I stepped out of the closet wearing faded jeans and a comfy sleeveless blue turtleneck, letting the billowing curtain at the door dissipate. Irish looked up as I came out, and just behind him, Honey looked me over critically and shook her head, as if giving up on me. She waved a hand at my clothes and mouthed, Really?

I put my eyebrows up with a What? expression, and Honey pointed at Irish, quickly crossing her arms to hide the gesture as Irish turned to look at her, frowning. He shifted to glance back at me, suspicious, and I made innocent eyes at him.

I turned and headed out the door. Shower: check. Clean clothes: check. Weapons were next on the list. My shadow scrambled along ahead of me, against the light, staying away from Irish as he and Honey followed along close behind me. It was like I’d adopted a couple of puppies, I swear.

“Tell me more about this Carl,” Irish said, as we went downstairs.

I crossed the parlor, into the kitchen, where Gene was ferrying equipment up from my basement workshop. He’d assembled a small pile of odds and ends on the kitchen island. I put an eyebrow up at the pile and the thought crossed my mind that maybe, just possibly, I should have put more time into making ammunition than magic towels.

To be fair, though, the towels sold better.

“Not much more to tell, really. Nice enough guy. Quiet, lived alone somewhere in the Metro area. He was an architect, so he always had money to spend.” I plucked my double shoulder holster rig up from the counter, putting it on. Gene had cleaned the guns and reloaded them for me. I checked the loads – the last of my dragon fire in the Baby Eagle, and more concussion rounds in the Colt. I had half clip of the void rounds left. My shield belt was there, too, but I wasn’t real impressed with how it had performed last night. Instead I buckled on a modified toolbelt, with lots of pockets, and stowed the void rounds in a pocket. Also, just for fun, two clips of regular bullets in the opposite pocket.

“Architect, eh?” Irish joined Honey next to the counter, hands in his pockets as they stared down at the pile of gear. My shadow slithered off the counter and fell into a puddle at my feet, and Irish pretended not to notice. “Who’d he work for?”

“Lots of people, but mostly for the city.” I sorted through the protective jewelry Gene had laid out on a black velvet cloth and a cast-iron jewelry tree. There was a brass locket with a little sepia-toned chameleon cameo on front and a carefully-wired chameleon brain calcified and mounted within; three small bronzed feathers on a leather thong; a silver pocket watch the size of a dime, the teeny gears inside painstakingly hammered out of mercury; and four rings, two plain gold, one Tungsten steel inlaid with elephant ivory runes, and one a thin grayish braid woven out of shark hair. You wouldn’t believe what a bitch it is to get a hold of that. Also, it itches. A bracelet made of thick rubber bands, intertwined and melted so they fused into one another, here and there. A small spritz bottle, the kind folks use for perfume, full of a thick white paste went into the belt.

“What’s all this?” Honey asked, picking up a mother-of-pearl inlaid scarab beetle and a shrunken head wearing a pair of tiny Ray-Bans.

I paused midway through putting in a pair of sapphire earrings that had an oily sheen over the stones. “It’s going to be a busy day. I’m loading for bear.”

“I get that,” she said, rolling her eye. “But… is this it? I thought you’d have, like… a whole armory of stuff.”

I took the scarab brooch from her, and pinned it to my shirt. “It doesn’t exactly work like that. Most of my stuff is unfinished. Waiting for a buyer.” When she gave me a blank look, I sighed. “See, an artifact that’s small enough to carry around almost never has its own magic built in. It gets that from the magician using it, and so I have to attune the artifact to the person who’s going to use it. The mage draws in magic from the city, and feeds it to the artifact, which generates the effect I built into it. You’re not a witch, so you can’t channel the magic, which is why that head in your palm isn’t activating and making your skin melt.” She dropped it, but didn’t flinch and didn’t look away from me. Points to Honey. “A generic artifact, one that any magician can use, is harder to make and a lot more expensive. Most of my clients prefer the cheaper route, and get an item attuned to them.”

“You’d think it would be the other way around,” she mused, turning away to top off her coffee.

