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"I ot to wonder, who&039;d ever buy one of these in the first place, right?" Grahaers were actually over the rabbed his wrist and pulled his hand back

"It&039;s old," she said quickly, as his smile slipped "I&039;m afraid it&039;ll fall apart if it&039;s handled"

"Sorry"

"It&039;s okay You couldn&039;t have known" But it was interesting that he&039;d gone straight for the artifact Was he testing to see if she knehat it was? She wondered what he&039;d have done if she hadn&039;t stopped him Hoould he have reacted when the severed paw squirrip? Not that it ardless Allie had no idea who&039;d made those first tishes, had no idea what they&039;d wished for, but she knew it had ended in horror and regret It always ended in horror and regret "If I had a choice, I&039;d lock it away out of sight"

"Don&039;t you have a choice?" That was the reporter asking Just a little too erandmother would like thatabout brushing his hair back off his face Would it feel as silky sliding through her fingers as it looked? "She&039;s coht?"

The aunties&039; opinion aside, it seemed safest to stick to the party line "She&039;s dead"

His face blanked for a moment before sympathy took over, but she couldn&039;t tell for certain if his reaction was to the news or the way she&039;d delivered it "I didn&039;t know" Not exactly the truth but his lies were better hidden than they had been "Itto her last week "It was"

"Forgive htly, he studied her through the shield of his lashes " but you don&039;t seem too upset"

"I don&039;t think I&039;ve really accepted it yet" And that, at least, had the benefit of being the absolute truth

Outside the store, thunder rolled, gentled by distance, and while the rain continued to fall, it was now possible to actually see the other side of the street The stor for the prairies

"Uh, Ms Gale"

"Allie"

"Okay" He didn&039;t step away from her s h that fabric touched-his open suit jacket brushing against her sweater Close enough shared body heat had war and fast under her fingertips A little faster than it should given it was the pulse of an apparently healthy youngrainwater onto a hardwood floor Allie suddenly realized she&039;d actually traced most of a char and swiped it clear as she released hier than necessary Gale girls took what they wanted

Down at the other end of the counter, her phone rang Long distance, but not one of the faet that?"

He expected her to say no Which, to be fair, was her intention She opened herWhat she actually heard herself say was, "I&039;ll just be a moment"

Telemarketers did not call Gale phones and she could count the nuers of one hand When an anonymous voice asked if she&039;d accept a collect call fro relaxed

"Charlie?" Allie ain?"

"I think I left it in Halifax"

"Left it? Where are you?"

" Brazil"

"What are you doing in Brazil?"

"I got pushed out of the Wood Four times now"

"Shit" She turned, her back to the reporter, her body curled protectively around the phone as though she could send that protection through to Charlie With her free hand, she traced a charainst the countertop, and her voice slid sideways, out of eavesdropping range "By what?"

"I couldn&039;t tell Shadows" Charlie sighed, bone-deep weariness apparent in the sound "Well, shadow, singular, probably I think it was the saht?"

"I&039; I&039;ve eaten for the last six years, but yeah, I&039;ht I&039; to keep me from you"

"What?"

"For fucksake, Allie, pay attention I said, I think"

"I heard you" Fear, not for herself but for Charlie, sharpened her tone "That was an exclamation of surprise, not a request for you to repeat yourself If you can&039;t get to entled her tone, pulled Charlie back froo in, fucking shadow bounces me out Doesn&039;t matter where I&039;m pointed"

"Then why do you think it has to do within the way the Wood changes, okay? And yeah, I know that doesn&039;t make sense to you, but it does to me, so be careful Don&039;t trust anyone outside the family I&039;s called planes"

"Yeah, but they suitar" Allie could hear Charlie sot the cash to?"

