Jim Baen's Universe

Fantasy Stories

Caught Forever Between

Written by Adrian Nikolas Phoenix

Illustrated by Nicole Cardiff

Tearing down the yellow crime-scene tape, Cassie keyed open the door to INNER EYE TATTOO and stepped inside. Closing the door, she glanced around the shattered shop she and Alex shared.

Broken glass from the windows glittered like mica on the stone-tiled floor and on the sofa; night-glo inks, their pungent odor lingering still in the humid air, smeared the walls, ceiling, and floor in neon-bright Rorschach designs. Almost everything had been bashed or ripped apart—the computer, the phone, Alex's patterns and sketches and, behind her . . .

Cassie turned, glass crunching beneath her Doc Martens, and looked past the remains of the sterilizer and the tat gun scattered on the bloodstained floor.

Alex's blood. Clotted and dried into eerie designs that rivaled some of his best work—

Throat tight, Cassie looked away. Whoever had done this had hated Alex, hated him in secret until it had finally burst free, spattering the shop with a bitterness so thick she could feel it still; smell it bile-rank beneath the spicy-sweet odors of boiled shrimp and cayenne, magnolias and chicory coffee drifting in through the broken windows.

A week since That Night and Alex remained in a coma at Charity Hospital—would her Michelangelo dream forever? Never again open his eyes?—and nothing had been done.

Just like nothing had been done when her mother was murdered fifteen years ago in Boise.

Switching on the fan, Cassie sank down onto the client lounger. She sighed in relief as the fan's breeze dried the sweat on her face and throat. The warm rush of air plastered her black mesh tank top against her perspiration-dampened skin and fluttered the hem of her red plaid skirt. From outside, jazz and faint laughter from Dumaine Street floated in to mingle with the fan's determined hum. Another sultry Naw'lins night. Her seventh night in hell. And counting—until Alex opened his eyes again.

If, a traitorous part of her whispered, repeating the doctor's words. If. And even then, he could remain in a vegetative state, blue eyes open, but empty. Forever.

Cassie pulled her feet up onto the lounger and wrapped her arms around her fishnet-clad legs. She shut her eyes and rested her chin against her knees. She felt like a little kid again, no longer eighteen, longing for the comfort of embracing arms.

In the darkness behind Cassie's eyes, an image of her mother formed—the only one she had—bending over Cassie's bed, long red hair shadowing her face, but something glittered—fairy sparkles? magic dust? tears?—on her mother's cheeks as she reached for Cassie and shushed her, saying in her husky voice that everything was all right.

Cassie often wondered what had brought her mother in to comfort her—a nightmare? fever? simple love? She'd asked Helena once. Her sister had stared at her, dark eyes shadowed by long red curls, looking so eerily like their mother in that moment that Cassie's heart had started pounding hard and, for a split second, she'd been terrified of what Helena might say. In the end, though, Helena had shaken her head, and said, her voice low and taut, "Geez, Cassie, I don't know. I was on my own then."

Cassie half believed that Helena still wished she was on her own, not saddled with a kid sister. Helena had followed the free trade South, teaching Cassie the Art along the way and with the years. They'd always had to hide since Helena refused to go legit, refused to join the Tattoo Artists Union, refused to be anyone's apprentice. Preferred to be an ink-slinging outlaw.

They'd settled in New Orleans when Cassie was thirteen. That was the year they'd discovered that Cassie was an Intuitive—an artist who could see into and symbolize the inner person. Helena had abruptly stopped teaching her, insisting she wasn't qualified. Helena had found someone who could, though—Alexander "Michelangelo" Paris—another Intuitive and an apprentice to a legitimate ink-slinger. Over the next five years, between his regular duties, Alex had guided and taught Cassie.

And when, six months ago, Alex had opened his own shop, and Cassie'd left Helena to be his apprentice, she'd seen darkness brewing in her sister's eyes and, beneath her cigarette-and-vanilla scent, Cassie'd smelled something bitter.

