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  “Is that Str—is that Cin?” he asked, sniffing, peering into the car. “What gots to her? Is she all right?”

  “Yes, it’s Cinnamon, and she changed early. I’m sure she’ll be all right,” I said, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry—and you get points for not calling her Stray.”

  I opened the trunk, thoughtlessly exposing Cinnamon’s curled form, and the boy’s green eyes widened, drinking her naked body in the way only a teenaged boy’s eyes can. “Whoa.”

  “You just lost those points,” I snapped, pulling Mom’s death-blanket over her. Really, I was more angry with myself; what kind of mom was I to have exposed Cinnamon like that? Adopting a teen had left me missing a whole lifetime of mom reflexes I was just now learning.

  “Tully!” a sharp voice said. “You preps the room. I’ll tend to the stray.”

  Tully’s eyes widened again, fearful, and he darted off. I tucked Cinnamon into the blanket, picked her up, and turned to find myself facing a sharp-featured man with severe glasses and even more severely cut red hair. His clothes looked almost normal: a navy turtleneck and brown jacket, almost like a businessman. But his eyes were wrong, the pupils … off. Too wide, almost horizontal slits. He could pass for human. But just barely.

  “Here,” the werekin said, reaching as if to take Cinnamon from me and scowling as I made no move. Instead I just straightened, looking down at him, and the werestag reassessed. “Krishna Gettyson, day captain for the werehouse.”

  “Dakota Frost, Cinnamon’s mother,” I said, picking a hand out of the blanket and extending it to him awkwardly. “Thanks for taking us in. This was a real emergency.”

  “You aren’t the stray’s mother,” Gettyson snapped. His eyes flicked sideways to the car. “And you gots no idea how to take care of a were.”

  “Well, I’ll have to learn,” I said, meeting his eerie gaze. “And she goes by Cinnamon.”

  He just frowned at me, then cried, “Tully! Where’s the wheelchair?”

  “I can carry her,” I said. “She’s light as a feather.”

  “You’re an outsider,” Gettyson said flatly. “You shouldn’t even be here, and I sure as hell don’t intends to let you into the dens.”

  “I’ll carry her there myself and watch over her, or we’ll go elsewhere,” I said.

  “I won’t let you,” Gettyson said.

  “You think you can stop me? Mother. Cub. Do the math,” I said, and Gettyson tensed.

  “Dakota,” purred a warm, masculine voice, smooth as silk. “How good to see you.”

  A stern pale man stepped out of the darkness. A long-tailed coat clung to his trim form, and a glittering chain dangled from the pocket of his vest, but the overall effect was high style, not old fashioned. His once-frosted locks were now wavy and styled, but against his ivory-pale skin, his blond hair looked almost brown, and his blue eyes almost seemed to glow.

  Or perhaps they did glow. He was Calaphase the vampire, head of the Oakdale Clan, my second-best ally in the werehouse … and Revenance’s best friend.

  “Gettyson,” Calaphase said, smiling icily. Clearly the status of the Oakdale Clan had risen with the werekin. Last time I’d been here, Calaphase had been walking on thin ice, but now there was an edge in his voice as he warned the werestag off. “I’m sure we can bend the rules for Dakota—”

  “That’s a bad idea,” Gettyson said. “Every time we brings in an outsider—”

  “You said the same about me,” Calaphase said. “But haven’t we proven our worth?”

  As he talked, I realized this is how things started first time I met him. Calaphase had shielded me from his fellow vampire Transomnia, ultimately kicking him out of the clan. For his shame, Transomnia had beaten me and nearly murdered Cinnamon. Not again.

  “No,” I said. “Wait, Cally. I screwed up. Gettyson, I came here for help and then turned into an ass.” Oddly, Gettyson’s nostrils flared at ‘ass.’ How had that offended him? “I’m sorry. I just get protective about Cinnamon. Not too long ago, someone tried to kill her.”

  Gettyson just stood there, jaw clenched, and then I realized what pile I might have just stepped in: perhaps he wasn’t a werestag. So I decided to risk one step further. “And if you’re a were-donkey or something, sorry about the ‘ass’ comment. I didn’t know.”

  “Werehorse,” Gettyson said curtly. “There’s no such things as were-donkeys.”

