Fun, Beast growled deep inside. Play with mouse.

Lightning struck, a crash-smash-bang of thunder that shook the building. HQ, struck by lightning. The Gray Between ripped open and the world went still and silent. Gee’s face was frozen in a look of intensity. His lips were slightly parted so he could breathe steadily, his feet were planted securely on the wood gym floor, and his black hair was a solid glisten where the light hit it. His glamours were an interlocking, underlying patchwork of power-reds from scarlet to crimson to cerise. Lots of blanketing shades of lavender and grape and periwinkle and amethyst. And all glowing with magic to Beast-vision. I stepped back from Gee’s staves to keep from drawing him into the time bubble with me.

In the room beyond I could see the blood-servants and -slaves, watching us with a sense of expectation and excitement. All but Ro, whose eyes were narrowed and cataloging the scene that Gee and I made. I walked toward her and took in Troll’s expression and the protective hand on her arm. Interestinger and interestinger.

Back at Gee, I realized that I wasn’t cramping. My stomach wasn’t constricting; I wasn’t throwing up blood; I wasn’t nauseated. I looked at myself in the Gray Between. My body was a shadow of matter. My souls were golden wisps of light, swirled around one another, intermixed. Beast moved up into the forefront of my brain and panted, watching what I was watching, understanding what I was understanding. Maybe better than I did. My magic was in a pentagram, a star geometry, stable motes of power moving like the new normal in the slice of time around me. But the scarlet motes always seemed to be moving just ahead of my skinwalker magic. Leading instead of being herded? That was a scary thought. The one perfect thing about my magic was the empty place against my heart where the shadow of murder had been. Now there was a feathery light there, bright and sweeping. Light. That was unexpected.

Either the storm was doing something to my magic, or being taken to water had done something to my magic, or the new Vitruvian Man motes had done something to my magic, or some combo of the three. The star shape, or pentagram, had proven to provide the best geometric and mathematical stability for magical workings, and was best when five magic users came together to work energy to a purpose, what laymen called a spell. I had five of the little red motes zipping through me and around me, in a working that appeared to be part of me. Either it had fixed the problem with my skinwalker magic or it was about to try to kill me.

Beast. Talk to me. What’s happening here?

Angel Hayyel happens. Purpose of light. Like purpose of Beast is to hunt.

That isn’t overly helpful. Got anything more?

The angel Hayyel had appeared in my presence once, and his hand had changed me and everyone in the room with me. No surprise that the celestial being was an ongoing problem. Beast?

Beast didn’t answer. I knew she had talked to the angel who had appeared in my life for all of maybe four seconds. And I knew that the angel’s time with Beast was longer than his time with me. And whatever he had done had created this ability to bubble time. It had given others certain skills and certain gifts and certain punishments. I wasn’t sure what bubbling and bending time was—a gift or a penalty. Maybe both.

I’d gotten too close. Around me, time stuttered and Gee’s staves moved several inches in a swing that would have impacted the side of my head had I not ducked. Instinctively, Beast pulled on the bubble of time and it stabilized. Now that . . . that was interesting. And I had seen how she did it.

I gripped my staves and went behind Gee. Without touching him, I set the hard wooden shafts in two delicate places—assuming his bird had parts like humans did—leaned in, and the Gray Between dropped. Sound slapped my eardrums like two palms clapping on the side of my head. I yanked the staves up and back, snapping one stave between Gee’s legs and one against his throat, yanking him back against me and applying pressure all at once.

Gee made an eep and froze in place. His breath made a whistling noise. A blood-servant hooted approvingly. Others applauded slowly, as if still trying to figure out what they had seen. Or hadn’t.

“Enforcer,” Gee greeted me, motionless and formal.

“Bird Man,” I greeted him back, softly. “How’s it shaking?”

“I have nothing that shakes. I am healthy. And you, Enforcer? Are you well?”

“I’m good. Okay, how about this. You drop your staves, I let the pressure off your nuts—you do have nuts?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “At the moment in a most uncomfortable position.”

“Continuing: I let you go, we bow to each other, and we chat off the record.” I hoped this took us from formality and fighting and into conversation.

“You wish to gossip?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Agreed.”

Gee dropped his staves. I stepped back and crossed my hands at the waist, the staves sweeping out behind me. We bowed in that formal manner and I set my sticks on the floor.

“Would the Enforcer care for tea?”

“I would.”

Gee snapped his fingers and Brenda Rezk inclined her head. It looked like the security person from Atlanta was learning how to be a servant, which was part of every good blood-servant’s job. She was a prideful but resolute woman, determined to move up in Leo’s ranks and doing a fine job of it, though serving tea didn’t look like her cup of the beverage. The fact that she was working directly with Gee, however, suggested that she might be up for the number one or two security spot when the new Master of the City took over in Georgia.

I placed my staves into Brenda’s hands and followed Gee from the gym into the cleaner-smelling hallway. Less sweat and blood and fighting pheromones and more soap, shampoo, food, coffee, and tea scents. Gee led the way to the small room that was used as a consultation room and gestured me to one of the sofas. I had few happy memories of this room simply because bad stuff had happened here. But I took a seat and tea was delivered by a gray-liveried servant wearing white gloves, overseen by Brenda. Tea and little sandwiches and a small plate of fruit. Beast sneered. I ignored her.

When the servants left, Brenda closed the door behind her, guarding the hallway and our privacy. I said, “I think I whupped your butt in there, dude.”

Gee poured tea and pushed the sugar and cream to me. I wasn’t the patient type except when hunting, but I managed to not look up. I added sugar and cream, tasted, added a bit more of each, wasting his time as he was wasting mine, and settled back with a satisfied sigh. The tea was good.

“You twisted time,” he said mildly.

“I did.” It had been caught on tape a few times. It wasn’t like it was a secret.

“Only arcenciels can twist time.”

“And Brute,” I said.

“The werewolf?”

“Werewolf touched by an angel. And me. Also touched by an angel.”

He thought about that as we sipped and ate sandwiches. They were nearly as good as Bruiser’s cucumber sandwiches. They’d have been better with beef and bacon, but no one had asked me.

“I see,” he said, after an extended time.

“Angels and arcenciels and Anzus were on Earth and interacting with humans at about the same time, and of them all, only arcenciels could be trapped and their magic used. Only arcenciels could become magical slaves.” They could be trapped in quartz crystal and their time-altering gifts melded to the will of the owner of the crystal. I’d seen it. I wondered if arcenciels were the mythical source of the djinn trapped in bottles for their magic, though the rainbow dragons were trapped in crystals, not lamps. “Did you know a winged dude named Hayyel?”

Gee’s mouth turned down in distaste. “I am not permitted to speak of messengers, celestial warriors, creatures of light, or time.”

There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, and Gee looked like he was thinking hard. I waited him out and sipped some more. It was really good tea. Only the best for the suckheads and their employees. I poured myself a second cup and warmed Gee’s cup.

“I may not offer to speak of many things, but in return for that information I will gift you answers,” he said at long last.

Meaning that if I asked questions, he might be able to respond. “Goody. Two for starters: Why is Troll helping Ro Moore? What do you know about the storm overhead?”