“I negotiated an accord between the two of them. Lucifer would continue to collect the souls of the dead, and to wield influence over humanity. Alerian would maintain his superiority over the oceans. As part of the agreement, Alerian was to destroy the shapeshifters he had created. And he did so. I watched him do it myself.”

“That couldn’t have endeared you to Alerian,” I said.

Daharan nodded. “It was, I believe, much like destroying his own children.”

“And now one of these monstrosities has appeared,” Nathaniel said. “If they were destroyed, and such was witnessed by you, then there can be only three ways it could have returned. First, Alerian made more than three all those centuries ago but managed to conceal one from you.”

“It is possible,” Daharan acknowledged. “Alerian’s powers and mine are in direct contrast with one another. When we are together it seems that both of us are . . . muted, shall we say? But even if he was able to hide the creature, then we should still have seen some evidence of it in intervening years. And I cannot believe Alerian would be so careless as to leave such a monster formless and masterless while he slept.”

Unless he thought the shapeshifter was safely locked away, Samiel pointed out.

Beezle nodded. “Yeah, maybe he stashed the little devil somewhere out of this time and place, thinking he would go back later and retrieve it. There would be no chance of you accidentally detecting the presence of this shifter until it was too late.”

“Again, it is possible. But my reach and breadth extend far beyond this time or this place.” Daharan said this with no arrogance, only a statement of fact. “It is unlikely the creature could be concealed simply by the expedient of moving it off this Earth.”

“The second, and more troubling, reason this shifter could have reappeared is that someone—Alerian himself or another person—is using Alerian’s original formula to create more shifters,” Nathaniel said.

We were all silent for a moment, digesting the unpleasantness of this idea. Everyone here except Daharan had been present when the last lunatic’s biological experiment had been implemented. My own father, Azazel, had tortured humans and Agents until he’d found a serum to help vampires walk in the sun. How much worse would it be if a new player had discovered how to make these shifters? These were creatures who could look like anyone, be anyone so thoroughly that even their family members couldn’t tell the difference.

“They could infiltrate everywhere, do anything they wanted,” I said.

“Yeah, it would be like that alien in The Thing, except on crack,” Beezle said.

“And what could anyone do until it was too late?” I said. I’d been afraid of Alerian from nearly the first moment I’d seen him, and I was beginning to get an inkling why.

And the third way? Samiel asked Nathaniel.

My baby shifted in my belly, and I knew the answer before Nathaniel spoke. “One—or all—of the shifters bred with human women while in human form, and their powers were passed through the human bloodline.”

Nathaniel nodded. “But those powers would not have manifested until now, until this particular individual was born; else we would be in the aforementioned predicament of many creatures abroad, manipulating humans to their will.”

“It’s not exactly the ‘better’ option,” I said. “If magic is in the gene pool, it could pop up at any time. And we have no way to determine who could have parented these children.”

“Is it that important to decide where this thing came from?” Jude asked. “It brought harm on my pack. It personally killed at least one wolf. And it came here with the intent of harming Madeline. I say let’s hunt it down and kill it and worry about its origins later.”

I gave Jude an exasperated look. The wolf had always been partial to action, and impatient with our councils.

“It does no good to kill one if there may be more—or the threat of more—behind him,” Nathaniel said patiently. “And we must discover his master if you wish to reunite your pack and live in peace.”

Jude said nothing more but looked grumbly, which meant he agreed but didn’t want to say so.

Daharan suddenly looked alert. “Something is happening. Turn on the television.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Beezle said, leaving the dining room table and flying under the arch into the living room.

He grabbed the remote from the fireplace mantel and flew to his favorite spot on the couch.

“Find a news channel,” Daharan said.

“But La rosa de Guadalupe is on now,” Beezle said.

“Find a news channel,” Daharan repeated.

Beezle flipped through the channels, muttering to himself.

“Something urgent is obviously occurring and you’re upset because you’re missing an episode of a telenovela?” I asked. My stomach was knotted in fear. The last time we’d all gathered around the television, we saw hundreds of vampires eating the denizens of the city. What could it be now? A plague of zombies? An army of faerie warriors come to take vengeance for the death of their queen?

“If I miss an episode, I won’t know what’s going on next time,” Beezle said.

“You don’t know what’s going on anyway. You can’t speak Spanish,” I said.

“I know how to order my food in Spanish at the taqueria,” Beezle said loftily.

“Just find the news and stop talking before someone in this room loses their temper,” I said.