anna said. "It seems wrong to let her death be... useful to us, but Sunny's death would be a good reason to close the meetings early."

Angus nodded. "No one will be fooled-they know what Chastel has done-but it will allow us to save face."

ANNA burrowed under him and grumbled when Charles laughed as cold toes made it to places cold toes should never hit an adult male. He rolled over on top of her, and she sighed happily, her eyes slitting open and glittering blue in the darkness of the hotel room.

"Well, hello," he murmured to Anna's wolf. "Werewolves," he informed her solemnly, "are warm-blooded. Very warm-blooded. We don't get cold and stick frigid toes and fingers into places cold things shouldn't go."

She blinked at him a couple of times. "Warm," she said, her voice husky.

"Yes," he answered. "But you could have pulled up the blanket before you got that cold."

She arched up off the mattress and kissed him hard, gripping his jaw in her hands.

While he kissed her, he rolled over until she was on top. Anna's wolf sometimes did things that Anna wasn't comfortable with. He'd learned to make accommodations for that-and one of those things was to make sure that unless Anna was in charge, she got the top. If she woke up underneath him, she had a tendency to panic.

He couldn't communicate with Anna's wolf the way he-and Anna-could talk to Brother Wolf. She tended to come out when Anna was asleep and usually spoke in one-word sentences.

She nipped his ear, tugging on the amber earrings she'd gotten for him.

"Gently," he told her. "I like those earrings."

He ran his hands up the small of her back, and she arched into him with a happy sound. He let her play as she would for a while before catching her hands.

"Hey, lady wolf," he said breathlessly. "We need to wake up your other half before we take this any farther." He didn't actually know how much Anna knew about what her wolf did at times like this-whether she was along for the ride or still asleep. But it didn't seem right to do anything serious unless he was certain Anna knew what her wolf had been up to.

She stared at him, and he watched the change happen, just in her eyes. Blindingly blue eyes warmed to root-beer brown in a few heartbeats. She didn't seem surprised to find herself braced on top of him, just smiled and flexed her hands on his shoulders.

"All right?" he asked.

In answer, she wriggled her hips and pushed herself down. He groaned at the unexpectedly aggressive move. Anna's wolf did things like that-Anna was usually more temperate. She set a hard and rapid pace, and he let her do as she would.

"I'll just lie back and think of England," he huffed to make her laugh.

It backfired on him because she rose up-and then stopped, holding his hips down by tucking her feet over his thighs. "If you are thinking of England," she said, "I must not be doing this right."

And she did a few things that turned his brain right off.

Afterward, she lay across him like a sweet-smelling blanket-only blankets didn't usually drop kisses down the side of his neck.

He said, "Do you remember when I told you that you were my mate-and you responded by telling me you didn't like sex?"

She giggled at his smug tone. "I thought it only fair to warn you."

"Rabbits like sex," he said blandly.

She sat up and nipped his nose. "I'll rabbit you. I know where your ticklish spots are."

Someone knocked on the door, a quick, urgent sound. "It's Angus. Let me in."

Anna squeaked and dove out of the bed, putting on last night's clothes. Charles pulled on his jeans and strode to the door. It was a little after 2:00 A.M.-something urgent must have come up. Especially since Angus hadn't called.

As soon as Anna was decently covered, Charles pulled open the door and invited Angus in. The other wolf hesitated on the threshold but made no other comment on what Charles and Anna had been up to-though even a human nose would probably have picked it up.

"Brought sustenance. Take one," Angus said. He had a cup holder with four steaming cups: two cocoas, two coffees.

Charles took a cocoa and Anna, who usually drank cocoa with him, abruptly grabbed the coffee.

"Need to wake up," she told him, so he must have looked surprised.

Angus set the holder on the table and took a seat, the other coffee in hand. "Chastel's dead," he said flatly.

"I thought his wounds weren't enough to kill him." Charles actually couldn't remember how much damage he'd done.

"Not from the fight." Angus took a swig of coffee. "Someone shot him with silver buckshot and then... It looks like they filleted him. Beat the hell out of Michel, poor bugger. Do you know him? Fractured skull, broken jaw, broken ribs, and other trauma. It'll be a while before he's in any shape to tell anyone anything."

"Who killed him?"

"That's the problem; your scent is the only one present besides Chastel's and Michel's."

"He was with me all night," Anna said indignantly.

Charles gave her a pleased smile. "I didn't kill him, nor had I hand in it."

Angus nodded glumly. "Figured so. But needed you to tell me."

"Filleting a person takes time." Charles supposed that was something he shouldn't admit to knowing. "How professional was the job?"

