Over dessert, served in tall glasses with vanilla ice cream and Coke and lots of the resulting foam, Eli turned the conversation to the shooter. “According to what I learned through Jodi, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the bomb builder and the shooter were the same person. Fingerprints match.”

“No way,” Alex said. “Bomb makers and shooters have distinct and different personalities.”

Eli settled hard eyes on his brother, which had to be uncomfortable. Alex jutted out his jaw and stared back. “You’re a shooter,” the Kid said. “You’ve got all the personality markers for a shooter, including high markers for survival, tenacity, independent action, and patience. Bomb makers have different personalities, with lower markers for survival and independence, but higher markers for single-mindedness.”

“You’ve been playing shrink on me?” The question contained no overt emotions, but Eli’s scent changed, with aggressive pheromones tainting the air.

“I have an IQ considerably higher than yours,” Alex said seriously, “with personality markers for insatiable curiosity. It isn’t my fault.”

“Everyone has to take responsibility for our own decisions, actions, and inactions, Kid.”

“Stop,” I said. “We’re not talking about your pasts. We’re talking about the shooter and bomb maker who targeted this house. If it’s a blood-servant, and we think it is, he’s had a lot of years to learn all sorts of things, including how to beat any personality test or even grow a new personality if he needs one. You live long enough, you can overcome most anything, including your own disposition.”

“That from personal experience?” Eli asked.

I stabbed him with a look and let Beast rise in my eyes, just a bit. “You got questions about me, Eli? ’Cause if we start asking questions, we’re all gonna have to answer them.” I let my eyes fall to his collarbone and the scarring there, scarring he had never talked about, scarring that had ended his military career, or had been the impetus for his voluntary honorable discharge, or whatever they called it.

“Maybe it’s time to clear the air,” Eli said, and my heart jumped in surprise before he went on. “But not until after we catch this guy. Then I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.”

It was a challenge that Eli clearly didn’t expect me to accept. So I did. “Okeydokey.” He didn’t gape like a fish on land, but it was a near thing, and I grinned at him to show I knew I had scored a point. To drive it home, I licked my fingertip and drew a vertical line in the air. “Until then, you got any of the shooter’s blood for me to sniff?”

Eli frowned, actually had a tiny line form between his brows. “Yeah. How’d you know I collected some of the blood?”

“You were too quick to disappear. I figured you followed him and collected some spatter for me.”

“I did.”

I held out my hand. “That blood spatter, please?”

Eli retrieved a plastic Ziploc bag from the counter and opened it before handing it to me. I bent my nose over the opening and sniffed. And rocked my head back in surprise.

“What?” Eli said, knees in a crouch, one hand behind him, going for his weapon. Eli always had a weapon on him, and drawing one was his first action of choice.

I waved away his gun and the stink at the same time. “Nothing. Just, I never smelled a blood-servant like this one. I don’t even need to shift.” I took another sniff and wrinkled my nose. “Ick. Angry, cold and purposed, been drinking from a very old vamp for a lot of years. Old blood-servant, maybe the oldest I’ve ever smelled.” I raised my eyes to Eli as he settled back into his chair. “And our shooter is a she.”

Eli didn’t seem terribly surprised. “Women make good shooters: steady, dependable, and reliable. Good hand-to-eye. Until they have families. Then different instincts kick in and they have a harder time following orders. They think too much.”

My feminist side wanted to stick up her head and disagree, but maybe he had a point. What did I know? I took another sniff. The blood was starting to break down and smelled a bit rank, but I caught a whiff of something else. Something almost familiar, but not quite there, not quite envisioned. But whatever it was, little alarm bells went off inside my brain. I resealed the baggie, thinking.

“Are you going to change shape to sniff it?” Alex blurted. “I want to watch!”

“No,” Eli said.

“Yes, I’m going to change. And it’s the same answer you will always get to that question. No, you can’t watch. It’s private,” I said. “Sorry.” But I wasn’t really sorry. Changing, even in extremis, always involved a certain amount of nudity, and no way was I willing to share that with a nineteen-year-old boy/man, no matter how high his IQ was. “I’ll be right back.”

I went to my room and closed the door.

I took my box of fetishes from the top shelf of the closet and removed the one I wanted, bones and teeth strung on a length of jewelry wire. I stripped, sat on my bed, and held the necklace in my lap. Beast had been unusually quiet until I settled down to meditate; then she said, Good nose. Ugly dog.

“Yeah. I know. Sorry.” And I entered the gray place of the change.

CHAPTER 14

Talk to Big Bird

As soon as the dizziness cleared and my head stopped being filled with images and scents, I stepped down from the bed. I had to change the sheets. Buy a new bed. Scrub the bathroom. Good oogly moogly, this place stank.

I made it to the door and scratched on it with my paw. Then, just for fun, I barked, a long arrrooooo of sound. Alex, smelling of garlic, onions, sweat, deodorant, and growing boy—a toxic mixture—opened the door and stared down at me, his eyes big as always when he saw me in a different shape. I considered letting go some gas—a doggie way of stating an opinion on any number of things, but I thought better of it. I walked into the kitchen and ate the raw hamburger that Eli put on a plate for me. The energy required by shifting always left me starving and I hadn’t had to tell my partner. I butted his leg in thanks and he scratched my ears, a familiarity I’d never have permitted in human form but which felt perfect in dog form.

Back in the living room, I stepped up on the sofa and sat, my tail thumping, staring at Eli. Who smelled wonderful to my dog nose, and made me wonder how Bruiser might smell, which nearly made me drool. Associations in bloodhound form were so totally different from human or Beast shape. All the senses were closer together, interwoven, more intricate, and so much more intense, that I could see how easy it might be to let them take over and to lose myself in the textures and blends of scent patterns. I realized that Eli was talking and I woofed to show I was ready for a sniff test.