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that, give us a point of entry—and once we’re concentrating on him, we’ll forget all about you.”

He thinks about it. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Only it’s a her, not a he; human woman named Selkie, Maureen Selkie. She’s the one we deal with. I got no problem with giving her up, but getting in touch is gonna be tricky—the FHR is real cagey. Usually they get in touch with us, we don’t contact them.”

“Usually?” I say.

“We like to know who we’re doing business with, so after the last meet I had her followed. She’s good, almost gave my guy the slip, but he’s got a nose like you wouldn’t believe. Followed her even after she changed into a bird—”

“A what?”

“A bird—seagull, I think. Finally lost her when she went out over the water, but she made a stop beforehand. Irish pub named the Green Lily in the University District. Lotta ORs hang there.”

“That’s it? The name of a bar?” Charlie asks.

“It’s all I got. It’s all anyone’s got—ask around.”

“We have,” I say, “and you’re right.”

“So . . . we’re good?”

“Charlie?”

“I’m fine.”

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“Me, too. Thanks for asking. You, though, still don’t look so good.”

“Nah, I’ve had worse. That thing you used on me hurt, but try getting your teeth knocked out with a silver hammer.”

“Ouch.” I pull out my cell phone. “Still, you really should get checked out. I’ll have the radio car bring you to the hospital first.”

“But . . . I mean, how are you—”

“Oh, all this?” I wave my hand at the drugs and then shrug. “Not my department. Local cops will confiscate it, I guess.”

Sal still looks confused. In my experience, wiseguys aren’t all that wise.

The first thing Charlie says to me after the patrol car takes Sal away is, “Crosshairs?”

It takes me a second to catch the reference. “What, you don’t have scopes here? I mean, you’ve got crossbows, right?”

“Never had much use for one, myself.”

“You wouldn’t. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what? Yelling something about lumber? I spotted that falling stack on my own.”

“It’s timber, sandman. And don’t try to tell me you don’t have lumberjacks here.”

“If we did, wouldn’t they be called timberjacks?”

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“Good point. I’ll bring that up the next time I talk to Paul Bunyan.”

“No idea who that is. But I do know the name Maureen Selkie.”

So did I. She was a high-ranking FHR member, but little was known about her other than she was an Irish national. Now we knew who our shape-shifter was.

“I know that bar,” Charlie says. “Didn’t think it was an FHR hangout, though—just a human joint.”

“We’ll check it out, but I want to talk to Gretchen first, get the full work-up on Selkie. She’s the best link we have to the Impaler so far, and I don’t want her to know we’re after her until we’re ready to move.”

We drive in silence for a while. “Charlie?” I say. “Salvatore said the bar was a place where ORs hang out. What’s it stand for?”

He hesitates, then says, “Original Recipe.”

Yeah. It’d be funny if my entire species wasn’t on the menu.

Ordinarily, taking that big a shipment of drugs off the street would make me happy, give me a feeling of accomplishment. Right now, it doesn’t seem to matter worth a damn. So I prevented a bunch of pires from OD’ing or passing out in a sunbeam—so what?

They’re more likely to eat me than thank me. The ungrateful undead, that’s what I’m dealing with.

By the time we arrive back at the NSA offices, I’m in an ugly mood. We find Gretchen in the cafeteria, sipping a cup of Blood orange Pekoe and studying a laptop.

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“Congratulations on the Cloven,” she says. Gretchen becomes aware of important events outside her immediate vicinity approximately four seconds after they occur, less if they happen on the same continent.

“Thanks. Think Cassius will give me time off for good behavior? Didn’t think so.” I take a seat across from her. “We have a possible lead. Maureen Selkie.”

Gretchen gets right to work, hitting keys so quickly it sounds more like a burst of rattling than tapping. “Ah. Quite the busy girl. Involved in a number of terrorist actions in the last decade, including planting silver-laced meat in supermarkets in London and the staking of a high-ranking official in Belgium. Whereabouts currently unknown.”

