I laughed. “What is it with you people and pop culture? Don't you have your own stuff to quote?”

“I'm a halfling, too, remember. So I'm curious about my human side. But the purebloods all love human stuff. Humans know how to live. I'd get philosophical and say it's because they know they're going to die, but someone already wrote that book.”

“The Human Stain, among others.”

“Interesting choice. Wouldn't figure you for a Philip Roth fan.”

“I know, women are supposed to hate him. But I love me some Roth. He's brutal, but he's honest.”

“You read a lot, don't you?”

“That's how I lived, for a long time,” I said, as I pulled my sleeves down lower over my scarred wrists, my thoughts turning to Jason and the years I'd grieved for him. The pain would always be there, but now it was manageable. “Anyway, yeah, I read. A lot.”

Julian used his elbow to poke me in the ribs, kindly if awkwardly. “Well, now you're living enough for three people.” I snorted in agreement.

We sat in companionable silence till I broke it with a question I knew was probably inappropriate but I was dying to ask.

“Can I ask you a rather invasive personal question, Julian?”

“Probably. Depends. What is it?”

“Did you know your human father?”

Julian met my eyes, and for a second I thought he was going to plead the fifth. But then he took off his glasses for another round of his nervous-cleaning gesture.

“No, I didn't know him at all. I don't think my mother really knew him, to be honest. He was basically a human sperm donor.”

Julian's voice wasn't bitter exactly, but there was an edge to his normally warm tone.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked.”

“No, it's fine. We halflings all have our stories—”

Julian's words were cut short by a shout from Ryu.

“Back!” my lover roared, just as holy hell broke loose.

A burning figure was launched from the second floor of Tally's apartment house. It hit the floor with a disgusting squelching sound as, a second later, her apartment blew heavens to Betsy.

Julian's slim body covered mine, shielding us with his power. We were two houses down from the blast, and yet, when he dropped his barriers, we could still feel the heat on our faces.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. Julian's face was as white as mine in the orange glow.

“Stay here,” he murmured, darting toward the blaze. The others were kicking down the front door of the building, with Daoud frantically pulling fire extinguishers out of his jeans and passing them around. Tally's building had at least five other apartments in it, and it was dinnertime on a Monday night. People would be home.

I started forward but fell back as I heard the wail of sirens in the background. A second later, the first of Stefan's supernatural police arrived in an inconspicuous black sedan. Then the humans arrived: both fire crews and police. The supernatural and human emergency services blended together seamlessly, the one controlling the other like master puppeteers while the other was totally oblivious to any intervention. I retreated to sit on the hood of Ryu's car as I watched the orchestrated chaos unfold, surrounded by neighbors drawn out by the explosion.

“What happened?” said a voice to my left. The question was repeated, and I realized the voice was aimed at me.

“An explosion. Probably a gas leak,” I improvised, not bothering to turn around.

“A gas leak? Wow.”

I was trying to wrap my brain around Conleth. Even as I stared in horror at the paramedics surrounding the ifrit halfling's victim, I felt such terrible pity for him—a pity only exacerbated by everything we'd read in the files yesterday. There was one file of crayon drawings in which he'd drawn pictures of a small stick figure—shaded with orange scribbles—holding hands with two larger stick figures dressed in white uniforms. A terrible parody of the “My Family” portraits I'd drawn in kindergarten.

The man next to me continued to speak, though I was very obviously not listening.

“… old buildings often have things wrong with them,” he was yammering.

I hunkered lower in my jacket, as if cold, but really because I wanted to play turtle and take refuge in my shell. There'd been letters to Santa covered in a scientist's notes on the psychological implications of Conleth's asking for a basketball and a Transformers figure.

“But that's quite an explosion for a gas leak.”

I sighed and finally looked at the man talking to me. He was tall and slender and, except for his height, entirely unprepossessing. His hair glowed very red in the light of the fire.

“Well, gas is highly flammable,” I answered, curtly.

He grinned at me as if I'd made the funniest joke he'd ever heard.

“Would you like to go get an ice cream?” he asked, causing me to start.

“Excuse me?” It was February. I was a stranger. There was a body on the sidewalk.

“Would you like to get an ice cream?” he repeated, as if we were the best of friends.

I stared at him, feeling my temper rise. What was wrong with this guy?

“There's a place around the corner in Brookline that has great ice cream. I love ice cream.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I'm here with my boyfriend, there's a woman burned to a crisp over there, and it's way too late for ice cream, anyway.”

“C'mon, Jane. You'll love this place. They make this great mint chocolate chip, your favorite…”

I recoiled at the sound of my name. What the fuck? I thought, as I inched away from him.

He responded by grabbing my arm. His grip was tight and hot, even through the leather of my jacket.

“Come with me, Jane,” he repeated as I wrenched my arm away.

My fears were confirmed when I felt something burning. Looking down at my sleeve, I saw the charred imprint of a hand. My jacket, where the man had touched it, was smoldering.

“Ryu!” I shrieked, depending on my lover's preternatural hearing to save me.

Standing in front of me, the man's face shifted from one of easygoing neutrality to confusion and then to venomous anger.

“Why'd you call him?” he asked. “He's just getting in the way.”

I scrabbled farther back on the car hood, enforcing my shields as I attempted to put more distance between me and the no-longer-mysterious stranger.

“Jane? What's going on?” Ryu asked behind me, his voice calm but edged with danger.

“Ryu, meet Conleth,” I squeaked. “Conleth, Ryu.”

I felt my lover's hand on the waistband of my jeans as he tugged me backward off the car and to his side and then pushed me behind him.

“Conleth,” Ryu said, grimly. “I'm glad you're here. That we get a chance to talk. We know what's been done to you—”

Before Ryu could embark fully on his “why don't you come with us?” speech, the amiable, skinny everyman who'd asked me to go for ice cream was gone. In his place was a being sheathed in flames, his fiery hair whipping about in the maelstrom of power emanating from his wraithlike figure.

The human neighbors surrounding us all backpedalled furiously, only to be herded away and immediately glamoured by a handful of Stefan's deputies. Another few deputies threw up a thickly woven visual shield around us, deflecting any more attention from unwitting human eyes. Despite my influx of emotions at being confronted like this by Conleth, there was still part of me that couldn't help but marvel at the supes' efficiency in dealing with unwanted witnesses.

Conleth, however, didn't seem to be all that impressed.

“Don't give me that crap,” he was shouting at Ryu. “I trusted everyone, and everyone lied.”

“I understand that,” Ryu said, his voice exuding reason and calm. “I understand why you wouldn't trust us. But we can help you.”

“I help myself,” Conleth snarled. “That's what none of you get. You have your little society, your little world, all set up. But you're weak and I know it. You're old, and you're weak, and you're done. Your time is done.”

Conleth was practically spitting with rage, his face deformed into a horrible grimacing mask. Ryu's power swirled around us as he fortified his barriers. I touched my lover's fingers, splayed on my hip, adding my strength to his shields.

“Jane and I are the future. We're not weak like you.” Conleth turned his head to smile at me, and suddenly his expression was beatific. “She's beautiful, inside and out, and she's powerful. Just like me. We are the pure ones. Not you. Us. Our humanity makes us pure.”

Great, I thought, as soon as the word “pure” entered Conleth's speech. It's the halfling version of Jarl. What is it with lunatics and purity?

Personally, I liked things nice and corrupt.

Ryu was nodding along to everything Conleth said, as if he were really, really interested. Which I knew was standard negotiator procedure, as I'd also seen that movie. Unfortunately, Conleth must have seen it as well.