"Our mistake," I said.
"Go on and open the door, then," she said. "Just this once."
I looked to be sure she was serious. Then I reached out and turned the handle. It opened. I pushed and--
The door opened into an apartment filled with dust motes.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said as I stepped inside and looked around. "Were you expecting something else?"
I glowered at her. She only said, "When you agree to hear the elders out, all the doors of Cainsville will be open to you, Miss Olivia. Including the ones you'd rather stayed shut." She snatched the scone bag from my hand and thumped toward the front door. "Close that when you're done. You wouldn't want to catch a chill."
--
The elders agreed to the terms Gabriel had suggested. One week maximum, during which the lamiae would stay with Veronica and a few others. They would be introduced in town as exchange students from Greece.
We were driving back to Chic
ago to get the girls when Ricky texted.
Still on for a hunt tonight?
"Shit," I whispered.
"Ricky?"
"Mmm, yeah. We--"
"You're supposed to go looking for that hound again to see if it can lead you to our rogue Huntsman."
"Which we'll have to postpone."
"Absolutely not. It is connected to the case, and the case is our priority. You will meet with Ricky and find the hound. I will escort the lamiae to Cainsville. Melanie said only four of them are ready to go tonight."
I shook my head. "You go with Ricky. Avoid the king-adoration."
"That is primarily Pepper, and given her condition, I can hardly fault her for that. As for the others, I would appreciate it if you might take them aside and advise them that we have names and any other designation is...not complimentary."
I looked over at him and thought of Gwynn. Of the boy with the rabbit, and the boy in the swimming hole, and the young man in the cave. A good boy. A good man. One who'd made a critical mistake.
I remembered the little girl telling me I judged them too harshly, that they--all three of them--were young and made youthful mistakes. There was more to them than those terrible mistakes. A lifetime more.
We did judge too harshly. I had to figure out how to tell Gabriel that, if he would listen. To tell him that my memories of Gwynn--like Gwynn himself--were golden and bright, all up until the end, and even then, in his grief, he redeemed himself.
"I'll speak to the lamiae," I said.
--
Tonight we hunted a hound. Yes, the fact it had been at the drop-in center when Erin was murdered suggested a link between its "owner" and the lamiae killings. Yet a stronger reason drove Ricky onto the streets that night.
Someone had broken his hound. Someone would pay for that.
As for how Ricky would find a semi-spectral hound in a city of three million people...Well, that might take a bit of magic. Our hope was that the hound retained enough of its severed psychic bond that Ricky could find it again. Not so much magic, then, as faith.
As we rode, Ricky left his helmet off, which is perfectly legal in Illinois--he just wears one because he's more interested in protecting that brain of his than in looking the part of the badass biker. He did, however, ask me to leave mine on.
Ricky rolled up and down the streets of the neighborhoods where the lamiae lived and hunted. He wore his Saints jacket, which meant we got our share of shouts and taunts from the local wildlife. Ricky ignored them until we'd been out for two hours without a trace of the hound, and a car veered into our path and forced us to stop.
"Hey, cracker," a guy shouted from the passenger window. "You lost?"