"I was joking."

  "That's okay. It doesn't matter. You might have something. Let me just call her—"

  Outside, she heard a roar. She froze, and Rhiana said, "That's Tik."

  The kitchen door opened and slammed. "Val and Errga went after him. Rhiana, go ahead. I'm going to get my gun; I'll be out in a minute." She raced up the stairs and into her room, threw on her shooting vest with the pockets already full of shells, and pulled the gun out of its hiding place. The key that unlocked the chamber lock was on her housekey ring; she got it, took out the lock, and made sure the shotgun was fully loaded.

  Down the stairs and outside, running as hard as she dared, worrying that one of the creeps who was after her had hurt Tik . . .

  She spotted the warrag first, crouched down behind the old cast-iron tub that served as a watering trough. She heard a shot, but no cries or screams. Maybe none of her people were hurt; or maybe one or some of them were dead. She ran crouched over and tried to keep cover between herself and the barn while she crossed the backyard to the trough. When she reached it, she ducked down beside the warrag and asked, "Where are they?"

  He pointed with his nose toward the open door. "Tik has them treed. Look along the first crossbeam," he said, "to the point where the support beam angles into the roof. See that shadow?"

  She did. It was a shadow with arms and legs, and it was tucked tightly onto that beam. "And the other two?"

  "Can't see them anymore, but they were up on beams, too. They have weapons like yours, but smaller."

  Kate nodded. "I figured they'd have guns if they came after me again. Is Tik all right?"

  "He's fine. He saw them skulking around in your shrubs and gave the alarm. Evidently scared them. Soon as they heard his roar, they ran for the barn. He's over there, making sure they don't get away." The warrag inclined its head to the right. Kate followed the direction of the gesture and found herself staring at the dagreth, whom she hadn't seen before, even though she'd looked right at him a couple of times. He crouched in a stand of dogwoods underplanted with rhododendrons, and he managed near-invisibility. "Once they climbed into the rafters, they got braver. They started shooting." The warrag stretched the corners of his mouth back in a grin and added, "Tik wanted to burn your barn down, but he couldn't find fire, and the trick he uses to make it didn't work here."

  "Is there a chance any of them could have escaped out the back?"

  "Rhiana and Val went back there. They won't get away unless you want them to."

  Kate wished she had a rifle. She estimated her distance at forty yards from the barn. A shotgun was a weapon designed to spread a broad pattern of shot over a short distance, or to throw a slug a slightly longer distance. Even the best of shotguns weren't designed for sniping, however, and nobody would mistake her Mossberg for a high-end weapon. She didn't dare get in close enough to be sure of her aim, either. From that distance, she would make an equally good target for their handguns. And if one of them was a deputy, she had to at least assume he would be proficient with his weapon.

  But she thought the dagreth's idea had been a good one. Burn them out. Or at least threaten to burn them out. She left the safety on and sighted down the barrel at the one man she could see. "I want you to go into my kitchen and get a box of matches. Pull the drawer on the right of the silverware drawer open and you'll see a red-and-blue box with a coarse-textured black stripe that runs along two of the sides. Bring that box to me. We're going to give Ilk his fire."

  The warrag made a soft barking noise that she realized was a laugh. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He slipped away from the trough and skulked under the board fence and across the backyard. Kate noted out of the corner of her eye that he moved the way she had seen coyotes move in nature documentaries, with a slinking sort of grace that seemed shifty and sneaky at the same time. The men in the barn had evidently been watching him, too, for as he stood on his hind legs and let himself into the house, the first man started to drop from the rafter. Kate thumbed the safety off and placed a shot to the right of him, knowing it would drop before it reached him, but also knowing that the sound of a shotgun striking anything nearby would give the three men a reason to sit still and wait for her to make the next move. She pumped another shell into the chamber and pulled an extra out of her vest pocket and loaded that. "Stay right where you are," she yelled.