  My mouth opened to correct him: from what I’d learned in school, you could make a werekin out of anything with a genome. Then I shut my mouth—there was no point in getting into an argument with him about his beliefs.

  “My apologies,” I managed finally. “I’ve never met a … a werehorse.”

  Gettyson’s nostrils flared, but he nodded as Tully pushed up a wheelchair, stopping just out of reach of Gettyson’s arm. “Apology accepted,” Gettyson said, in a tone that clearly indicated that it wasn’t accepted. “But no exceptions, and no outsiders in the dens.”

  I didn’t even have to think through it: I knew what waking up here alone would do to Cinnamon. “Then we go somewhere else,” I said. “Cinnamon has abandonment issues. I have to be there when she wakes up, or she’ll think I’m trying to get rid of her—”

  “Bull,” Gettyson said. “She knows you wants her in your entourage.”

  “She is wanted, but she’s not in my ‘entourage’,” I said.

  Gettyson reached in and grabbed Cinnamon’s hand, showing me the butterfly that I’d transferred to her skin the very first time I met her. “So why did you mark her?”

  “Maybe the Marquis ‘marked’ her when he took her in because all he wanted a canvas,” I said, “but I don’t do things that way. First, it was a free gift, no strings attached, and second, I’d have never transferred it if I’d known she was so young. Tattooing minors is illegal.”

  “Illegal?” Gettyson laughed, looking at me incredulously. He turned away, shaking his head. “Illegal. Of all the crazy—all right, all right. Set her down.”

  “I can carry her,” I repeated quietly. “She’s light as a feather.”

  Calaphase smiled again. “Give it up, Gettyson,” he said gently. “She’s the only person I know more obstinate than you, you old were-mule.”

  Gettyson just stared at me with those eerie eyes, as if he expected me to crack. His gaze drifted up and down, at Cinnamon, then my face, then my feet, then my face again.

  “She’s not getting any heavier from you looking at her,” I said.

  Gettyson snorted. “You can take her in, stay till she wakes. But that’s it,” he said firmly. “The moon will be damn near full before it sets. You gots to be gone before it gets too close.”

  I sighed. He wasn’t just determined to be an ass, he had a point. “Fair enough.”

  Gettyson nodded and led us towards the back of the werehouse, into the stack of offices and labs that had been converted into living space. There was no need of worry, they were just rooms and hallways, dirty, poorly lit—and covered with graffiti.

  I paused, staring at the dark, spray painted marks. Some of the lettering looked familiar, but they had little of the artistry and none of the movement of the tag that had killed Revenance. I shook my head, and descended the stairs into the depths of the werehouse dens.

  Beneath a dim bulb in a damp hallway was a wall of bars with a steel mesh door, locked with a deadbolt. Immediately I could see that it would keep in an animal with just paws, but a human could put his hand through the bars and let himself out. Gettyson opened the lock with a snap and took us in to a small cell with a cot and chair. It was surprisingly cozy.

  I laid Cinnamon down on the bed gently and arranged the blanket over her.

  “If you have any clothes for her—”

  “I’ll get some,” Gettyson said. “You needs to get a room like this.”

  “We’re having it built,” I said, patting Cinnamon’s head. “In the new house.”

  “Fine,” Gettyson said. “When … Cinnamon wakes, it would help me
if you’d vacate. She knows how to let herself out, but the other residents won’t take too well if they finds you in here.”

  “I’m all right, Mom,” Cinnamon said weakly, and I looked down to see her reach up and squeeze my hand. “It just had been so long. I’ll be all right. Someday, when I’m old enough to wrestle the beast myself, I won’t need these stupid rooms anyways.”

  “You had me worried back there,” I said, tousling her hair.

  “Afraid I was going to slit your throat?”

  “No, afraid you’d step on your iPod,” I said, holding it out to her. “Safe and sound.”

  Cinnamon took it from me, holding it to her chest like a teddy bear. “Safe and sound.”

  It killed me to ask, but … ”Are you sure you’ll be safe with it if you turn?”

  “It’s ‘change’,” Cinnamon said, pointing with one long finger at a cubbyhole beside the bed, “and there’s a change safe. Easy to drop in, hard to paw out.”