“Like a universal remote,” Irish offered. “If it’s more versatile, it takes more programming to build one.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good analogy. Exactly right. So almost everything in my shop is waiting to be attuned to a buyer, see, Honey? I can’t use them. Likewise, the stuff in my workshop is mostly in-process. Unfinished. I’ve got some things I made for myself, of course, and I can use any of the generic items I’ve got lying around. But yeah, there’s not as much to choose from as you’d think.”

“Wait,” Irish interrupted. “You said Carl worked for the city?”

“Yeah.” I picked through some of the other odds and ends, adding several handfuls of gently glowing marbles to a pouch on the toolbelt and pocketing an ivory disc wrapped tightly with braided hemp, a pair of glowsticks wrapped in copper and silver wire, and several little folded packets of wax paper that buzzed ominously as I tucked them into yet another belt pouch.

“The city, where he’d meet people like the DA and the zoning commissioner,” Irish prompted.

I looked up, eyebrows crinkling together as I caught on. “Yeah…” I pursed my lips. “And probably the fucking deputy mayor, too.”

“What’s he got to do with it?” Irish looked up at me.

“Well, he was dead at the junk yard.”

“What?” Irish’s eyes went wide in a mix of surprise and outrage. “When were you going to tell me that?”

“Well, never, actually.” I tossed my hands up. “Why would I tell you that? He was there with Benny deAngelo.”

“Benny de – the vampire’s grandson? The mobster?”

“Yep.” I crossed my arms. Irish opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then just turned around, shaking his head.

“Benny’s gonna be a vampire too, now,” Honey supplied helpfully, sipping her coffee and settling into one of the bar chairs by the island. “A monster mobster.”

“What were they doing there?”

“Said he was meeting Brant for ‘family business,’” I said, making little air-quotes largely because I knew it annoyed Irish.

“And it didn’t strike you as a little weird they were there at the same time?” Honey asked, smirking at me. “Y’know, the same time as the Knights, and those mutated dogs I told Irish about? Those dogs being all warped and fucked-up means that the hollowman monster was there, too, right?” She started counting off points on her fingers. “And what with Carl, the deputy mayor, Benny, and then what’s-his-name, Polrowski? Oh, and the DA guy all being connected… you didn’t see that as being important? Did you even see the connection until just now?”

“I was busy, okay?” I could feel my face warming in a hot, deep blush. Being busy wasn’t all of it, I knew. My shadow had been so angry at another outlander in her territory, and so terrified at the proximity of the Irishman, that I was doing well if I could link up more than a handful of thoughts in a row. She was useful in a lot of ways, but sometimes… she affected the way I think so powerfully, so subtly. Like the way she’d lured me to the Polrowski house. And the way she made her priorities my own. Sometimes I felt like I was much less than a regular human in a lot of ways. Like being half-shadow made me almost like an animal.

My shadow writhed uncomfortably, registering my shame but not really understanding it. She did pick up on my thoughts about the dead men, and how they were connected. Wanting the bad feeling to stop, she seized on that idea and shifted in my head, poking at my memories. She flipped up a memory of the ruby ring Carl had been wearing at the bar, the ring he’d been wearing at the cemetery, the missing finger on the body at the Polrowski residence. She rolled backwards through my memories, causing a flickering slideshow of images to flicker in my head. I rubbed my eyes, and flinched as she tossed up the image she’d been looking for: Benny, dangling from the wall as I’d climbed up the makeshift ladder and the red glint of a ruby ring on his finger. That was immediately followed by the shape and feel of the pinky ring on the buried corpse of the Deputy Mayor. Without seeing it, it was hard to say for sure, but I was betting it was a match. “Fuck.”

Irish turned to look at me. His eyes were very cold.

“Benny had a ring, too. Maybe the D.M., too.”

“Well. Fuck indeed,” Irish agreed, as we stared at each other. The shadow purred in the back of my head, pleased to have proven her usefulness. “Were they all magical, too? You said the one Carl had at the bar was an artifact.”

