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toward his car, trailing blood and corpses in our

wake.

“That went better than I expected?’ Scott’s voice came out breathy and racked with pain, but the fact that he spared the energy for humor reassured me.

“What, just because they didn’t break out shotguns?”

He laughed, then winced and coughed. “Shit, Riss, don’t do that.”

“You started it,” I pointed out, then leaned him against the passenger-side door.

Cori popped out of the backseat, eyes wide and teeth nibbling worry lines in her lower lip. “Oh, God.

He’s not— not gonna—you know.”

She opened the passenger door as she stammered, showing that she was made of sterner stuff than her mother. More like her aunt. Both of us.

Scott managed an eye roll. “No, but
he
could really go for a bottle of whiskey right about now.” A Jack D lover after my own heart. Which
almost
made up for the cigar habit.

His bravado reassured her. She helped me ease him into the passenger seat before returning to her own.

Once I settled behind the wheel, adrenaline faded. My knee burst into agony once more, an agony that wouldn’t be easily healed after what I’d just put it through. I clutched the steering wheel as the entire battle scene flickered through my mind. I processed every image, sound, and sensation, and then tried to make sense of the unfathomable.
Superhuman strength and speed. Check. Archaic patterns of speech.

Check. Ability to hypnotize others with a single touch. Check.
My eyes widened.

“Son of a—” I spied Cori hanging on my every word, and swallowed the curse. “Those goons were Sidhe,”

Scott paused in the act of bandaging his wounds using the first-aid kit he’d pulled out from under his seat. His body relaxed slightly at my pronouncement. “Oh, thank Anubis. For a second there, I thought I was losing my touch.”

As if
that
will ever happen.

My eyes narrowed in sudden realization. “That Sidhe-born witch.”

Scott arched a brow.

“The spirit inhabiting—” I caught sight of Con in the rearview mirror again. “The spirit in the morgue.

The Sidhe. She had to have known the mortals had at least some of her so-called brethren on their side.

And she didn’t warn us. That could have
so
gotten us killed.”

He went back to patching his boo-boos. “Seems another little chat is in order.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I purred, and caressed’ the steering wheel as I zipped away from the carnage.

“We’re gonna chat all right. And she’s not gonna like what I have to say, not one little bit.”

Because if there’s one cardinal rule in the arcane community it’s this: Never piss off a Fury unless you kill her first—even if you’re dead.

JESSICA POUNCED THE MOMENT WE STUMbled
into the back room of Hounds of Anubis. “Oh my God, there’s blood on her. You said you were going to keep hen safe!” She yanked Con from my side, where she’d been helping support both Scott and me. We adjusted for her sudden absence and watched as Jessica examined her now-flustered daughter from head to toe.

“Mom, stop. I’m fine. Chili.” She pushed at Jessica’s hands but didn’t have much success. “Jesus, Mom, it’s not my blood!”

“Are you sure?” Jessica couldn’t seem to help herself, poking and prodding a few more spots on hen daughter’s chest and abdomen. Once reassured, she narrowed her eyes and shot Con one of those mom looks, barking a sharp, “Language!”

Cori flushed, nodded, and turned to her father. He went through a similar ritual to assure himself she was all in one piece, although he was way more subtle about it.

Jessica turned on me, eyes flashing and fists clenched. “I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know
now.
What evil has your filthy magic brought about
this
time?” Her mouth twisted around the word
magic
as if it pained her.

Scott slipped his hand into mine and his eyes glowed with reassurance, both of which made me feel as if I’d come home. No harm in accepting his strictly platonic support for a minute or two. Or ten. I clutched his hand gratefully and counted to five before responding. “If you will recall, Jessica, I didn’t bring about the evil last time. Your sister’s ex-boyfriend did.” Or at least, that’s what we all had assumed back then.. .

Con leaned forward, soaking in my every word. Hell. I wasn’t even sure how much of the truth they d told her Still Jessica had opened this can of worms She could damned well live with the consequences.