Like she did now.

The cops were dicking around, and the Union pretended to make an effort, but nothing was being done to find Alex's shooter. So Cassie'd sent word that she sought justice through the streets, bars, and botanicas of the French Quarter, and even into the Projects. Sought justice and would pay for it. Her mother's murder had never been solved, but that wasn't going to happen with Alex.

Tinkling bells, followed by the swoosh of the front door swinging shut, roused Cassie. Her eyes flew open, and she jumped up from the lounger, heart thudding.

The woman standing just inside the door appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties. She wore a simple, flowered sundress and sandals. A red scarf hugged the gray-streaked black curls framing her face. Gold hooped through her earlobes and encircled her wrists, bright as sunshine on her cypress-brown skin. Her gaze met Cassie's. Cassie's skin prickled. Power radiated from the woman, dark and bayou-steeped. Mambo.

"Be you M'selle Danger?" the woman asked.

Cassie nodded and smoothed down her skirt. "Actually, it's Danzinger, but I work under the name Cassandra Danger . . . ma'am."

"I be Gabrielle La Rue."

"Ma'am. I wasn't expecting an answer so . . . soon," Cassie said, more than aware of the shattered glass, ink, and blood on the floor. "I thought maybe . . . well . . . that I'd have to . . . " What? she wondered, her fingers pleating her skirt. Undergo some midnight ritual, give a secret handshake, slaughter a chicken?

"I don't have time for that kind of nonsense," the mambo snorted, as though Cassie had spoken aloud. "How can I help you, m'selle?"

"Cassie, if you please, ma'am," she said, forcing her fingers away from her skirt. Pondering how to answer the mambo's question, Cassie glanced into her eyes. Their hazel depths tugged at her like quicksand, and the harder she struggled, the deeper she sank. Gabrielle's scent—dark earth, water, and incense—whirled into her, dizzied her.

The mambo clasped Cassie's hand; cool fingers latched around her wrist. "What is it you need?"

Cassie shook her head and forced her gaze down to their linked hands. Summer dusk and pale winter noon, their hands. She felt the sudden urge to draw. She shook her head again, trying to focus.

"My Michelangelo. . . . " Cassie said, then lapsed into silence. There were no words for what she needed to say. Still holding the mambo's cool hand, she turned. She looked at the dried blood pooled on the floor, the designs streaking across stone tiles and spattering one wall. "My Michelangelo," she whispered.

The woman beside her drew in a breath. "Ah," she said, squeezing Cassie's hand, then releasing it. "The blood's been spilled, child. You can't put it back. Name the thing you want."

"I want Alex to open his eyes," Cassie said, her gaze still on the floor. "And justice. I want justice." She glanced at the mambo.

A wry smile curved Gabrielle's lips. "So," she murmured. "Justice." She shook her head. The mambostepped gingerly to the counter, glass and other broken things gritting beneath her sandals. She traced a design on the counter with a long-nailed finger.

"I wonder if you know what that truly means or what shape it can take," Gabrielle said. Her finger stopped moving. She turned to face Cassie. "Or how cold and brutal justice can be."

"Colder than a bullet to the head?" Cassie asked, throat tight. She strode over to the wall. With a trembling hand, she tore down one of the tacked-up patterns. Whirling, she held the blood-spattered paper up for the mamboto see. "More brutal than that?" She shook the pattern. "If so, then it's justice I want."

Lips compressed, Gabrielle stepped forward and gently tugged the pattern from Cassie's fingers. She looked at it for a long moment, then folded and tucked it into a pocket in her sundress. She sighed. A deep line creased the skin between her eyebrows. She held Cassie's gaze, and Cassie thought she saw something submerged like a 'gator in those hazel depths.

"It won't change a thing. You understand?" the mambosaid. "The bullet still fired . . . the blood still spilled. And your Michelangelo, his eyes still closed."