I combed my fingers through my hair, holding it back out of my face as I stared at the remaining bits of equipment I hadn’t stowed away yet. “I don’t know. I’d have to touch them to be sure. But one touch is all it’d take. Like that tattoo on your back.”

“Wait, what?” Honey asked, perking up. “Irish has a magic tatt? Really?” Irish was looking at me with his mouth hanging open like a fish.

Gene came up out of the basement with my old wool frock coat, black and knee length, in one hand and my trusty machete in the other.

“Okay, time to go,” I said, snagging my coat from Gene. I slid the naked blade up the left sleeve of the coat, where it obediently vanished until I’d need it again. You never know when you’re going to need something sharp when vampires might be involved. I stuffed the rest of the odds and ends into various pockets, leaving the coat unbuckled so I’d have ready access to my guns and toolbelt. I added my smokes and my phone. “Car stopped moving. Come on.”

“How can you tell?” Honey glanced around the kitchen, possibly looking for some sort of warning light or signal or something.

“Oh, I can’t.” I pointed down at the amorphous black puddle huddling around my feet. “She can, though. Floor’s not vibrating anymore.”

“She?” Honey eyed the blackness, wary. I shrugged by way of answer, snagging a bag of Oreos and a honeybear out of the cupboard and stuffing them inside my coat. I headed across the cluttered parlor to the front door, pausing long enough to grab my boots and pull them on. They didn’t have the sure-footing enchantment last night’s heels had, but they were sturdier and did have a handy little gravity tweak that might come in handy later.

Honey followed, frowning out the window at the front yard. The grounds were a mess, having gone totally wild. Parts of the lawn had sunk, and returned to marshland. An alligator was sunning himself on the cracked pavement of the circle driveway. Boots on, I fiddled with the latch on the front door, and opened it to reveal the set of stairs that led up to the lid of the Barracuda’s trunk.

Irish caught up to us, having detoured to the sofa to grab his own guns and his sword. He belted them on, snagging his coat off the hook. It was looking pretty ragged, but probably better than nothing, and he needed something to hide the weapons, anyway.

Honey looked up the stairs, and leaned over to peek out the window at the sagging and mossy front porch. “Okay, that is so cool.”

I started up the stairs as Irish put on his coat, pausing half-way up. I could just make out some noise, quite faint, distant. That was the problem with a spatial distortion artifact like the House. Interacting properly with the outside was practically impossible. Irish started up the stairs after me as I reached up for the trunk lid.

“What’s that noise?” He asked, voice quiet.

“Dunno,” It was familiar, rhythmic, a thudding, whirring noise that I felt like I ought to recognize, but didn’t. I released the latch, and the trunk popped open, letting in a flood of industrial noise, Tejano music and yellow fluorescent light. I stepped up just as the car lurched, and nearly toppled out of the trunk. Someone yelled, “What the fuck?” and I caught my balance, glancing around.

The car was parked in a dingy, cold cement garage full of chopped cars, auto equipment, and Latinos in greasy clothes.

“The hell is all this?” I demanded, drawing my Colt. “Is this a fucking chopshop? Which one of you assholes brought my goddamn car to a fucking chopshop?”

Half a dozen wide-eyed young men stared at me, mouths hanging open, pneumatic tools forgotten in their hands. Their eyes widened even further as Irish came up the steps beside me.

“You!” I pointed the gun at a very young-looking kid holding my tire upright on the floor by my car. “Is that mine?” He looked down at the tire like it had just magically appeared there. Sort of like I had.

“Si?”

“You put that back right now.” He nodded, struck stupid by my appearance, mouth agape.

I stepped up out of the trunk, and everyone took a step back. Someone on the right hissed, “Didn’t you check the goddamn trunk?” and someone else answered in a shaky voice, “Yeah, mang, I did! It was empty! There was just a, like, dollhouse or some shit…”

I turned the gun on the first whisperer. “You. Are you in charge here?”

