In a voice that was breathless with pain, Rush said, 'No nurse, not yet.'

'I don't want to use your time talking police work,' I said.

'You want to know why someone from the federal branch showed me the file.' His voice was recovering its strength, but the strain still showed on his face.

'Yes,' I said.

'Yes,' Micah said.

He looked up at both of us, and again that cop look crossed his face. He looked at me. The force of personality in his eyes was intense, and I prayed that I'd get a chance to see him whole and well. 'Does the name Van Cleef mean anything to you, Anita?'

I blinked and fought to keep my own cop face in place. Van Cleef was the name of one of the people who had helped train Edward, Marshal Ted Forrester, in covert operations after the regular military had trained him in special ops. Two other men that I knew had been associated with him: Bernardo Spotted-Horse and Otto Jeffries. They were both marshals, too, all of the preternatural branch just like me. I knew that Edward had been a professional assassin for years and that Ted Forrester was his Clark Kent disguise. Otto Jeffries's real name was Olaf, and when he wasn't training our military in dangerous things or being a mercenary in other countries, he had a hobby. He was a serial killer, but he only indulged when he wasn't on an assignment, so the government seemed determined to keep him too busy to play.

I honestly didn't know how much the government knew about Edward and Olaf's reality, but Van Cleef had helped train all three of them and some other men who the four of us had met about four years ago. The other men had died. We hadn't.

I'd been quiet too long, because Rush said, 'I see that it does.'

'What does the name mean to you?' I asked.

Micah was looking from one to the other of us, because he didn't know. I hadn't met him when I'd last played with Van Cleef's people. Edward, Olaf, and Bernardo didn't count. Edward was one of my best friends. Bernardo was a work friend. Olaf had a crush on me, because I'd hunted vampires with him, cut people up, killed with him, and he'd thought it was foreplay. The last time we worked together, Olaf had been attacked by a werelion and tested positive for lycanthropy. He'd vanished after that, and so had a female doctor. We'd assumed he took the woman and indulged his hobby. He'd written me a note and basically said he was going to stay away from me until he was sure I wouldn't make him a pet cat like I had Nicky. They had known each other professionally before I tamed Nicky.

'I've worked with Van Cleef's people,' Rush said.

I blinked, fought to keep my face empty, and tried to process that Micah's dad knew people as dangerous as I did.

'Why did they show you the file, and why did they have a file on Chimera and his people?'

'The military has been interested in trying to harness tame shapeshifters for a long time. Chimera interested them.'

'Did the military know what he was doing?' Micah asked.

'Not at first. They were organizing a hunt for him and his people about the time he, and you, got to St Louis. They were going to try to capture him. His DNA on his victims showed he was a panwere. They wanted to study him.'

'Study him,' Micah said; his voice held disbelief and the beginnings of anger.

'I didn't know until this year.' He closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. Sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead. 'Anita, you interest them.'

'Because I'm a panwere, sort of,' I said.

He opened his eyes. 'The fact that you don't change shape makes them even more interested in you.'

'Are you warning us?' Micah asked.

'They may come to you and try to blackmail you into helping them.'

'Blackmail me with what?' I asked.

'Chimera and his people arrived in St Louis, we know that, but they never left.'

He was looking very steadily at me. I fought to keep as careful a face as I'd shown anyone in a long time. 'What do you want me to say?' I asked.

'Men like Chimera, groups like his, don't just vanish, Anita. But it was your bloodwork hitting the government grapevine that clinched it.'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said.

'You killed him. You did it up close and personal enough for him to put his claws, or teeth, into you. Strains of lycanthropy have DNA just like viruses. They know you're carrying some of his DNA inside you, but you have even more control. You have the military's dream of being faster, stronger, harder to kill, better at killing, and you never lose human shape.'

'That's not due to being a panwere,' I said.

'Then what is it?'

I debated for a moment, and then answered. 'We think it's the vampire marks. Vampires can't become shapeshifters with modern strains of lycanthropy, and I was already tied to Jean-Claude when I got contaminated.'

Rush swallowed hard again, closed his eyes, and just breathed for a while. 'So without the vampire marks ahead of time, it won't work.'

'It may only work for me. I'm not sure it's duplicable at all.'

'If I don't wake up again, tell Gonzales what you told me. He'll be able to get it where it needs to go. Don't admit anything; just tell him that your control is based on your ties to the Master of St Louis. Tell them it's not doable.'

'What's not doable?' Micah asked.

'Making more of her.'

'You're joking,' I said.

'I wouldn't waste my time with Mike lying.' He looked up at his son. 'Do you love her?'

'I do.'

'Do you love Nathaniel?'

'I do,' Micah said.

'Good, I'm glad. I love your mom, always have, and I love Ty. It works for us.'

'It works for us, too.'

'Did you know Aunt Jody is living with her girlfriend?'

'Yeah.'

Rush laughed, but it ended in him writhing on the bed, and then making a pain sound. 'Mom and Dad are starting to question what they did wrong, because two of their kids are living in unnatural sin.' He laughed again, but it was a harsh sound. 'Are Bea and Ty here?'

'Just outside,' Micah said.

He looked up at Micah, but his eyes had that fever shine to them, his face glistening with sweat. 'I love you, son.'

'I love you, too, Dad.'