"That's not for me to decide, but I need to know exactly what happened. Now, out."

  Mac nodded, and a minute later he was interviewing a Marine gunny who'd just been walking by.

  "I tell you, he really went off on her," Ulrich said, shaking his head. "When she made that insult about his dead girlfriend, I thought he was going to kill her."

  "What insult?"

  "Oh, after she clawed him across the face, he told her to leave, and you could see he was mad. But then she had to say something about 'did you cower and cry while they killed your girlfriend', and he grabbed her by the neck and threw her into the building across the way. You can see where she hit it. Anyway, he turned around and walked away, and that idiot came running back, and boy did she go to town on him!

  "I mean, I don't know what she was thinking, the kid's huge, and strong as hell. She might be a lioness, but he was one hell of a lot bigger lion, and she just pushed him too far."

  "You know him?"

  "Talked to him at dinner a couple nights ago. He was all happy about getting on the teams and all that, seemed like he really just wanted to be one of the guys. Rumor is, they got into some really bad shit last night, and 'the new lion' put up one hell of a fight."

  Chad nodded. "Yeah, he saved a lot of lives, but unfortunately, his girlfriend was among those who didn't make it. Go finish your statement and send in the next one."

  "Damn, sorry to hear that; he's a good kid," Ulrich said as he got up and went back outside.

  Chad managed to interview two more before his phone rang; it was Sean.

  "Yes, I'm in the middle of it, are you up at the house?" he said, answering it.

  "Where's Mihalis?"

  "I don't have a damn clue, Sean. Everyone says he turned lion and loped off. Do you want me to call Oak and have him check with base security?"

  "I'll do it." Sean sighed. "And yes, I'm up at the house."

  "I'll be up in few. I'm taking statements from all the eyewitnesses."

  "Did he really kill a lioness?" Sean asked with another, more resigned sigh.

  "Yup, her name was Rose, and from the sounds of it, there was something going on, and she wasn't being very nice to him. I've got four interviews recorded on my phone; I'll send them up to you now. Anything else?"

  "What do I do, Chad? That's what I need to know right now, what the hell do I do?"

  "You know what, I'll call Oak. Listen to the interviews. There was something going on between Rose and Mike, and well, it doesn't sound good."

  "She was using him," Sean replied.

  "What? How?"

  "I'll tell you when you get up here. He found out, and it wasn't pretty, but… Just get up here."

  "I'm on my way."

  Going outside, he looked at Sten. "You got those reports?"

  "Most of 'em, not everyone's finished."

  "Give me what you got; bring the rest up to Sean's house."

  Sten nodded and handed him a bunch of papers in a folder.

  "Oh, go find Stew and ask him if he can find out where Mike went, but not to give the kid any shit. I'm starting to think she had it coming."

  Sten nodded. "Me, too."

  Heading back to his car, he had his driver take him out to the flight line and called Oak along the way.

  "Hey, Oak. Any idea where Mihalis went?"

  "Yeah, due north up 580."

  "That's not good."

  "Rumor mill has it he killed a lioness for dissing his dead girlfriend."

  "Not far from the truth, but she attacked him from behind as he was walking away, and well, you know what they say."

  "Yeah, play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

  "Yup. Call Stew, tell him which way Mike was heading. I asked Sten to have him try to track him."

  "On the way up to the house?"

  "Yup."

  "Can't say as I envy you; Sean's gonna be pissed."

  "Oh, he's not the only one that's pissed. Mike's a good kid."

  When he got to the house, Chad found them all in the living room, Sean and his wives: Roxy, Jolene, Daelyn, Roberta, Cali, Peg, and Estrella. The First was there, surprisingly, along with all of his: Keairra, Saf'kij, Jipouet, Peym, Nibisa, Dienna and Sasha. Sean, Junior was there with his two wives, Rania and Dania. The rest were some of Sean's older kids: Troy, Ben, Roseanne, and Alska.

  "Okay, before I say anything," Chad said, looking around, "what was going on between Rose and Mike?"