“We have a report she visited a pub in Seattle called the Green Lily.”

More rattling. “Yes, that would make sense. It’s owned by her brother, James Selkie. If she were in town, she might drop by to see him.”

I nod. “We’ve also been told she’s a shape-shifter.”

Gretchen arches an eyebrow. “Very interesting. An Irish werewitch—that would explain her name, I suppose. A Selkie is a mythological Celtic creature who can assume different forms.”

“But she’s still human, right?”

“Absolutely. That sort of magic can’t be done by the other races—thropes are limited to one particular kind of change, and pires by their nature are unchanging. Golems—”

“Let me guess—lems are too stubborn to change.”

“Nah,” Charlie responds. “We just don’t see the need. Why mess with perfection?”

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“Golems’ largely inorganic nature excludes them,” Gretchen continues. “It’s something of a trade-off for all of us. We’re protected from transformation spells, but unable to perform them ourselves.”

“Right. But Selkie can.” A sudden thought strikes me. “Any chance she’s whipped up something to do her dirty work for her? You know, turned a crocodile into a manservant, that sort of thing?”

Gretchen frowns. “I would think it unlikely, but you should really ask Eisfanger. You think that perhaps the Impaler is a magical construct of some kind?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” My headache has returned, and I rub my temples with both hands. “We need to talk to Selkie, in any case. I’ll need surveillance on the pub, covert, twenty-four-seven. And some way to bring her down if she turns into a bug or a bird or something.”

“I’ll talk to Cassius and arrange it.”

“Don’t bother. I need to talk to him, anyway.”

Gretchen gives me a be careful look. She’s been invaluable in the last few weeks, showing me around, introducing me to people, helping me settle in. Charlie’s been around a lot, too, of course, but he’s not really the kind of person you can talk to. Not about some things, anyway.

“I know, I know,” I say. Cassius and I haven’t said more than a few words to each other since he gave me the wolf pheromones—and no matter how busy he is, I know when someone’s brushing me off. Either I was completely wrong about his bad-boy act, or he just thinks on a different timescale than I’m used to. Ignoring someone you’re interested
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in for three weeks is probably completely sensible behavior when you’re a few centuries old.

Not that I care. Maybe I’m demanding, but the one thing I insist on in a man is a pulse. And I don’t care how charming, intelligent, or attractive he may be.

I tell Charlie I’ll be back and march up to Cassius’ office. He tells me to come in before I knock on the door—his teeth aren’t the only thing that are sharp—and looks up from his computer when I walk in. “Yes?”

I don’t bother filling him in. Anything to do with this case is flagged and sent directly to him, and I’m sure he knew the details a split second after Gretch did. “Going to need some extra manpower. And weapons.”

“Already assigned. See Eisfanger about equipment.”

“Uh-huh. You know, I’ve finally figured out something.”

“What?”

“In extraordinary situations, ordinary rules don’t apply. And this is definitely far from ordinary.”

“It is an unusual case.”

“I’m not talking about the case. I’m talking about my employment status.”

He frowns. I’ve seen twenty-five-year-olds with more wrinkles. “Is this about the terms of your contract?”

“Not exactly. It’s about what the contract doesn’t say.”

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“I don’t—”

Call me petty, but interrupting him gives me a great deal of pleasure. “See, I’m not really an employee. I’m a freelancer, an independent contractor. No pension plan, no 401(k), no dental. And despite having me at a colossal disadvantage, you need me.”

Now he smiles. Negotiation is something Cassius understands the way a woodpecker understands trees. “It’s a little late to revisit your contract, Jace. And you’ll find I don’t respond well to extortion.”

I smile back. “Not my point at all. What I’m saying is that you can’t fire me.”

His smile changes. It’s not a smirk anymore; it’s the grin of someone who’s just gained a measure of respect for his opponent. I like it a lot better.

“And how do you plan to explore this newly discovered freedom?”