Cassie dropped her gaze. Outside, summer thunder rumbled across the sky. She remembered Alex sprawled on the stone floor, his head pillowed on her lap; remembered her hand pressed against the wound, his blood hot against her fingers.

Her hands curled into fists. "Maybe so. But it'll even things out," she said, voice strained. "Blood for blood."

"Nothing ever evens out spilled blood," Gabrielle said, weariness edging her voice. "But . . . so be it. Come to the bayou tomorrow night, after sunset. Bring your tattoo gun and your inks. Tell mon filleul—my godson—what it is you want. If he lets you set your gun to work on his skin, then all you'll need do is give him a name."

Glass crunched under the mambo's sandals as she walked to the front door. She opened it, tinkling the bell. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, "Then you will get your justice, child." Neon light from the street flickered across the dark planes of her face, creating a mask of ever-shifting colors. "As cold and brutal as you could ever want."

"Wait," Cassie called as the mambo started out the door. "I don't know how to find you. I need directions."

Gabrielle nodded toward the counter. "You already got 'em." Then she was gone.

Cassie looked down at the counter. There, glowing on the polished wood surface, was a map—drawn by the mambo as she'd talked to Cassie. She stared at it, heart pounding, sweat trickling between her breasts and along her ribs. Thunder rumbled and drumrolled. Heat lightning flashed white across the horizon.

Going to the back room, Cassie filled a bucket with hot water and cleanser. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink—long auburn hair streaked with purple to match her dark violet eyes; eyes blue-smudged from lack of sleep instead of outlined with the usual black kohl; pale, heart-shaped face, rose-tinted lips—a ghost startled by her own unexpected reflection.

Struggling for air, Cassie looked down. Her fingers clutched the cold porcelain edge of the sink. Head bowed, face shielded by her hair, she refused to look up again. Didn't want to see Alex fading from her eyes.

Cassie pushed away from the sink and gave the mirror her back. After tying up her sweat-dampened hair, she fetched a broom, dustpan, and a roll of trash bags. She had a night's hard work ahead of her.

Fixing her gaze once again on the dried blood, Cassie memorized every streak and spatter, needling its design like a tattoo onto her heart. "Whoever Madame La Rue's godson is," she whispered, "he'll never be cold enough or brutal enough for me."

An evening breeze blew in from the street, bringing the smell of distant rain and the river's odor of fish, mud, and decay. As Cassie set to sweeping, an image gleaned from Helena's heart right after Alex's shooting burned in her mind: a tiger rearing up on muscular hind legs, claws slashing, fangs bared in a snarl, guarding a sleeping cub behind it. A figure—just a black silhouette, really—went down beneath those claws. But Cassie recognized her Michelangelo bleeding on the floor.

****

Cassie stopped and switched off her scooter when she reached the end of the dirt trail. Lifting her shades, she glanced at the map she'd copied from the counter. The scooter's motor clicked as it cooled, blending with the insect hum and buzz—the only sounds she heard. The air was thick with the smells of green things and wet tree roots and sun-heated swamp water. She wiped sweat from her forehead as she looked up at the Spanish-moss-draped cypress. Beyond the dark trunks, the sunset blazed like a forest fire, searing the sky purple, orange, and red.

Sliding off the seat, Cassie stood beside her scooter, squinting into the sunset-hazed darkness beyond the trees. She thought she saw a building of some kind ahead—maybe a swamp shack. Something tickled the back of her bug-spray-guarded knee, and Cassie slapped the spot without looking, her gaze still locked on the barely discernible path through the cypress and along the edge of the swamp.

She shrugged her knapsack higher onto her shoulder, its weight pressing her sweat-damp velvet-and-mesh dress against her skin. Perspiration trickled between her shoulder blades, and her heart pounded so hard her body trembled with each beat. The humidity and heat sucked at each shallow breath as she drew it in.

Something rustled in the tall grass beside the swamp. Cassie's heart ratcheted up to warp speed. She stared, frozen, at the heat-yellowed sawgrass. 'Gator! her mind babbled. But nothing moved. Nothing she could see, anyway.