  "A few days ago," Sean began, "I found out that a number of lionesses were pretty much taking advantage of him, sexually and emotionally, and he found out. He confronted them, words were exchanged, and he told them to leave him alone."

  "And it left him feeling like a completely worthless piece of shit," SJ added. "They said some pretty nasty things."

  "When you consider how much older those women were, preying on my very young son, it's no wonder they left him feeling worthless," Cali said with more anger than Chad had ever heard in all the years he'd known her. "They used him, got what they wanted, then just threw him away. They were quite cruel."

  "It seems Rose had decided she wanted to be the next one to have a black lion cub, so she got pregnant just before Mike found out they were all using him, and she dissed him pretty hard when she told him, too."

  "Well, she's not pregnant anymore," Chad said, going over to one of the few empty chairs left, "as she's very much dead." He looked over at Sean. "Did you play the interviews for anybody else here?"

  "I only managed to listen to the first one; are they all the same?"

  "Some of the finer points come out, such as Rose using the death of his girlfriend to belittle and insult him."

  "Was that when he killed her?" the First asked.

  "No. Basically, she showed up to bitch him out for going to you and getting her deported to Mongolia. He told her off and said he had nothing to do with it. They traded a few insults; she hit him and opened up the side of his face with her claws, and he told her to leave again, which was when she mocked him about his dead girlfriend. So he grabbed her by the neck and threw her about thirty feet into a wall.

  "Then he turned his back on her and pointedly walked away. I guess she couldn't deal with that, so she attacked him from behind with what looked like intent to kill, seeing as she was using her claws on him. So he wrung her neck a few times and ripped her head off.

  "Then he left. I don't think he's coming back."

  "Why not?"

  "He was last seen headed for the DEZ, and someone overheard him saying that he was 'so screwed'."

  Chad leaned forward and passed the folder with all the written statements in it to Sean.

  "That's most of the eyewitness reports. Sten'll bring the rest by in a little while. That, of course, leads me to the question all us non-lions want to know: How screwed is he?"

  "Not very," Sean said. "She attacked him, and when his back was turned, no less."

  "True, but somewhere between forty and a hundred people watched your son rip a lioness' head off her body, then dropkick it."

  "Rose was told to never talk to Mihalis again," the First said with an angry growl. "While what they did was wrong, I'd thought separating everyone for a few decades would give him time to get over it."

  "Then his girlfriend died in front of him, while he was trying to save everybody from a djevel ambush," Alska said. "Woz saw it and told me about it; he completely freaked out when she died and killed everything."

  "And that twit Rose had to come along, and not only do what she was told not to, but rub salt in the wound," Keairra said with a growl of her own.

  "Is it possible to kill a lioness?" Cali asked. "As in permanently?"

  "Sadly, no, in this case," the First said with a shake of his head.

  "You're more than welcome to try!" Peym said. "I'll even help."

  "Yeah, me too," Sasha agreed.

  "She'll reincarnate exactly seventy-two hours after her death," the First said. "As she did what she was told not to do, and as she's caused Mike a fair bit of anguish, all I can say is, knock yourself out, Cali."

  Everyone in the room nodded in agreement, several of them offering to help.

  "Thank you all, very much," Cali said with a heavy sigh. "Now, how do we get my son back?"

  "Slowly," Peg said. "We need to do it slowly."

  "Why do you say that?" Cali asked with a concerned look on her face.

  "He's just had his entire world destroyed. Everyone saw the quiet, friendly Mihalis, the least egotistical and violent person in this entire family, viciously rip off a lioness' head after beating her down. He's lost his status, his girlfriend, his new job, and he thinks he's in serious trouble, that nobody loves him, everybody hates him.

  "Very much like what I went through when Mother was murdered and my father almost killed me, and my sister abandoned me." Peg looked around the room. "And I was a complete brat! I hate to say it, but compared to most all of us here, Mike's an innocent. Yeah, he can kill djevels with the best of them, and he'll self-sacrifice in a heartbeat, but he's honest and upfront, and completely without guile. Hell, he never complains! Take it from me, he needs some time to come to grips with himself and forgive himself before he'll let any of us forgive him."

