in the first place. I promised the driver I would, you see. That was the ticket price we agreed on, you see, when I was down there hunting werewolves. That was the fare: one Titan."
"What does the Search Engine driver want with a Titan? Especially one in so many pieces."
"Who knows? Maybe they burn well."
Slithering off my lap, she danced across the office. The Titans had been good enough to clear away both the corpse of the poor Alsatian and the mess it left behind, so she had room to pirouette. She'd taken off the sweater and hung it over the stove to dry, which improved the view no end.
"You knew all along, didn't you?" she said, reaching a breathless halt. "All that time you were just keeping me talking and watching me dig myself deeper and deeper."
Enjoying the sight of her chest rising and falling, I nodded.
"I didn't work it out all at once," I said. "The information I gathered at Lycanthropia Terminus just confirmed the hunch I got when I worked out what that pooch had really said while it was dying on the carpet."
"And what was that?"
"When the poor critter turned into a man, it absorbed just enough human vocabulary to ask for help; of course, being a German shepherd, it came out as hilfe. After that, I thought it said knock."
"Knock?"
"Yeah. Only I think what it was really trying to say Knochen."
"What does that mean?"
"Brush up your German, sweetheart. It means bone. The poor mutt was just looking for his lunch."
"You're so clever, my own little poor mutt. Have you got a bone?"
"Why don't you come over here and find out for yourself?"
She came over and, funny, all that German went right out of my head. Like I said: femme, yes; fatale, most definitely. Ooh la la.
This Town Ain't Big Enough
Tanya Huff
"Ow! Vicki, be careful!"
"Sorry. Sometimes I forget how sharp they are."
"Terrific." He wove his fingers through her hair and pulled just hard enough to make his point. "Don't."
"Don't what?" She grinned up at him, teeth gleaming ivory in the moonlight spilling across the bed. "Don't forget or don't—"
The sudden demand of the telephone for attention buried the last of her question.
Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci sighed. "Hold that thought," he said, rolled over, and reached for the phone. "Celluci."
"Fifty-two division just called. They've found a body down at Richmond and Peter they think we might want to have a look at."
"Dave, it's . . ." He squinted at the clock. ". . . one twenty-nine in the a.m. and I'm off duty."
On the other end of the line, his partner, theoretically off duty as well, refused to take the hint. "Ask me who the stiff is?"
Celluci sighed again. "Who's the stiff?"
"Mac Eisler."
"Shit."
"Funny, that's exactly what I said." Nothing in Dave Graham's voice indicated he appreciated the joke. "I'll be there in ten."
"Make it fifteen."
"You in the middle of something?"
Celluci watched as Vicki sat up and glared at him. "I was."
"Welcome to the wonderful world of law enforcement."
Vicki's hand shot out and caught Celluci's wrist before he could heave the phone across the room. "Who's Mac Eisler?" she asked as, scowling, he dropped the receiver back in its cradle and swung his legs off the bed.
"You heard that?"
"I can hear the beating of your heart, the movement of your blood, the song of your life." She scratched the back of her leg with one bare foot. "I should think I can overhear a lousy phone conversation."
"Eisler's a pimp." Celluci reached for the light switch, changed his mind, and began pulling on his clothes. Given the full moon riding just outside the window, it wasn't exactly dark and given Vicki's sensitivity to bright light, not to mention her temper, he figured it was safer to cope. "We're pretty sure he offed one of his girls a couple weeks ago."
Vicki scooped her shirt up off the floor. "Irene Macdonald?"
"What? You overheard that too?"
"I get around. How sure's pretty sure?"
"Personally positive. But we had nothing solid to hold him on."
"And now he's dead." Skimming her jeans up over her hips, she dipped her brows in a parody of deep thought. "Golly, I wonder if there's a connection."
"Golly yourself," Celluci snarled. "You're not coming with me."
"Did I ask?"
"I recognized the tone of voice. I know you, Vicki. I knew you when you were a cop, I knew you when you were a P.I. and I don't care how much you've changed physically, I know you now you're a . . . a