I SAT ON THE PORCH BETWEEN TWO PILES OF bones, watching the werejaguar in my yard make small circles around the stick supporting the rotting head of a young woman. I had failed her. I had looked at the evidence. I had drawn the wrong conclusions. But I was still here, sitting on my porch, while she had paid for my stupidity. And my arrogance.
Jim kept walking, placing each foot softly in front of the other, stalking an invisible prey around a circle. Yellow flooded his eyes and his upper lip quivered once in a while, showing his fangs. Unless the cat was yawning in your face, you wouldn't see his fangs until he was ready to sink them into you. Jim was ready to sink them into someone. He would have to wait in line.
"Stop it. You're wearing a hole in my yard."
Jim stopped pacing to glare at me.
A dark van pulled into the driveway. It was magic and water powered like Karmelion and it made enough noise to match my horror of a truck. Four stone-faced shapechangers stepped out and approached me, carrying several canvas bags. I got up and stood aside, giving them access to the bones. They began packing the fractured skeletons of their dead into the bags, sorting as they went along, handling the bones with the same care a china dealer employs when touching his best merchandize.
Doolittle stepped out of the van, wearing denim overalls and carrying a portable m-scanner. He paused to murmur a few words to Jim and proceeded to the head.
Jim approached the porch. "Curran wants you in the city."
I shook my head. "I can't go. After you're done, I'll have to call the cops. You got your bones back. The Ying family deserves to receive their daughter's."
"What the fuck do I tell Curran?"
Doolittle plucked the note from the nail, flipped it over. "Looks like he wrote on the back of some sort of magazine page."
I took the note from his fingers. The page was from Volshebstva e Kolduni, the "Spells and Warlocks" rag-sheet whose credibility Saiman had so easily dismissed.
"Kate?" Jim asked.
I wanted to cry. How could I have been so stupid? I brought the Almanac out to them and handed the upir article Bono had given me to Doolittle. He read a few words. "It says here this creature feeds on dead human flesh. It will mate with animals and produce half-breed sons, neither animal nor human. Where did you get this?"
"One of Ghastek's journeymen gave it to me."
"Ghastek knew," Jim snarled. "He knew the whole time. I'll rip his heart out!"
" 'Driven by the need to produce an heir, the upir will mate with women of power, for only a woman of power can carry a true upir to term…'" Doolittle looked at me. "You cannot stay here, Kate. You must come to the keep." I opened my mouth but he silenced me with a wave of his hand. "There are seven of us and one of you. We'll carry you if we have to."
THE PACK COUNCIL SAT IN PADDED CHAIRS around a table. In the middle of the table sat the head of Jennifer Ying brought in as evidence by Doolittle and placed under a glass hood laced with preserving spells. She bore silent witness to all that was said. Next to her a speaker phone relayed Saiman's cool voice.
"All upiri are male. The history of their breed is quite old: it's likely they were an integral part of the fertility cults in early agrarian societies of the Bronze Age. During the rites young women, embodying the Goddess, were brought to the upir so he could play out his role of her son-consort by copulating with them. Of course, often the copulation resulted in the woman's death, in which case, the upir would complete the rite full circle, devouring her body.
"The arrival of the Iron Age with its patriarchal gods-heroes signaled the end of the Goddess cult and the upiri gradually migrated to the remote regions, finding the vast Russian forests particularly suitable. Although they are driven by the urge to procreate, the upiri are interested only in producing a powerful male, another upir. All female children are born dead. Once a son is produced, the upir feeds the mother to the child and casts him out, driving him out of his territory. It must be noted that only a woman of significant magic power is able to sustain enough magic to produce a baby upir."
"What about the animal children?" Curran demanded.
"The upir will mate with any animal he can anatomically penetrate. The resulting offspring, although viable, is usually sterile. A single upir may have scores of these servant-creatures. Also, since an agrarian cult of fertility centers on regeneration, the upir is likely to have vast recuperative powers. My source lists him as immune to metal, wood, tooth, and claw. He is virtually impossible to kill."