  "I fear you are right, my sister," Cali said with a nod.

  "Besides, he's a lion. What's the worst that could happen to him? If he dies, he reincarnates."

  "What if the prince kills him?" Troy asked. "Will he still come back?"

  "Adam was killed by a prince," Keairra said. "He'll still come back."

  "Okay, I'm fine with giving him some time," Roxy said. "Now, what do we do? I'd rather keep some sort of tabs on him, just in case. He's our son, after all."

  SJ stood up. "While you all talk about that, I think I'm going to encourage a bunch of lionesses to head off to their new assignments sooner, rather than later."

  "You know all of those lionesses are way older and more experienced than you are, don't you?" Estrella said.

  SJ looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I seem to recall a certain lioness thinking the same thing about my brother. Maybe it's time they learned they're not all that, and fucking with any of us Valens isn't a bright idea."

  "Can I come?" Daelyn's son Ben asked with a deep laugh.

  "Course you can! We can take turns!"

  "I better go to keep them out of trouble," Keairra said, getting up.

  "Oh, we'll be fine," SJ said with a grin.

  "I wasn't talking about you two; I was talking about the idiots who're liable to get their heads ripped off if you two decide to have a little contest."

  "Oh! I love a good contest!" Ben snickered, and Daelyn all but snorted the beer she was drinking through her nose.

  "You know, Keairra, maybe you shouldn't go!" Daelyn added as she got her beer back under control.

  "Somebody has to keep score!" Keairra said with a wink, causing Daelyn, Peg, Estrella, Roxy, and even Jolene to laugh.

  "So, what do we do?" Jolene asked after they'd left. "I have to agree with Peg, he needs some time to come to terms with everything that's happened to him, but he's inside the DEZ—how much can we really do? Other than fly in there, kill everything around him, and drag him back home?"

  "Can't you scry him?" Roxy asked Sean.

  He shook his head. "He doesn't use one of my coins, I taught him the spell years ago, and he runs it himself. I doubt he left my backdoor intact."

  "I can tell where he is," the First said.

  "You can?" Chad asked, surprised. "How?"

  "You know I'm a god, right?" the First said, looking at Chad.

  "This is where Steve would say something witty and we'd all laugh at him," Chad said with a grin. "So, before you tell me to do something painfully bizarre for questioning you, excuse me for asking. But I'm asking. Because I thought you couldn't do that with us."

  "I can't do it with individual lycans, but I can do it with the F1s and the F2s, and a fair number of the F2.5s."

  "What are those?"

  "It's like breeding generations," Estrella said. "The original pride, plus a few others"—she winked and looked at Sean—"are F1s. Their children are F2s, etc."

  "The point is," the First continued, "there aren't a lot of ones and twos. There's a lot more of the two point fives, but not so much that I can't get an idea of where they are."

  "That must be pretty helpful," Chad said, looking thoughtful.

  "It is, and no you're not allowed to talk with anyone else about it."

  "Even without the compulsion, I'm not that stupid."

  "Just tell us if he heads out to that prince's place, Grandfather," Troy said.

  "Hey! Is there a grandfather rule?" Sasha asked with a giggle.

  The First frowned at her, then turned back to Troy. "Why would he go there?"

  "Because sometimes Mike can be really stupid?"

  The First snorted. "Hopefully not that stupid. Even my son, who's famous for doing epically stupid things, isn't that dumb."

  "Yeah, yeah, I love you too, Dad," Sean said. "Well, I guess all we can do now is wait and see. Hopefully he'll come home in a week or two, and everything will be fine."

  "Hopefully," they all agreed.

  #

  Mihalis woke up suddenly in the darkness as something tripped his ward. It took him a moment to remember why he was sitting in a small cubbyhole, surrounded by rubble.

