"You will answer my question," Drake growled, the deep sound thrumming in my blood for a moment before merging with the fire within me, growing hotter until it burned with a white flame.

I laughed and arched my back when his body got all bossy with mine in time to the music. "This may be your dream, but it doesn't mean I will do anything I don't want to do."

"We have mated. You want me even now."

"That doesn't mean we're going to do anything."

Outrage stiffened him against me. "Are you refusing me?"

I did a slow shimmy that left us both breathless. "Not refusing outright, just delaying. In fact, I need to be going back to sleep. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow, one that involves making sure that you pay for the crimes you've committed, so you might want to get some rest, too. I have a feeling you're going to need it."

"Is that a threat?" His eyes were filled with so much emotion, they almost glowed green.

"A promise," I whispered against his lips.

The music came to a reluctant stop as I twirled one last twirl around the leg he forced through mine; then

I backed away. I wasn't entirely sure that I could break off a dream that he had initiated, but I wasn't about to stay in his little nocturnal fantasy while he conducted an erotic third degree.

"Good night, Drake. Thank you for the dance. And the slinky dress. Maybe another time we can do the rumba?"

'This isn't over, Aisling. You're a fool if you think it is."

You're crazy if you think I didn't notice that not once did he deny doing anything wrong. Part of me wanted to stay and argue it out with him, to try to reason with him, to make him admit what he'd done, and wring a promise from him that he'd turn himself in to the police; the other part was sounding warning bells and counseling me to run like crazy from him.

Instead I drifted backwards into the shadows, leaving him standing by himself in the light, a mysterious figure in black, his face haunted, his eyes dark with shadows.

I wouldnot fall in love with a murderer. No matter how much he wrung my heart.

I woke with that resolution echoing in my head. The clock at the side of the bed showed it was only two in the morning. I beat up the pillow until it was somewhat com-fortable, and I lay awake for a long time thinking over what I had to do. An hour into my contemplation, Perdita crept into the room with a cone of cedar-scented incense and conducted the ritual cleansing by the light of the moon. It was a strangely unsettling experience, one that left me wondering just how right things were in my head that I suspected the two women who were risking their own safety by protecting me.

"All right, you and I are going to have a talk."

"Goody gumdrops. I'm slobbering at the thought."

I pulled out a fresh drool bib that Ophelia had kindly purchased for me the day before, and tied it around Jim's thick neck. We had done a quick walkies—quick because I was nervous about being on the streets where someone might recognize me, and yet hesitant to have either Ophe-lia or Perdita take the demon out for me since they might find out it was a demon—and had our breakfast with the sisters. Ophelia offered to run any of my errands as she was out doing her own, but I couldn't think of anything I needed until after she'd left.

She also asked that I wait to conduct my demon-summoning ritual until after she returned, so she could watch. I gnashed my teeth a bit at the delay, wanting to get the demon's interrogation done so I could turn the in-formation over to the police as soon as possible, but there wasn't much I could do. She and Perdita were taking a big risk by putting me up; delaying the summoning of Bafamal for a few hours was the least I could do in return.

"I was being sarcastic rather than literal," Jim said snappishly as I tied on the drool bib.

I wiped up its moist flews with the dirty bib. "You don't have something caught in your teeth, do you? I heard that tooth problems can make a dog drool exces-sively. Maybe I should take you to a vet?"

"You could brush my teeth instead. A good owner brushes her dog's teeth. Cecile says Amelie brushes her teeth for her every night. She has a special dog tooth-brush and everything. Some peoplecare for their pets."

I sat in the puddle of sunlight that was warming the edge of the bed. "Stop trying to distract me. You are a demon,not a pet. I want to talk to you, and I command you to answer my questions. Honestly."

Jim muttered something under its breath and looked away.

"What powers does a Guardian have other than taking care of portals and summoning and releasing demons?"

"Whatever powers she needs."

"That's no answer," I said with a frown.

Jim pouted. "It's the truth, and that's what you asked for."

Why couldn't anyone in this city except Amelie offer information when I asked questions? I sighed and tried again. "Give me a specific list of powers a Guardian has other than the portal and demon stuff."

"She can draw wards and curses, can conduct mind pushes on mortals, depending on the level of her training, and can recognize Otherworld entities no matter what their disguises."

'That didn't hurt to much, did it?" I asked as I thought over Jim's list. It muttered that it hurt a lot. "Let's start at the top, ward and curses, what are those?"

"Wards are magic in symbol form. Most, but not all, are used for protection. Curses are anti-wards, drawn the same, but with the intention of doing an action to some-one else rather than the drawer. Happy now?"

"Nigh on ecstatic. What's a mind push?"

Jim sighed a throaty sigh. "Remind me to make my next demon lord someone who knows his job. A mind push is just what it sounds like—you want someone to do something, you give them a little mind push to make them do it."

"Oh. Something psychiclike? ESP and all that?"

''Not the spoon-bending kind. It's just you reaching out with your mind and convincing the other person they really want to do what it is you want them to do. Mind push, get it?"

"Got it. Kind of. Now this recognizing beasties and such, you mean like demons?"

Jim nodded and started licking its shoulder.

I frowned, going back over everyone I'd met since I summoned up Jim. "If that's so common, why is it that both wyverns recognized that you were a demon, and yet Amelie didn't until I told her? And for that matter, Ophe-lia and Perdita don't know what you really are, either."