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Mac coughed before replying. “I can’t say for sure, Riss. But either someone’s messing with you, or there’s yet another traitor waiting in the wings.”

I planted hands on hips and arched a brow. “What makes you say that, other than the whole name thing?”

“Because. The funds that Erinye Unlimited ultimately wired into Doreen’s account did
not
originate from their own checking account. They were rerouted from another corporation’s account.” His eyes met mine unflinchingly. “The Sisterhood of Furies.”

WE SPENT ANOTHER HOUR TRYING TO CRACK
the corporate façade known as Erinye Unlimited, but even Mac’s genius hacking skills were no match for whatever electronic miracle they’d woven to protect themselves from detection. Which meant I was going to have to tap into official resources after all, starting with Scott’s feline friend Harper. And maybe Grizzly Adams, to boot.

A check of the time showed that Scott and I had less than fifteen minutes to make our rendezvous with Trinity. We left Mac and Ellie to crash for a few hours in their apart ment and headed for Chinatown.

Paranoia reigned, and I cloaked myself in the plain-Jane disguise before working a complicated, power-eating spell on Scott. It blurred him to the sight of mundane and arcane alike, enough so that most people would walk right past him without even noticing. It was also a bitch to maintain, but I figured that the extra bit of exhaustion would be a small price to pay.

Trinity was waiting for us in our favorite twenty-four-hour Chinese restaurant when we strolled in minutes later. She sipped a glass of soda, eyes weary and expression ragged. She looked like she’d run a marathon and then conquered an obstacle course.

Her eyes narrowed when we approached. She started to give us the brush-off, but then relaxed her body. “Riss?”

I nodded, maintaining the blurring routine on Scott. We didn’t want to risk anyone putting two and two

—and us—together. I motioned for him to slip into the booth, but he shook his head stubbornly and insisted I take the inner seat. In no mood for a major argument—another major argument—I slid into place.

“You okay, Trin? You don’t look so hot. Even for a gunshot victim.”

“Gee, thanks.” Her voice was dry as her hands fiddled with a laminated menu. “Never mind me. I’m worried about
you.
The precinct’s going crazy looking for you. We’ve gotten word at least twice that you were dead.”

“Well, as you can see, those rumors were greatly

exaggerated.” I counted my blessings she hadn’t seen me either of the times I’d been near death’s door that day. “Isn’t it a little early for you to be back at work? I didn’t think Cappy would let you anywhere near the place.”

“He didn’t want to, but I strong-armed him into it.”

My brows arched. She didn’t look like she was in any shape to strong-arm a can opener, much less a fellow police officer.

“I got him to agree to desk duty. Told him I’d go crazier at home than the precinct. Which is true.”

Completely true, knowing her. “Desk duty. Thus the rumors you picked up on.”

She nodded, tapping the plastic edge of the menu on the table before finally meeting my eyes straight on. “The feds came back—well, one of them did. He had a couple new bozos with him.”

Yeah, seeing as how we’d killed the others. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. They’re claiming you went rogue and killed a

couple agents. That true?”

-

Scott’s hand fell on my knee and squeezed. “Not exactly.”

Trinity bit at her already-ravaged lip. “What do you mean, not exactly? I need the straight story, Riss.

None of your Fury bullshit.”

I placed my palms flat down on the chipped Formica. “I didn’t kill any true federal agents, Trin. They were immortals disguised as mortals.”

Her lips turned downward and she furrowed her brows. “Disguised as mortals? But only Furies can disguise themselves so fully. And none of you would—”

My breath whooshed out. I’d hoped to avoid the total truth with her, thinking the less she knew, the better off she’d be. But the decision had been taken from my hands. I couldn’t let her think I’d gone rogue.

“They weren’t Furies, Tm. They were Sidhe.”

Her jaw worked silently, opening and closing as her fingers clenched on the table. “Wh-what do you mean, Sidhe? That’s—”

“Impossible?” I suggested dryly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, until I came across several of them.

The first of which was disguised as my dead best friend.”

Trinity’s eyes widened, and realization washed across her face. “Vanessa’s corpse. You said it had been altered magically, that it wasn’t a Fury. She—it—was a Sidhe?”