"Credit card I&039; in about forty-five h" She could hear paper rustling and maybe, now she knehat to listen for, a distant security announcement "It&039;s Rio to San Paulo to O&039;Hare to Denver to Calgary Thirty-six hours and fiftyon Saturday if there&039;s no delays except that I&039; inevitable"

The layout of the runways at O&039;Hareeast sketched a dark charo with any regularity, they&039;d have done so about it As it was, it was easier to just to avoid the city

"Wait a ary?" Allieback south before you go north"

"Beggars and choosers, babeAt least I&039;ll get caught up on some sleep"

Charlie didn&039;t have her phone; she&039;d have thirty-two hours and twenty minutes of peace and quiet "You haven&039;t called the aunties yet, have you?"

"Figured you should get a heads up first"

"You&039;re too good to me"

"I know it"

"Charlie"

Charlie&039;s interruption was more of a snort than a snicker "I&039;ll be careful if you keep fro stupid"

"Define stupid?"

"Bite me"

"Love you, too"

She pressed a kiss to the phone before she closed it and turned back to Graham His brows rose, and questions about why he suddenly couldn&039;t understand a word she&039;d said swam just under the surface of his expression "Problem?"

"Unexpected travel screwup" She still needed to knohat he knew, but she really didn&039;t need the distraction of his eyes and his scent and his smile and his hands and all the lovely that cheap suit was covering while dealing with the inevitable calls fro

"Cousin"

"In Brazil?"

"Yes" But that much he&039;d overheard "She&039;s a o" He didn&039;t want to, and he wasn&039;t bothering to hide it Easy enough to see that his desire to stayconfir on With the store With her grandmother With a cousin in Brazil She could alht he had But that wasn&039;t the part he let her see; she took a look at that all on her own The part he let her see had more to do with her, personally, and she really wished she had the tio" Her fingers tightened around the phone "It&039;s going to get very family around here soon"

Graham smiled at that, like he understood what she meant He really didn&039;t He really couldn&039;t, but she appreciated the thought and caught herself wondering about his faain To talk about the store For my article"

Nice save She wondered why he felt he had to , but that didn&039;t nificant other attached "How about coffee toood"

"I&039;ll see you around eleven, then"

"Great"

Graham hadn&039;t expected to have quite so visceral a reaction to Alysha Gale He stepped wide off the curb avoiding a puddle, ignored the shouted, Watch where the fuck you&039;re going! fro he&039;d ever looked for in a wo-and tried to start thinking

He could do this He could do his job and keep it froht, and the cheap piece of shit hadn&039;t been ruined in the rain, it was only a little better than seventeen hours until he could talk to her again

Lying flat on the roof, holding a directional microphone instead of his rifle, he watched Alysha Gale walk down 9th to the twenty-four hour convenience store at 11th Street She&039;d headed out to shop almost immediately after she&039;d closed the store and received two phone calls on the way down the street-two liters of s, and three lemons-three calls on the way back This particular microphone could pick up fly farts at three kilometers, but he had no doubt she could block it if she cared to

Strangely, she didn&039;t care to

"I&039;&039;s fine You know as n of her I&039;d rather you didn&039;t, I can ain Her end of the conversation barely changed there and back

Maybe her lack of concern for eavesdroppers wasn&039;t that strange after all

The sound cut off when she reentered the store; before she&039;d disappeared, the old woman had put security in place even his boss couldn&039;t crack The boss had upped his own security the moment Catherine Gale showed up on the radar Given the security he&039;d already put in place, that was saying so

"She obviously doesn&039;t know I&039; to keep it that way"

Given what he&039;d been told about the Gales, the youth of this newest family member to show up in the city had coe had the potential to be dangerous adversaries, but in the older women, all that potential had been realized and they were apparently borderline bugfuck besides Was the girl a trap? Was her function to lull them into a false sense of security? Distract theathered?

He could wait here and hope she left the building again, or he could be

Six aunties, her mother, Charlie&039;s ot the one call she wasn&039;t expecting

"Do I need to come out there?"

"David?"

"I&039;ll be finished with the job I&039; currently in seventy-two hours, but I can be there in forty-eight if you need me"

Phone trapped between ear and shoulder, Allie broke the third and final egg onto the third and final cup of flour "To do what?"

