I heard Eli jump back fast. I came up with a gun in one hand and a vamp-killer in the other, and reached the living room in a single leap that made the Kid yelp in surprise before he laughed, the sound wicked and mocking.

Eli was crouched, a nine-mil in each hand, aimed at a huge, soaking wet, white, growling dog, with crystalline blue eyes. It showed Eli its teeth. Big honking teeth that I recognized. This was no dog. It was a white wolf, a werewolf. I fought the desire to shoot him. Though Beast hated his guts on principle—he was a canine—he had once saved my life in the middle of a werewolf attack.

He crouched and raised his shoulders, his growl a rumble that I felt through the floor. Soul was just stepping through the window, and she shouted, “Brute! Stop that!” Like Brute, Soul was soaked through to the skin—not even her magic was keeping her dry through the downpour. She shoved a dripping plastic grocery bag across the floor and hit the wolf in the side with her knee.

Brute stopped growling and closed his lips over his teeth. He looked up at Eli and chuffed. And shook. Water and the stench of wet dog flew everywhere.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Brute snarled at me. So did Eli, who had been caught in the flying droplets. I holstered my weapons and went to the kitchen, returning with two hands full of dish towels, which I tossed to Eli and to the floor at Brute’s feet. “Roll around in the towels, dog. Get yourself dry, or I promise I’ll toss you outside to sleep on the back porch like the mongrel you are.”

The wolf dropped on the pile of towels and rolled, scattering them everywhere and leaving a large wet spot on the newly cleaned floor. He huffed the whole time, werewolf laughter.

Midroll, Brute wrenched himself back to his feet, nose to the floor, snuffling and growling again. “Not to worry,” I said to Brute. “It’s just Leo’s blood.” The wolf tilted his head in a totally human gesture of astonishment and I said, “I staked him earlier for interrupting my shower and trying to kill me.”

The wolf’s look went blanker. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. This time his tongue lolled comically.

Soul asked, “Forgive me if I don’t quite remember everything from before, but is he . . . ah . . . true-dead?” The look in her eyes said she was calculating how Leo’s death would affect the vamp legal-system negotiations. And how long I’d be alive to tell the tale.

“I wish. But nah. Katie took him home to feed him.” I handed Soul a larger towel and helped to pat her down while she started giving us the third degree, law enforcement officer–style.

“Where are the Mithrans staying? Why are they here? How many are there? Did they really hurt Reach?”

The answers were minimal and unsatisfactory, but they were all I had. “We lost them. They’re supposedly after magical things to take home to the EuroVamps. Satan’s Three and any humans they might have. What little intel we have suggests around ten. And I don’t know. He sounded”—I frowned at the memory—“hurt.”

Soul shook her head and then shook out her platinum-silver hair, running her fingers through to finger-comb the long strands. Even soaking wet she was gorgeous. Curvy, womanly, rounded. With cleavage that drew the eyes, even the eyes of straight women like me. Just elegant cleavage. “You do lead an interesting life, Jane Yellowrock,” she said.

“Me? You!”

Soul laughed softly; Brute snorted, and shook again. Eli grumbled and picked up the towels, wiping the dog water and scent off the floor and furniture, keeping an eye on Brute. The wolf trotted around the couch and stopped, sniffing Bruiser from the top of his head to the tips of his socked feet. Then he made the rounds of the living room and kitchen, sniffing and studying everything. I waited, wondering what he’d pick up from the scents in the foyer.

It was pretty spectacular. Brute’s ruff went up, he growled and snarled, his chest enlarged as he chuffed and snuffled, and his tail dropped to half-mast. He pressed his nose to the wood and moved back and forth across the floor, sniffing and snorting and quivering with turmoil.

“Brute?” Soul asked. He didn’t look up.

“Nose suck,” I said.

Soul’s forehead wrinkled slightly as if trying to remember the term or what it meant. “I beg your pardon?”

“Canine noses—even wolf noses—are tied directly into the brain in ways humans can’t understand. The scents link, merge, and find pathways and patterns that paint a picture. He’s smelling Peregrinus and the Devil, and probably Gee and Katie and you and us. Oh. And blood. There was a sword fight in the foyer and the entry to the main room.”

The PsyLED special agent looked at the busted furniture piled in the corner and the sword cut in the wall, and shook her head slightly as if trying to draw conclusions from the chaos that was my life. “This, I don’t remember at all.”

“It happened before you made your dramatic entrance,” I said.

“Oh.” She shook her head, wet hair flying, “I suppose that should make me feel better.” Soul knelt by Brute and ran her fingers deep into his ruff, scratching his skin. “Brute,” she said. “Attention.” The snuffling stopped and the wolf rolled his blue eyes up to her, but his nose didn’t leave the wood floor. “I want you to remember the scents. Tell him who they are, Jane.”

“The female human is the Devil. The Mithran is called Peregrinus, and he’s our enemy. He came to about here”—I pointed to the floor—“and left. The not-human that might have a slight wet-feather undertone is Gee DiMercy. Then over here we had Leo and his heir, Katie, and the vampire priestess Bethany. She smells old and crazy.” I looked at Soul, who stood up, leaving her hand in the wolf’s ruff. “The other scents you might make out are Derek, who you’ve sniffed, I think, and two les arcenciels. Their scents are fishy and plantlike.” Soul lifted her eyebrows in amusement at my description of her scent, or maybe at my attempt at speaking French.

Brute snuffled and snorted, this tone different from the earlier ones, now of affirmation. He raised his head and stood on his back feet to stick his nose into Soul’s neck near her ear. He blew, fluffing her wet hair. Claws clicking, he dropped, turned around, and headed up the stairs. I said, “Do not do anything bad to any room or any piece of . . . anything. Or the threat about the back porch will be true.” Brute sniffed at me and trotted on up, taking the stairs two at a time.