The guy who’d asked the question froze, eyes widening as he nodded at me and went pale. He had a red bandanna tied on his head and a fair amount of gray in his stubble, though he only looked about thirty years old. I noted a leather cuff on his wrist, and it made me smile. I couldn’t make out the kind of tooth attached to it, not that it mattered. I’d probably sold dozens of those cuffs over the last couple of years.

I didn’t recognize him, but he sure recognized me. “You – you’re – you’re the bruja. Black Alice. Oh, fuck me.”

“That’s right.” I turned to look at my car, as Irish stepped up out of the trunk with remarkable aplomb. The car was jacked up, but they’d only got the one tire off. This was the first I’d seen of the Barracuda since the accident, and it was in terrible shape. The driver’s side was dented and bashed in, paint job scarred by long, jagged scrapes all the way down to the bare metal. The back window was gone, as were the two driver’s side windows. “Oh, Jesus…” I said, trailing one hand down the rumpled side as I walked past it. “Look at my poor car!”

“We didn’t do that! She was like that when we found her!” he stammered. The front end was damaged, too, but not as bad as I’d feared. Still, both headlights were out and the grill was destroyed.

“Drop it,” I heard Irish growl, somewhere behind me.  I heard him cock that big .45 of his, and something metal clattered on the concrete. “Hands where I can see ‘em, ye little bastard. That goes for all’ve ye.”

I pointed at the guy with the leather cuff. “Come here.”

“I… I don’t want to.” He stammered, crossing himself. Eyes like saucers, his glance skittered around the room, taking in the faces of his little gang friends.

“Come. Here.” I stabbed my finger towards the ground next to me, and he hesitantly edged my way, trying not to shake too hard. His whole gang was watching him, so he probably didn’t want to look like too much of a quaking coward. “What’s your name?”

“Uh.” He shook himself a little. “George.”

“This is all yours? You good at what you do?” I gestured around the garage with the gun, towering over the poor guy. I had a good six inches on him even without my boots, so looming was pretty easy. He nodded. “Good. Excellent. Since you owe me one, you’re going to fix my car.”

“I…” He swallowed, hard enough I could see his throat bob. He glanced around the room, suddenly aware that all his boys were watching. “I owe you one?” he managed, putting a bit of a challenge in his voice. “How you figure that?”

“Well, you aren’t dead yet, are you? Even though you and your men stole my car?” I put ice into my voice, and willed my shadow out to fill the garage. She was still bursting with energy; it was easy, despite the size of the space. “You’re welcome, George.” He glanced around, noting the dimming garage and the sharpening shadows as my shadow went to work providing the proper mood lighting. George found himself in an island of light, alone, with me. The rest of the garage was suddenly very dark, and very cold. “I mean, if you can’t fix the car, I guess I could just kill the lot of you. It’s really no skin off my ass either way, George.” Just visible, large, frightening shapes began moving along the walls of the garage. Shadow-puppets, the lot of them, but impressive nonetheless. “It’d be easy. So easy,” I added… realizing with a trill of fear that I hadn’t mean to say that. My shadow, talking through me. That was new. The stereo sputtered and went silent, and the sound of rasping breathing echoed through the cavernous room. Somebody started whispering rapid Hail Mary’s in Spanish.

George had some stones on him. He fingered the leather cuff on his wrist, and looked up at me steadily. “Yeah, we can fix it. This – all this is just an honest mistake, is all. If we’d of known it was your car, we wouldn’t of touched it. Not after all you done for us. That’s fair. We’ll fix it.”

“Okay, then.” I patted his shoulder with my free hand, and he flinched away from my touch. The rasp of the shadow-puppet beasts went silent as they faded away and the lights returned to normal, though we left the chill in the room. “Pay attention: dents out, replace what needs it on the body, fix the headlights, do the cosmetic shit. You listening?”

He nodded, a single emphatic up-and-down of his head.

“Do not touch the engine. Those are custom parts. Do not paint anything. That’s a custom paint job.” He gave me that single nod, and I patted his shoulder again. “Good. You do it good, and you do it fast, and I’ll even pay you for your time. Fair?”

