“Because we’re living?” George postulated.

I shook my head. “Zee says that for fae magic—transformation is transformation.”

“Power,” suggested George—that was what Zee had concluded as well. “She said that she killed things for power. And she hadn’t been able to kill those kids crossing the road. Maybe she used all her power transforming the semi—and that’s why the whole semi wasn’t concrete when we got there. I’ve been wondering why, when she was mad at the driver, she only transformed part of the semi. What if she was trying to transform the whole thing, driver and all, but didn’t have the juice to do it? She took Dennis—and Dennis killed Anna, but didn’t kill anyone else. You didn’t kill anyone or die yourself. She took this poor hitchhiker and still didn’t manage to kill anyone—that we know of. That’s a lot of power outlay.”

“That sounds right,” I said, writing:

Did not have enough power to transform George and me and only ½ semi.

“So if we can keep the people the beast takes from killing anyone, we can keep it powered down,” George said. “We have Ben contained.”

He sounded so hopeful.

“Did Adam tell Darryl, and Darryl tell you, that one of the fae was bitten, went into Uncle Mike’s, and killed a whole bunch of people—fae and human and goblin? That Larry and the frost giant stopped it?”

George frowned. “No,” he said. “Just that the fae, like the vampires, are holed up until the smoke beast is dealt with. By us.”

“Do you remember the big car wreck that pushed Kyle’s discharging of a firearm to protect Warren off the front page?” I asked.

George looked sick. “Stefan,” he said.

I nodded. “That’s what Beauclaire indicated. I think that the smoke beast has plenty of power right now.”

“What else did Beauclaire tell you?” George asked.

“He said that they called it the smoke dragon and smoke weaver—that both of those terms spoke to its nature—that it had a name, but Beauclaire could not speak it. Nor could any fae. And that that was because of the rules under which the smoke weaver operated.”

George started to say something, but I held up a hand. “Sorry, there is something Zee told me. He said … he said that what the smoke beast—” I hesitated because Beauclaire had told me what they called the creature for a reason. “What the smoke weaver is doing with the whole body snatching and killing to power up is more like the way an artifact would have been made. He said that the transformations like what the weaver did with the semi are a power that belong to a group of lesser fae.”

“Huh,” said George. “That would explain the power problem it has. I have never noticed that the fae have trouble powering their own magic. Maybe it has an artifact it’s using? All you have to do is figure out what it is and take it away.”

That sounded like an interesting plan. I wished I had the book Ariana, a powerful fae I knew, had written about her people. It had a whole section on artifacts—but I didn’t remember any of them operating quite like that. If Zee had known of one (or built one), he would have told me. The book was gone, but I would call Ariana and see if she knew of something like this. Last I had heard from her, she was somewhere in Africa with her mate, Samuel, and communication was tricky.

George had moved on. “Are we sure this is fae? You said her magic—its magic—didn’t smell fae.”

I shrugged. “I haven’t run into it before. There are a lot of fae; maybe this one is like the platypus—or the goblins, for that matter. It doesn’t quite fit in.”

“What else did Beauclaire say?” asked George, half closing his eyes, which was what he did when he was thinking hard.

“That we’re unlikely to be able to kill it”—and Beauclaire hadn’t mentioned an artifact—“and that trick it has of transforming itself to smoke makes it hard to capture. He then said that Underhill had imprisoned it because of a bargain it made. And that there is a story about that bargain I should find. Then Baba Yaga shut him up and told me that the key to the smoke weaver’s undoing is to be found in his basic nature.” Huh. “His basic nature,” I said again.

“So we have a start,” said George. “That’s more than we knew when Ben got bitten. I have a few contacts that might know something about artifacts. Even if they’re locked up in Fairyland, cell phones still work. I’ll do some sleuthing.”

“I’d appreciate that.” I hopped off the desk and opened the door.

“I need to go put some signs up at my garage,” I told George. “I’m trusting you to keep Ben from killing anyone—or himself—while I’m gone.”

“He doesn’t seem suicidal,” George said. “He ate a hearty breakfast—muffin with bacon, eggs, and cheese—all off a paper plate without even so much as a fork or spoon. He’s not exactly cheery—but Ben isn’t usually a cheery sort of guy.”