  The man's feet went back up on the rafter, and Kate noted with satisfaction that he scooted himself into a tighter, more compact mass on the beam.

  "You can't shoot us," one of them shouted.

  "Sure I can. It would be self-defense. All three of you came looking for me, and you brought your guns. You killed my horse and left a death threat; that's on file with the sheriff's department. You've attacked me twice. You've been making threatening phone calls."

  "For you to kill us in self-defense, you're going to have to prove you didn't have any other choice," the same voice yelled. "If you have us pinned out here, you sure as hell aren't going to be able to do that."

  "That's okay. I'll take my chances with a jury. As an old friend of mine once said, 'I'd rather be tried by twelve than carried by six.'"

  The only sound from the barn was silence.

  Kate heard her kitchen door open, and a moment later the warrag rejoined her. He'd carried the box of matches in a pouch in his leather harness; he sat beside her and pulled it out. "This?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  "I had a hard time being sure it was the right thing," he said.

  "I don't see colors the way your sort does; my eyes are designed for darkness rather than daylight."

  "I'm sorry. If I'd known that, I would have found another way to describe them." She took the big box of kitchen matches from him and opened it. "You know how these work?"

  He huffed. "They have some sort of fire spell on them, I imagine."

  She grinned at him. "Not quite, but they're pretty convenient even without magic." She squinted toward the barn. "How well can you see the men now?" The last touches of gold had vanished from the treetops. In the west, Kate could still see touches of pink behind the silhouetted branches, but day was done and twilight was giving over rapidly to true night.

  "The near one I can see perfectly." The warrag craned his neck around the edge of the tub and said, "From this angle, I can see a foot of one of the other two, but to see all three of them I'd have to stand in front of the door."

  "I wish you could see all of them from here. I want to get them out of there, and I don't want any of us to get killed while we roust them. It would help if I knew where they were, but I suppose it isn't essential. They haven't gotten out."

  "No. They haven't. And they won't—not now. Night favors night creatures. All of us save the Machnan will see them better in this light than in the other."

  "Good." Kate leaned forward and thought. "I need you to take a torch to Tik, and another to Rhiana and one to Val. Can you gather some sticks for me?"

  "You're going to burn your barn?"

  "I hope not," Kate said. "But if that's what it takes to get those three to leave me alone, I'll do it."

  The warrag nodded and grinned at her. In the swiftly gathering darkness, she could see little but the gleam of his teeth. "I would, too," he said. "I don't think Val or Rhiana will like losing their horses, but those rotten skulkers of yours shot at the two of them. I expect they'll understand."

  Kate had forgotten about the Glenraveners' horses in her barn. "Gods, I hope I don't have to burn them out."

  "If you do, don't let anyone take the carcasses away. I don't mind a bit of horsemeat now and again." The warrag chuckled when Kate glared at him. Evidently he could see quite well in the dark, because he said, "You need not glower at me, I'll find your sticks and take them for you, and while I'm about it, I'll tell the other three what you want them to do, but I won't stop liking horsemeat because you don't think it's polite." Over the past few days, he and Kate had discussed low-meat diets and healthy eating, and he thought, quite bluntly, that it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. And he refused to believe any civilized people would limit themselves to cattle, sheep, and chickens and pass up such delicacies as dog, cat, and horse.

  Kate ignored the jibe. She told him what to tell the other three, then showed him how to strike the matches and gave the box back to him. He went off in the darkness, and she waited. When, long moments later, he returned to her side, he said, "The bastards have started working their way to the back of the barn. I think all three of them hope to escape that way, but Tik and the Peloral and Her Ladyship are right up against the sides of the building, near the doors, as you requested."

  "Then give them whatever signal you told them you would give."

  The warrag tipped his head back and howled. He might have looked doggish, but there was nothing of the domestic canine in that howl. His wordless song rang with the ache of a million years of loneliness, with yearning and hunger and a shivery supernatural quaver that brought the hair straight up on Kate's arms and the back of her neck and sent a shock of superstitious dread straight to the depths of her belly.