“Not to mention, this case is linked to hers. Would you have me ignore the chance to find out what happened to Vanessa? Or would you rather I walk away and forget the whole thing ever happened?”

Emotions warred across her features, ranging from anger and bitterness to hope and then, finally, determination. “Of
course
you can’t forget the whole thing happened. No more than I can. This—whatever
this
is—may help you’ find Nessa?”

I wanted to close my eyes against the hope in her voice,. By now, most people would have given up hope of finding Vanessa alive and realized the most likely outcome at this late date was meting out justice. Justice, and maybe a little vengeance. Fury-style.

Then again, Jessica was a skip, one of those members of an arcane-talented family who had no magical abilities herself, and she could never truly understand what being a Fury was like. David could be considered a skip, as well, because there were no male Furies, but he could certainly pass those traits on

—which meant the odds of Con inheriting a Fury’s gifts were about as high as it got without being absolutely certain.
Time enough to face
that
mess in the future.

“Yes, the case I’m working now—the case some very powerful people are trying to make sure I quit working—may lead us to the answers we need. I can’t tell you everything right now, but Nessa’s name has come up several times in this investigation.” No less than the truth. “Which is only making me more determined to dig up the secrets someone has tried very hard to keep buried. I want to find out what happened to hen just as much as you do.”

Her face grew haggard, and for once she didn’t argue. “I know you do.” I nearly fainted, since that was the closest to saying something nice to me she’d gotten in years. “What—what can we do to help you?”

I bit back the sarcastic comment tickling my lips. Old habits die hard. “For now, you can stay here and keep safe. The fewer people they have to use against me, the more likely I can crack this case.” Her eyes grew shadowed. Cori’s lips tightened again, and even David seemed disappointed. It was obvious they all wanted to do
something.

I pointed toward the office door. “There’s a computer in there. Why don’t you dig up any old articles you can find relating to Nessa’s disappearance? Also, see if you can round up all the stories on the recent arcane disappearances, or unsolved arcane murders. I’m starting to think we
were
all wrong three years ago.”

Jessica tilted her head. “Wrong about what?”

“Maybe Nessa’s asshole ex had nothing to do with her disappearance after all. Way too many arcanes have vanished lately to be mere coincidence.”

Despite my halfhearted attempts to continue casting Dre in the role of supervillain, the evidence was pointing elsewhere. Besides the fact that no Mandate had gone out when Vanessa disappeared three years earlier, something else supported my growing suspicions. While Sidhe only had to
see
a picture of someone to cast a glamour, full-on, shape-shifting glamourie was another story entirely. They actually had to
touch
the person they wanted to impersonate while the person still breathed. There was also a time limit on using that person’s likeness, unless they personally killed the individual and consumed a portion of that person’s life force. I
highly
doubted any Sidhe would be stupid enough to murder a Fury and then beg another for help. We could make even the Afterlife a living hell for those who murdered our sisters.

Which meant that the Sidheborn woman whose corpse bore Nessa’s likeness had to have come into contact with her at some point. And that meant Nessa had, at least recently, still been alive. Waiting for us to find her.

GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU HELL-SPAWNED
bitch!”

Kiara bared her teeth at me, more in amusement than threat. She rolled her eyes and turned a pointed look on Scott. He bit back a smile, scooting close and pressing me onto the empty bed.

“Hell-spawned
son
of a bitch.”

They laughed, but neither backed down. I grunted and finally gave in with ill grace.
Healing myself
would be a hell of a lot easier. And less painful.

But I’d made that impossible by using magic to separate myself from the pain of my injured knee, rather than immediately healing it, or simply fighting through the pain without touching the wound with magic. A Fury’s ability to use her Amphisbaena to jack up her own superhuman healing had a very short shelf life. Either she healed the injury right away, or she dealt with the fallout. Not that I could have chosen otherwise and lived with myself. Scott would have died while I took the time to heal my injury, all just to avoid a little—okay, a hell of a lot of—pain and a potential lifelong limp. And that said more about my latent feelings for him than I wanted.