"I couldn't have butchered a hog as well," Angus said. "And I worked as a butcher for twenty years." He hesitated, then sat on the chair. "Look, I know it wasn't you. This is... not your style of kill. Whoever did this was frick ing crazy. You'd have just ripped him to pieces and been done with it. But that fae... she can't recognize the truth when she hears it. Not like we can-the fae don't accept our word as good enough." He sounded a little bitter.

"As soon as Dana gets news, she's going to be after you-who escaped her clutches before." He gave a little nod to Anna. "I saw it, too, when she focused on Charles as her prey. Outside of truth saying, you look good for this. The fight. His stonewalling the conference. Stalking your mate. Tom's been a policeman off and on for most of his life. He says that what she has on you would get you arrested in human courts-and quite likely convicted." He raised his eyes to Charles, who allowed it. "She doesn't have to convince us or your father, remember. The only higher authority among the fae is the Gray Lords-and good enough for human courts is what they'll look for."

He took a strong swallow of his coffee. "Her word. And she's a Gray Lord. She'll have every fae in the States on your tail. If you resist, if your father resists-and you know he will-it would be war."

"Would she do that?" Anna asked.

"Yes," Angus bit out without hesitation.

"We have to find out who killed him before she hears Chastel is dead, then." Charles said it as if it was no big deal.

"Right."

"Call your minions and have them cancel the dog and pony show for today," said Charles. "Arthur's mate's death is a good enough excuse for now. We need to check out Chastel's death scene, then I'll talk to Michel."

ANGUS was a good guide, stopping at yellow lights so Anna, behind him in the battered Corolla, didn't have to run red lights or risk losing him.

He'd told them that the French wolves had stayed in a private residence, rented in the Queen Anne district, a neighborhood of well-kept houses on the side of a hill not terribly far from their hotel.

She saw the house before Angus turned on his signal. It was thoroughly modern, standing out from its more traditional neighbors like a sore thumb. And the reason she knew it was the right house was because of the werewolf drinking beer on the front porch.

Ian, their greeter from the airstrip, sat on a metal rocking chair with a can in his hand. The beer was camouflage, she thought. It was cold enough out that a man sitting on his porch at two thirty in the morning for hours was odd-and the beer can made it a little less... remarkable. Like he'd been kicked out and was waiting to be let in.

Anna followed Angus's car and parked in the driveway instead of on the street. It was a tight fit-there were already two cars in it-but the Corolla was a tidy little car.

Anna opened her door, and she could smell blood. She glanced at Charles, but he didn't show any sign of noticing. The hunger for raw meat was no new thing to him. He knew what he was and, usually, was able to accept it; accept it well enough that he and Brother Wolf could work together in a way no other wolf did.

At the top of the stairs, Ian held the front door open-while he stood a little to the side, protecting himself as much as possible from the smell of murder. He kept his attention firmly on his Alpha.

"Sir," he said. "No one in since you left. We've guards front and back as you requested. The other Frenchmen are settled in at the hotel as you requested."

"Good."

"Yes, sir." Ian appeared a little stressed. Impulsively, Anna touched his hand.

He took a couple of deep breaths and stared at her.

Angus tapped him on the cheek affectionately. "Omega wolf, my boy. Spreading peace and happiness, it's what they do."

He gestured, and Anna let go of Ian and followed Charles into the house.

"If Dana set this up, she'll know already," said Anna, when the door was shut behind them.

"Yes," Charles said. "Still, no sense advertising it if she doesn't." He paused in the hallway and looked at her. "You understand people better than I do. Do you think Dana would hire vampires? Do you think the vampires could be operating on their own?"

He underestimated himself, she thought, but put her instincts to work anyway.

"She's a Gray Lord. She enjoys playing games-she... takes pleasure in making herself look... unattractive. Which probably means she's either horribly ugly or stunning without the illusion." She closed her eyes, trying to make it fit. "No way she'd hire a vampire. She wouldn't trust them with her secrets." That was right. "She... she'd be okay having someone else do her dirty work-but not for money, I don't think. Someone who owes her-fae minions, maybe. Blackmail. But not hired guns."

"Agreed," said Charles.

"As far as the vampires are concerned... When they came after us, there was no emotion, no personal involvement in it. Just doing a job. But then we killed a couple of them, and that made it personal, right? So when they killed Sunny, they messed her up and left her where they did to... to count coup on the werewolves."

"Angus?" Charles asked. "Dana lives here. You'll know her better than we do."

"I don't understand women at all," disavowed Angus. "Add fae to that, and you can count me out." There was a little pause. "But I think Rabbit's got her nailed. Sounds right about the vampires, too."