Hmm. Ben was usually pretty cheery around me. Foul-mouthed and sarcastic, maybe, but cheerful enough. For sure he hadn’t started out that way. Maybe he was grumpier around other people—or they avoided him so much that they didn’t know he’d changed.

“So you played cook this morning?” I asked. George didn’t strike me as the homemaker type. Toast and eggs maybe, but not a better-than version of a fast-food staple.

“Adam cooked it up for all of us.” George frowned at me. “He was cooking when I got here at five—and Darryl said you didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours. You look like you could use another eight hours to sleep. You both need to get more rest or you aren’t going to be any good for anything.”

“News at eleven,” I said dryly, and he grinned.

“Telling you things you already know is the job of all of your friends,” he said, and headed down to the basement.

When had George become my friend?

I had a smile on my face when I opened the fridge, but it dropped away when I saw the deconstructed breakfast sandwich on the large plate with assembly instructions written out in Adam’s handwriting.

The sandwich was for me. And another time I would have taken it as a thoughtful love-note kind of thing. But we weren’t in that place right now, so that limited the reasons for this gesture. Apologies or guilt—which were both kind of the same thing.

I thought, just then, of waking up in the middle of the night knowing there was a predator watching me with hostile eyes. Of reaching out and finding Adam in wolf form.

I don’t trust myself, he’d said. I’ve been a werewolf for longer than you’ve been alive and it’s been decades since I’ve had trouble with it. But now I wake up and I’m in my wolf’s shape—without remembering how I got there.

Could that hostile presence have been Adam?

Shaken, I microwaved the things that needed to be microwaved and toasted the English muffin. Adam had said he didn’t know what had caused his problem controlling his shapeshifting—but his wolf had blamed the witches.

Adam was smart, but beyond that he was perceptive. He didn’t usually have blinders on when he was looking at people, even if he was looking into a mirror.

I bit into the sandwich.

He was, in fact, overly harsh when looking into a mirror. He still thought he was a monster. I swallowed and considered that. Could it be that the witches had done something to him and he thought it was his own inner demons breaking free? That the wolf was right and Adam was wrong?

And what the freak could I do about that? Find another witch? I thought of Elizaveta, who had been our pack’s witch for decades before Adam had had to kill her. I didn’t know that there was a witch I would trust Adam to. Maybe I should talk to Bran? That was an idea with some merit.

I finished the sandwich and punished myself with a glass of orange juice for health. Followed that up by punishing myself with a cup of coffee to stay awake for the day. Coffee I found nearly as vile as orange juice, but hopefully both of them would do their jobs.

I was dumping the last half of my coffee in the sink when the front door opened and my nose told me that Auriele had walked in.

“We are both being chastised,” she told me as she walked into the kitchen. “I am to accompany you on whatever you are doing today.”

Her tone was neutral, as was her body language. I had no idea what she was feeling about doing guard duty for me. Maybe it was time to put the cards on the table.

I dusted my hands off and gave her a somber look. “I like you. I think that you are too easily led by your need to protect Christy, who needs protecting about as much as a … a jaguar needs protecting.” I didn’t call Christy either a shark or viper—go me!

Auriele gave me a look that told me that she’d heard “viper” instead of the sexier “jaguar” just fine.

“I like you,” she told me without sounding like she was going to choke on it. “You are a Goody Two-shoes sometimes, but you’d fall on a grenade for Adam or Jesse or a member of the pack. You fell on a grenade for Christy, even. But you would also fall on a grenade for a total stranger—and that makes you a liability to the pack.”

I thought about what she said.

“That’s fair,” I told her. “But I don’t open other people’s mail.”

“That’s fair, too,” she said. “Where are we going and when? Adam said he thought you’d be moving by eight.”

It was seven and if she’d been five minutes later I’d have been gone. Normally I’d have been headed to church (although not at seven a.m.), but the garage was more urgent today.

I grabbed my purse and said, “The garage. The fae have recalled everyone into the reservation. Without Zee and Tad there, under the circumstances, working in the garage by myself is a liability to the pack.” I deliberately chose her words.

She nodded approvingly. “Good decision.” Implying that most of my decisions were not.