"My fiance." I said it without thinking. Dmitri let out a small choked sound.

"Your what?"

"You heard me," I said. The nightclub was still closed, neon just flickering to life in the twilight. Kirov brought us to the back door and I got out.

Dmitri followed me in. "Fiance. Six months. You work fast, Luna."

"Why don't you phase and bite me?" I suggested. "And when you're through, show me the phone."

Dmitri set me up with the pay phone and a stack of money while he sat at the bar, glaring alternately at the taciturn bartender and at me. I turned my back on him. It wasn't my fault he got pissy when I'd mentioned I'd moved on. He He had a had a kid kid. Bright lady. I was still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I punched in the country code and Will's cell number, praying that he'd pick up. Who knew what time it was in California?

"Hello?" he muttered. Early. Or late. "Who is this?"

"Will? It's me."

"Luna?" It was a yell, something that made me hold the greasy beer-scented receiver away from my ear. Totally out of character for Will, who had never raised his voice in my hearing except when the Celtics were on TV. "Luna, where the fuck are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I said, feeling a small smile bloom. "I'm just fine, Will."

"What the hell happened?" he shouted. "You don't come home, me and Agent Hart pay a visit to that sack of slime Nikolai Rostov, he has no answers, and you're just gone!"

"Aw, honey," I said. "You spent time with the Feebs for me?"

"Wasn't easy, doll, believe me," he said. "That guy wears this terrible aftershave. Could choke a horse."

"Will," I said, not able to hide the tremble in my voice. "I missed you. A lot."

"Tell me where you are and I'll come get you," he said. "I don't care what happened, I don't care whose fault it is, I just want you home."

"I'm in Kiev," I said. "I'm all right." I looked at Dmitri. He spread his hands, obviously wondering what was taking so long. He could go Hex himself.

"Kiev?" Will sounded gobsmacked. "Gods, Luna, I knew those Russian bastards must have done something to you, but Kiev? Gods," he said again.

"I'm fine," I repeated. For certain values of fine fine.

"I'll be on the next federal flight out," Will said. "Just give me your address and sit tight."

I shut my eyes and drew in a breath. "Not yet," I said.

There was a thud on the other end of the phone. "Ow! Dammit," Will said. "I stubbed my toe on your freaking armoire. What do you mean not yet not yet?"

"You're at my apartment?" I said.

"Yeah," Will said. "Couldn't sleep at mine. Stupid and girly, I know. I should go lift weights or shoot some game to make up for it."

"Will," I said. "There's something here I have to do."

"I don't buy that, Luna. You need to come home and we need to nail these guys."

"I'm sorry," I said softly. "I'm all right, and I'll be home soon."

"Luna..." Will started.

"I love you," I whispered, and hit the disconnect. The dial tone pulsed in my ear, in time with my heartbeat.

I stalked back to the bar and sat on the stool next to Dmitri. "Whiskey," I said to the bartender. "No ice, no water, no umbrella."

He shrugged at me. I glared at Dmitri. "Translation, por favor? por favor? " "

Dmitri and the bartender exchanged a few snapped syllables and the bartender slid a cloudy glass of rotgut in front of me. I took a sip and winced.

"Good gods. What do they put in the whiskey in this country, nuclear waste?"

Dmitri lifted his shoulders. "You didn't say what kind you preferred."

I rolled my eyes at him and changed the subject. "Tell me about Masha," I said. "Lay it all out. The more information I have, the faster I can find her and get the Hex home."

"The fiance," Dmitri said. "Will. How'd he take it? Is he jealous?"

I swiveled to face him, throwing down the rest of my glass. "We're not talking about Will. Not now, not ever. Understood?"

Dmitri chuckled. "Touchy. You must really like the guy."

"The precious spawn of your prolific loins," I reminded him. The whiskey against my still virtually empty stomach brought out the vocabulary words. "Tell me the details."

"Masha isn't what you'd call a model kid," he said. "She got into a lot of trouble-fights, boyfriends, probably a little pot."

Could have been me at fourteen. "Yeah, funny how that happens when there's not a father in the picture."

Dmitri snarled. "Don't do that. You said you'd help."

"I said that. I said nothing about not making snarky remarks to keep myself from punching you in the teeth for lying. Go on."

