"More control over one thing and yet less control over another?"

  "Exactly. The werewolves no longer risk their lives at the Full Moon, but they have very short fuses now. I doubt Ama would tempt Ilya's wrath by assigning another. Not yet, in any case. She has other means to reach you if he fails."

  "That's not reassuring at all, Rafe."

  "I am not here to make the world seem safe, Catalin. I am here to teach you to survive it."

  She stared at me for a long time and then said, "Okay. I'll give it a try."

  She closed her eyes and I spent a precious few moments enjoying looking at her without having to hide what her nearness now did to my body. I knew I was in very treacherous waters here. Up to my neck and they were rising. I knew I should shut this ridiculous notion down before it gained any headway.

  But for a brief moment in time, I wished only to feel this. To forget my woes, to not think of my losses, to laze in the warmth of the hope this witchling gave me. To allow an attraction to mean something more.

  It was wrong. It was detestable. But this was Catalin. An unclaimed witch of extraordinary powers.

  Her eyes snapped open. "It's no use," she said just as her cell phone started ringing; interrupting whatever she was going to say next.

  "Answer," she said, the car's Bluetooth connection doing the rest for her.

  "Cat," the tactical officer at Goldie's Brae said over the speakers. "We've got a problem."

  Cat

  "What is it, Tac?" I asked, my heart rate speeding up on hearing those words. Tac wasn't overly excitable. If he said there was a problem then there was.

  "The cops picked up Brant near where he and Harlee were checking out the anonymous tip-off."

  "Picked him up? What do you mean?"

  "He's been done over pretty good, Cat. Beaten to within an inch of his life. He's got no memory of who did it or how they got the drop on him. I gathered he was the more capable of the pair the FBI sent us, so I'm guessing whoever did it was professional. I'm looking into CCTV footage now, but so far nothing. Harry's headed to the hospital to question him further, but from what the police said, he won't get much out of him."

  I glanced across the car to Rafe, forgetting for a moment that Brant wasn't really his partner; just another human to use to get close to me.

  "Shit. Have you got this on speaker?" Tac suddenly said. "Is Agent Nonpareil listening in?"

  "I'm here," Rafe said.

  "Jeez, sorry, dude. But your man should be okay."

  "Thank you."

  "Wow, you sound cut up about it."

  "Tac," I said before he could say something else and get himself on a vampire's hit list. "How's Harlee?"

  Silence. Then, "That's the thing, Cat. We can't locate Harlee."

  Dread sunk its claws into my belly.

  "What do you mean? What about her tracker?"

  "They took the rental car, not the MX-5. I hadn't had a chance to tag the rental, but it wouldn't have worked anyway, because the rental was still where Brant parked it outside the laundromat."

  "Any other trackers on her you haven't told me about? Now's the time to fess up without retribution."

  "I have trackers on your vehicles and a tripwire on your homes, but that's it, Cat. I swear."

  I didn't know about the tripwire on our homes. "Did your tripwire warn you of the fire at mine?" I asked, my body feeling a little numb at the thought.

  "Weirdest thing. Someone must have found it and disabled it because it should have gone off. I've got them wired for heat, breach, and tampering. It didn't warn me of anything."

  That'd be because it was Ilya and he magicked the fuck out of the place first.

  "That's okay, Tac. What have you got on Harlee now?"

  "Last known location was the laundromat they were checking out from that dropbox tip. I've hacked the cameras, but they've been blanked somehow. I can't work out how from here, might have to pay it a visit."

  Tac never left the office. He was freaked out if he was suggesting doing so now. Worried about Harlee or just worried he'd fucked up again like the time that got his particular talents noticed and his career cast adrift into alternate dimension that was Banana House.

  "We'll head there now," I offered, "and I'll let you know what I find."

  "Okay." He sounded relieved. "Harry said to stay in touch. Your car's tracker is working and I've got eyes outside the laundromat. I'll see you arrive and also spot anyone else who looks out of place."

