bedroom was a lot more lethal than the dog you shot. Bigger.”
“They are shapeshifters like Guayota.” It wasn’t a guess. I’d seen the size of the claws on the walls.
“There is probably no way to get Joel back,” Adam said.
I heard the guilt in Adam’s voice and knew that this was the issue at hand. I narrowed my eyes at him. I could argue all night about why he shouldn’t feel guilty about Joel and how we didn’t know enough about Guayota to know that Joel was lost. We had a lot of alternatives to explore before we gave up. But sometimes taking another tack worked better.
“If I hadn’t killed the male tibicena, then he wouldn’t have needed a replacement. If I hadn’t gone to talk to Lucia, maybe he wouldn’t have tracked down Joel.” Unless he had some way of finding the people who were tied to the Canary Islands.
“If you folks are done with me,” Gary said, “I think I’ll get going.”
Adam glanced at him. “You wait a moment.” To me he said, “You know it isn’t your fault.”
“I know it,” I agreed. “But if we’re accepting blame, I think that I’m closer to the cause than you are.”
He grunted irritably. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
Adam took a deep breath, and I could sense the cloak of civilization that he pulled over the beast who wanted to kill something, anything, because Adam and his wolf were united in their dedication to justice, and its defeat could send them off in a rage. He took a second breath, and the mantle settled more firmly in place.
To Gary he said, “You have been very helpful. Of course you can leave whenever you wish. Do you have a place to go?”
Gary spread his arms and shook his head. “I’m fine, man. I’m used to going my own way. Don’t take offense, but trouble is looking for the pair of you, and I’d rather be a long ways away.”
“Stay here for the night.” Adam looked tired. It wasn’t the time—it wasn’t much past midnight—it was all the dead dogs, the guilt he shouldn’t feel, and the effort of controlling himself. “We’ll get you money and maybe a ride out of here in the morning. On the run is tough. Take shelter when you can find it.”
“You don’t want me here,” said Gary. “You’ve got trouble, and I’ll just bring you more.”
“We have pizza coming in about fifteen minutes,” Honey said briskly, returning to the kitchen on the heels of Gary’s words. She’d probably heard Adam, too. “Eat. Stay the night—and then no one will stop you from running as far and as fast as you want.”
“I’m not a coward,” he said defensively. “Just prudent.”
He hadn’t cared what Adam and I thought of him.
Honey’s eyebrows rose. “I never said you were. I also don’t think you are stupid. Eat. Sleep. Run. Works better in that order because you can run faster on a full stomach and a real night’s sleep.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll leave tomorrow, thank you.”
It had been Honey, I thought, who had made him decide to stay. She was too smart not to see it, but she chose to ignore him.
Instead, she spoke to Adam. “Warren told us about what happened at Mercy’s garage tonight, and we’ve watched the video.” She looked at me and smiled but continued to talk to Adam. “When your security man brought the disc of Mercy’s fight with Guayota for you here, I thought it would be useful for all of us to see what we’re facing. I’ve got it running upstairs if you want to watch it again.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I watched enough of it while it was happening. Tomorrow is soon enough to see it again for me.”
Honey looked at me but spoke to Adam. “For a fragile almost human, she did well.”
“Any fight you live through is a fight well fought,” said Gary. “That said, I might wander upstairs and see what it is I’m running from.” There was a faint bitterness in his tone, and Honey looked at him. He raised both hands in surrender and grinned. “Tomorrow. Running from tomorrow. Tonight, I’m in the mood for a movie.” He turned around, winking at me along the way, and headed toward the stairway, almost bumping into Christy, who was just coming into the kitchen.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he said. He hesitated, but when she didn’t acknowledge him in any way, he just grinned and kept going.
Christy went right for Adam as if none of the rest