“Fair.” He started walking around the Barracuda, appraising the damage. I’d made my point, and now it was important that his people see that he was someone the Wicked Witch of the West Side treated with respect. It was good for his authority and his reputation, and as long as he knew not to cross me it was helpful for me, too.

“Okay.” I walked around behind the car again, where Irish was standing, gun in hand as he watched the rest of the gangsters. “Come on out, Honey,” I said, pulling my phone out. “I’ll get a cab, drop you two off home.”

“Just a minute,” Irish began, and Honey cut him off with, “Home? Alice, weren’t you paying attention? The bar burned down.” She was sitting on the third step down, leaning her elbow on the lip of the trunk, and rolled her eye at me as I glanced down at her. “And besides. My clothes are still in the laundry. Gene took them when I went to take a shower.”

“Well, okay, but what’s the bar got to do with anything?” I paused, scratching my head. “How did that even happen?”

“Oh, for…” Honey shook her head. “Didn’t you ever notice the bar was a house?”

“Yeah, but…”

“I lived in the upper half. It burned down when your asshole friend Carl went flying out of the joint in a, a –” she sat up, waving her hands as she tried to think of a way to describe it.

“Like lightning,” Irish supplied. “Arc lightning, blew out all the lights, caught something in the wiring. I was going to call the fire department, but – ”

“The insurance doesn’t cover smoke damage,” Honey cut in.

“She wouldn’t let me.” Irish finished, shooting me a wry look.

George was standing at my elbow. “Honey? Honey Cautivera?“

She smiled at him and gave him a little wave. “Hi, George. You told Maria you’d quit chopping cars.” She wagged a finger at him in a friendly scold. “But if you’re a friend of Alice’s, I can probably keep this between us. Sound good?” He swore under his breath and wandered away, muttering to himself. “Anyway, Alice, I’ll just stay here. You’ve got an internet connection in here, right?”

“Yes, but –”

“You burned my house and my business down. Least you can do. Besides, it won’t be long. Just until the insurance money comes in.” Honey stood up, ducking a little, so she didn’t bump her head. “Just lock me in. I won’t touch anything. TV works, right?” A couple of the gang boys were looking very impressed. Probably wishing their trunks had internet and TV.

“Yeah, but –”

“Try not to get killed!” Honey waved at me, and I watched her pull the trunk closed and she went back downstairs.

“But…” I glanced across at Irish, who smothered a grin and quickly gave me a straight face.

“Aye, and yer not getting’ rid’ve me so easy, either.” He glanced back towards the young men in the garage. They were sidling towards each other, whispering about where in the hell they were supposed to get parts for a Barracuda on short notice. I heard George tell them to shut it; they’d figure something out.

I holstered the Colt and shot him a dirty look. “Yeah? What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” I headed towards the front of the garage, thumbing my phone to life so I could look up a cab company.

“Fair question,” Irish admitted as I Googled a cab company and called them. I still wasn’t sure where I should go first. Gianna’s? The junkyard, to scrub any evidence? “So, Alice, what’s yer plan to find Carl? Or his pet?”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said as we stepped outside. He was right; I was clueless. Okay, then, that settled the issue of where to go first. I needed answers about this hollowman and what Carl had done to summon it – and Owen was the one to go to for those answers. I trotted down the street, peering up at the street signs as Irish stared up at the slate gray sky with some surprise. It had been sunny at the House. “Yeah, I’m at State Fair and Yacama,” I said when the cab answered. “I need a pick-up.”

“And who else was Carl working with? There’s a good question. How’re ye going’ to find that out?” Irish joined me at the corner.

The dispatcher quoted me a horrifying price, and I winced. Still, I was impressed they’d even come pick me up out here. “I’m going to Warren and West Grand Boulevard,” I told the woman. “How long?”

“Then there’s killing the beast. Ye’ve done that before, have you? You’ll manage that on yer own, too?”

I pushed the button to hang up and turned to look at Irish. “Fifteen minutes.”

“For the cab?”