"Mom says you&039;re in trouble"

"Me? Charlie&039;s the one who got bounced"

"Four tiet to you"

"It didn&039;t "

"But she said it had to do with you"

"Nothing&039;s happening here" As the ancient, upright lanced over at the , opened her ain She didn&039;t need to bring big brother all the way to Calgary to chase shadows "There&039;s no sign of Gran, and I hired a leprechaun to work in the store"

"A leprechaun?"

"Yeah"

"Full-blood?"

"Changeling"

"The family doesn&039;twith him" Hadn&039;t even occurred to her actually, and that was a bit weird; he was cute in a scruffy sort of way "He needed a job and, if I&039; on, I needed part-tio, David"

"What&039;s a leprechaun doing in Calgary anyway?"

"He tellshere" She hadn&039;t been able to find a tube pan, but a bundt pan would do

"I&039;ll be there in forty-eight hours"

"Not those kind of things"

"You sure?"

And she convinced him that she was For all his power, David was still a Gale boy, and they took Gale girls at face value It was safer that way

The traditional way to catch leprechauns was to sneak up behind the particularly obsessed if they&039;re whistling People in his line of ho relied on folklore rather thanOr wish they had

He stared at Joe through the night vision goggles-the changeling had one foot up on the park bench, tunelessly whistling "Miled with a knot in one bootlace-thought about irony, and hit hi those in the knoas that, as well as overwhel temporary paralysis, a Taser could be used to disrupt the more exotic abilities of the Fey He hadn&039;t actually seen Joe use any of those exotic abilities, but the redundantly careful lived longer

Cable ties were in place around griiven the Fey&039;s accelerated recovery tiy clothes, the boy-Not a boy, he rely thin Maybe he&039;d swapped bulk for height Didn&039;t matter Facedown on the asphalt path, hands secured in the small of his back, a knee between his shoulder blades and the end of the silencer tucked under one pointed ear, Joe O&039;Hallan wasn&039;t going anywhere

"Blessed rounds," he growled as Joe tried to twist his head far enough to see his attacker "Stay still"

The changeling froze, hisoff the effect of the Taser From this point on, it was the threat of a true death and the belief that his captor would pull the trigger that held him A full-blood just up from the UnderRealm wouldn&039;t believe the threat-it would take a certain kind of scary crazy to go up against the Courts-but Joe had been living Huh he probably had no idea he was protected

"We talk, then you can go" Using his free hand to pull the back of the sweater down, he pressed the pendant against the daoose bumps rise at the touch of the coolin the city?"

As the silence extended, he thought maybe he&039;d been a bit too obscure He hadn&039;t wanted to give away any answers, but perhaps what&039;s happening hadn&039;t been specific enough Then the changeling shivered as though he&039;d worked his way through to the actual question, snorted, and said, "I knohat&039;s coh, don&039;t I? I&039;ive a fuck who sees the stupid either! Best way to deal with them is to keep your head down"

The pendant forced the truth Anger added the flourishes-the Fey hated being bested by Huer usually added the flourishes In this case, it sounded a lot more like fear

"Have you had word from the UnderRealm?" If he had, he&039;d knohy as well as what

"No They don&039;t give a fuck about me, and I wouldn&039;t listen to the fuck ers if they did!"

It see hadn&039;t learned not to let sentiment stand in the way of survival Good And Alysha Gale hadn&039;t been given even the minimal information he had about their visitors Better

Still that did raise the question of what he&039;d been doing in the store for so long

"I&039;?" There were any nuth and speed could be useful for "What are you doing?"

"Selling shit"

"Selling shit?"