  "Talk to you soon," I said and closed the call.

  I started the car, my fingers prickling.

  "This isn't good," I said and the prickling eased as if in agreement, only to return again as I pulled out into traffic.

  "No, it isn't," Rafe agreed.

  "What do you think's happened?"

  "I think Ama has just made her first move."

  "What?! Harlee? Why Harlee?"

  "Catalin, Harlee is your friend. Why not Harlee? You didn't react to the destruction of your apartment building, so Ama has stepped in where Ilya has failed."

  "You said she wouldn't do that! That she wouldn't chance pissing off a volatile werewolf like that!"

  "I said she wouldn't assign another gudari to hunt you. I said nothing about what she would do outside of that."

  "Why didn't you warn me Harlee was in trouble?"

  "I did. I told you she would use that which you care for most against you. Just as she will use the boy-witch."

  "But…" I clamped my mouth shut. He was right. I should have considered this possibility. I should have warned Harlee; warned Harry and the rest. The Old Man might have ridiculed me — added my paranoid fears to the mental instability he thought I possessed — but at least the warning would have been out in the open. I should have done something to prepare them all for this.

  I almost phoned Tac then. But with one agent missing, the NCB would be on high alert. Harry would already have informed the Director. The A-Team was overseas, but the Director would consider this a threat to the entire department. He would assign every asset he had. There wasn't anything I could say that would add to that.

  But this was The Involition. This was an entity NCB neither knew about nor could combat. Harlee had been taken because of me. My team, the NCB in its entirety, was at risk of more from Ama because of me.

  "What should I do?" I asked, my knuckles white on the steering wheel, my fingers aching from the persistent buzz.

  "She will offer a trade," Rafe said, voice level and devoid of emotion. "Harlee's life for yours."

  Fuck.

  "You must not agree to it."

  "Don't tell me to sacrifice my friend." Harlee wasn't a close friend. More a colleague I had to tutor than anything else. But lately, I'd seen more to her than the dimwitted bobblehead she'd always appeared to be. I'd started to really appreciate her generosity; her loyalty; her kindheartedness. Some of which is not necessarily a good thing for a law enforcement officer to have. But that was Harlee. Bucking the trend and doing it merrily.

  Ama could not harm Harlee. I wouldn't let her.

  "Catalin," Rafe said. "If you go to The Involition, they will indoctrinate you. I won't be able to stop it. My powers are bound by the curse. I am not strong enough to counter Ama. I may defy her, but in her presence, I am but a servant to her. If she demands my compliance in indoctrinating you, I will be unable to disobey her. She may even punish me by making me the one who indoctrinates you. The ituna cannot stand against that. All it will do is make me try to ease the transition for you. I will take on the pain of the indoctrination; protect you from that at the very least. Lend you my strength to survive it. But I will not be able to stop it from happening. I am sorry."

  He sounded genuinely upset by that. But that could have been because free of The Involition, I was a tool he could use. Indoctrinated into it, I was under Ama's control and not his.

  "How bad is the pain?" I asked.

  "Do not even consider this! I beg you!"

  "Easy there, big guy," I murmured. "I need to be prepared for anything. Please tell me how bad the pain is. Will it incapacitate you? Make you an easy target for others?"

  His jaw ticked, his fists bunched where they rested on his thighs.

  "Yes," he said. "I will be at my weakest. Should Ama allow it, I could be attacked."

  "Would she allow it?"

  "She suspects I am rebelling. It would serve her purpose to take the opportunity to remind me of my position." He let out a strained breath of air. "Yes, I think she will."

  "Punishment, not death?"

  He nodded, his eyes looking bleak.

  "Then if she makes you indoctrinate me, you do not take on my pain. You stay strong."

  "She will not indoctrinate you if you do not go to The Involition!"

  "Rafe," I said steadily. "Be reasonable. I'm not leaving Harlee with her a moment longer than I have to. If I go there and can't talk my way out of indoctrination —"

  "You won't be able to!"