Curran nodded at Mahon. The Bear spoke, "The Pack thanks you for your information."
"I appreciate the gratitude of the Pack. You will receive my bill within three days."
Mahon turned off the phone.
"It has to be Crest," Curran said.
Startled, I asked, "How do you know his name?"
"I know more about you than you do. Do you really think I would deal with you without following your every step?"
"You had Derek spy on me. You promised me he would do no such thing."
"Actually I put a scout in the apartment above you," Jim said. "Greg's place isn't soundproof."
I shut up, stunned by the betrayal. I should've known better—the Pack always came first. They were professionally paranoid.
"How did you and Crest meet?" the alpha-wolf asked.
I didn't answer.
Jim reached over and touched my hand. "Kate, this is one of those times when silence isn't golden."
There was nothing left to do. No way out. If Crest was an upir, I couldn't take him on my own. "I went to the morgue to examine a deceased vamp found at the knight-diviner murder scene. I was looking for the brand and he walked in on me. He stated that he was a cosmetic surgeon performing what he called 'charity duty' at the morgue. He wore scrubs and the stripes of a unit supervisor. He asked me to join him for lunch. I refused."
"How did he react?" said a heavyset woman. She was middle-aged and plump. Her graying hair perched in a bun atop her head. The others called her Aunt B, for what reason I didn't know. She looked like every child's favorite grandmother. She was also the alpha female of the twelve hyenas the Pack counted among its members.
"He appeared surprised."
Light murmur rippled through the Council.
"He has access to the morgue," Jennifer said. "A lot of corpses."
"And being a plastic surgeon, he would meet many pretty women," added the alpha-rat through a mouth full of potato chips. The rotting head did nothing to dull his appetite.
"Why didn't he mate with Olathe?" Jennifer wondered. "It's obvious they were working together. He would help her take over the People and in return, he'd get all the vampire flesh he wanted. Plus fresh corpses."
"She was barren," Jim said. "Roland probably had her fixed before he fucked her."
"Did you go to lunch?" Aunt B wanted to know.
"Yes. It was a normal lunch. The next time I saw him was after Derek and I encountered that vampire. Crest was asleep on the stairs when I brought Derek home."
"Did you sleep with him, dear?" asked Aunt B. "We need to be clear."
I tried to keep from gritting my teeth. "No."
"Then you haven't seen him in an uncontrolled environment." Aunt B shook her head. "He could've been cloaking the entire time."
"His cloak would have to be exceptional," I said. "I felt no magic. Nothing at all."
Curran, who had been leaning against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest. "To sum up, he's never appeared at the same time as the upir. He seems to pop up in her life whenever she makes any headway. She's never seen his place or met any of his friends."
"He's familiar with tech." I finally thought of something smart to say. "He owns a car."
"Anything else?" Mahon asked.
"He's fascinated with Lyc-V."
"I like him for it," Jim said. "And the kid thinks he's an asshole."
Thank you, Derek.
Curran pushed himself from the wall. "Either he's the upir or he's not. How would we find out?"
Doolittle stirred. "The only way to know for sure, m'lord, is to scan a blood sample. Blood can't hide the magic when separated from the body. Time is of the essence in this matter. The less time the blood has to degrade, the better. I suggest we take a portable scanner."
"If he is what we think he is," the alpha-wolf said softly, "we'll have to go in force."
"And I doubt he would volunteer the sample." Mahon said.
"We can't compel him," the alpha-wolf said.
To compel a person to give a blood sample with the purpose of scanning it was illegal. It was a violation of privacy and the courts have been adamantly enforcing it. If Crest proved to be human, he could make enough of a stink to keep the Pack in hot water for years.
"Not to mention that he'll know who all of you are," I said.
They mulled it over.
"It doesn't matter," Curran said. "We solve this now."