Fair Game (Alpha and Omega #3)

"I don't think Fuller is going to let any more witches into his morgue in the near future," said Heuter as he bit into the piece of half-raw steak on his fork.

"That was the creepiest thing I ever saw," said Leslie, who was eating her salad and not looking at Heuter. Anna couldn't decide if she was a vegetarian or just didn't like watching someone eat raw meat. Maybe the visit to the morgue had something to do with it.

"The witch or Heuter's bloody steak?" asked Anna, taking the first nibble of her cheeseburger and deciding she approved. She'd ordered six cheeseburgers on two plates - all medium well. Yes, she preferred rare, though before she'd been Changed she liked very well-done. But she didn't eat raw meat in front of strangers.

"Heuter's eating habits are pretty creepy," Leslie said. "But I was talking about the witch. At least she told us some things we didn't know."

After they'd left the morgue, Leslie had called Goldstein with an update. From what Anna could tell, he'd been pretty excited because his voice had even sped up for a word or two. When she'd finished, Heuter recommended a restaurant with good food and outdoor tables where they could talk without having to fuss about Brother Wolf.

The waiter's eyebrows had risen when Anna ordered so much food. He'd protested when she put the plate with four burgers down for Brother Wolf, but had shut up when Leslie produced her badge and said, with a nod, "Werewolf."

There had been a quick switch in waitstaff, and the new waitress had asked if she could get Brother Wolf a bowl of water (yes) - or if he'd like something else to drink (no). Anna figured that waitress had just earned a pretty big tip. From the smile on the waitress's face, she figured so as well.

"That was wicked fun, how you yanked the witch's chain," Leslie told her. "Until then I hadn't realized she was just trying to freak us out."

"Umm," answered Anna, taking a bite to give herself time to think.

Brother Wolf looked up and focused on Anna. Okay, she was here to share information. Might as well do her job.

"She wasn't trying to freak you out," Anna told them. "Isaac told us she wasn't very powerful. She didn't have the control to keep up appearances in the presence of the death magic on the boy's body. I was trying to distract her, get her focused on me, so she'd tell us something instead of doing something dumb that was going to get her shot."

"Shot?" Heuter asked.

Anna smiled at him. "Guns are quite easy to smell. You should see about changing up the holster in the small of your back. You have to reach too far for it; it takes you too long. Try a shoulder holster or get some more practice." The bun had been toasted with real butter and the meat seared on charcoal. Anna ate a few fries to put off starting on the second burger.

"And you need to wait until you're sure you are going to draw before you reach," agreed Leslie. She smiled at Anna. "Cantrip doesn't require the same weapons training that we get at Quantico."

Something cold came and went in Heuter's face before he resumed his bland appearance. "Right. There's been some talk about changing that. I'm afraid most of the shooting I've done is with a rifle. My folks are from Texas and we have a place in upstate New York where we go hunting every year, too - hunting is a family ritual. But that witch..."

"Creepy," said Leslie with a nod. "I wish she had been faking it. Did either of you recognize the name she gave us? Sally Reilly?"

Anna shook her head. "No, but I think Charles did. I'll talk to him when he changes back and let you know."

Leslie frowned and started to say something, then glanced at Heuter and stuffed her mouth with salad instead.

"According to Wiki," said Heuter, reading from his phone, "in 1967, Sally Reilly wrote a book called My Little Gray Story Book." He looked up and grinned. "It was a play on the My Little Red Story Book series of readers in use in elementary schools. My Little Gray Story Book was an underground sensation, and when the second book, A Witch's Primer, hit the stands three years later, it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Sally Reilly was beautiful, shocking, and funny and became an instant, if small-time, celebrity. The books were less how-to books than here-is-my-life-as-a-witch books. She did a few talk shows, including The Mike Douglas Show, where she straightened some spoons bent by Uri Geller without touching them the day after the famous Israeli psychic appeared."

"Witches can't straighten spoons," said Anna involuntarily. Witches did things with living and once-living tissue - blood and bodies and stuff like that.

Heuter tipped his phone at her. "It's on Wiki."