  "— then we must be prepared for what comes next. I'll need you at your strongest to survive. If I'm to be a part of this twisted world of yours, then I need you as rebellious as you are now and for that, you need to not learn any lesson Ama deems necessary. You understand?"

  "It will not work," he said, sounding resigned to a fate worse than death. "Once indoctrinated, you will become corrupt, like them."

  "Hey! I'm not that easy to corrupt."

  "Magia, Catalin. There is no logical counter to it."

  "Will the words true, right? What if I will myself free of her corruption?"

  I pulled the car into a parking space near the laundromat and silenced the engine. I didn't climb out, but I could see the police cordon at the laundromat up ahead. Tac was probably watching. I had no idea how to shield us, but I willed my magia — whatever I had — to blur the cameras around us while we sat here.

  I had no freaking idea if it worked.

  Turning in my seat, I reached out and briefly touched Rafe's fist still bunched on his thigh, his knuckles white from the tension.

  "Hey," I said. "We're in this together, right? The ituna? The pact?"

  He shook his head, his eyes flicking up to my face. Violet shot through the blue. He looked so sad.

  "It will not work. The pact will remain, but you will be different."

  "Meaning?"

  "Less powerful for starters. Ama sucks the magia away from us."

  "To use herself?"

  "I don't think so. I'm unsure. She was powerful before the curses; she is still as powerful now. Not more so." He shrugged. "But think on the words of the pact, Catalin. I offered my support, my knowledge and my strength. You offered your confidence, silence and trust. How does any of that negate what the curse will do to you?"

  I sat back in the driver's seat and thought.

  "Well," I said. "I still won't be able to rat you out and you'll still have my confidence, that's gotta count for something, right?"

  "Not enough."

  "'May she return the favour tenfold,'" I murmured; a repeat of words said during the making of the pact. "You will also have my support and my strength. I don't know much, but what I'll learn will be yours as well. But I think our ace up the sleeve will be the trust. I trust you, Raphael. I'm not sure whether I should, but God help me, I do. And if the pact survives indoctrination, then you will still be able to trust me too."

  He sat still — so still — his gaze staring out of the windscreen, unseeing. I didn't even think he was breathing. Then slowly he nodded his head. "I had not thought placing trust in a pact was a wise idea. No one does it. To trust so blindly is to make yourself weak in the eyes of The Involition. But perhaps in this single instance, it has value beyond what The Involition expects. It could well be our ace up the sleeve."

  "I can't betray you," I added; trying to really send the message home. "That is the antithesis of trust."

  "And I you."

  "But Ama mustn't know," I warned.

  He turned and looked at me, brow furrowed.

  "What do you suggest?"

  "I'm going to do my best to talk my way out of this, but I'm not as naive as you all think. I know the odds are stacked against me. So, this is what we'll do. If Ama demands that you indoctrinate me, do it. But don't take my pain. You wouldn't if you didn't have a pact with me anyway, but more importantly, I expect you to get me and Harlee out of there afterwards. Stay strong. Don't show your hand if you can help it. And then get us the fuck away from her."

  "It won't be easy. The elders alone know what she has planned. It may take time. But I will not let you stay in her clutches any longer than I have to. And Catalin, if I have to leave Harlee behind to save you, I will."

  "Not good enough."

  "Your life is my concern, not hers."

  "Make her life your concern, Raphael!"

  "I cannot promise you that. But…" He closed his eyes and tipped back his head. He looked so beautiful and so tragic and so other just then, that I stilled as if I were the vampire and not him. "But I will at least try, Catalin," he finished.

  I studied him. It was all I would get, I thought. Not perfect. But none of this was.

  Dread filled me. Fear almost consumed me. Determination mixed with outrage fuelled me.

  How dare this witch do this!

  I would find a way to make her pay.

  My fingers stopped buzzing. A grim smile spread across my face as I opened the car door and climbed out to face whatever awaited.