  When he stopped, Kate saw the flickering of a match around the corner from the front door and one beside the back. She waited until the little sticks had caught, then shouted, "They have torches now, and that barn is full of hay. If you want to get out of there alive, drop your guns."

  One of them yelled back, "You can't touch us. Your horses are in here."

  "They aren't my horses. I'll cook them as fast as I'll cook you, and anything else in there, too."

  "I don't believe you."

  "I don't care," Kate said. "You have to the count of five to do what I tell you, and then you won't have any choices at all. One . . . two . . . three . . ."

  One of them started to yell something at her, but she shouted him down: "Four . . ."

  At both doors, the Glenraveners moved the torches into full view.

  Kate heard three thuds.

  "None of them dropped guns." The warrag crouched behind the tub, watching around the comer. "They each dropped a shoe."

  "Fine." She squinted toward the outline of the barn, black against a sea of stars, wishing she had the warrag's eyesight. She shouted, "My friend here saw the shoes drop. I'm running out of patience with the three of you. Drop the guns or we'll torch the barn. You won't get another chance. This time you'll drop your weapons or you'll die."

  She heard three sharper thuds. "Those were the guns," the warrag reported.

  "I'm glad to hear it." She shouted toward the barn, "If any one of you is carrying anything besides a gun, drop that, too. My friends and I will search you, and if we find anything we might even mistake for a weapon, you'll regret it for the rest of your very short lives."

  A few other items clattered to the floor. "Another gun," the warrag said. "Two more guns. A knife." He growled. "I should rip their throats out and eat them."

  "The creeps are probably poisonous," Kate said.

  The warrag glanced at her. In the darkness she could see his head turn in her direction, but she couldn't even guess at the expression on his face. Then he laughed. "Yes. Very probably." He paused, then added, "They've stopped dropping things."

  She told the warrag, "Stay and watch them. If they move, tell them not to. I'm going to get closer. When I'm in position, you move up."

  "Go ahead."

  She ran toward the barn, keeping herself out of a direct line with the door in case one of the three had kept a gun in spite of her instructions. When she got to the wall, she reached a hand around the doorframe to the switch box and turned on the main light. Two bare hundred-watt bulbs set in white porcelain sockets threw out a brilliant wall of light and drew sudden sharp shadows that cast all three men into clear relief. Kate flicked her safety off and slipped around the corner, bringing her shotgun up as she did. She moved her aim slowly between the three men.

  "I've spent enough time shooting this thing that I can drop all three of you before the first one gets a gun out, provided any of you were stupid enough to keep one. Now . . ." She shouted, "Tik. Errga. Val. Rhiana. Put out your fires and come in here. I'm going to need some help." She smiled up at the three men. "Any of you shitheads care to tell me why you felt you needed to beat me up and kill my horse and come looking for me With guns?"

  They glared down at her but said nothing. Rhiana and Val came into the barn through the back door, and the warrag and the dagreth trotted in through the front.

  "Satan's demons," one of the men muttered.

  "That's an insult, isn't it?" Val asked. He snarled up at the three men, showing his elongated canines to their best advantage.

  "Yes," Kate said. "Kick their guns out of the way, please. Don't pick them up or try shooting them. Until I've shown you how to handle firearms, I'd rather you didn't do anything that creative. There's more to shooting a handgun than pointing and pulling the trigger—at least if you want to hit what you're shooting." She didn't take her eyes off of the three men or lower the barrel of the shotgun. "Besides, I want to make sure the fingerprints on them are nice and clear for the police."

  The Glenraveners carefully kicked the weapons to the wall behind Kate.