  “All right,” I said. Clearly they’d thought this through better than I had. But still, it was terrible to think of my baby all alone here. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m going to stay—”

  “No, Mom,” Cinnamon said. “Gettyson’s right. The others—they won’t like it.”

  I smiled. “So scratch me, we’ll fix that right up.”

  “Mommm!” Cinnamon said, sitting up in the bed. Immediately she winced and lay back down slowly, gingerly, like she was an old woman. “Don’t even joke—ow. Ow. Owsies. Don’t even joke about it. Lycanthropy sucks, I can tell you that.”

  “Muscle spasms?” I guessed, helping her sink back into the bed and pulling the covers back up. “Want me to see if Gettyson has any aspirin?”

  She cocked her head, ears flicking. “Ibuprofen’s better. He’s gettin’ it.”

  I leaned back slowly. “Never underestimate a werekin’s hearing,” I murmured.

  “Mom, ’s OK,” Cinnamon said, very softly. She was fading fast. “This was my room, this time of the month. Sometimes I just hangs here. You go. You do what you gots to. For Revy.”

  I had been trying to forget my next unpleasant task. “I will,” I said, squeezing her hand. “You be safe, sweet—” But she was already snoring.

  And she was right. I was putting it off. It was time to break the news to Calaphase.

  Time to tell a vampire I’d failed to save his best friend.

  Calaphase

  I looked up to see Calaphase standing by the door, smiling closemouthed. “Gettyson’s right,” he said. “Cinnamon knows how to let herself out, but the other weres won’t want you back in the den unsupervised, and neither I nor Gettyson can hang here all night with you.”

  I stared at the trim, rakish vampire, far upgraded from the goth-punk I’d first met. I avoided his eyes, and not just because he was a vampire: he reminded me of my failure.

  “Right,” I said. I frowned. Calaphase had turned out quite decent for a vampire, but I didn’t know how he was going to take this. “Calaphase, can we take a little walk? There’s something I need to talk to you about—about Revenance.”

  Calaphase’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared, but he kept his voice quiet. “Not here. Outside,” he whispered. Then he shook his head and hissed, exposing his fangs. “Damnit.”

  I squeezed Cinnamon’s hand one more time and left.

  Tully met us as we were leaving the cages. “Sir?” Tully said nervously.

  “What is it?” Calaphase said, not pausing as he tromped up the stairs. “I’m busy.”

  “They hit us again,” Tully said, backing up as Calaphase advanced. The young werewolf looked scared and really unhappy. “Right under my nose. I wants to tell Gettyson but—”

  “I’ll tell him,” Calaphase said crisply. “Go clean it up.”

  “Don’t you wants to see it?” Tully asked. “They hit us really good, I mean, pieced us—”

  “No, I don’t want to see it,” Calaphase snarled, and Tully flinched. “I’m done with that. Buff it over. I’ll tell Gettyson you’re doing it. Maybe it will save you a beating.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tully said, deflated.

  “What was that about?” I asked, a bit nervously. I was dreading this conversation, and wanted to talk about anything else. “What does ‘pieced’—

  “Vandalism,” Calaphase said sharply. “You’d think no werekin would be fool enough to do it, and no human skilled enough. But they’ve hit us again and again.”

  “You’re worried about vandalism?” I asked. “Here?”

  Calaphase glared back at me, a blue glint in his eyes that was more than just anger: it was his vampire aura, bleeding out into the air. “You think this place should look more shitty?”

  “No,” I said, ashamed. I was definitely dreading this conversation now.

  We emerged into the barren cavern of the werehouse. The last time I was here, it had been filled to the rafters with drums and fires and sweaty werekin and presided over by the monstrous lord of the werehouse, the Bear King. Lord Buckhead, the ageless fae sprit behind the wild revelry of Atlanta’s eponymous party district, had stood as my guardian when, before the hungry eyes of the crowd, I dueled another tattooist for the right to ink a werewolf. And a young stray werecat girl followed me home … and had rarely left my side since.