"She was cutting school a lot, and hanging out with some wannabe gangsters. Margarita eyeballed one of them after she went missing and I followed him for a while, to the Belikovs' compound. You know the rest."

"Which gangster?" I said. "Why Masha?"

"Some ponytailed asshole who likes to wave a gun around. And I'm thinking for the same reason you were there. Were girls turn a profit."

"Mikel," I said. "I've had the pleasure. But Masha wasn't in the compound."

"No," Dmitri growled, tapping one index finger on the bar like a restless secondary heartbeat. "She was gone, and I didn't have time to look around once I saw you."

"Okay," I said. "So we go back there and we ask some politely phrased questions."

Dmitri smirked. "Same old Luna. Always willing to go running in like the sheriff."

"Speaking of," I said. "Why haven't you gone to the real police? Or is that a dumb question?"

"The pack has a lot of friends in the Kiev police," said Dmitri, "but the Belikovs have more. Legends in Kiev, old witch blood, with ties back to the Romanovs themselves. Pull with regular criminal circles, and magickal ones. It's too risky. If they find out Masha is my daughter, that she's connected to the Redbacks, they'll kill her to save themselves the trouble."

"Okay," I said. "In the morning, we go back."

Dmitri frowned. "The morning? Masha is in trouble right now."

"I'm exhausted," I said. "I'm running on fumes. I've gotten maybe eight hours of sleep in the last seven days. If I don't get some sleep soon I'm going to nod off and pull a Tyler Durden, and no one wants that." I reached out, mostly out of pity, and laid my hand over his. "If they haven't killed her yet, they aren't going to do it anytime soon. Their girls are worth more alive."

I wasn't entirely sure the profits stopped rolling in when the girls were dead, having seen the way Grigorii operated, but I didn't say it out loud.

"I guess you got a point," Dmitri muttered. "Come on. We'll head back to the pack house and you can get some rest." We walked out to the curb, where Kirov was patiently dozing at the wheel of the car, and I got into the front this time. I was through with being shoved to the back, shuttled from one place to another.

"Margarita will be relieved," said Dmitri. "We were at wit's end. Masha is a good girl, even if she went off the path a bit."

His voice and face went soft when he talked about the girl, a softness that I'd only seen a few times when we'd been together. Never at the end. Even as wasted as Dmitri looked now, he managed to appear a father.

The stab of jealous heat that went through my gut was purely an animal reaction, or so I told myself. Not like I could compete with flesh-and-blood relations, even if I wanted to. And I didn't want to.

I kept telling myself that until I was in a lumpy bed on the top floor of the pack house, so tired that sleep wouldn't come. I wasn't jealous of Masha, I wasn't jealous of the family that Dmitri had hidden from me. He and I were over, and just because I hadn't rated the truth when we were going out didn't mean I had the right to get all uppity now.

I kept telling myself that, but it didn't do much good.

Someone pounded on my door the next morning and then proceeded to come in without waiting for an answer. "I have brought you breakfast," Margarita said, slamming a plate with a hard-boiled egg and some toast down on my nightstand.

"Wow," I said, running a hand over my face. "Service with a smile."

"I also need to talk," she said. "Alone. Without Dmitri hearing."

"Is this the part where you tell me to stay clear of your man?" I got out of bed, finding the jeans I'd been wearing the day before and rooting in the chest of drawers for a fresh shirt. They were all men's sizes, but I was past caring. I found a ratty Slayer band shirt from sometime in the eighties and slipped it on. Margarita studied my body with narrowed eyes, not even trying to hide it.

"Kickboxing," I said. "But don't worry-from what I've seen of his choice of women, you're way more Dmitri's usual type." He'd come back from Kiev with a mate last time, forced on him by the pack, or so he said. Now I wondered. "Irina-I dunno if you two hang out or anything-but she was like you. Bright hair, big stripper tits, that sweet farm-girl face that he likes so very much."

Margarita inhaled sharply, her nostrils flaring out. "I have given you no reason to speak to me like this. I I have every reason to be angry with have every reason to be angry with you you."

"Oh?" I said, rolling the egg between my palms to get the shell off.