Drawing in a deep breath, she stepped onto the path. Dirt crunched beneath her Docs. Dropping her shades back over her eyes, she walked in between the trees and into the sun-gilded mosquito-laden darkness. The insect buzz and chirping, croaking frog song stopped abruptly, abandoning her to a thick, watchful silence.

With each grass-muffled step she took, Cassie became more certain she was being watched. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and her muscles tensed. She kept her gaze straight ahead and her pace even. She fought the urge to run, sensing that if she did, whatever was out there would chase her. And catch her.

After five long minutes, the back of a weatherworn shack on flood stilts appeared out of the twilight. Cassie stopped several yards short of it. She removed her shades, then tucked them into a side pocket of the knapsack. A motorcycle was parked beside the towering oaks behind the shack—a Harley, Cassie judged.

Off to one side was a cistern to catch rainwater, and on the other side was an outhouse as weathered as the shack. As Cassie walked along the right side, she passed a tree stump holding an ax. She paused for a moment as unwanted slasher-film images popped into her mind; then, shaking her head, she circled around to the front of the shack. A porch with a dock extended to the swamp and the pirogue tied to it. A short flight of steps in front led to the porch.

"Hello?" Cassie called, her voice loud and uncertain in the silence. "Madame La Rue?"

A single cricket chirruped, then fell silent.

"Oui, girl," said the mambo'sfamiliar voice. "Over here."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Cassie glanced in the direction of the mambo's voice. An engine chugged to life, filling the air with a mechanical hum. On the right side of the porch, Gabrielle La Rue straightened up from the generator she'd started. A blue scarf matching the royal blue dress she wore, covered her curls.

"I be right wit' you," the mambo said. Giving the generator one last glance, she descended the steps to join Cassie. She looked Cassie over from head to toe, then shook her head. "Ain't you a sight in your red dress, girl? Mmm-mmm." She shook her head again. "Nothing subtle about you, Cassandra Danzinger. You might as well be wearing your Michelangelo's blood."

Heat rushed to Cassie's cheeks, and she was grateful for the deepening dusk. "No, I . . . that is. . . . " She lapsed into silence, wondering if Gabrielle was right. Had she chosen red to symbolize the thing she sought—to win her cause with the mambo's godson?

Gabrielle glanced past Cassie. "Introduce yourself, boy," she said.

Cassie whirled, the knapsack flying off her shoulder and thudding hard onto the grass-matted ground. In the lingering shadows cast by the cypress and oak trees, the mambo's godson stood no more than a handspan away from her.

"Evenin', mam'selle. I be Devlin Daniels," he said, his voice low, the rhythm of his words Cajun-spiced.

"Uh . . . evening," Cassie managed.

She quickly looked him over, her artist's eye noting details. He appeared to be in his early twenties, taller than Cassie's five-two by six or seven inches, his body lean, muscular, and broad-shouldered. Tangled black hair fell just past his shoulders and swept over the left side of his face, almost hiding the left eye. He was bare-chested and barefoot, his black jeans torn and weathered almost gray. A veve-etched ouanga bag on a leather thong hung around his neck, and through the blackness of his hair, she caught a flash of silver-and-red earrings. Two sets of scars—thick and white with age— crisscrossed his chest.

His dark eyes gleamed, capturing and reflecting the dying sunset behind her. Cassie's breath caught in her throat. Lambent eyes. Hungry and watchful—like something wild waiting in the brush, all glowing eyes and sharp teeth.

"Somethin' wrong?" Devlin asked, leaning closer.

Cassie shook her head, not wanting him to come nearer. But he did anyway, closing the short distance between them. The hair on the nape of her neck rose, and her hands knotted. Survival instincts insisted she not run. She caught his scent, musky and wild and clean.

He slowly circled her several times, his shining gaze sweeping over her, nostrils flaring. She turned with him, heart pounding, refusing to give him her back again.