  Kate recognized two of the men for sure, and thought the third looked familiar. The first was the deputy, Bobby. She felt oddly gratified to discover that she'd been right. The second was a man who had come into her shop a few times, asking if she would like to attend his church. He'd also stopped by her house on two occasions, inviting her once to a church picnic and another time to a membership drive. He'd seemed nice enough, but she hadn't been interested in his invitations, and had, of course, turned him down every time. The third man . . . well, she couldn't place him. All three of them bore fading bruises and healing scars from their fight. She discovered that she was quite pleased with herself, seeing the amount of damage she'd done.

  "Good," she said. "Now, assholes, one at a time and not before I tell you to, I'm going to have you climb down from your rafters and lie facedown on the floor with your hands on the backs of your necks and your fingers laced together. When you reach the floor, don't bend over before I tell you to—not even to pick up your shoes—don't try to run, and hope to God you don't trip and fall because if any of those things happen, I'm going to splatter your innards all over the walls of my barn." She smiled up at them, then said to the Glenraveners, "And if they should get stupid enough to try to rush me all together, you will kill and eat them, won't you?"

  The warrag laughed. "If you like, I'll eat them now."

  "No. Not now. Just if they rush me."

  The dagreth said, "I'm hungry. I haven't had dinner yet. I'd be happy to eat them for you."

  "Well, maybe you'll get lucky and they'll get stupid." Kate broadened her smile at her attackers. "Good. So. Do we all understand our rules of engagement here?"

  Three heads nodded. The men weren't looking at her when they responded; they seemed unable to quit staring at the Glenraveners. But they were listening.

  "How nice. Then you're first, Bobby. Down you come."

  The deputy started shimmying down the straight brace from the rafter.

  The churchman told her, "The Bible says, Thou shah not suffer a witch to live."

  Kate didn't take her eyes off of the deputy. "Quite so, Mr. Smeed. Sneally."

  "Snead," he said.

  "Snead. Fine. I read that verse in the King James version when I was a kid. However, I believe that biblical scholars have several options in translating the word they've chosen to translate as 'witch,' all of them equally valid. Their arbitrary choice of the word 'witch' is just that ... an arbitrary translation choice."

  The deputy landed on the floor and Kate said, "Show him where we want him to lie down, Errga. Rhiana, get the rope hanging on that peg and you and Val tie him up. Tightly, so that he can't move, but not so tightly that you cut off the blood flow to his hands. We wouldn't want to hurt him."

  She turned her attention directly to Snead. "But that's in the Old Testament, and if you're a Christian, then you must believe that Christ took the judgment of humankind upon himself when he died, so that my beliefs would then become a matter between me and him and therefore none of your business. In any case, Christian or not, the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, absolutely forbids murder. And whether you are a right-wing fundamentalist asshole murdering doctors who perform abortions, or a left-wing tree-hugging asshole killing the lumberjacks who are cutting down virgin forest, or any other sort of asshole who feels justified killing a human being over a difference of ideology, you would still be in violation of the law of the land." She stared up at him, her anger boiling inside of her. "And you would still be an asshole."

  She glanced down at the floor, where the deputy lay facedown, his arms tightly bound behind his back and his ankles and knees tied together. She took a deep, steadying breath. "Nice job, guys," she said. "Keep an eye on him while I bring the next one down."

  "Then by your rationale, if you kill us," Snead said, "you'll be committing murder."

  Her rage had banked itself down into a slow-burning fury that she thought would never leave her again. "No. If I kill you, I'll be committing self-defense. The Constitution encourages self-defense. Defending yourself is a part of taking responsibility for your own life, and because I am a responsible human being and a good citizen, if you ever attack me again I will destroy you so totally that the police forensics specialists will have to suck you up with a shop vac and haul you to the morgue in a hundred Zip-Loc bags." She kept her eyes on him, but nodded toward the bound deputy near her feet. "You're next, Snead. Down you come and stop five feet away from him."

  When Snead was tied, she looked at the third man. "I've been trying to come up with a connection, but I can't. Who are you? I swear you look familiar, but I don't know why."