"I've never heard of her," said Leslie. "I know about Uri and his spoon bending. Did something happen to her? The witch seemed pretty sure that she's dead, and Charles, according to Anna, thinks that she was a victim of our serial killer. What does Wiki say?"

"Wiki doesn't say," said Heuter. "Hold on."

"My dad talks about the sixties and seventies as a heyday of New Age thinking before the New Agers," Anna said. "Lots of free love and Wicca and magical thinking."

Heuter, still searching the Internet, nodded. "The Victorian era was the only thing that came close to it. Ouija boards, seances, games that tested whether people could read minds. Then, because everyone was doing it...it became less mysterious, less shadowy, and more...ridiculous. Interests changed."

"So maybe our Sally Reilly just disappeared from public view as the world gave a yawn," suggested Leslie. "Is this going to help our missing girl?"

Heuter didn't answer her question. "There are rumors of a third book she wrote and printed only a few copies of - Elementary Magic. When I get back to the office, I'll check our archives, see if we have it in the library. I should also be able to find out what happened to her, or if she's still around."

"The witch seemed awfully sure she was dead," said Anna. She hadn't been lying.

Heuter snorted and a scowl marred his handsome face. "That witch was...well. I wouldn't trust her to know which way was up."

"She gave us Sally Reilly," Anna pointed out.

"Which was more than we'd managed to get out of any of the other witches the FBI consulted with on this case," agreed Leslie.

Anna finished her last cheeseburger and retrieved Brother Wolf's empty plate, stacking them together on the table. She tried to see any way she and Charles could be of more help.

"Maybe if we went out to where Jacob's body was found, we might be able to find something more," she said slowly. "He was the last victim, before Lizzie?"

"Right," Leslie said. "Was he fae or werewolf - could you tell? Dr. Fuller said his parents were Baptist. That doesn't quite go with the whole supernatural thing."

Anna blinked at her a moment. She hadn't thought about that. Why had their killer reverted to killing humans again?

"Fae," said Heuter. "His father, Ian Mott, is listed in the fae database at Cantrip as full-blood fae and Jacob is clearly listed as half-fae. I ran the list of victims after we talked yesterday. Cantrip's database is far more extensive than the official one."

"Is it?" asked Anna; then she took a quick drink from her water glass to disguise any expression she might be showing. If Jacob Mott had been any sort of preternatural, she'd eat her hat. He hadn't smelled fae - and even half-bloods smell like fae. Wasn't it interesting he was listed as fae in Cantrip's database? Maybe the killer was finding his victims in the same database. Even so, shouldn't the fae who'd stolen Lizzie away be able to tell Jacob Mott hadn't been fae? She didn't really know if one fae could tell if another one was around, though she suspected it was so.

Charles was watching Heuter with sudden interest. How she could tell it was Charles and not Brother Wolf was...like how a mother of twins knew which one was which: less about the small details and more about instincts.

Heuter looked at Anna as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Oops," he said. "I don't suppose you can forget that."

"Don't want anyone filing paperwork to see if they are in that database of yours?" Leslie asked. "One of the fringe benefits to working with Cantrip or one of the other, smaller enforcement agencies in the government is that no one ever thinks to file on them with the Freedom of Information Act."

"You'd be surprised," said Hueter in a voice very nearly a whine. "The people who use FOIA do it extensively and well. Answering those requests is the job we give newbies - and that includes Important Senators' Sons, like yours truly, too." He grinned, showing that he didn't think that made him any more deserving of privilege than the rest of the newbies. "But not even the powers that be could keep me there for long. Information gathering about unknown werewolves is a lot more interesting." He looked at Anna. "Anna Latham of Chicago, musical prodigy. Left Northwestern University a couple of years short of a degree - much to the chagrin of the co-chair of Musical Studies, whom I talked to this morning, because he thought you'd become the next Yo-Yo Ma. No one seems to have heard from you since - except for your father, who was pretty short on conversation."

"My father is a lawyer," Anna half explained and half apologized. "He wouldn't say anything without a lot more information flowing his way. And probably a court order, though I wouldn't count on that."