Was this a test? Or had he just been in the swamp too long? Maybe both?

He wasn't what she'd expected. From what the mambo had said, Cassie had half believed she'd have to sweet-talk the Devil himself to get her justice. But no horns sprouted from Devlin Daniels's forehead, no cloven hooves, just dirty bare feet. She hadn't expected him to be white, either. But why wouldn't Gabrielle La Rue have a Caucasian godson? Devlin's skin was nearly as pale as Cassie's own—and given that he lived out in the bayou, that fact surprised her.

Devlin finally stopped in front of her. Cassie met his gaze. He held out her knapsack. She took it from him, noting his long fingers with their thick, curved nails.

"Boy," the mambo said from behind her, voice stern. "Go on inside with yourself and put on a shirt. Mind your manners."

Devlin stared at Cassie through his hair for another long moment before loping away with an irritated snort. Turning, Cassie watched him leap up the porch steps. The mambo's godson moved with a quick, fluid, almost animal grace. Opening the screen door, he slipped into the shack.

A heartbeat later, the chirping-crrriicking-croaking-humming song of the insects and frogs lifted again into the sultry evening air. They know the danger is past, Cassie thought, her mind still filled with the image of Devlin's gleaming eyes watching her from behind the cover of his hair—hair black as a starless winter night.

"That boy never did like being told what to do," the mambo said. "But at least he knows when to pay heed."

Cassie saw amusement in Gabrielle's eyes. "Which is more than you can say for most male creatures, ain't it so, ma petite?"

Cassie nodded, wondering why the mambo had said male creatures instead of men. Slinging the knapsack onto one shoulder, she glanced up at the shack. It remained dark.

"What if I can't convince him?" she asked, hating how uncertain her voice sounded, how small. "What if he won't listen?"

"Oh, he'll listen, Cassandra, he'll listen good 'n close." The mambo started toward the steps. "But it's up to you to show him the fired bullets and the spilled blood. Up to you to make my Devlin hunger to right things for your Michelangelo."

Cassie followed Gabrielle. "And if I can't? What then?"

The mambo glanced back at her, her eyes night-swallowed, expression cryptic. "Then whatever you do, don't run from him. Hear me? Don't run."

Cassie halted. She stared at the mambo, hoping she hadn't heard right.

"There always be a price," Gabrielle said, drawing herself up. "Justice ain't never been free, girl." Power as dark and deadly as the bayou emanated from the mambo. Her face was cold and regal, and Cassie truly saw her for what she was, a hoodoo priestess steeped in magic, able to summon shambling life or shape a cold and brutal death.

Cassie's gaze drifted back up to the lightless shack. She shivered, chilled, her fingers suddenly numb. Make Alex live for the mambo's godson. You do that and maybe he'll open his eyes again.

Sucking in a deep breath of moist air, Cassie said, "Devlin, what is he?" The steadiness of her voice surprised her.

"He be the last of the coeur sauvage, the wild heart of the bayou—the loup garou." Swiveling around to face the shack, Gabrielle placed her hands on her hips, and said in a low voice, "Turn on some lights, boy. We ain't got your eyes."

Pale yellow light suddenly spilled from the shack's windows and door. Cassie stared at the mambo, wishing she could believe she hadn't heard right, but Gabrielle hadn't mumbled. She'd been quite clear. Loup garou. Werewolf.

"Go on up with yourself, child," the mambo said, waving a hand at the steps. Her bracelets jingled.

"Werewolf?" Cassie said, her voice strained.

Gabrielle chuckled. "Don't be calling Devlin a werewolf. That boy, he a wolf, pure and simple."

Cassie's gaze flicked back up to the shack. A shadow crossed behind the window, blotting out the light for a moment, then was gone. She swallowed hard, thinking of light-filled eyes and black hair, of justice in the form of claws, black and thick, and gleaming white fangs. In that moment, she realized she believed Gabrielle. Why the hell not? she thought. If there can be vampires in the French Quarter, why not werewolves in the bayou?