  Cat

  Brant had been set upon in the alley beside the laundromat. More blood was on the dirty concrete ground than I would have liked. Some of it was smeared on the wall of the laundromat itself; about head height, as if a body was thrown towards it.

  The police officer who took us down the alley when we'd arrived said Brant had multiple fractures and contusions and a possible concussion. I was pretty sure the concussion was a given.

  "Who found him?" I asked.

  "The restaurant owner." He nodded toward a Chinese takeaway on the opposite side of the alley. "Taking his trash out." And then nodded at a row of rubbish bins reeking of eggroll and sweet and sour chicken.

  "He didn't see or hear anything?" I pressed.

  "They talk a mile a minute in the kitchen there. Nonstop chatter. Not much to be heard over the caterwauling."

  I shot the cop a look but he ignored it.

  "Where's your detective?" I said, standing up from my crouch. There wasn't much to see in the alley besides Brant's blood and some mice droppings.

  "In the laundromat. Come on." He sauntered out of the alley, hitching his belt and its plethora of weighty objects up his waist, and sticking his chest out like a trumped-up peacock.

  Not all uniforms were arrogant enough to strut, but this guy was certainly making up for those who didn't.

  Rafe followed behind silently; neither offering suggestions nor telling me I was wasting my time investigating this. But the way I saw it, if I could learn something about how The Involition worked out on the streets, it would give me a better idea of how they might work when no one was looking.

  It probably was a waste of time, but Harry and Tac would also expect me to do this and keeping them ignorant of my troubles was a good idea. For now, anyway. Although, I couldn't see myself opening up to anyone at NCB about magia if I could help it.

  Bottom line though, Harlee was missing — taken by The Involition at a guess — and whoever had done it hadn't spared Brant. That told me how serious Ama was about catching me. It also told me what atrocious lengths she would go to in order to do so.

  I didn't need the reminder, but it never hurt to keep focused on what really mattered.

  Inside the laundromat, a female detective was talking to a forensics person in a paper overall. The detective had paper booties over her shoes but was dressed in trousers and a matching suit jacket; no overall. She was wearing nitrile gloves though. The uniformed cop had the wherewithal not to trample over her crime scene and stood waiting for her to notice him in the doorway.

  I thought perhaps they'd processed the alleyway already and had only just moved onto the laundromat. I was pleased to see they were taking Harlee's disappearance seriously. Not that it would help them to find her.

  The detective looked up and scowled at the constable. Then she spotted Rafe and me behind him. She said a few more words to the forensics guy and then carefully made her way over to us.

  "NCB?" she inquired, ignoring the uniformed cop completely.

  I pulled out my badge and flashed it at her. "Chief Operative Catalin Aguirre," I said and waved at Rafe who'd flashed his fake badge as well. Gritting my teeth, I added, "Special Agent Raphael Nonpareil, FBI."

  The detective's eyes got caught on Rafe and her face flushed slightly. I didn't feel any magia around us — I'm not sure I can feel magia at all — but I didn't think Rafe was trying to bamboozle her with magic. She just liked what she saw and I couldn't really blame her.

  Despite his freakishly white hair and violet-hued eyes, there was just something very captivating about the vampire. I didn't get that feeling when I looked at Gio — the only other vampire I knew — so I assumed it was unique to Rafe.

  Maybe it was more to do with their different roles in The Involition. I'd have to ask him later.

  For now, I drew the detective's attention back to me.

  "My tactical officer tells me the internal security cameras in here have been messed with."

  The detective's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

  "NCB," I said and added nothing.

  "You'd either need a search warrant to access it remotely," the detective said, "or you'd have had to be part of my team, on-site and investigating the scene. Which is it?"

  God save me from inter-departmental guard dogs. We often worked with the police. Hell, we were considered the international branch of the local police force. Interpol was an abbreviation of International Police for fuck's sake.

  "We're on the same side, Detective," I said, not voicing any of my thoughts. "And one of ours is missing. Senior Operative Harlee Forster. I'd like to find her before it's too late."