"And going for coffees"

"You&039;re working retail?" That was unexpected "Why?" He repeated the question with a little more physical emphasis when the silence extended

"I think" Pureblood or not, the changeling&039;s voice had nothing of the UnderReal and terrified than immortal and devious "I think she felt sorry forto feel a bit uncomfortably like a bully and had to remind himself Joe O&039;Hallan was not Human

He wanted to ask specifically about Alysha Gale, to see if the details of her story changed with her audience, but ru when they were the topic of conversation, and he didn&039;t want to risk tipping her off

Pressing the gun just a little harder against Joe&039;s head, he slid his knife blade through the ties, and freed Joe&039;s hands "If I wanted you dead, you&039;d be dead" Muscles tensed under his weight, a clear indication he&039;d been believed "Talk about this, and I&039;ll want you dead"

"I&039;! I swear!"

The pendant felt warm as he dropped it into his pocket "Count to fifty before you get up"

Allie told herself that the time difference had hauled her ass out of bed at dawn, but standing at the , hands cupped around aof coffee, she knew that was a lie Mostly a lie After the cake caht cataloging the contents of the spare roo, so the two-hour time shift had certainly helped her haul her ass out of bed

If the shadow returned, then yesterday&039;s pass over the store hadn&039;t been random

And?

And then yesterday&039;s pass over the store hadn&039;t been random

There really wasn&039;t a lotat that speed could ieons crowded back under the newspaper box, she braced herself

There

And gone

And not alone

"Great" Allie finished her coffee in one long s "We&039;ve got dragons"

"If Catherine allowed herself to be eaten by a dragon, I have no syin sacrifice, which she h to avoid"

"They knohere the store is, Auntie Jane"

"Of course they do, they can sense the power If you follow the every power signature in Edary"

"Are you asking me to join you there?"

"No!"

"Then don&039;t start coons are not this fa pause, Auntie Jane sighed "Yes, unless one ate your grandmother"

"How do I?"

"Oh, for pity&039;s sake, Alysha, just consider it for a moestible bits"

She was al

When she paused in front of the ons?" her reflection lifted a familiar tabloid The headline read "Not all THUNDER LIZARDS Cohtly less strident type, "Thousand-Year-Old Lizard Baby" She orried for a ons when she saw that the date on the paper was closer to the end of theto tell Graha the fra she could use the ninety

Joe sat tucked up into the slass, arms wrapped around his knees

Allie dropped her laptop on the counter and hurried across the store When she turned the lock, his head jerked back and he stared up at her ide, terrified eyes Then he blinked and only looked tired as he pulled hiainst the door

"Joe? What are you doing here?"

"You want me hereYou do want me here?"

"Of course I do I only meant that it&039;s early"

"I don&039;t"

have anywhere else to go

The subtext was so loud, he ht as well have said it

She stepped aside and watched how his shoulders relaxed when he crossed the threshold Whatever had happened to him, he believed it couldn&039;t follow him into the store She hated to disillusion his up to keep anyone out She&039;d just wanted to knoas co

When the lock snapped into place, he raised a hand and brushed his hair back out of his eyes He probably figured that Allie&039;d ignore the way his fingers were tre

Not likely

"Have you eaten?"

"What?"

"Breakfast? Have you eaten? No, of course you haven&039;t Come on, then, upstairs I&039;ll make pancakes"

He stared at her in disbelief "You&039;ll what?"

"Make pancakes Unless they call them flapjacks out here in the west, then I&039;ll make flapjacks"

"Upstairs?"

"It&039;s where the kitchen is" Hand in the small of his back, not terribly happy about the way she could feel the knobs of his spine through his sweater, she moved him across the store toward the other door

"I can&039;t" His need for sanctuary rolled off hi her, he hadn&039;t even stopped walking, but he needed reassurance

"Why can&039;t you?"

"Your grandmother"

"Isn&039;t here I a"

If he&039;d been Human, he wouldn&039;t haveeach leg to rise and pull himself up the next step She didn&039;t help, but she made it clear she&039;d be there if he fell

When he was standing, staring stupidly around the apartentle shove toward the bathroo to run a load of laundry, and I can easily throw theot sweats you can wear until they&039;re dry"

"Niko?"

