He was shifting.
Right there.
With us to overhear his grunts and pants as his body snapped and reformed into a new shape.
Mom had been considered pack. Meg had loved her like a sister. I understood that gave me leeway with their pack, but it was access I never cashed in on. I was content maintaining my ties to Meg and financially supporting her pack in exchange for her help in legal matters. I never stopped to consider the pack might view me as adopted kin, but Meg was their matriarch. It should have occurred to me before.
The daemon loped over to me, grinning wide. “Go on hunt with Derry?”
“I want you to go.” I patted his arm. “He seems nice, and a hunt like that would be amazing.”
I would miss Asa something fierce if they went too far for too long, but it would be the experience of a lifetime for the daemon.
“You pet.” He thrust his hair into my hand. “I show Rue best hunting pose.”
The pose was not a pose, but a variation on the Mystic Mambo. I really had to warn Derry what he had gotten himself into with the daemon. If he busted out moves like these while they were on a hunt, prey would hear them coming a hundred miles away.
A cold nose bumped the back of my hand, and I jerked when a lean gray wolf lolled his tongue at me.
“Ready?” The daemon walked up to Derry. “Race me?”
The wolf gave an eager yip, his tail wagging, and it made me wonder if Derry was behind the wheel or if he was more of a copilot in this form. Maybe four legs simply made him happier and more playful. The daemon was certainly both those things.
“You can race to the end of the cemetery road, but that’s it.” I set my hands on my hips. “Any farther, and you might be seen.” Pack magic might blur the lines until folks saw a dog instead of a wolf, but a crimson-skinned daemon with ebony horns and muscles for days was hard to miss. “Are you sure…?”
They didn’t let me get out the rest of my question before they took off like a shot.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” I told a cloud of dust then muttered, “I hope they track as fast as they run.”
Ten minutes later, I caught up to them and tried hard not to notice the daemon playing fetch with the wolf. An alpha wolf. With a stick as long as my forearm.
And if I happened to snap a few pictures, maybe a short video, then I was documenting the damage. Yeah. Property damage. That was it. Not creating a blackmail folder. Because that would be wrong.
“Oh crap.” I jogged up to them. “That’s not a stick.”
The door to a nearby mausoleum hung at an odd angle, and the daemon looked way too innocent for his own good. Up close, I could tell the stick wasn’t just as long as my forearm, it was an ulna.
“Go put that back where you found it.” I ignored the daemon’s sulk. “We have a case to solve.”
The grumble in Derry’s throat turned into a huff and a humanlike head bob as he pitched in.
Once they set things to rights, I gestured for Derry to lead the way. This time, I walked behind him and left the daemon to follow me. Neither seemed happy about the arrangement, but I could schedule them a playdate later.
Afterwe rounded up our summoning ring and banished all the vengeful spirits.
A transformation overcame Derry when he crossed the property line leaving the cemetery. Not as dramatic as the whole man-to-wolf thing he had going on, but it was impressive, nonetheless. Here was the predator I had anticipated, nose to the ground, ears perked for any sounds.
We walked three miles, according to my watch’s fitness app, and I set a pin when the guys stalled out.
The daemon circled around me, picking up on whatever Derry had located, and the pair stared at one another in silent understanding. Then the daemon pivoted toward me, plucked me up like a feather, and hauled me into a nearby tree. As I found my voice to yell at him for overreacting, a blue onryo shot straight at Derry, slamming into him with a deafening crunch.
The wolf was twice his size and three times as vicious as they bit and clawed and snarled at one another.
“I’m useless up here.” I climbed out of the daemon’s arms onto a limb. “I need contact for my magic to work.”
“Derry-wolf want test theory,” the daemon explained. “Told him bad idea.”
“We’ll give them sixty seconds, and then we’re going down there.”