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A point he’d proved time and again.
I wasn’t laughing. I am merely bemused that anyone could fear a creature so small.
Australia has some of the deadliest creatures on the planet, I retorted, and most of them are tiny!
It was an empty web that touched your face, and you squeaked, he said, mirth still very evident. Our quarry is now running.
Should we?
He can’t escape. I have a sense of his soul now.
And I had his scent. It was musty, sharp, and definitely rat-like.
We moved quickly through the blackness. Deeper shadows loomed, and the scent of oil and machinery sharpened. Azriel led me through the maze easily, obviously seeing a whole lot more clearly than I was.
There was a whisper of sound—dirt falling onto concrete—then the scent of the shifter faded sharply.
He’s gone through a hole in the wall, Azriel commented. I smell sewers.
For fuck’s sake, what was it with these people and sewers?
Rats do like them. Amusement rolled through his thoughts again. You may stay here, if you like, and I shall retrieve him.
You promise not to question him before bringing him back?
He studied me for a moment—something I felt rather than saw. I would not, but if you wish me to promise, then I shall do so.
It was a rebuke, even if it was a gentle one. I didn’t answer and, a second later, the heat of him was gone. I crossed my arms, shifting from one foot to the other impatiently. But he was back quickly, the heat of his body announcing his presence long before the sharp scent of rat shifter hit the air and both men re-formed.
The shifter came into being screaming. “Fucking hell, what did you just do to me?”
Valdis’s flickering light lifted the darkness. The shifter was built like a string bean, but there was a strength to his movements that belied his gauntness. His face was angular—sharp—and his small eyes dark. Azriel held him securely by the scruff of the neck, but the shifter didn’t seem to notice, twisting from side to side as if to check that all the bits of himself had re-formed properly.
“You know what he did to you,” I said flatly. “You work for an Aedh. You must have more than a passing knowledge of their abilities.”
He jumped—a hard feat given how tightly Azriel was holding him—and his gaze settled on me. “Who the hell are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Just answer the question.”
“I would if I fucking knew what you were talking about!”
I studied him for a moment, sensing no evasion in his words and seeing no lie in his body language. Which was odd. “Several months ago, you were asked to deliver a package—and then a note—to a warehouse apartment in Richmond.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So you’re not a deliveryman, and the uniform you used was not yours. Who employed you to deliver those packages and how did they get in contact with you?”
He shrugged, his expression growing more uneasy. “The package was delivered here, with a page of instructions. I got paid once I did the job. I never saw the person and I never cared to, as long as I got my money.”
“And did you get your money?”
“Of course I did! I’m not a sucker, lady.”
I glanced over his shoulder and met Azriel’s gaze. He no more believed the shifter than I did.
“So you never saw who left the package here?”
“No. Like I said, the guy just left it sitting there with the instructions.”