"Anna," said Charles mildly before Anna could protest. "Not Rabbit."

Angus tilted his head. "Term of respect," he told Anna. "That's all. Anna."

"If you please." Charles didn't dwell on it, he just went on to the next thing. "The vampires have some way of masking their scent from us. Keeps us out of their daytime sleeping places."

Angus froze. "You think this is a vampire kill? Four vampires against Chastel and Michel?"

"The Beast was hurt." Charles avoided saying the names of the dead, usually. Referring to them by a nickname was apparently okay. "Michel... is much less dominant than your Tom. His heart is in the right place, but he is no warrior. Otherwise, the Beast would have killed him long since. Where were the rest of the French wolves?"

"At an all-night LAN party."

"A LAN party?" Anna sort of knew what that was. "Isn't that where geeks meet up and play the same game together on a lot of computers?"

Angus nodded. "Alan thought it might be interesting-let them get their aggression out without actually killing anyone." He paused. "And no one actually did-not there, anyway. Anyway, he and a few members of his family, several of my pack, and... I think one of the Spaniards took it upon themselves to arrange a LAN party with some first-person shooter game."

"Who would know that there would only be two wolves here?" Anna asked.

"Anyone who read the sign-up sheets-which are on our semiprivate site on the Internet. That means all of my pack and any of the wolves who came to the conference and took time to check out the welcome materials we provided."

"Assuming our vampires are working for one of us," mused Charles, "they would have known."

"If it's the vampires, they're moving awfully fast," Anna observed. She realized that they were all trying to avoid moving forward, into the house, closer to the smell of blood. "Tom, Moira, and I were attacked the day before yesterday, Sunny yesterday, and Chastel later last night." She didn't want to see it, to go near the evidence of all that pain and death. She thought that maybe the others were fighting exactly the opposite battle.

"Assassins with multiple targets taking them out as fast as they can," suggested Angus. "Strike before the enemy has a chance to pull their pants up and fire back. Busy as little bees."

"The question is, what are they doing? And why?" Charles sounded thoughtful, as if he were talking about a game of chess instead of discussing murder in a pleasant little sitting room that reeked of death. "And is Dana a part of this? Or is she a separate matter altogether?"

He looked at Anna. "You can stay here."

"But you want me to come." She knew she was right, and it surprised her.

"You bring different eyes," he said. "Angus and I-we can decipher the battle. You tell us about the person. Who we are hunting for and what that person is trying to accomplish." He gave her a tight smile. "You see things, why people do things. Vampires who act like wolves. I want you to stay here, but I'm afraid we might need you in there."

She took a deep breath. "Okay. But if I throw up, I'll blame you."

"Granted."

She bent to retie her tennis shoe and caught a glimpse of Angus's face. "He is very protective," she told him. "In a very Nietzschean 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger' sort of way. At least there won't be twenty feet of snow here."

Charles laughed.

No one was smiling when they walked into the room.

Blood soaked the carpet, and the walls were sprayed with it. It was getting old; in a few hours it would start to smell rotten. The walls looked brown rather than red. She didn't look at the two piles of meat and bone and body parts yet. One small step at a time. What did all the blood tell her?

" 'Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him,' " murmured Anna.

"I thought you did Latin quotes," said Charles.

"I can't do Shakespeare in Latin." She thought about it a little because that meant she didn't have to look more closely at what was in the room yet. "Cui bono, then. Who benefits from this?"

"I can't see how it could possibly be money," said Angus. "Or not only money. Or love, either. Sunny, maybe-but Chastel?"

Anna stepped all the way into the room, and the carpet squished just the way the carpet in her friends' apartment did after a keg of beer had broken open (some bright person tried to open it with a screwdriver and a hammer when the tap quit working).

She could tell where Michel had been because there was a person-shaped place where the blood hadn't saturated the tan carpet.

And there was the body... or pieces thereof. She made herself look. Charles's life might ride on their finding who had done this. She didn't have the luxury of being squeamish.

Hands, feet, head (one that looked much more like some wax sculpture for a horror film than something that had perched on shoulders and talked) sat on top of the pile. The head faced the doorway they'd come through, one hand on each side, feet on the outside of that. The rest of that pile was entrails and bones.

A square of cloth-no telling what it had originally looked like, but she was pretty sure it had been a tablecloth from the shape-was spread out on the floor next to the pile of body parts. On the square of cloth were stacks of meat cut into steaks and two racks of ribs, as if someone were planning a barbecue.

Why was the blood bothering her?

"I don't know vampires," she said, talking fast so her jaw didn't vibrate. "But I read Dracula when I was in high school. Would they waste all the blood like this? Or is this meant to horrify? Who do they want to frighten, and why?"

