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Acknowledgments

I owe another round of thanks to the usual suspects: the in-term and recent arrivals The Dresden Files&039;s new editor, the warracious Anne Sowards-are you sure you actually live in NYC, Anne? My agent, Jennifer Jackson, who has been doing ten kinds of running around getting various deals put together and for whorateful

More thanks tosupport and love To Shannon for being who she is, and whose good opinion I would work ten ait, no maybe three times as hard to keep-Okay, okay, five, tops, (ten would be more hours than exist, babe, and besides, when could I play Halo?) Also thanks to y, enthusias

Oh, and also for uard, Frost, who supports et near enough to actually bothersnacks

Forthat ever happened to me I love you, Short-stuff

Chapter One

On On the whole, we&039;re ato Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the firstThe attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing Cain&039;s brother Abel probably never saw it co

As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of e

For freaking Cain

My apart roohouse in Chicago There&039;s a kitchen built into an alcove, a big fireplace almost always lit, a bedroom the size of the bed of a pickup truck, and a bathroom that barely fits a sink, toilet, and shower I can&039;t afford really good furniture, so it&039;s all secondhand, but cos, a lot of candles It isn&039;t much, but at least it&039;s clean

Or used to be

The rugs were in total disarray, exposing bare patches of stone floor One of the easy chairs had fallen over onto its back, and no one had picked it up Cushions werefrom the couch, and the curtains had been torn down fro in a swath of late-afternoon sunshine, all the better to illuminate the books that had been knocked down fro paperback covers, leaving hardbacks all the way open, and generallyup my primary source of idle entertainment

The fireplace was more or less the epicenter of the slobquake There were discarded clothes there, a couple of empty wine bottles, and a plate that looked suspiciously clean-doubtless the cleanup work of the other residents

I took a stunned step into rey tom, Mister, bounded down from his place on top of one of the bookshelves, but rather than give , he flicked his tail disdainfully at hed, walked over to the kitchen alcove, and checked The cat&039;s bowls of food and water were both ey section of the kitchen floor hauled itself to its feet and ca, Mouse, had started off as fuzzy little grey puppy that fit into my coat pocket Now, almost a year later, I someti Mouse had gone frouess at a breed to look at him, but at least one of his parents &039;s shoulders came nearly to rowing yet That translated into an awful lot of beast for my tiny apartment

Oh, and Mouse&039;s boere empty, too He nuzzled my hand, his hetti sauce, and then pawed at his bowls, scraping them over the patch of linoleurowled, Cain-like "It&039;s still like this? If he&039;s here, I&039; breath that was about as much commentary as he ever made, and followed placidly a couple of steps behind me as I walked over to the closed bedrooot there, the door opened, and an angel-faced blonde wearing nothing but a cotton T-shirt appeared in it Not a long shirt, either It didn&039;t cover all of her rib cage

"Oh," she drawled, with a slow and sleepy smile "Excuse me I didn&039;t know anyone else was here" Without a trace of h theFroured she expectedat her, and that she didn&039;t mind it at all

At one ti, and probably sneaking covert glances But after living with my half brother the incubus forI rolled my eyes and asked, "Thoirl said She slipped into jogging wear-sweatpants, ajacket, expensive shoes "Do me a favor? Tell him that it-"

I interrupted her in an impatient voice "That it was a lot of fun, you&039;ll always treasure it, but that it was a onetiirl or be president or so"

She stared at me and then knitted her blond brows into a frown "You don&039;t have to be such a bast-" Then her eyes widened "Oh Oh! I&039;, and said in a between-us-girls whisper, "I would never have guessed that he ith a e on that tiny bed?"

I blinked and said, "Noait a nored hty boy"

I glared at her back Then I glared at Mouse

Mouse&039;s tongue lolled out in a doggy grin, his dark tail waving gently

"Oh, shut up," I told hi through the pipes inpartook i, at least," I ed through it, but couldn&039;t find what I was after anywhere, and it was the last straw My frustration grew into a fire sohtened from the icebox with mayhem in mind

"Hey," came Thomas&039;s voice from behind me "We&039;re out of beer"

I turned around and glared at my half brother

Thouess now that I&039;d had ti likejaw But whatever sculptor had done the finishing work on Tho I&039;, but Thootten Greek god of body cologne He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh fro to curl His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single ratuitous a jeans and no shirt-his standard household uniform I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the saotten copies of The Watchtower The tooth

It hadn&039;t been the girl&039;s fault, entirely Thomas had inherited his father&039;s blood as a va on the raw life force of huh the intimate contact of sex That part of him surrounded him in the kind of aura that turned heads wherever he went When Thomas made the effort to turn up the supernatural come-hither, women literally couldn&039;t tell hi, they couldn&039;t even want to tell hi them, just a little bit, but he had to do it to stay sane, and he never took it any further than a single feeding

He could have Those the White Court chose as their prey beca fed upon, and becaly enslaved by their vampire lover But Thomas never pushed it that far He&039;d made that h life in a wheelchair, bound in a deathly euphoria because of his touch

I clenched my teeth and reminded myself that it wasn&039;t easy for Tho myself way too rowled "Or milk Or Coke"

"Um," he said

"And I see that you didn&039;t have time to feed Mister and Mouse Did you take Mouse outside, at least?"

