Black Spring

Maybe, Samiel signed. There were a bunch of regular emergency response people in the street, but the guys who came to the door were wearing fancy new jackets with “STF” stitched on the lapel.

“STF?” I said blankly. “Is that a nickname for a firehouse?”

“Supernatural Task Force,” Beezle said. “They must have had this in the works for a while if they’ve already got gear.”

“Did they seem unusually interested in talking to me?” I asked. I was starting to wonder how alarmed I should be by this resettlement plan.

Of course, Samiel signed. Then the dogs came downstairs and they decided you didn’t live here and it wasn’t worth it.

“Maybe Daharan’s spell actually helped there,” Beezle said. “It did seem like it was pretty easy for Samiel to bamboozle them even with his look-at-my-innocent-green-eyes act.”

“Where is Daharan?” I asked. “And Jude?”

As if in response to my query, the lock turned in the back door and Jude called, “It’s me.”

I frowned. I was glad Jude was home safe, but Daharan’s continued absence was troubling. Since I’d met him, there was only one other occasion when he’d been out of touch for so long—when he’d gotten the Agency off my back and then met with Alerian. I heard Jude pulling on the clothes he’d stashed by the back door.

He entered the dining room, his face more exhausted and gaunt than it had been in the morning. Samiel got up to get another plate as Jude collapsed in a chair, rubbing his face with both hands.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve been all over this city and couldn’t find a trace of him.”

“That’s because he was here, killing Stock, while we were all out,” I said.

Samiel returned with a plate and bowl and Jude dove into the platter of sandwiches as he asked, “Who?”

“Stock,” I said. “One of my dogs.”

Jude glance over at the other two, curled up on the sofa together. Lock picked up his head for a moment, as though he knew what we were talking about, and then put it down again.

“How the hell did that happen?” he asked.

I explained about the shifter duplicating my appearance, and how it had lured the dogs outside.

He finished one sandwich and immediately started on the next. “I’ve never heard of a creature able to work its magic over a threshold like that.”

“I know; that’s what I said,” Beezle said.

“And if the creature is charismatic, as your uncle said, it could lure any one of us outside easily,” Jude said. “Especially when we are asleep and vulnerable.”

Nathaniel entered the room, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, his wet hair pushed back from his face. Like Jude, he looked tired and hungry. The only one at the table who didn’t appear wiped out from the day’s events was Beezle, but he had probably spent a good portion of his time out napping on Samiel’s shoulder instead of scanning for the shapeshifter like a good gargoyle.

“You are going to have to put added protection on the house to guard against hostile magic,” Jude said.

“Yeah, and we still have to search the house for any potential infestations,” I said, and explained about the back door being left open.

“Let us hope there are no more rat-demons in the house,” Jude said.

I remembered cooking one of the horrid little things in a pan, torturing it so I could find out who had sent it to spy on me. That had been a real low point in my recent history.

“I hope so, too.”

“One point is certain,” Nathaniel said. “There is no need to exhaust ourselves chasing down the shapeshifter. His master is clearly interested in you, and thus the creature will find some way to approach you, either in the house or on the street. Perhaps the gargoyle should escort you whenever you leave the house.”

Beezle paused in the act of shoveling half a sandwich in his mouth, his expression horrified.

“You do realize that you’re proposing he sacrifice both his daytime television habit and the illicit snacking that he thinks I don’t know about, right?” I asked.

“I should think,” Nathaniel said with a pointed look at Beezle, “that your safety would take precedence over talk shows and soap operas.”

“It does,” Beezle said. “But I’m not sure it takes precedence over chips and dip.”

Samiel smacked him in the back of the head and Beezle spewed out the half-chewed sandwich. “What was that for?”

You know.

“Oh, come on, Maddy is more important to me than snacks,” Beezle grumbled. “Anyway, I didn’t think you were paying attention.”

I can read lips.

“But I thought you were looking at your food.”

“Most people don’t focus on their meal to the exclusion of everything else,” I said.