  It took him a couple more minutes of panicked struggling to remember that those were HIS wings wrapped around him, keeping him warm, and yes he could control them.

  Unfortunately, the delay as well as the noise he made during his brief moment of panic brought him to the attention of a group of gnashers.

  "Look! Food!" one of them said and charged him. He was still sorting out his wings, so he couldn't draw his sword, but an ice bolt speared it to the pile of rubble behind it, and the shriek it made as it died gave him enough time to sort himself out. Gathering his feet beneath him, he stepped out of the section of collapsed roof he'd been sheltering under, and looked around him as he drew his sword.

  It was a pack of gnashers with a couple of bonde, a half dozen more gnashers, and a couple dozen of the small djevels that became gnashers as they matured.

  He looked at them as they looked at him. They moved towards him, so he unfurled his wings and pointed his sword at them.

  "What are you doing here!" he demanded in demonic. He could kill a lot of them, probably all of them, but he'd get hurt in the process. So he figured he'd try a bluff, and if that didn't work, now was as good a time as any to learn how to fly.

  "I'm sorry, milord!" one of the bonde said as they came to a halt. "We meant you no harm! Please do not eat us!"

  He snorted and tried to look annoyed. "You're barely worth the effort. Now, why are you here?"

  "The vinonelio, we bring them out here to find food and eat so they'll grow into gnashers for the Lord Kova! We did not know you were here! The gnasher you slew thought you were an animal or perhaps one of the foolish humans that live south beyond the barrier!"

  "Where is Kova's keep?" he asked as he did his best to remember the layout of the DEZ.

  "It is off that way, to the right of where the sun will set, a quarter daer of walking."

  "Fine. Off with you, before I decide you're worth the effort to eat after all."

  The bonde yelled at the gnashers, then quickly got the small herd of vinonelio under control, and moved them away from him. One of the vinonelio snapped at him, so he killed it with his sword.

  After that, the rest of the group moved much faster, and with a lot more yelling and swatting with the wood switches, the bonde and gnashers were holding.

  One they'd moved off out of sight, he tried to determine his next move, as he stood looking off in the direction the bonde had pointed. Going to Lord Kova's and killing him probably wasn't a good idea. He'd gotten pretty torn up going after that one ridder, and a lord would probably have dozens of ridders and biskops protecting him. That wasn't something he should just go running headlong into.

  Mountain Top Fort was off behind his right shoulder a couple hundred miles—but, he remembered, there were other places. Places where humans, djevels, some of the less reputable fae, and even others frowned upon by their own kind now lived. There were no laws in the DEZ, other than the ones you could enforce yourself, using what you brought with you. The one up by Black Rock wasn't the biggest, but it was probably the closest, though 'close' was a relative term; it had to be at least a hundred miles away, and that was a long way to walk.

  Then there was the Indian community to the north of where he was. If he didn't want to run into any of the Piute protecting their lands from the djevels, he'd have to detour a fair bit, as well. That would make for an even longer trip.

  Still, if there was a place to go, that was it. It wasn't that far from the border of the DEZ, either, about sixty to eighty miles as the crow flies, and so close to the border, it was suspected, was where the worst of the smuggling was going on. But he'd never really paid that much attention to those things. His goal had been to work outside the DEZ, because according to his father, Chad, Steve, and even Stewart, that was where the fight was now.

  "Well, better to walk in the dark than in the sun with this dark skin," he said to himself and folded his wings.

  He smacked himself on the forehead. He had wings. Flying was a lot faster than walking. It was time he taught himself how to fly. Plus, it would be a lot easier to find food once the sun came up, if he was in the air instead of on the ground.

  Spreading his wings again, he beat them a few times and found it wasn't that hard to rise up off the ground. But you couldn't just stop, or you came down pretty fast, and that could hurt. Gliding was something he was going to have to learn.

  By the time the sun came up, he'd learned how to fly, and even how to glide.

  Landing without getting hurt was going to take him a while, however.

  Bartertown