"He wouldn't tell me your husband's name or where you live now - and the IRS is extremely uncooperative."

"Aren't they supposed to be?" Anna asked. "My husband and I came here to help; we did not come here to become names listed in your database - though we knew that you'd probably figure out who I was." He thought he'd pulled a rabbit out of the hat with his revelations about her real identity. She should have let him continue to pat himself on the back, and she knew it. Heuter was one of those people who liked being smarter than everyone else. He'd have been happier if she was mad or worried that he'd discovered who she was. But he was just a little too smug for Anna to be willing to indulge him.

"Where are you staying while you are here in Boston?" Heuter asked.

"Why are you worried about that?" returned Anna. Leslie, who knew where she and Charles were staying, was making steady inroads on the last of her salad. "I promise neither of us is going to go berserk and start killing people."

Heuter tapped his fingers lightly on the table. "I was raised to service," he said. "It's a family tradition. I believe in this country. I believe that innocents need protecting. I believe it is my calling to make sure that they are protected from people like you."

Heuter's voice was cool and controlled, even when he spoke the last bit. If Leslie hadn't drawn in a breath, Anna would have thought she'd misheard. Beside Anna, Brother Wolf stiffened, so she pulled herself together.

"That's funny," Anna said. "I'd have thought that terrorists and murderers would be more troublesome than me." As a comeback it was weak, but she was more worried about the silver bullets all Cantrip agents loaded their guns with. The gun that Heuter had almost pulled in the morgue. She couldn't really remember now exactly when he'd tried to go for it. He'd been so slow and clumsy that he hadn't managed to pull it before Brother Wolf had Caitlin down and contained on the floor. Had he started for it before Brother Wolf jumped, so that he could aim it at the witch? Or had he been too slow and by the time he could have gotten it out, it was already obvious that Brother Wolf wasn't going to hurt the witch?

If he had fired his gun back in the morgue, he might have killed Charles. Her hand reached out and touched her mate, to reassure herself that he was okay.

"Heuter," said Leslie sharply. "That was uncalled for."

He gave the FBI agent a tight smile and put some money on the table. "I'm due back in the office. I'll leave you to your afternoon of fruitless explorations."

Leslie waited until he was gone and then shook her head. "Trippers," she said.

"Trippers?" asked Anna.

"What the boss calls Cantrip agents." Leslie took a sip of her iced tea. "Just when you think that they are actually by golly professionals, they pull some weird stunt like that." She looked at Anna thoughtfully. "I'm not going to blow rainbows and happy faces at you and say that there aren't people worried about werewolves and the fae. We probably have some agents in the FBI who are pretty freaked-out by you or by people like Beauclaire. But at the very least they are professional enough not to go ape all over you when all you're trying to do is help us catch a freaking serial killer."

THEY TOOK A taxi to Castle Island where Jacob's body had evidently washed up, leaving Leslie's car in the parking garage next to the morgue. There was apparently parking at the Island, but it was the middle of summer and Leslie didn't like to waste time trying to find a place to park.

Anna's doubts about traveling by taxi with Brother Wolf proved to be unfounded. Their taxi driver had a big mutt at home, he told them, who was a Great Dane crossed with a dinosaur. Once he found out that Anna had never been to Boston before, he gave her a complete rundown on the island that hadn't really been an island since the 1930s. His stories included a ghostly tale of an escaped prisoner that somehow resulted in a haunting and a wandering yarn about how Edgar Allan Poe's army service at Fort Independence had led him to place his story "The Cask of Amontillado" at the fort.

"Wicked," Anna told him when they got out of the car and she handed him a tip.

He laughed and gave her a high five. "Frickin' wicked yourself. You'll be a native in no time."

"Don't you believe it," Leslie told her half jokingly. "Native Bostonians are the ones who've been here since the Revolutionary War - all others are interlopers, no matter how welcome."

The ocean air was refreshingly brisk as Leslie led the way down the cement walk that paralleled the ocean on the harbor side of the island. It wasn't crowded, not really - there had been plenty of places to park - but there were a number of people out enjoying the sun. The tall granite block walls of Fort Independence dominated the landscape, which was mostly grass with a few bushes and moderate-sized trees.