“Yeah. I communicated with the body’s true spirit couple times since we found the corpse.”

Her lips twitched. “Yeah, I heard someone broke into the morgue and tore out a chunk of flesh.

Everyone assumed it was just some Ghoul.”

Scott and I shared a grin before I got back to being serious. “Listen, Trin, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those feds strutting around the PD aren’t real feds. They’re Sidhe in disguise, working, I think, for some secret arm of the mortal government.”

“Oh, hell.”

-

“Yeah. But it gets worse.”

She took a long, slow drink of soda, slopping some over the edge when she slammed the glass back down. “Okay, spill it.”

“This group is responsible for spreading it about that the Sidhe were extinct, but all the while they’ve been breeding them in captivity. Even then, their numbers were so small they may actually have gone the way of the dinosaur, except. .

“Except what?”

I took another deep breath. “Except that the mortals finally unlocked the key to their flagging fertility.” She leaned forward, eyes focused on me. “By cloning them.”

Her look of intensity changed to one of revulsion. Most mortals considered cloning sentient beings completely immoral, as evidenced by the fact that it was illegal in just about every mundane nation.

“You’re shitting me.”

My lips twisted as I flashed back to the last time she’d accused me of that. Right before I got shot in the chest. “I would never shit you about something so serious.”

Her eyes fell to the dingy Formica. She barely noticed when an overly chipper waitress scurried up to offer me a drink. I ordered coffee while the gears in Trinity’s brain kept .on whirring. Finally, she glanced up to meet my gaze.

“I—I think they’ve gotten to Cappy?’

My mouth dropped open, since that’d been just about the last thing I’d expected her to say. “Gotten to Cappy?” I repeated like, a doped-up parrot.

She nodded. “That was the real reason I wanted to meet you tonight. I had to be sure you weren’t—that you hadn’t. .

I picked up where her voice trailed away. “Gone Harpy?”

Her breath rushed out explosively. “Yeah. That you’d gone Harpy, or rogue, or whatever they’re accusing you of.”

My heart hammered against my chest. “Cappy— Cappy’s accusing me of going rogue?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but, Riss, I don’t think it’s him.”

“Oh shit. You mean. .

Another nod, this one absolutely miserable. “They either compelled him to do whatever they say or switched him entirely so they could better use the precinct’s resources. And it’s working out pretty good for them, Riss. It’s a damned good thing you’re traveling around in that disguise.” Her tone grew chastising. “Especially since you’re alone.”

Scott squeezed my knee again. I patted his hand as surreptitiously as possible, then zeroed in back on Trinity. “Do you have someplace safe to go, Trin?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

I gestured to her haggard face. “I don’t think the gun. shot wound alone is responsible for you looking like hell I think someone’s been messing with you, trying to get
t
me.”

“You mean magically?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’d like you to call in tomorrow, tab some of the sick time I know you have coming to you. Just tell them going back so soon was as bad an idea as Cappy said it was.”

“I don’t really know where I’d go, other than home.”

I glanced at Scott. He nodded. “Then you’re coming with us.”

She smirked. “Using the royal
we
again, Riss?”

My lips twitched. “Let’s just say I’m not quite as a1one as you thought I was.”

“Well, hallelujah. Nice to know you’re smarter than ye look.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Now let’s hit the road. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

Which would give me plenty of time between here and there to make sure that Trinity was, in fact, Trinity, and to remove any tracking devices ‘they might have planted on her. Not that I didn’t trust Trinity implicitly, but one could never be too sure when dealing with the Sidhe. And clones.

Attack of the Evil Faerie Clones. Sounded like a very bad science fiction movie.

Or just another day in my life..

SCOTT CALLED SEAN AND KIARA TO CHECK IN
midway through the T ride. Once they’d assured him there had been no major catastrophes (lucky them), he handed me the phone.

Fortunately, Sean didn’t try to ambush me over the phone line. Instead, Con’s voice bubbled into my ear first thing. “Aunt Riss? You okay?”

“Er, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Trinity smirked at my forced innocence. We’d gone ahead and filled her in on all the attacks in the belief that ignorance
could
get you killed.

