tamsyn's eyebrows rose. "max?"

"the detective in charge," she explained.

"oh, right. for a second there you startled me. clay doesn't share well."

the pit of anger and horror in her stomach threatened to turn to ice. no, clay didn't share well. and no matter how hard she tried to forget, deep inside, a part of her kept waiting for him to leave her again. but none of that was important at this moment. "clay and max think it's about the brain."

tamsyn picked up the photos of mickey's brutalized face and body. "hmm. you know, something's not quite right with these images - i can't put my finger on what...the enforcement pathologists looked at this?"

"they didn't spend much time on it. just street trash, you know."

tamsyn's eyes were suddenly pure leopard, a reminder that under that warm human skin lay the heart of a predator. "i'd like to get my claws on anyone who describes these children as street trash."

"so would i." she flexed her fingers. "i might not have claws, but i can use a knife."

tamsyn's eyes flashed to human in a heartbeat. "you sound very sure."

"one of my adoptive brothers - tanner - he taught me to use knives when i developed and he thought men were looking at me funny."

"brothers." the single word held a wealth of affection.

talin had never really considered how much that act of tanner's had meant to her, but now she smiled. "do you have any?"

"no need. i had the whole damn pack watching over me." she put the photos down, then stood. "i need to think." to talin's surprise, she went to the counter and began pulling out ingredients for some type of baking. "i think better this way," she said, noticing talin's expression. "the whole earth mother routine works for me."

though it was said in a self-deprecating tone, it was clear tammy was deeply content with who she was. talin ached for that kind of peace, that kind of self-acceptance. "i like cooking, too," she found herself saying, when she didn't usually share anything. "i used to do it with my adoptive father."

"do you want to help?" tamsyn's eyes brightened. "i'd love a cooking buddy. and if you do the cookies, i can finish up a batch of muffins. i figure kit and cory deserve something extra."

talin hesitated. "i have to work on why these particular children might have been targeted."

"you can do that as well on your feet, stirring" - she brought a bar of dark chocolate to her nose, breathed in the scent - "or chopping chocolate."

"you fight dirty." pushing back her chair, talin walked over. yes, she could think about the kids even as she did this. it was not thinking about the kids that was the problem. they were ghosts in her mind day and night, whispering at her, pleading with her.

we'll get the bastards, she promised them, subconsciously including clay in her vow. and we'll come for you, johnny d. just hold on a little while longer.

chapter 18

jonquil could hear the sounds of their shoes in the corridor. his hearing had always been good. better than good. it had saved his life more than once, helped him avoid getting the crap kicked out of him even more times. but today, he knew danger approached and he had nowhere to run.

you have every right to be proud. stand up straight.

talin's voice was a whip in his head. she'd said that to him the day he'd been nominated for some dumb city medal. all he'd done was pull a scared little kid out of a building going up in flames. the small burns he'd sustained hadn't even hurt much. but they had wanted to give him an award. he'd been planning to sneak out of the whole deal - like his posse would care that he had a medal - but then talin had come along, bullied him into a stupid-ass suit, and brushed his hair.

that was when she had told him to stop slouching and be proud. damn if he hadn't walked onto that stage and taken that worthless bit of tin from the frickin' mayor. stupid. except that he'd never thrown the medal away, hiding it in his stash of important stuff. he hoped his stash was still where he'd left it when he got out of this hellhole. and he would get out - he had to apologize to talin.

the footsteps were getting closer. closer. they stopped in front of his door.

fear coated the back of his throat, but he pushed himself upright, back straight, head held high. they could hurt him, but he wouldn't let them break him.

the door slid open to reveal two figures. for a second, before his eyes adjusted to the light, he thought they were painted white. then he separated out the elements that made up the whole. their hands were gloved, their faces covered with white surgical masks, and they wore white scrubs like he'd seen at a clinic once.

the only points of color came from their skin, eyes, and hair. the tall one on the left had dark skin, sort of like the color of really thick toffee, the kind that made your teeth stick together. it was all sort of glowing and rich and would have been pretty if he hadn't known that she was there to hurt him. her eyes were a freaky, pale bluish gray - like a wolf's, he thought - her hair so dark brown it was almost black. he decided to name her blue.

the one on the right had deep blonde hair, hazel eyes, and the kind of golden skin he'd seen on some rich tanned babes, but never on a woman who looked like she sprayed her hands with antiseptic after shaking, she was that clean.

