She sniffed the discarded collar once, and looked back up at me. She had a quizzical expression that said, What now? “We got this,” I told her. I repeated the procedure with the new leash, letting her sniff it before fastening it. She gazed at me evenly, her tail still wagging rather hesitantly.

Even though I trusted her in that moment, alone together in a room with no stimuli, it was better safe than sorry. I took the soft canvas muzzle out of the bag and let her smell that too. “Okay?” I said. She gave me a resigned look. “You’ve done this before, I take it.” At my voice, her tail wagged once.

I fastened the muzzle behind her head and let out a breath I’d been holding.

We left the Luparii scout tied up in the bathroom. I was tempted to hand her over to Dashiell, to be killed or used as leverage. But, aside from the fact that I didn’t know how Jesse would react to that idea, we weren’t up for getting her into the van in broad daylight, especially with my injury.

The bargest seemed to accept Jesse more now that she wasn’t stuck in a little box while he loomed over her, so I gave him the leash to hold on the way to my van. I was a little nervous that the bargest might take off as soon as she hit fresh air—which prompted a funny mental image of her racing flat-out down the center of the street, with Jesse dragging behind her like a prisoner in a Western—but I needn’t have worried. The bargest heeled perfectly, staying exactly in step with Jesse’s left foot as we walked.

“All that work, and you didn’t get to use your big wagon,” I said sadly, as Jesse stowed it sideways in the back of the van to make room for the bargest. He patted the bottom of the van and the bargest hopped up effortlessly. Despite the graceful movement, the whole van shuddered as she climbed aboard.

“The night is young,” Jesse said, his voice still a little tight. He was doing a good job of appearing calm, but I knew that committing daylight crimes was bothering him. Or maybe he was just a little nervous about the bargest. “We may get a chance yet.”

We climbed in the van, both of us craning our heads around to check the back. The bargest had curled into a tight knot on the floor, laying with her head facing forward so she could keep an eye on us. “I’ve never seen a dog do that in a car,” Jesse said, amazed.

“She’s a lady,” I intoned.

As he pulled away from the curb, Jesse jerked his head back in the direction of the building we’d just left. “You think she can hex herself out of there?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve never met a witch yet who could do a spell with their thoughts only. And if she could, I’m guessing she would have done it by now. We’re waltzing off with her prize.”

He nodded, accepting that, but looked a little regretful. “She’ll be fine, Jesse,” I added. “That bitch forces animals to kill people. A day or two locked in a bathroom is the least we can do to her.”

“That’s true,” he said thoughtfully. Looking a little more cheerful, he headed toward the freeway.

We rode in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then he glanced over at me. “How did you know?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“That she wasn’t going attack us.”

I considered the question for a moment. “The body language, for one thing. My mom was really interested in dog body language; she talked a lot about their cues.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know if it would follow dog rules,” Jesse pointed out.

“That’s true,” I allowed. “But, look, the Luparii have to use her. That means they have to direct her to specific purposes. The Luparii haven’t lasted this long or prospered this much without being smart. And which is smarter, to have a psychotic cave troll that you can only let loose at your enemies, or to have something so well trained that you can point to five people out of a crowd of a hundred and say ‘kill them’?”

Jesse adjusted the rearview mirror so he could check on the bargest. “So you’re suggesting she’s more effective as a weapon than as a monster.”

“Yeah. And the Luparii built her that way.” I shook my head. “The bargest spell is probably the most complex I’ve ever heard of. It makes sense that they’d start with raw material they could control. If it were me, I’d keep a whole bunch of these dog-wolf hybrids trained and ready at all times, and just do the bargest spell when I knew of a werewolf threat somewhere.”

“That would save on resources.” Jesse thought it over for a few minutes. “So she may not even have had these powers for that long. If they did the spell just a few days ago, she might be as new to killing werewolves as we are to the Luparii.”

I nodded. Jesse turned his head and smiled at me briefly. “Sorry for doubting you,” he added.

I sniffed imperiously. “Don’t let it happen again.”

Chapter 43

We got away from the Huntington Park area as quickly as we could, pulling over at a fast food restaurant so I could call and update Will while Jesse ran in for caffeine replenishment. With the Luparii scout taken off the board, the whole situation got a lot less complicated, but we still had almost six hours until moonrise. Jesse thought we shouldn’t arrive at Griffith Park too early, for fear of the nova wolf spotting us as he arrived and taking off for another location. That left us with a lot of time to kill—and not a lot of places where we could take a 180-pound dog-monster.

Molly’s was out, as was Jesse’s tiny apartment. “What about taking her to Will’s house?” Jesse asked, taking a sip from his Diet Coke. “It’s secluded, and there’s parking.”