"Jacob wasn't here long before he was discovered," Leslie said. "Not a lot of places to hide a body around here and - as you can see - there are a lot of people this time of year. The harbor breeze keeps the temperatures to a reasonable level and the fishing is supposed to be pretty good."

"Do you think he was dropped in the harbor by boat?"

"That's the theory. Too many people around to drop him off unseen, and the ME says the body was in the water for at least a full day. Jacob was found a number of days ago. I suspect that if there was something we missed initially, it's too late now."

"Probably this is useless," agreed Anna. "But I'm not clear on what else we can do right now that is more helpful."

There were all sorts of people out and about - joggers, dog walkers, people watchers. The sound of kids yelling in the distance competed with airplanes from the airport across the harbor and seabirds.

They were passed by a woman with a Pekingese coming the other way. Her little dog hit the end of his leash and started barking hoarsely at Brother Wolf.

"He's perfectly friendly," his owner said. "Now stand down, Peter." To his owner's obvious embarrassment, the dog growled, keeping himself between the werewolves and his owner in a brave but misguided attempt to protect her, until they were long past.

"Peter," said Anna, smiling involuntarily. "Peter and the Wolf."

"Is that reaction usual?" Leslie asked.

"Most dogs have troubles with us at first," Anna admitted; then she smiled. "He was all of ten pounds, wasn't he? Pretty brave of him when you think of it. After insults have been exchanged it usually works out fine. Cats...cats don't like us. And they don't adjust, ever." She grinned at Leslie. "Just like Cantrip agents, I expect."

"Heuter is just one man," Leslie pointed out. "Hard to judge all of Cantrip by one man."

"I don't know about that," Anna said. "Who else would join an agency like Cantrip except for people who are afraid of the dark?"

"People who need jobs?" Leslie suggested dryly. "Cantrip takes a lot of Quantico graduates who don't get on with the FBI. As a job, Cantrip is less time-consuming than the FBI or Homeland Security, and it pays better than most police departments. It's less dangerous, too - because they don't actually do anything but collect information."

"Not yet," Anna said affably. "My father says that government unchecked is like a snowball; you can always count on it getting bigger and gathering more power." She walked a few paces. "Heuter was going to shoot someone in the morgue. If he could have gotten the shot off before it became obvious Charles wasn't going to hurt anyone, he'd have shot Charles. If you hadn't been there, he would have done it. I thought at the time he was going to go for the witch, but I've changed my mind. Cantrip carries weapons loaded with silver bullets."

"Mine is, too," admitted Leslie, sounding sheepish.

"Good for you," Anna told her. "You didn't even think about drawing, though."

"I don't know why not. I really should have."

"Charles did what you wanted to," Anna suggested. "Got the witch's hands off that poor boy. She was preparing to feed off him, and Charles stopped it."

"Feed?"

"Suck up the residual magic the killers left behind."

"That doesn't sound appetizing. Sounds necrophilic."

"Mmm," agreed Anna. "But you and I are not witches."

Leslie stared out in the harbor for a moment, then smiled. "I suppose that was it. I wanted to smack her, and your Charles did it for me."

There was a monument up ahead that looked something like the Washington Monument in miniature - or, since they were in Boston, like the Bunker Hill Monument. It was a tall, sea-battered, narrow-sided rectangle that lifted to the sky and ended in a point. On the ocean side of the path were some wharfs with a few people fishing from them.

"Still, Heuter..." Anna said. "You know Senator Heuter's views on werewolves, right? He's one of the proponents of that bill to include us as an endangered species."

Leslie frowned. "Endangered species?"

"And therefore not citizens," Anna said. "I don't suppose it would be of as much interest to you as it is to us werewolves. He also wants to RFID tag us as if we were pets who might go astray."

"RFID?"

"That one hasn't made it into a bill yet," Anna said. "But it's been in a couple of his speeches."

"That wouldn't be constitutional," said Leslie.

