I stuck my hands in my pockets and shrugged, not knowing how to respond.

Rick pushed off the wall and draped his arm around my shoulders, not an easy thing to do when there’s no disparity in height. “Come on. We need to talk.”

Oh crap. We need to talk as in, I bought a house and want you to move in? Or as in, I want to see other people, like the busty Sandra? Or as in—

“I had a call from Grizzard. And from PsyLed. I’ve got job offers from both.”

I thought about that as we entered the elevator and Rick pushed the button for the lobby. As the doors closed, I asked, “They know about you?”

“Yeah. They do. I told them. I’d be a detective with the sheriff’s department, with full moons off so I can listen to the spell music Evan made for me. The job PsyLed outlined is a kind of roving special agent with a territory covering seven Southeastern states.” When I didn’t reply he said, “I’m thinking about taking the PsyLed offer.”

The elevator doors opened and we walked out of the hospital into the fall sunlight. It was Indian Summer, temps in the high eighties and days long enough to pretend that winter and snow and ice would never come. But cold always follows heat, as night follows day, and sadness follows joy. Fang and Rick’s red crotch-rocket were parked close by the door, taking up one space. “You’re a good cop,” I said. “It had to help when you told the sheriff about the body in Evangelina’s house.” I had told him about the body after the battle with Evangelina, Shaddock, the angel, and the demon.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, agreeing. “I’m a hero.”

I play-socked his bicep and he play-screamed and ducked as if injured. “Any word on what killed her husband?” I asked, grinning.

“Blunt object head trauma. Maybe a frying pan.” At my look he said, “What? She’s a chef. Anyway, ten years or so ago Evangelina whacked him on the head, rolled him in a carpet, and hid him behind the couch. She told her sisters he left her. Her daughter disappeared at the same time.”

I straddled Fang and helmeted up. “The twins are ready to deliver us and the steer to the grindy. You up for a helicopter ride?”

Rick waggled his eyebrows at me. “Baby, I’m always up.”

I rolled my eyes and keyed on Fang. Together we roared out of the hospital parking lot.

I was pushing Beast, like baiting a lion in her den, but so far, nothing had drawn her out. Beast was silent even as I strapped in to the helo and the engine’s whine rose in pitch. I hated the flimsy contraptions, but I had things to do in a limited amount of time and the helicopter would make it all possible. Brandon—or maybe it was Brian, it was hard to tell with the com-gear on—gave me a thumbs-up and the bird lifted off. Rick was having a ball, the two men up front, talking back and forth on the com-channel. I was sitting in back, beside the shrink-wrapped steer carcass that smelled of old cold blood and maybe brine, and had my com-gear turned off, wearing it only to mute the noise.

I stared out over the city of Asheville as the bird rose and careened toward the hills. Everything looked closer together up here, the folds of the earth that made travel so time-consuming becoming inconsequential. I could get used to this. I could. If I was going to remain in Leo Pellissier’s employ.

I had stuff to do. Decisions to make. Places to be. And still so many things unfinished, hanging over me like Death’s sickle. A sense of dislocation hammered at me. I literally had no home now. No one to call family. Molly had talked to me once on the phone, but she was grieving for her sister, and her sister’s killer was difficult to be around, especially with the funeral in the works, law enforcement combing through Evangelina’s home, and so much media attention focused on the Everharts and the Truebloods. All because of me.

The fact that Evangelina was a murderer and a blood-witch, spelling her coven, and keeping horrible secrets that would have come to a dangerous and deadly climax with or without me didn’t make Molly’s grief any less real or any less intense. Grief isn’t logical. I understood, but it hurt. Life hurt. Angie Baby and I talked on the phone every day, often about her angel, but I hadn’t been allowed to see her. Big Evan had asked me, politely, to stay away.

My belongings were packed in the back of an SUV here in Asheville and in my freebie house in Louisiana. But I had no place to send them. And . . . Beast was still silent. Even with me in a helo again, the rotor noise like an animal’s roar.

The twins had reconnoitered the GPS location we were going to and found a landing site in a field nearby, but we flew over the cleft in the hills first. It looked different from the sky, flatter, muddier. The dammed up pond was gone, the logs and debris scattered downstream. But I got a glimpse of the cave, and the pile of bones, crows and buzzards on the limbs of trees in far greater numbers than before. At the helo’s noisy approach, the birds scattered, flying low. The B-twin hovered over the site and Rick unstrapped, joining me in the back. Together, we slid open the helo door and braced ourselves against the sides. Rick held up three fingers, lips saying, “On three.” His head jerked down three times, counting, and on three, we pushed. The steer carcass slid across the helo in its plastic wrap and tumbled out. The helo wobbled with the weight distribution and updrafts, before it stabilized and we stuck our heads out the open door.