  Now, robbed of its heat and light, it just looked … decrepit. In the perverse gloom of the few shafts of twilight leaking in, even the huge metal throne of the Bear King lost its charm and looked like a pile of old Cadillac parts. Only the upper decks of the living quarters seemed the same: as before, they were filled with cold, inhuman eyes … staring, and waiting. I swallowed. Cinnamon could easily have been among those hungry eyes. Gettyson was checking a clipboard when he saw me, then jerked his hand, out! Not wanting to look back at those hungry eyes, I hurried to keep up with Calaphase. The vampire checked his pocket watch, then kicked the door open savagely, flinging it open onto the twilight with a tortured squeal of rusty hinges.

  As I followed, Gettyson called after me. “Frost, I—go on, get it done, cub,” he said, idly cuffing Tully behind the ear as the boy walked past with a can of house paint. “I wants the whole thing wiped. Anyways, Frost, you did good bringing her here. We’ll take good care of her.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I said, exchanging a sympathetic glance with Tully before following Calaphase out. Like the other werekin, his eyes were still hungry, but when not shrouded by fear and darkness, that glance looked less like hunger for flesh and more like longing for a normal life. I’d seen that look before. “But I’ll be back to be certain.”

  The door screamed shut in a sudden gust of wind, and I was alone with a vampire underneath the darkening sky. Calaphase didn’t seem to notice the sudden cold; he just kept walking, heels cracking against the pavement as he led us away from the werehouse, out onto a tongue of concrete that jutted out over the lower level of the parking lot like a pier. I followed the vampire uncomfortably, not sure whether I was really scared of being alone with him at night, or just filled with willies over having once again to be bearer of the bad news.

  “Tell me,” Calaphase said, staring into the distance, silhouetted against orange twilight.

  I told him about Revy’s death—as many details as I thought he could bear.

  “That’s … horrible,” Calaphase said at last, still staring into the distance.

  “Yes, it was,” I said.

  “Revy was my first, you know,” Calaphase said. “The first vampire I ever made. This is like … like losing a child. No, this is worse; a child can’t do for you what Revy did for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said flatly. I sympathized, though I didn’t approve—

  “I’ve never killed anyone, you know that?” Calaphase said, turning back to me, grim. “Never. Not even my master. Revy did that. He freed me. He made it possible for me, for the whole Oakdale Clan, to be something different. Even this shit job, guarding this dump … Revenance made it possible. Werekin normally hate va
mps, but at least here, Revenance changed that. He really cared about them, especially the cubs. I owed him everything.”

  He snarled and kicked a tire brake lying on the end of the dock; the rotted rubber triangle flew out over the parking lot and disappeared into the darkness.

  I stared at him in shock. I never expected to scratch a vampire lord and find so many layers underneath. I’d never asked about the relationship Revenance had with Calaphase, and now I found it was most important relationship in his life.

  And Revenance himself? I’d thought of him as just a second banana in a vampire gang—but to hear Calaphase tell it, Revenance had been a man of insight, protector of the werehouse’s feral children, perhaps even a protector of Cinnamon.

  I was taking people for granted a lot lately. When did I become such an insensitive bitch?

  I stepped up beside him, cautiously, deliberately grinding my boots against the pavement so my touch would not be a surprise. “Hey,” I said, rubbing the arm of his jacket. Unlike Saffron, his flesh was cold. “That’s OK. There’s nothing you could have done—”

  And then an awful scream rent the air.

  “Oh hell,” Calaphase said, whirling. “Not again.”

  We leapt down from the concrete pier, my knee immediately throbbing with pain. Calaphase ran like the wind, me, somewhat less so; but I managed to keep him in sight as he curled round the lower side of the werehouse’s main building and then stopped.

  “Help, help, it gots me,” someone screamed—familiar—the boy Tully?

  I wheezed and skidded round the corner and stopped next to Calaphase in shock.

  Paint cans—whitewash—were spilled about; half of it had already gone to cover a huge graffiti tag on the wall. But beneath the white paint something thick squirmed and bubbled—and where the paint ended, coiling tentacles twisted into the air, pulling hard at Tully, who was pinned on the wall by a massive band of graffiti about his chest.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out,” Calaphase was saying, picking up a long handled paint roller and holding it out to Tully like a lifeline. The boy grabbed for it, but a coiling tentacle reached out and snapped the handle in two—and then reached for Calaphase.