"It would if we were an endangered species." Anna looked at Brother Wolf. "I'd like to see someone try to put a radio control collar on Charles. It might be fun to watch on YouTube."

He gave her a look.

Anna raised the hand that wasn't holding the leash. "I'm not saying I'd do it. I'd just pay money to watch someone try."

Leslie gave her a thoughtful look as she stopped. "I thought that you were mismatched when I first met you two. But you aren't, are you?"

"No," Anna agreed. "I'm the only one who knows when he's teasing."

"If you say so," said Leslie, amused.

Anna looked around. "Is this where Jacob was found?"

"Over here."

Between the sidewalk and the sea stood a two-rail decorative pipe fence that the salt water had colored green and rust. Beyond that, a short rocky shoreline edged in green sea grasses gave way to a bit of water and a wall of worn wooden poles stuck side by side like soldiers keeping the waves off the land. Leslie pointed to a small patch of dirt between the wharf wall and the wooden poles.

Jacob would have been sheltered a little from the weather. Anna bent down a little closer than she needed to when she unclipped Charles's leash, and she breathed in his familiar scent to comfort herself. He waited until she stood up before he hopped over the fence and down to the strip of land below. Anna made no attempt to follow.

Leslie gave her a searching glance. "He can scent things better in wolf form than you can in human?"

"Yes. But he's also better at this than I am." Anna didn't feel a bit defensive about it. He'd taught her a lot, but..."He has a lot more experience than I do. Scents don't come with a label - this is the villain; here is a lady with a dog; here is a police officer and that sticky-sweet-and-sour-milk smell is someone's old banana ice cream cone. Charles can pick out what he's smelling better than I can, and date them, too, usually."

Brother Wolf trotted down to the isolated bit of dirt that Leslie had pointed out and then followed it toward them with his nose on the ground.

A jogger approached them and stopped, jogging in place. "Your dog should be on a leash," he said in politely disapproving tones. "It's the rules. There are lots of kids here and a big dog like that might scare someone."

"Werewolf," said Anna blandly, just to see what he would do.

He stopped jogging and looked, his jaw dropping. "Shit," he said. "You're kidding me."

"It's a werewolf," said Leslie.

"It's red. Aren't werewolves supposed to be black or gray?"

"Werewolves can be whatever color," Anna told him.

He bent down, stretching his legs and breathing deeply. "It's beautiful. Hey, that's where they found that little boy, isn't it? I saw the police tape out here a couple of days ago. Are you with the police?"

"FBI." Leslie gave him a sharp look. "You run here all the time?"

"When I'm off duty," he admitted. "I'm a fireman. Missed the fuss, though."

"You get a lot of things washing up here?"

"Yes, ma'am. Lotsa. New stuff every day, but we keep it picked up pretty well. His is the only body I know about, but I've only been running here a couple of years." He stared at Charles, who happily wasn't paying any attention. "FBI. You've got it looking for clues."

"He is," said Anna, getting tired of the "it."

The jogger wasn't disconcerted by her correction. "He work for the FBI?"

"No. Strictly volunteer," Anna told him.

"Wicked," he said approvingly. "Wait until I tell the guys I saw a werewolf. He mind if I take a photo?"

"Not at all," Anna told him.

He popped his phone out of a pouch on his belt and stood still long enough to snap a photo. "Cool. The guys are not going to believe this." He looked at the photo and frowned. "They're going to say that I took a photo of a big dog."

"Charles," Anna called. "Can we get a smile?"

Charles turned and gave her a look.

"Public relations," she suggested.

He turned his gold eyes to the jogger and then dropped his jaw in a wolfish smile that displayed fangs too large for any dog ever born.

The man swallowed. "Werewolf," he whispered, and then, remembering what he was doing, he snapped another photo. "Thanks, man...wolf. Thanks. They won't laugh at that." He glanced at Anna and Leslie and started jogging backward down the path. "Hey, good luck. I hope you get the guy."

"We do, too," Leslie assured him.

He turned back to watch them a couple of more times before he sped up and headed off the island.

"Doing a little PR?" Leslie asked.