"You endangered the father of my child. Your actions could take him from us," she said. "You are reckless and dangerous by every account. I need to know that Dmitri will be safe with you, when you go to find Masha."

"Dmitri is a big boy," I said. The toast looked a little musty, but I dug into it, anyway. I was still hungry enough to clean out my favorite restaurant in Nocturne City, the Devere Diner, and go back for seconds.

"He is also blinded by what he feels is his fault, his wrongdoing," said Margarita. "He will charge in and he will not care if it costs him his life. You must be the one to have balance and to have a care for him."

I raised an eyebrow. Maybe Margarita wasn't as simple as those big eyes and big breasts let on. Most were women in packs I'd encountered were some nightmare version of Stepford-submissive, with no thoughts in their heads aside from what they could do to please their man. Since the alternative was a beating or a humiliation bite often enough, I didn't exactly blame them.

"Well?" Margarita said, standing. "Will you bring Masha and and her father home safely?" her father home safely?"

"I'll do what I can," I said. "But I have to tell you-Dmitri isn't exactly the most stable guy I've ever met, even without the daemon bite. Now ... he's pretty much off the reservation."

"And that is your cross to bear," said Margarita, touching the Orthodox one at her neck. "As it should be." She walked out and slammed the door.

"Yeah," I said. "Nice talking with you, too."

I brushed my hair and pulled it into a low bun-if we were going back to the hotel, it wasn't a question of if if things would get rough but things would get rough but when when, and hair flying around for someone to grab onto like a slot-machine lever isn't a real smart move.

Downstairs, I found Kirov sitting on a sagging velvet sofa, reading a newspaper. He smiled at me when he smelled me. "Good morning, Luna. Did you rest well?"

"Well enough," I said. "Kirov, I need to ask you a favor."

"Of course," he said.

"I need some firepower," I said. "A gun for the human contingent of these gangsters." And for Grigorii and Ekaterina, too, just because they deserved to have someone shoot them. More than once.

"I'll see what I can do." Kirov levered himself off the sofa and folded his paper over his squat stomach. "Do you have a preference for the firearm?"

"Something that makes holes in the people I point it at," I said. "Hollow-point ammunition if you've got it."

"You'll find that the Redbacks have a little of everything." Kirov grinned. "Dmitri asked that you find him when you woke. He's out back, smoking."

I found Dmitri standing in the alley, staring up at the sun balefully. "Sixteen days," he said when I stepped out the door. "That's how long she's been gone, this morning."

"We're getting her back," I said. "I promise."

"You're good at making promises," Dmitri sighed. "Like how you were going to cure me from the daemon infection and stick with me forever. That one was my favorite."

"You can blow me if you think we're going to start that game all over again," I snapped. "Seriously, Dmitri, do you ever ever think before you open your mouth?" think before you open your mouth?"

"Do you think before you make promises?" he returned. We were just like the Hamas and the Mossad, going back and forth, equally pissed off and never ready to back down.

"I think plenty," I said. "I think how lucky I am to have gotten rid of you and your alpha-male issues every damn day."

That shut him up. And I immediately felt like the world's biggest bitch for saying it out loud. "Wow," I said. "I'm thinking an 'I'm sorry' isn't gonna cut it here, but..."

"Don't say anything else," Dmitri told me. "You did the kindest thing. Now I remember why we never worked in the first place. You and your gods-damned comments."

"I am sticking with you to help you find an innocent little girl who has no business being caught up in this," I hissed. "Not because I feel some obligation for how I treated you. For the record, buster, my comments comments were the least of our problems." were the least of our problems."

"Yeah," Dmitri said. "You tell yourself that, if it helps."

"It does," I said.

"Denial is definitely your color," Dmitri said.

"Fuck you. Right up the rear shaft."

Kirov came outside then and saved me from having to slap Dmitri hard and repeatedly across the face. How dare he take the high road with me, after what he'd put me through? It wasn't my fault he'd gotten the daemon bite and it wasn't my fault he couldn't be cured. The only chance of that had sunk to the bottom of Siren Bay in order to save Nocturne City from being obliterated by Seamus O'Halloran, and if he expected me to be sorry for that, he could Hex himself.

"Here you are," Kirov said, looking between us. I took the gun out of his grasp, a Walther, the little James Bond gun, powerful and compact.