"Well sure," he said "Ifor work, reie"

"Another jogger," I said, onceto keep bringing strangers back here, Tho bed? Hell&039;s bells, man, look at this place"

He did, and I saw it dawn on him, as if he literally hadn&039;t seen it before He let out a groan "Daie is a really really intense and, uh, athletic person and I didn&039;t realize that" He paused and picked up a copy of Dean Koontz&039;s Watchers He tried to fold the crease out of the cover "Wow," he added lamely "The place is sort of trashed"

"Yeah," I told him "You were here all day You said you&039;d take Mouse to the vet And clean up a little And get groceries"

"Oh, co deal?"

"I don&039;t have a beer," I growled I looked around at the rubble "And I got a call fro by"

Thomas lifted his eyebrows "Oh, yeah? No offense, Harry, but I&039;lared "Would you stop it with that already?"

"I&039;et it over with She&039;d say yes"

I slammed the door to the icebox "It isn&039;t like that," I said

"Yeah, okay," Thoether We&039;re friends That&039;s all"

"Right," he agreed

"I a Murphy," I said "And she&039;s not interested in me"

"Sure, sure I hear you" He rolled his eyes and started picking up fallen books "Which is why you want the place looking nice So your business friend won&039;t ritted my teeth and said, "Stars and stones, Thoyou for rent It wouldn&039;t kill you to pitch in a little with errands before you go to work"

"Yeah," Thoh his hair "Um About that"

"What about it?" I deone for the afternoon so thatservice could come in The faeries wouldn&039;t show up to clean when soain if I told someone about them Don&039;t ask ot a really strict union or soed a shoulder and sat down on the ar at roceries," he said "I got fired again"

I stared at hiood head of steanized the frustration and hu it

"Dammit," I muttered, only partly to Thomas "What happened?"

"The usual," he said "The drive-through er She followedher clothes off The oalked through on an inspection about then and firedher, I think she was going to get a proender discrimination"

"At least it was a wo on your control"

His voice turned bitter "Half of my soul is a demon," he said "It can&039;t be controlled It&039;s impossible"

"I don&039;t buy that," I said

"Just because you&039;re a wizard doesn&039;tabout it," he said "I can&039;t live a mortal life I&039; fine"

"Fine?" he dein&039;s inhibitions at fifty paces, but I can&039;t last teeks at a job where I&039; a stupid hairnet and a paper hat In ay is that fine?"

He slammed open the small trunk where he kept his clothes, seized a pair of shoes and his leather jacket, put the evening without looking back

And without cleaning up his lanced at Mouse, who had lain doith his chin on his paws, doggy eyes sad

Thomas was the only fae the truth: Tho life like nor a vampire That ca a littleinto one proble about it, but I could sense the pain and despair growing in him as the weeks went by

Mouse let out a quiet breath that wasn&039;t quite a whine

"I know," I told the beast "I worry about hiot back in as late-October dusk was settling over Chicago I got my mail out of the box and started for the stairs down to house&039;s sravel lot and crunched to a stop a few steps away A petite blonde in jeans, a blue button-down shirt, and a satin White Sox windbreaker slipped the car into park and left the engine running as she got out

Karrin Murphy looked like anything but the head of a division of law enforce that went buo area When trolls startedpassersby, when va in the streets, or when soical firepower than conscience went berserk, Chicago PD&039;s Special Investigations departate Of course, no one seriously believed in trolls or va weird happened, SI was in charge of explaining to everyone how it had been only ato worry about

SI had a sucky job, but the men and women orked there weren&039;t stupid They were perfectly aware that there were things out there in the darkness that were beyond the scope of conventional understanding Murphy, in particular, was deter with a preternatural threat, and I was one of her best weapons She would hirereally dangerous or alien, and the fees I got working with SI paid the lion&039;s share of my expenses

When Mouse saw Murphy, heand trotted over to her, his tail wagging If I had leaned back and kept ravel, but other than that, the big dog left

Murphy knelt down at once to dig her hands into the fur behind Mouse&039;s floppy ears, scratching vigorously "Hey, there, boy," she said, s "How are you?"

Mouse slobbered several doggy kisses onto her hands