"this way." it was the blonde who spoke, but as jon walked out without argument - no use in fighting before he knew the lay of the land - he was certain it was blue who was in charge. that woman had hips, serious shoulda-been-hot curves, but there was something off about the way she walked, the way she watched him.

in fact, there was something weird about both of them. before they'd started walking, he'd looked straight into their faces and could have sworn that there was nothing looking back at him. those eyes. dead eyes. that's what they were. they reminded him of the eyes he'd seen on some of the street girls, the ones that weren't quite there anymore.

but that made no sense. these women were dressed like scientists, not street pros.

then they turned a corner and he heard the screams. "jesus," he whispered. "that's a little girl."

no answer.

"what kind of monsters are you?" he'd meant to play this cool but fuck it, there was some stuff you didn't do, not if you were human.

blue glanced at him over her shoulder and he realized she wasn't human, not by a long shot. "we're the kind of monsters responsible for your nightmares." then she opened a door. "come inside."

chapter 19

clay nodded to the shopkeeper and jogged back to where nate stood waiting by a lamppost. "tally did a good job. that guy confirms he saw jon. he remembers the kid."

"who wouldn't?" nate looked down at the holo-slide talin had salvaged from her apartment. it bore a jagged crack down one side but was otherwise undamaged. "he's even prettier than dorian."

it was true. the boy was male without question, but he was also good-looking enough to be on a catwalk. "boy like that on the street - " gut tight, he shoved a hand through his hair. "we could be looking in the wrong direction."

"yeah, i thought so, too, so i checked up on the gang tat." nate tapped at the spiderweb pattern on the boy's neck, half-hidden by long white-blond hair. "the crawlers aren't some toy gang. if the kid survived in there, he's got brains and balls. i can see him taking up a career as a bank robber but not as a pro selling his body."

the angry disgust clay felt was reflected in nate's face. to darkriver, children were everything. they would fight to the death to protect the cubs, but neither man was a romantic. as clay knew from brutal experience, changelings, too, sometimes fell short. so did humans. ironically, as max had said, it was the cold, merciless psy who appeared to take the best care of their children - aside from the forcible imposition of silence. there were no psy street kids, no psy orphans, no psy child prostitutes.

clay looked down the street, at the teenagers he could see hanging out on the corner, all smirks and punk bravado when they should've been in school. "never thought i'd say this, but the psy are good at one thing."

"yeah," nate agreed, even as the teens gave them wary glances and began to disperse. "we never see their kids fucking around like this. but we never see anything the council doesn't want us to see. maybe they simply erase their mistakes."

"you're probably right. hell, they called sascha a mistake." and despite the fact that he preferred to keep his distance from sascha and her too-perceptive gift, clay knew she was something good, something worth bringing into this world.

"yep." nate blew out a harsh breath. "look, i'll put out the word that we're looking for jon. we've built up a good network with the businesspeople around here."

clay nodded. the human and nonpredatory changeling shopkeepers helped darkriver in return for the pack's protection against gangs. over time, as darkriver had cleaned house to the extent that no major criminal networks operated in their territory, that relationship had evolved into one driven less by necessity and more by shared interests. "while you do that, i'm going down below."

nate made a face. "that place gives me the creeps. have fun."

down below was literally that. after a short delay caused by taking care of a persistent annoyance, clay found a backstreet alley, lifted open an antiquated manhole cover, and dropped into the narrow passage that would lead him down into the shattered remains of the unused subway tunnels. a hundred and twenty years ago these tunnels, and the trains that utilized them, had been the height of technology. then had come the seismic events of the late twentieth century, which in turn had led to innovation in safer methods of transportation. the city's sleek, clear skyways had long since eclipsed the subways.

coughing against the dirt, he pulled the manhole cover closed behind himself. it was a good thing he had the night vision of a cat because it was pitch-black down here. tally would hate it, he thought. his leopard wasn't too pleased, either.