Being here, back in the bedroom where we’d spent so many nights together, had me longing for things I couldn’t have. Frustration colored my voice even hotter. “What are you waiting for? Either get me a shot of Jack or get on with it already!”

Kiara muttered under her breath in her mother’s tongue, one I could have understood if I’d bothered to expend the magical energy. But since I had a pretty good idea she was cursing both me and my lineage, that would have been a wasted effort.

Her hands were gentle as they touched the black-and-blue mess my knee had become, belying the curses and caustic glances she threw my way. Then again, Kiara had always reminded me more of a kitten than a hound when it came to temperament. Definitely the odd puppy out in her family, and the main reason she helped her mother run the shop rather than taking direct part in the mere business like most of her brothers and sisters. She moved my knee side to side, hands still gentle, but I hissed and tried to rise up off the bed as stars flashed in front of my eyes.

“Sorry.” She stopped manhandling my knee, turning to the basket of magical odds and ends at her side.

Not exactly a full-fledged magical Healer, like Oracles or Druids, she could still pull off some damned impressive tricks with’ that magical first-aid kit she’d concocted. I’d seen her save lives that might otherwise have been lost.

The pain faded to a more bearable level, and I relaxed my body. Scott loosened his grip on my shoulders, fingers beginning to knead rather than press downward. “Mac’s in the office, getting your family setup. He seemed impressed. And trust me, that’s damned hard to do.”

I nodded. David and Jess ran their own software empire now. They had started out as programmers themselves, and now they ruled the boards of several companies.

“It seems like they’re teaching Con to follow in their footsteps?” Scott asked, his head inclined.

His soft tone and firm touch helped distract me from the pain of his sister’s ministrations. “Yeah, though she’s usually much more interested in softball than software. Still, she knows a hell of a lot more about those damned things than I do.”

I could hear the grin in his voice. “Careful or you’ll sound like my father.”

My eyes fluttered closed. Damn, his hands felt like magic. “Didn’t use to hate them so much. Stupid police and their even stupider paperwork.”

“You’ve come a long way, baby.” Oh gods. He’d called me
baby
again. “From mere arcane liaison to Chief Magical Investigator. Can’t you pass off the paperwork to the peons?”

That had me snorting. “What peons? I have a hard enough time getting the mundanes on the force to cooperate during investigations. No way any of them will serve as my secretary.”

“No other Furies to help?”

“No go. There are barely enough Furies to handle the region’s caseload. Sure can’t pull one off cases to act as a glorified typist.”

“And what about other arcanes?”

I would have tossed him one of Con’s
Are you stupid?
looks if he could have seen my face. “You kidding? We’re lucky we got the mundanes to accept Furies as permanently attached liaisons. Shit, it took forever for me to convince them to let a few of us become full-fledged officers. No way in hell we’re getting other arcanes on the force so soon.”

His voice grew disgruntled. “That’s discrimination.” It was something that half mortals like Scott and me struggled with, never quite fitting in fully with either the arcane or mundane worlds. It was a wrong Scott had always been passionate about fighting. In fact, before he’d taken over the family business, I’d thought he might become one of the rare arcanes who actually won over enough mortals to serve in public office. But that’d been before he’d thrown over his high ideals (not to mention me) for his family and the almighty dollar

“You
know it,
I
know it,
they
know it. But the Time of Troubles—the War—is too ‘fresh in most people’s minds. Too many mortals die—--”

Blinding hot pain flared in, my knee, and then—nothing. Sweet, blissful nothing.

“There.” Kiara wiped her hands on an unused bandage and eyed her work with satisfaction. “That should hold you till you can see a real Healer. Just don’t overdo the running and fighting thing, okay?”

I touched the soft white cloth ‘wrapped around my knee. A heavenly scent wafted upward, making me sigh with pleasure. “What’s in that stuff?”

“A bit of this and that.” She pursed her lips. “I mean it about the no running and fighting, Marlssa. The spell on those bandages has a limit, and the more you exert your knee, the sooner it will wear off. And then the pain will be back full force, and if I’m not nearby you’re shit out of luck.”