"No," said Charles suddenly. "They wouldn't waste the blood. Not without a good reason. You're right, this was deliberate. Meant to look like serial-killer stuff. That's all wrong for vampires. A vampire who left victims like this would have been killed before he-or she-did it a second time. They can afford human attention a lot less than we can."

"This is planned for effect. A lot of effort." He stared at the body parts-and smiled with satisfaction. "Too much effort, apparently."

He waved his arm at what was left of Chastel. "They cheated. We have one dead body-and there is just too much mass there, by about twenty pounds. I bet we find some commercially prepared cow in amidst the meat and that there is more of the Frenchman under the offal. Meat on bones. They didn't really have time to make a thorough job of it. It just had to look good for the audience."

"Who is the audience?" Angus asked.

"Not us," said Anna. "Me aside... this is bad-but to wolves who go out every full moon and hunt? There's just not a lot of horror left in blood and meat." She wouldn't point out that Angus was having a hard time pulling his eyes from the steak pile. "Especially when the victim is someone like Jean Chastel. I bet the French wolves felt bad about Michel, but said, 'good riddance' when they saw Chastel. Do you think this is for the public? To force the Marrok to not come out? Or is it for the fae, who have no idea what a butcher Chastel was? To add to the horror of the death so that the hunt for Charles has that righteous feel?"

"You sound like a psychologist," said Angus.

Anna shook her head. "No. Wrong Omega-Ric's the psychologist. I just watch TV and read a lot of forensic mysteries. I would feel a lot worse about this scene if it were Sunny. If this is the vampires-and I don't smell anyone except Charles, Michel, and Chastel, so it sounds like it has to be them-then there's a reason they did this to Chastel... and the other to Sunny."

"Sunny was personal," Charles said. "You didn't get close to see her body, smell it. They scared her and bled her out slowly. She hurt and suffered. Any werewolf who got near her body would know that. They wanted us to know that she suffered. This is... just gruesome. But it is not heartfelt. It is staged." He looked at Anna and gave her a solemn nod. "And for someone who isn't us-who, we hope, hasn't seen it yet."

"Then we need to get this cleaned up, now," said Angus and he pulled out a phone and hit speed dial. "You tell your father he's bankrolling this one: our witch is expensive. Tom?"

"Yes?" His second's voice was hushed, as if he was being quiet so as not to disturb whoever he was with.

"Get a cleanup crew-thorough and fast-and your witch. Yes, we pay her for this one, or the Marrok does, and you tell her to charge him up the nose. Get them to Chastel's place, and I'll tell you more when you get here. Yes, someone finally killed the bastard." He hung up the phone and Anna realized, with a touch of amusement, that Tom hadn't said a single word after that first acknowledgment. Angus was an Alpha who knew his word would be obeyed.

"Butcher," said Charles, thoughtfully. "Maybe this wasn't all for show. The vampires didn't mean it-but they are under orders." He looked at Anna. "I think you're right, mind you. But I also think this was symbolic. A butcher's end for the Beast. Not rage-because then the person behind this would have done it himself. But there is some connection between Chastel and the man who arranged to have this done."

Anna remembered something that the Marrok had said. "Maybe the killer doesn't want to take Chastel's place in the European hierarchy. They'd expect that, wouldn't they? That a werewolf who killed Chastel would have to step in and take over-become the Marrok of Europe? Even if it wasn't a proper challenge."

Charles smiled a little-which was not right, not in that room-but he'd been a werewolf for a very long time and likely didn't have her still-human responses to the gore. "You saved me from a worse fate than you knew when you stopped me from killing him earlier. I have no desire to do my father's job."

"I have one more question," Anna said, taking a last look around the room. She needed to get out of there. Maybe if she were wolf at that moment, it wouldn't bother her so much, but her eyes kept looking at Chastel's head-and his dead eyes looked right back at her.

"Yes?"

"Why did they leave Michel alive?"

"I don't think they meant to," said Angus. "I think they thought he was dead. He's in very bad shape-but he's smart and used to pretending he's hurt more than he is."

Anna knew all about that one. If they thought they'd broken bones the first time, sometimes they didn't hit you a second time.

"That's it," she said, moving blindly out of the room. "That's all I can do." And she sprinted for the bathroom they'd passed on the way in. The coffee hadn't been in her stomach long enough to taste too bad. At least she hadn't had breakfast.

She grabbed a clean towel and got it wet with cold water. When she was finished, she cleaned the bottoms of her shoes. They were leather and only a couple of weeks old, and the blood hadn't been on them long. Mostly they wiped clean.