I felt, more than saw, Rick laugh when the carcass hit the ground and bounced, right in front of the grindy’s lair. Rick pulled me back, shutting the door as the helo banked and soared away, to the clearing we intended to use as a landing site. After that it was a strenuous hike back, requiring a lot of sweat, some blood from scraped knuckles, a ton of mud, and way longer than a helo. The value of speed wasn’t lost on me. But Beast didn’t comment.

We stood between the pile of bones and the cave mouth, the reek of death suffocating in the heat of the September day. I had smelled some bad things in my time, but the charnel-house/abattoir stench was beyond awful. The bear was foul, slimy, maggoty, even though the bones had been stripped of most of the flesh. Gack, eww, ick.

The buzzards and crows had come back to their stinky feast quickly, and one brave buzzard hopped to the top of the pile and spread its wings, claiming it and warning us away. “Don’t worry,” I told the bird. “It’s all yours.”

Rick chuckled and took my hand, pulling me inside the cave. The dark and coolness of the grindy’s lair was a welcome relief. It smelled better inside, an air current I hadn’t noticed moving from deeper underground, from the back of the cave and out the mouth, as if the mountain breathed through the opening. The grindylow was awake, sitting on the ledge, her legs hanging down from her nest swinging, oddly like a child. She was wearing clothes, wrinkled and none-too-clean, but she was covered, the clothing making her look less like an animal. Peeking out from the leaves and limbs of the nest were four, little, green-furred faces—her children.

“Thank you,” she said, “for the gift. Food is welcome.”

My mouth dropped open and I shot a quick look at Rick, but it was clear he hadn’t known the grindy could speak either. She smiled, showing fangs in her green-skinned face. “Uh, you’re welcome,” I managed. “For your babies.”

She dipped her head, the nod of acknowledgment odd-looking on her. She studied us, her heels kicking, tapping the stone softly like fingertips on a drum. “Jane-cat, you are not were. You do not fall under my judgment.”

“No. I’m not.” Confused, I added, “And, okay.”

“But you, little cat,” she said to Rick, “you are mine to judge. Come.” She gestured with her three-clawed hand at him. I instinctively shifted, hands at my blades. “He is in no danger, Jane-cat. He has not tried to infect you with his taint.” She cocked her bald head, studying Rick as he neared. “You have not shifted, little one. You are cat, and not-cat. Your magic is . . .” She made a little chirping sound and Rick tensed as the baby grindys crawled out in a swarm of wriggling green fur, huge black eyes staring at Ricky Bo. A series of chirps came from them, high-pitched and raucous, and they jumped back and forth over their mother and one another, like circus animals in an act. Rick laughed and held out his arm. One of the grindy babies leaped to him and scampered up his shoulder to nuzzle at his face. He petted it, gently, smoothing its soft fur.

The grindy went on. “Your magic is in stasis, balanced on a claw-blade of choice. You may never shift, which may give you magic of another kind, greater power, as you grow in acceptance and control over your cat-self. Or full were-power, as you shift for the first time. The choice will be yours to make.”

The tiny grindy raced over Rick’s head and nuzzled his other side, sniffing at the area of his tattoos as if a morsel of treat awaited her there. She chirped and whistled a tune that sounded, oddly, both happy and inquisitive. “Pea says your magic melds with hers. She is the littlest of my get, and has chosen you. Do you accept her?”

“Grindy, I don’t have a place in my life for a pet,” Rick said, as the green ball of fluff stuck its nose into his ear. He laughed and caught the baby, shifting her to the crook of his arm.

“Pea is not a pet, little cat-who-is-not,” the grindy said gently. “She is your death.” The cave went silent. My hands tightened on my blade handles, palms sweating. “You have no choice but to accept one of my young. Lolandes has proclaimed that even in the Americas, all weres will have keepers. Three of my young will go to the werewolf-clan hiding in the north and one will stay with you. I will go back to the terrible heat of the jungle with the leopards, there to deliver another litter. Then I may go home.”

Lolandes was another name for the witch who created the first weres, and then condemned the werewolves to eternal insanity. She had been worshipped as a goddess by tribal peoples for centuries. That brought all sorts of questions to mind, like, where is home to a grindylow, and where is the werewolf clan in the north, and mostly, What?

Rick was having an easier time with it, clearly, as he didn’t pull his gun and shoot them. He said, “My death if I try to infect anyone. I accept that. I’d deserve it.” He looked at Pea, who raced back up his shoulder, but still spoke to mama-grindy. “Can she talk?”