Grasping the porch railing, the worn wood smooth beneath her hand, Cassie placed her foot on the bottom step. An image of Alex filled her mind; Alex intent on his work, inking an Intuitive design into willing flesh, his golden hair tied back, his deep blue eyes focused, intense; saw again the laugh lines etched beside his lips, felt again the warmth of his gaze.

Cassie climbed the steps. Taking a deep breath, she opened the screen door with a steady hand. Devlin stood in one corner of the sparsely furnished room, his back to the wall. His nostrils flared as she stepped into the shack. She noticed he'd pulled on a black T-shirt. Guess he does know when to listen, after all.

Cassie glanced around the room. An easy chair. A couple of wooden kitchen chairs and a square kitchen table. An acoustic guitar propped in one corner. Next to one window, an artist's easel holding a blank canvas. And, on the walls—her gaze stopped, lingered. Paintings, unframed and raw—dark, swirling colors, the images hungry and hurting and lonely.

Her gaze skipped from one painting to the next—an empty boat on black water, oars floating away, glowing eyes watching from the darkness lining the shore; a tree stark against a moonlit sky, animal pelts hanging from its branches and a wolf howling at its base.

If this was Devlin's work—he was good, very good. He was also an Intuitive. Cassie felt utter truth in the images he'd created.

She also felt Devlin's unwavering gaze as she walked over to the table and dropped her knapsack onto it. Determined not to look at him, to see if he'd slipped silently closer, she unzipped the knapsack. She pulled out a sketch pad and pencil, a box of inks, a few clean rags, antiseptic, a small bottle of bleach and her homemade rig.

Not having the time to replace Alex's shattered gun, Cassie'd cobbled one together, prison-style. A sandpaper-sharpened guitar-string needle, a hobby motor, a spoon for the frame, guitar strings and pen shafts, a nine-volt battery transformer for power connected to a simple foot pedal, and she was good to go.

The screen door thunked shut as Gabrielle entered the shack. A sudden flash of heat lightning strobed through the room, bleaching out the room's yellowish light. Cassie blinked. A long moment later, thunder rolled across the horizon. Her sweat-damp dress was plastered to her back, and her hair clung to her temples and forehead. Several fans churned the hot air. Gathering the heavy mass of her hair, Cassie tied it back into a ponytail.

Turning around, she looked at the mambo's godson, relieved he still stood in the corner, and said, "What now?"

Devlin met and held her gaze, half of his own hidden behind the veil of his hair, but said nothing. Through a window beside him, Cassie saw a jagged tongue of lightning lick from the sky to the ground, dazzling blue-white, haunting her vision for several seconds afterward. Thunder boomed. Heaviness stilled the air. Her skin prickled.

"The loa walk and talk," Gabrielle said, her voice reverent as she looked out the window. "This be a night for requests. The loa are listening, ma petite. Be careful what you say."

Devlin's gaze shifted to his godmother. "Ils sont d'eine mauvaise humeur," he said, his voice pitched low.

The mambo shrugged. "Nothing for it, boy. Their mood be even worse if we turn back now."

Cassie jumped when Devlin suddenly growled, a low, deep-throated sound that vibrated through the room. He dropped down into a crouch, his long-fingered, thick-nailed hands touching the floor in front of him. His muscles rippled, and she caught the gleam of long, curving canines as his growl intensified into a snarl.

Cassie thought of the door behind her and of the mambo's warning—Don't run. Sweat trickled along her temples.

"Speak, girl," Gabrielle said, her voice an urgent whisper. "Storms make him testy."

Gripping the edge of the table, Cassie stared at Devlin. His thick nails had become black talons. "Alex looks into the heart of people, just like you do. Everyone calls him Michelangelo 'cause his work steals the breath and lifts the soul. And someone shot him for it," she said, throat tight but her voice level. "A bullet to the brain. His blood spattered on his own pictures."

Images flickered, nightmare-grained, her memory a theater without an exit.