"Never hurts," agreed Anna absently. "It's kind of my job." She'd been watching the jogger and he'd just passed a familiar figure. Goldstein saw her watching and waved.

"I texted Agent Goldstein and told him where we'd be," said Leslie.

Anna nodded. "Charles doesn't seem to be finding anything. I suspect I've just wasted your time."

"A lot of my work is like that," said Leslie.

Agent Goldstein sauntered up. "Find anything?"

"No," Anna told him. "Charles?"

Charles trotted up and started to change, right in front of them. Right in front of anyone who happened to look over and see what he was doing. It wasn't like him.

"What do we do, Mrs. Smith?" asked Goldstein quite calmly.

"Stay quiet and don't touch, okay? This really hurts and touching him makes it worse."

Anna glanced around, but no one else seemed to be paying much attention. That might be sheer dumb luck, or it might be something that Charles was doing.

"Remember, please, don't look into his eyes." There were a couple of meaty pops and Leslie winced.

"Yep. That hurts," Anna agreed. "This is why, if you're around a recently changed werewolf - either direction - you walk softly for a while. Pain makes the best of us pretty cranky."

"Does this mean he found out something?" Leslie asked.

"I don't know," Anna replied. "Either that - or he decided it was a good day to give a few Bostonians a heart attack."

"It's not as bad as it is in the movies," said Goldstein, sounding philosophical. "There's no liquid or clear oozing jelly, for one thing."

"Ick," said Anna. "Though if you move at just the wrong time, it can get bloody."

Leslie turned away and swallowed.

"Just kidding," Anna said. "Mostly."

"Still," Goldstein continued. "I can see why no one has agreed to change in front of the camera."

"That whole changing naked thing that most of us have to do makes it awkward, too," Anna told him. It wasn't easy to watch, even for her. Mostly, it was the empathy - you didn't have to be a werewolf to watch joints and bones changing and feel the ache in your own flesh in sympathy. And then there was the weirdness of watching things that should only be on the inside of a body show up on the outside. "You'd have to have a cable network like HBO. And we're trying to make people forget that we're monsters - this is kind of an unpleasant reminder."

"I thought it took longer than this," Goldstein said, as Charles became mostly human.

Leslie was scared, but holding it together. Goldstein looked like he was ready to fall asleep.

"For most of us, it does," she agreed. "Alpha wolves tend to be faster, and they can change more often. Charles is faster than most Alphas. We think it's for the same reason that he can wear clothes when he changes - he's got magic users on both sides of his parentage." They didn't need to know that he was the only werewolf born.

"For a secretive werewolf," observed Goldstein, "you are awfully happy to talk."

"The unknown is scary," Anna told him. "My orders were to come here, help you where we could - and try to make werewolves look good, to the FBI and to the public. How I carry it out is up to me. Hard to be friends with someone you think is scary."

"Your husband is scary - wolf or human," said Leslie.

Anna nodded her head. "He has to be. Regardless, Charles is one of the good guys."

Charles had changed completely back to human, and was wearing jeans, dark leather lace-up boots, and a plain gray tee. He stood up, eyes closed and muscles tight as he worked through the last debilitating cramps of the change. He flexed his fingers a couple of times, then looked straight at Anna.

"Call Isaac. Tell him we need a boat and his other witch." His voice was gravelly.

"Okay."

He looked at Leslie. "Call your medical examiner. See if we can get some hair from Jacob. Skin would work, but hair would be easier on the rest of us."

"I'll have to tell him why."

Charles raised a challenging brow. "I'll tell you why, and you can come up with a good lie. One of the little water spirits told me that the boy was taken from an island and dropped into the harbor. She made sure he came to rest here, which was useful to us, but I think she did it because she didn't want the black magic to linger in her water. That kind of magic can attract some nasty things. It occurred to me that if his body still had enough magical residue to get Caitlin the witch all excited, then his death site might still have enough for a real witch to locate it - if she has a bit of Jacob to orient with."

"Water spirits?" said Leslie, sounding dumbfounded.

"That's his shaman heritage, not a werewolf talent," Anna told her. "I can't see them, either."