“No, to walk down to where they will pick us up at.” I shook my head. “Apparently, we’re in a scary neighborhood.” I glared back towards the chop shop where two of the younger boys were peering around the open garage door at us. They ducked out of sight. It felt very good to be the scariest thing in the neighborhood, and I wondered briefly if I liked that idea or if the shadow did. I couldn’t tell. Shrugging it off, I headed down State Fair road, Irish falling in next to me. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why do you want to help me?” I shot a sideways glance at him. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “That is also a fair question, I think. Why would the legendary Irishman want to help me, a witch and a hollowman, and in the employ of one of the nastier vampires in the city? I mean, wow. I suppose if I wanted to piss you off worse I could think of something, but I’d have to put some work into it.” Hell, I hadn’t even mentioned the soul-stealing part yet. I pulled my cigarettes out and lit one up. “You’ve either come down with a sudden and vicious case of tolerance, or…” I puffed my cigarette thoughtfully as a hooker beckoned at Irish from across the street. Or maybe at me. She didn’t look picky. “…Or, you’re thinking to yourself, hey, maybe I could get my job back if I turn in two hollowmen, and maybe some Arcana secrets while I’m at it.”

“They have my daughter.”

“What’s that, now?” I flicked ash and looked sidelong his way again.

“My daughter?”

“Really.” I arched an eyebrow at him, dubious. “So now you believe me?”

He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out Cat’s cell phone, flipping it open. He frowned down at it, poking a few buttons, and handed it to me. I cupped my hand over the screen and squinted at it. It was a picture preview. The camera quality on the phone was not spectacular, but I could see it was a picture of Cat, taken in a mirror. She was standing with her back to the mirror, holding the phone over her shoulder, her profile in clear view.“You had this in your jacket. I looked through it while you slept.” Long pause, probably full of meaning, but I had no idea whatmeaning. “She looks like her mother.” Irish’s voice was quiet. “I never meant that for her,” he muttered.

I squinted at the phone’s little screen, holding it up against the weak sunlight so I could see the picture better. Cat had hiked her shirt up so she could get a shot of a tattoo on the small of her back. A tramp stamp. I smirked at that.

“You think?” I asked idly, tilting the phone a bit. There was a Vaseline shine across the tattoo, so I couldn’t make out all the details, but it looked like a lovely stained glass piece with tribalism accents. “I thought she looked like you. What is that design? Is that the Jerusalem Cross thingie like you have?”

He nodded. “Aye. The cross is the mark of an Inquisitor, though each of us can choose our own design. Personalize it.” He cleared his throat, and looked away. “There was a text message from Tanner’s number, too. In code. Ye couldn’a faked that.”

“Say, that’s right! I meant to ask you what that meant.”

“Kill orders on primary and secondary targets. All others belayed.” I didn’t need to ask who the primary and secondary targets were. That seemed pretty obvious. “You said the tattoo was an enchantment. An artifact, like the kind you make. What kind? What does it do?”

“I don’t know.” He got an angry look on his face, and snatched the phone away from me. “I really don’t know, man! From just one touch? There’s no way. If I had some time, and my workshop tools, I could work out what it does, sure.” If I’d had a second to think of it before now, I’d have assumed it was the source of the freaky superman abilities Irish had, but apparently not. Unless maybe the artifact operated on some sort of keyword? Had Tanner deactivated it somehow when he’d fired Irish?

If so, could I reactivate it?

“I see,” he said. He looked at the picture again, in silence, as we walked.

Neither of us said another word. Irish, lost in thought and looking at what they’d made of his daughter. Me, mentally watching my shadow, who was contemplating Irish thoughtfully. Her fear of him had diminished, maybe because she was stronger now than I’d ever let her become. All the power she’d fed on last night had added up. Or maybe it was because Irish was weaker? Whatever the case, she seemed to be appraising him very thoughtfully indeed. And while I couldn’t help but mirror what she was feeling, I had no idea what she was thinking.

“Is that the cab?” Irish shaded his eyes, squinting down the street.

“Shit. We’d better hurry.”

“We?”

I waved at the cab, hustling down the street as it pulled over.

