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good look at his face.”
    Elizaveta frowned and spoke rapidly in Russian to her grandson. His response had her nodding, and they chatted for a few moments more before she turned back to Adam. “That might be possible. I can certainly try.”
    â€œI don’t suppose you have a camera here, Mercy?” Adam asked.
    â€œI do,” I told him. I work on old cars. Sometimes I work on cars that other people have “restored” in new and interesting fashions. I’ve found that getting a picture of the cars before I work on them is useful in putting them back together again. “I’ll get it.”
    â€œAnd bring a piece of paper and an ink stamp pad if you have it. I’ll send his fingerprints off to a friend for identification.”
    By the time I returned, the corpse was back in human form, and the hole I’d torn in his neck gaped open like a popped balloon. His skin was blue with blood loss. I’d seen dead men before, but none that I was responsible for killing.
    The change had torn his clothing—and not in the interesting way that comic books and fantasy artists always depict it. The crotch of his pants was ripped open along with his blood-soaked shirt’s neck and shoulder seams. It seemed terribly undignified.
    Adam took the digital camera from me and snapped a few pictures from different angles, then tucked it back in its case and slung it over his shoulder.
    â€œI’ll get it back to you as soon as I get these pictures off it,” he promised absently as he took the paper and inkstamp and, rather expertly, rolled the limp fingers in the ink, then on the sheet of paper.
    Things moved rapidly after that. Adam helped Elizaveta’s grandson deposit the body in the luxurious depths of the trunk of her car for disposal. Elizaveta did her mumbles and shakes that washed my garage in magic and, hopefully, left it clean of any evidence that I’d ever had a dead man inside. She took Mac’s clothing, too.
    â€œHush,” said Adam, when Mac growled an objection. “They were little more than rags anyway. I’ve clothes that should fit you at my house, and we’ll pick up more tomorrow.”
    Mac gave him a look.
    â€œYou’re coming home with me,” said Adam, in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’ll not have a new werewolf running loose around my city. You come and learn a thing or two, then I’ll let you stay or go as you choose—but not until I’m satisfied you can control yourself.”
    â€œI am going now; it is not good for an old woman like me to be up this late,” Elizaveta said. She looked at me sourly. “Don’t do anything stupid for a while if you can help it, Mercedes. I do not want to come back out here.”
    She sounded as if she came out to clean up my messes on a regular basis, though this was the first time. I was tired, and the sick feeling that killing a man had left in my stomach was still trying to bring up what little was left of my dinner. Her sharpness raised the hackles I was too on edge to pull down, so my response wasn’t as diplomatic as it ought to have been.
    â€œI wouldn’t want that, either,” I said smoothly.
    She caught the implied insult, but I kept my eyes wide and limpid so she wouldn’t know whether I meant it or not. Insulting witches is right up there on the stupid list with enraging Alpha werewolves and cuddling with a new wolf next to a dead body: all of which I’d done tonight. I couldn’t help it, though. Defiance was a habit I’d developed to preserve myself while growing up with a pack ofdominant and largely male werewolves. Werewolves, like other predators, respect bravado. If you are too careful not to anger them, they’ll see it as a weakness—and weak things are prey.
    Tomorrow I was going to repair old cars and keep my head down for a while. I’d used up all my luck tonight.
    Adam seemed to agree because he took