"I know the ME from my stint in Boston a few years back," said Goldstein after a moment of silence. "I'll talk to him. Maybe do a bit of blackmail if it comes down to it. And we can get a boat."

Charles shook his head. "No witch I know would be caught dead on an official boat with the FBI. It'll have to be one of Isaac's people."

"I'll call Isaac - and then Beauclaire," said Anna. "If we have a chance at finding his daughter, he'll want to know."

"Witches and fairies don't get along," Charles warned her.

"If his daughter's fate rests in the hands of a witch, Beauclaire will bring her flowers and kiss her feet," Anna told him with absolute certainty. "Besides, if we run into this horned lord, it might not be a bad idea to have a big bad fairy on your side - and the way he's dropping information without worrying about it either means he's crazy - or he's a really big bad fairy."

Charles looked at her, then tipped his head. "I trust your judgment."

Anna looked at Leslie. "But let's leave Cantrip out of it, okay? We'll have werewolves, witches, and fae - we don't need a hostile and frightened man who is as likely to take out allies as enemies."

"Besides, Heuter is a jerk," Leslie said. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be stuck on a boat with him."

"Exactly."

CHARLES DIDN'T LIKE the ocean.

He liked boating even less and despised the way the life jacket restricted his movement. The Daciana, the thirty-foot boat they were going out on, might be designed for offshore ocean fishing, but the center-console fishing boats like this one had never felt like they were really big enough to handle ocean weather.

The boat was barely big enough to hold all of them: he and Anna, the two FBI agents, Malcolm (the owner of the boat), Isaac (who insisted on coming), Beauclaire, and Isaac's witch (who was late). If they found Lizzie, they might have to tie her to the bow or make her swim for it. The only thing that would have made it worse was if the boat were handled by someone other than a wolf - it wasn't only the witch who would have balked at a police or federal boat.

"Charles," said his mate, coming up behind him where he stood alone in the bow, which was somewhat isolated from the rest of the little boat. Malcolm and Isaac were muttering about courses and fiddling with the instruments packed in under the little central raised deck that provided the only protected area of the boat. Everyone else had chosen to wait on the docks until the witch arrived.

He'd heard Anna approach, felt the slight sway of the boat. It had been easier to be with her when he was in wolf form. Brother Wolf was not torn; he knew that they could protect her from anything - but his wolf was like that: confident. Charles was not so sanguine.

The taint of the ghosts he carried was beginning to wear on him. One day soon Anna would look into his eyes and see the evil within him. He wished he could have stayed in his wolf shape, but talking to Anna without opening the bond between them was too difficult. And he couldn't open the bond for fear that the ghosts might use it to get to Anna. There were stories about that, about ghosts that killed all of the people close to the man who carried them.

It was easier to be wolf than human because their evil could not touch Brother Wolf. The wolf felt no guilt, because guilt was a human emotion.

Anna touched his shoulder. Charles didn't turn to his mate, because he couldn't face her while he was thinking of the evil he carried inside of him. Instead he looked over the starboard side of the bow and out on the water where the sun was setting in streaks of azure, silver, and faint gold. "It'll be dark before we get out on the harbor."

Anna made a sound of agreement. "I know this is not the time, but, watching you brood over here, it occurs to me that you have evidently forgotten something and I think I'd better remind you. I should have reminded you this morning."

He did turn to her then. Like him, she was staring off into the distance, her shoulder brushing his like the wings of a butterfly.

"What's that?"

"You are mine." She didn't look at him but her hand closed possessively over his on the rail of the boat. Her voice was soft and without emphasis; not even werewolf ears would have heard her ten feet away. "Your ghosts cannot have you, Charles. So exorcize them before I have to." The last was a clear order, sharp as a shard of ice.

Brother Wolf grunted in satisfaction. He liked it when their mate got possessive and asserted her rights over him. So did Charles.

"Go ahead and smirk," she said, seriously, though her body was relaxed against him. "Just keep it in mind. Maybe you don't have to fight all of your battles alone."

"I'll remember your words," he told her with returned seriousness, though he pictured Anna taking her grandmother's rolling pin after the ghosts who haunted him, and it made him want to...smirk again.