"Misprints There&039;s a couple of boxes of them in the spare roo enough energy to argue "Pancakes will be ready when you are"

He blinked at her, shook his head like he couldn&039;t quite believe he was doing it, and shuffled off to the bathroo bon off the shelf Twenty-four years of handling Gale boysDavid to the table since she was five

When Joe sat down, his hair tucked wet behind his ears, points exposed, she slid a plate of six stea around as the plate they were on and half an inch thick-in front of hiotthe bottle across "There&039;s a bottle of blueberry syrup in the pantry, but since it probably came from Auntie Jane, it&039;d be safer if we didn&039;t open it"

"She charmed it, then?"

"If she made it for Gran, she likely poisoned it"

"Poisoned?" His voice rose a little on the second syllable Not quite far enough to be called a squeak

"Apples arefor blueberries"

"You&039;re kidding?"

Allie set cold"

The first forkful dripping with butter and syrup slid tentatively between pale lips The second forkful rose a lot ood!"

"Of course they are" Allie had two smaller pancakes on her plate, mostly just to keep him company while he ate When he finished, she sht?"

While it was true that the way to a irls tended to believe food should be more inclusive

Joe pushed the last bit of syrup around his plate with his fingertip "I got juot juary had soed

"He knehat I was, didn&039;t he? Tasered me first Tied ently pushed the sweatshirt cuff up Not even the faintest residue of a binding

"Well, it wasn&039;t just the ties, was it? I could have broke theers tapped his head just below his right ear "Told me he had Blessed rounds, then he asked me what I knew Asked if the UnderRealm had been in contact with ons"

"I&039;ve seen thelanced toward the"Well, seen the"

"No, it&039;s not They&039;re"

Bigger Scalier Toothier Definitely scarier in person "It&039;s okay I know Has the UnderRealm been in contact with you?"

"No, and like I told hi listen if they had Then he wanted to knohat I was doing in the store I told hi here" His eyes widened as he suddenly realized what he&039;d been saying, and he yanked his hand free "You enchanted me!"

"Yes"

"He told me he&039;d kill me if I told anyone!"

Allie kept her tone matter-of-fact "Hoill he know you told You can&039;t lie when it&039;s on you! He&039;ll know I told you and he&039;ll kill me! He had Blessed rounds! True death!"

"Joe! Stop it!" When he froze, she took his hands, thuain, he&039;s in for a surprise"

"What have you" He stared at the backs of his hands, eyes wide, the chared "I just did"

"You don&039;t speak for your whole family!"

"Actually, we all speak for the whole family" She knew better than to look deep into his eyes so she stared sincerely at a freckle in the middle of his forehead "That&039;s what family is, Joe, we stand by each other, noto poison your grandmother!"

"Doesn&039;t count If I call, they&039;ll come If he touches you, he&039;ll know that"

"And if he shoots me from a distance?"

"Then it won&039;t enda"

Joe frowned, shifting the freckle "That&039;s not particularly co!"

"Sorry He didn&039;t happen to enda was, did he? I mean, the level of threat does not , big threat" She spread their joined hands apart, then ether "Little bitty questions"

"He wasn&039;t after explaining hi"

"Pity"

"You think he had sorandrandmother disappeared, and now there&039;s an ar at her store My store There&039;s got to be a connection There&039;s the wash done" She let go of his hands "I&039;ll just toss everything in the dryer"

He rubbed his right hand over the back of his left and had no effect on the charm "What does it actually say?"

"It&039;s coht of him translucent one day and panicked the next, curled up on her doorstep terrified, and gentled her voice " it says, hands off"

He see to him

A more accurate translation would bethe store"

"Who?"

Allie rolled her eyes and glanced toward the bathrooer "I don&039;t knoho, Auntie Jane But he carries a gun with Blessed rounds and has access to an artifact charmed to force the truth"

"It&039;s entirely possible he bought the artifact frorandmother," Auntie Jane snorted "I assu the fa broadcast to all and sundry?"

"Yes, but"

"Then let hi, he&039;ll have to coh the door"

"And then?"

"Oh, for pity&039;s sake, Alysha Catherine, use your iination"