I flicked my cigarette away, patting myself down until I found my pocket book, where Gene had tucked it into my coat pocket. I skidded up to the side of the cab, and the old black man sitting inside rolled his window down, glancing warily around the street. There were a handful of people out and about, but no one paying us any particular attention.

“Warren and West Grand?” He asked, with some skepticism.

“That’s us.”

“Is he got a gun?” He glared past me at Irish.

“Yep. Wouldn’t you if you lived down here?”

“I do live down here. And yes, I have a damn gun.” The cabbie cast a pointed look down the inside of his door, and I leaned a bit and peeked in, spotting the butt of what was probably a sawed off shot gun sticking up from the floor.

“Yeah,” I sighed, and pulled out a fifty, handing it in to the cabbie. “Come on, we aren’t robbing anyone.”

“Neither am I,” said the cabbie, glaring at the fifty until I took it back. “Get in the damn car.” Irish and I piled in the back seat, and the cab driver pulled out, heading for I-75.

“You’ll help me, then.” Irish kept his voice low, glancing towards the driver.

“Dunno what I can do to help. I think they mean to keep her. But yeah, I’ll see what I can do.” He smiled at me, and I flinched a little. I think that might have been the first genuine, happy smile I’d ever seen on him, and it was a little startling how much I liked it.

The shadow liked it, too, and I found myself smiling back at him without meaning to, while a shiver ran down my spine. I flicked a glance toward the cabbie. He had the radio on, playing country music just loud enough to lend a semblance of privacy. I kept my voice down, anyway. “I’m going to see Owen.” Irish nodded at me to show me he was listening, but he still wore that damn smile. I forced my face into my Very Serious Expression. “If you’re coming with me, you have to promise to behave.”

“Behave?” He lifted an eyebrow at me and shrugged. “I can do that. After all, I’m not under contract anymore to murder any of yer people.”

“Look, Owen’s not ‘people.’ But he is the expert we need to talk to. So if we want to make plans to –” I glanced toward the cabbie who was masterfully ignoring us and singing along with Toby Keith, then back to Irish. “If we want to make plans, then you have to play by my rules. Not Heinrich’s. Otherwise, we won’t get in.”

“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes heavenward in a show of exasperation. “I said I’d be good, din’ I?”

“No. Seriously.” I thought back to last night, and our conversation in my car on the way to the Ford plant. It seemed like an extremely long time ago, but I remembered his anger, they way he’d punched the dashboard at the mention of demons, like it was moments ago. “Irish, pay attention. This is important. We have to get through Security to see Owen.”

“Security?” That got his attention. He glanced my way again, more sharply, eyes narrowed. “What security?”

“It’s a…” I flicked another glance at the cabbie, and dropped my voice again. “It’s a demon.”

“Sure it is.” He ground his teeth, sitting back and crossing his arms. “Fine. However ye like.”

“Good.” I sat back, pushing my hair out of my face, and feeling like it probably wasn’t going to be good at all. “Because I was worried you’d be thinking it was just another Outlander, or maybe that you’d go all holy avenger when you met him. He’s a being from Hell, Irish.”

“Most demons are, aye.”

I sighed. “You don’t get it. Hell’s not Outside. Hell is something people made. Mankind did that, with their stories and their fears and their insecurities. This is a being made of hate and fear and doubt. It’s not ‘evil,’ not like you think of the word. It’s… just bad.”

Irish’s eyes had gone hard, and I could see him struggling against his upbringing. Finally, he took a deep breath. “And you know this for a fact, then.” He nodded. “But I don’t see the difference, really, between being ‘made of bad’ and being evil.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and leaned in close. “When you hunted down an innocent man, and put him to the sword because Tanner said it was the right thing to do… that wasn’t evil. That was bad.”

Irish sucked in a breath through his teeth and flinched away from me. He was very pale, and turned away to look out the window at the gray sky. “Ah. Right, then.” Another deep breath. “I see. So you’re saying it’s worse.”

“Much worse.”

Table of Contents / Chapter Twenty-Seven >>

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Photo credit: First Presbyterian Church, Detroit, by Whitewall Buick.