"That's better," she told him smugly. "No more brooding."

And she was right.

The boat swayed a bit as both Isaac and Malcolm moved suddenly and there was a zing of expectation in the air.

"About time you got here, woman," Isaac called out in tones of real affection.

Startled, Charles looked over to see a woman walking down the pier to where their boat was docked. She was taller than average, taller than Isaac, who had vaulted up off the boat to trot down the pier to greet her. He kissed her, leaning into it, lingering.

"He's sleeping with the witch he told us was too devious to be trusted to gather information from Jacob's body?" said Anna, sounding disgruntled.

Charles laughed and pulled her closer so he could put his chin on top of her head. "Gutsy," he said. "But he's forgotten the first rule of the men's locker room."

"What's that?"

"Don't stick your..." He didn't need to be crude, so he corrected himself. "Don't screw with crazy, no matter how pretty it is."

She snorted. "You don't know her."

"I know witches," he said. "They are all crazy."

"What about Moira?"

Moira was the white witch who was on the Emerald City Pack's payroll. Anna had met her a couple of years ago and they had become fast friends.

"Except for the blind ones," Charles allowed.

They watched as Isaac introduced his witch to the FBI agents as Hally Smith. She wasn't beautiful, but she was striking with dark coloring, a long, elegant nose, and a wide, generous mouth.

Isaac helped her down into the boat. To Charles, she stank of black magic as she neared and he wondered how Isaac stood it. Moira, Anna's friend, was a white witch. She generally smelled of the herbs, spices, and magic of her gift. Hally reeked of death, old blood, and ghosts.

The witch looked at Charles as if she could read his mind, which he knew damned well she couldn't.

"Well," she said in a low, husky voice. "I've heard so much about you, Charles - "

Isaac made a noise in his throat and she smiled.

"Charles Smith. Look, we even share a last name. How delightful."

"Her last name really is Smith," Isaac told him.

"Convenient," said Anna. "People will think you're lying even when you aren't."

"But not you," said the witch, and Charles fought the desire to grab his mate and set her behind him where he could protect her better. "You and your kind can tell if I'm lying."

"Only if you aren't a good liar," said Anna, half apologetically and half honestly. Being a good liar might keep a young wolf like Anna from discovering a lie, but an old wolf like Charles could almost always tell.

Anna continued to clarify matters. "If you believe your own lies or if telling lies doesn't bother you, we can be deceived. In fact, we're even easier to fool because so many of us assume we're infallible. I, personally, am always careful not to underestimate how well people lie."

"I'll keep that in mind." Hally smiled and accepted a life jacket from Isaac, then handed him her satchel, a waterproof canvas backpack, to hold while she put it on. There was an unspoken arrogance about the act that set Brother Wolf on edge: Isaac was neither her mate nor her servant whose service was to be taken for granted. She snapped the vest on over her serviceable wool sweater.

"Are you planning on lying?" asked Leslie Fisher with interest. Anna gave her a quick look and then glanced up at Charles. He let her see that it didn't bother him, and she relaxed.

Hally's smile deepened. "I don't know yet. Isaac said you'd have some of Jacob's body for me?"

Goldstein took the seat next to Leslie's with his back next to the stern of the boat. He pulled out a Baggie from his life jacket pocket that contained a two-inch square of skin and a pinch of dark hair and handed it to Hally, who took it with the enthusiasm of a child being given a lollipop.

"Splendid," she said. "It would probably be best to wait until we are out in the harbor before I start to do magic. All I will get is distance and a direction, not the closest route there. It won't last forever, so I'd rather wait until we're somewhere it will do us the most good. Isaac filled me in" - she looked at Charles - "and promised me recompense."

She hadn't been cheap. If it weren't for the time factor, he could have had Moira and Tom fly out from Seattle for considerably less expense.

"Ten thousand," Charles agreed.

Leslie whistled. "No wonder we don't consult with witches much."

"You pay for the best," said Hally smugly. "Shall we set sail?"

"Motor," Anna said, pointing at the stern. "No sails."