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because of the Harpies?”

My feet slapped to the floor. “What Harpies?”

“The ones who accepted the hit on you. Sheesh, Aunt Riss, you’re good at ticking people off, aren’t you?”

Out of the mouths of babes. “And just
who
have you been talking to, niece of mine?”

“You asked us to search for anything that could help you on the Net, remember?”

My thudding heart slowed fractionally. The last thing I needed now was to worry about Con sneaking out to try some investigating of her own.

“Yeah, I remember. But how did Harpies enter into the equation?”

“Well, you wanted to know about unusual arcane disappearances or murders. There have been a lot over the past few years. A
lot.
Apparently spread out in different places, though, so the police haven’t connected the dots yet.”

“And that led to Harpies how?” My gods, had she been searching on the same forums Scott had?

Her voice grew more reluctant. Obviously she’d been hoping to throw me off the scent. “Well, one thing kind of lead to another and I ended up on this really cool website where arcanes post problems they want taken care of and people respond to the ads. Like on Craigslist?’

I rolled my eyes. “Con, sweetie, people don’t advertise for hit men on Craigslist.”

“Not obviously, no. You gotta be sneakier than that.”

“Sometimes you scare me, angel. You really do.”

Her grin came across loud and clear through the phone. “You sound like my mom.” I decided to ignore that one for now. “Listen, Aunt Riss, I came across something even more interesting on a different website. I think it had to do with the Harpies. Something about a misplaced package and needing to track it down ASAP and I was thinking—”

I frowned. Her words tickled something in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite suss it Out. I lost the thread of conversation.

“—you think that’s a good idea?”

“Ah, sure. Hey, can you put Kiara back on the phone?”

Her voice sounded decidedly chipper. “Yeah. Take care of yourself, Aunt Riss.”

“You, too, angel.”

Kiara agreed to keep an eye on Con and make sure she didn’t sneak out of the safe house. I tried to hint that Kiara should watch out for any signs of arcane abilities appearing in her charge, and I think I got it across to her without having to spell it out directly. Knowing the gods’ excessive sense of irony, they might very well choose
now
to blast Con’s Fury gifts wide open. Assuming she’d inherited them.

The odds that she had were hellaciously high—better than my odds of someone trying to kill me again—and those were pretty damned good.

We made it to the safe house without incident, thanks no doubt to Scott’s insistence that we get off several stops after our normal one and circle back in random loops before he was sure no one was trailing us. I’d long since made sure Trinity was not an Evil Faerie Clone and wasn’t carrying any bugs or tracking devices.

Trinity let me bundle her into a pair of Kiara’s cast-off sweats and steer her toward the apartment’s surprisingly comfortable sofa. Scott, perceptive as always, sensed our need for some alone time and headed straight for the shower. She curled up on the sofa and huddled under the gaudy plaid comforter I pulled from the hall closet. The pale tinge to her normally dark skin along with the deep circles under her eyes had me worried.

I tried not to jostle her when I settled on the edge of the sofa, but her wince signaled my failure. My eyes narrowed at the reminder that she’d been shot all too recently. “I’m not sure they should have let you out Of the hospital, much less back on duty.”

She perked up enough to throw a scowl my way. “Well gee,
some
of us don’t have super-uber-magical healing powers. Doesn’t make us fragile little dolls.”

All righty then. Someone needed to get a little mad on. “Never said you were, girlfriend. But have you looked in the mirror lately?”

Her lips tightened into a mutinous line, though they didn’t stay that way long. She jerked the ugly blanket up to her chin and glanced pointedly toward the hall. “Guess the frail and useless mortal should just get to sleep before she keels over, then.”

My eyes blinked rapidly while my brain tried to put two and two together. Hadn’t gotten much sleep lately myself. “Uh, Trin. . . Did I do something to offend you?”

The apologetic tone of my voice placated her. Slightly. She let the blanket drop back to her waist, though her scowl didn’t fade completely. “Tell me something, Marissa.” Ouch. “Do you trust me?”

“I—wha—huh?” Of all the things I’d expected her to ask, that wasn’t one of them.

“You heard me. Do you trust me. Really, truly, trust me?”