Flicker: Alex sprawled on the floor, blood spray on the wall behind him.

Flicker: The sound of him choking.

Flicker: The reek of gunpowder and blood and vomit.

Flicker: Raleigh, sketch pad in hand, following her into the shop, face pale.

Flicker: Bored cops. Yellow crime-scene tape. Questions.

And looping endlessly through her mind, Raleigh's strained voice asking if his brother was dead. He's dead, isn't he? Cass? He's dead.

Devlin stopped growling. He continued to watch her, unblinking. Cassie held his gaze, riveted by the wildness stark in his eyes.

"I think Alex sketched out a hidden evil, maybe not even recognizing what it was," she said, kneeling on the wood floor to be at the loup garou's eye level. "But the one he drew it for? That one realized what Alex had revealed and tried to kill him. And maybe they have," she added, the words slow, reluctant. She swallowed. "He's been in a coma and he may never . . . he may—"

"C'est assez," Devlin cut in, sparing her from saying aloud the thing she did not want to say, ever. His voice was thick and harsh, little more than a growl. He rose to his feet in one fluid, effortless motion. "Look into my heart and draw what you see."

Cassie straightened slowly, the velvet fabric of her dress clinging to her thighs. Heart pounding, she settled herself into one of the kitchen chairs. Flipping open her sketch pad, she picked up a pencil and poised it over the blank sheet of paper.

She glanced up at Devlin. He stood still, watching her, his hands with their black claws at his sides. She noted claws arching from the toes on his bare feet, as well. Lightning strobed into the room. Devlin's eyes gleamed through his hair, white fire, silver moonlight, blue heat, and Cassie sucked in her breath, caught in his restless gaze.

Her pencil scratched across the paper, sketching in hard, bold strokes as images and symbols flashed through her mind like the lightning dancing across the sky: a black wolf pierced through the heart with three swords. Strobe.

Claws scraping across a bare chest, blood welling up in their wake. Strobe.

A bloodied figure huddled among a pile of corpses—human, wolves, and some in between—blood-smeared arms wrapped around knees, head down, face hidden, long black hair spilling, spilling, spilling. Strobe.

A blood-red moon hanging low on the horizon silhouetting a crouched figure, flames blazing where a heart should be—

Light-headed and gasping for air, Cassie felt the pencil slip from her grasp, heard it tunk against the floor and roll away. She looked up and almost fell out of her chair when she saw Devlin standing over her, his gaze on the sketch pad. His scent—musk, sweat, and night-cooled green ivy—filled her nostrils. She stared at him, her eyes following the strong line of his jaw up to the pointed tip of his ear poking through the black depths of his hair.

The mambo had been right. This was no man. This was an upright wolf. And a wounded one, at that.

"You seek justice, too," Cassie whispered.

Devlin went still. Listening. Waiting. His gaze never wavered from her sketch pad.

"Do I get mine, loup garou?" she asked. She extended her hand, thinking to touch him, pet him maybe, get him used to her scent.

A low growl rumbled up from his throat. Cassie froze, her hand still in midair.

"Don't touch him, child," Gabrielle said. "You leave your scent on him if'n you do, and that's a mighty personal thing."

Lowering her hand to her lap, Cassie said, "Well, do I?"

Devlin turned his head and looked at her. She tried to read his eyes, but couldn't, their dark, moonlight-flecked depths wary and waiting. He tapped one thick, black claw against the sketch pad.

Cassie glanced down, then stared, transfixed, by the image captured in her quick pencil strokes. She recognized it as one of the Major Arcana of a Tarot deck; a tall tower struck by lightning, ravaged by fire and battered by waves, figures tumbling through the storm-darkened air, plummeting helplessly as disaster overtakes them.

"It's a long way back from hell, for true," Devlin said. "Y'sure you wanna go down that road?"

"Already on it," Cassie said. Lightning flared, and searing white light pulsed in from outside. Light pulsed in Devlin's eyes, as well. After many