“Insults, I think. Possibly insubordination. Oh, and insolence—that worked really well for me in Japan. I’m sure I can come up with a few more, but for now just assume that if it starts with ‘in,’ it’s on my list.”

“Insufferable? Inept? Intransigent?”

I refuse to be drawn into a vocabulary showdown with someone who’s older than most words. “Don’t get me wrong—I want to catch this guy as badly as you do, and I’m not going to do anything to screw up my chances of going home. But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t march to your drummer. I see a No Smoking sign, I’m gonna fire up a cigar. Chain of command? Gonna yank it whenever I can. And you can forget about a dress code.”

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“Every day is casual Friday? Going to start coming to work in your pajamas?”

“I don’t wear pajamas, Cassius. But maybe I’ll show up in nothing but high heels and my underwear, just to make a point. Add another ‘in’ to the list. . . .”

“Well,” he says softly. “As you said. There’s really not much I can do.”

“Not yet, anyway . . . but I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Good-bye, Jace.”

“Seeya later, Caligula.”

He chuckles as I walk out the door.

“This should incapacitate her,” Eisfanger says.

Charlie and I study the contraption dubiously. We’re in the tech lab, looking at something Eisfanger’s cobbled together to take down Maureen Selkie, if and when she pops up.

“It’s a tether,” Eisfanger says. It looks more like the offspring of a deep-sea fishing rig and a stuffed octopus: a short rod and reel tipped with a black rubber bulb and a dozen thick rubber cables dangling from that. “You activate it by jabbing her with the end. The cables snap around and entangle her—they’re lined with superglue pods, so they’ll adhere and stay in place.”

“What if she changes into something tiny?” I ask. “She could slip right between the cables.”

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“Well, you have to nail her before she does that,” Eisfanger admits. “But once you do, she’s stuck. The cables are infused with Anaconda and Chameleon spirit—they’ll actively wind around her and squeeze. More important, they’ll attach to her on a metaphysical level, too; no matter what she shifts into, the cables will shift with her without losing their strength.”

Charlie hefts the thing. “How about the line?”

“Braided nanofiber. She might yank your arm off, but the line won’t break. And she’ll need a lot more than an ordinary blade to cut it.”

“Let’s hope she’s not carrying Excalibur around in her purse,” I murmur. “You’ve only got the one?”

“It’s a prototype. Try not to break it.”

My phone chimes. “Valchek. Yeah? Okay, we’re leaving now.” I hang up. “Selkie just showed up at the Green Lily.”

Charlie props the tether against his shoulder like a rifle. “So let’s go fishing.”

Back home, we’d take down a suspect like Selkie fast and hard: tactical strike team, body armor, sniper support. That won’t work against someone who can turn into a housefly or a cockroach, though Eisfanger tells me that the further away from human form and mass the more difficult the transformation is to maintain. Still, she only has to maintain it long enough to get away, which means we have to get close to her before she sees us coming.

The Green Lily isn’t strictly a humans-only bar, but I don’t see any obvious pires or thropes—there are, however, a number of golems, including a table full of workers with
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orange hard hats on the table in front of them. I wonder what they’re doing there—lems don’t eat or drink. Maybe they’re fans of Celtic music.

The bar itself is brightly lit, loud, and smoky. The air smells of beer and garlic. There are prominent crucifixes on every wall, and I get more than a few suspicious looks when Charlie and I walk in. I walk up to the bar and order a beer, scoping out the situation. Charlie sits beside me.

“That’s her at the table near the end of the bar,” I say.

“Yeah. That’s her brother with her. Don’t know the other two guys.”

“No, me either. FHR, or just locals?”

Charlie glances in that direction. “Associates or potential recruits, I think. Hard to say—

could be bodyguards.”

“We’ll assume they’re muscle. Don’t spook them. I think I can get close enough to nail Selkie without help, but hit ’em hard as soon as I’ve bagged her—not before. Got it?”