LITMIR.BIZ

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but I do not understand why the process was so slow.'

      `Do half-Taloners disintegrate more slowly? Maybe Jack was a half-blood like you?'

      `I do not know. I concealed my bloodline on Gorias and kept away from the coven.' She had to be half-Taloner because she refused to believe she was a full-blood exchanged with the royal babe at birth. But if neither of her `parents' were Taloners, it meant the King could not have been her father.

      `This Ryan Tanner presented as your friend tonight.'

      `Yeah, he worked for Dad years ago but he's been a cop for the past five, says it's more fulfilling. He's done okay. He's in homicide, murder investigations.'

      `If he is your friend, maybe the corpse is still in the boot and Ryan lied to protect you?'

      `He wouldn't do that, not even for a mate.'

      `Even so, he has links to your father too. We should look.'

      The back of his neck prickled. `You want me to stop?'

      `You would prefer to take the word of a friend speaking in front of police authorities?'

      `He said the boot contained gypsum — that'd be the `dust' Taloners turn into, right? Ryan doesn't know about the coven so he wouldn't know to describe a corpse as crap.'

      `It is amusing that you assume who does or does not know about something that you only learned about yourself this very evening. I remind you that the man who was your trusted bodyguard was exposed as a Taloner and now lies dead in your boot. So, please Max, we need to check.'

      `Oh, right. You have a point.' He pulled over sharply, jerked the handbrake on, popped the boot again and turned to her. `Would you like to do the honours?'

      Max barely had time to tap out a beat on the steering wheel before she slammed the boot shut and was back in the passenger seat.`Well?'

      `Your friend spoke the truth. We can return to your house.'

      She wasn't getting out of things that easily! `Unfortunately, our run-in with the police, Ryan in particular, means we have to go to the Laronte ball now, so we don't arouse suspicions.'

      `That action is unwarranted. You can tell Ryan we changed our mind and did not attend.'

      `We could. But sometime tomorrow someone's going to realise Jack's missing, and this will give us an alibi. Not that I want to spend even three minutes with my dad.'

      `In a couple of days, you will be in hiding. And I am tired and not ready to meet more Eartherns tonight.'

      He chuckled. `Is that what you call us?'

      `It is what the Twilight Keeper calls you.'

      `I suppose it's better than muggle.'

      `What is muggle?'

      `Long story. Well, seven of them.' Max started the car again. `How do you tell the difference between a human and a Taloner?'

      `I do not believe there is a way, unless their talons are unsheathed.'

      `Well, that's unlikely to happen at Brisbane's social event of the year.' He wondered if the ball could provide some clue about Jack's attack. But if they couldn't even spot a Taloner who wasn't baring his claws, then he had no idea on earth where to begin to search for clues.

      `Half an hour then. Not a minute more,' he said.

      He headed towards the brighter lights of Mt Gravatt, but his gut tightened as it hit him why the police had been searching cars. `I wonder if the missing kid's been taken by a Taloner.'

      `We will not know until he is found with his heart ripped out. Or not.'

       Like Ethan. Like the four other teenagers.

      `The Rip`n'Stitch must be from the coven.' Or he's a copycat.

      `It is a logical assumption, but this is not my concern.'

      `Oh, that's right, you have to focus on the Elnara,' he said. `I'm sorry the Taloners have hurt your people so badly. It's just, well, you need to acknowledge that they're obviously causing problems here, too.'

       Problems he didn't even know existed a few hours ago.

      The sight of the imposing stone mansion that was the McCalden family home churned Max's stomach, and not because the footpath outside the four-metre-high wrought-iron security gates was crowded with paparazzi and placard-wielding protestors. Too soon he'd be caught and choking inside his father's claustrophobic hive and that thought made him want to hide.

      `Who are all these people?' Shahkara asked.

      `Photographers who take pictures of famous people. And the people with the signs are animal rights activists protesting because there's a rumour Laronte, my father's company, is using animals for research.'

      `Is it?'

      `I don't know. It's not like you'd get a straight answer from him or any of his cronies on the board.'

      Max wound down his window and greeted the ginger-haired man at the gate station. `Hi Alex.'

      `Hello, Max.' He glanced at his iPad. `Your father thought you wouldn't be attending tonight.'

      `I reorganised my diary. He wanted me here, didn't he?'

      `Always.' Alex hesitated. `But who's your friend? She needs to be on the list, Max, even if she's a plus one.'

      `Trust me. She's not a terrorist.' Or a journalist.

      `I'm afraid I can't—'

      `Alex, she's with me. That's gold card access to any McCalden event. Do you want me to phone Dad right now and tell him you're being a pain in the butt? I'm sure he'd like to be interrupted during his speech.'

      Where did that attitude come from? Was it only because he didn't want to chicken out in front of Shahkara?

      Alex raised an eyebrow, and the sculpted iron gates opened in front of them. `Have a good night, Max.'

      Trepidation peeled Max's gut as they approached the three storeys of faux-Renaissance luxury. He had lived here all his life but it had never felt like home. To him it was merely an extravagant jail with decorative pilasters and regal arches. He stepped from the Alfa, tossed his keys to the valet and walked around to open Shahkara's door.

      She obviously found plenty that was awe inspiring, as she climbed the wide stone steps. `I have never seen a more stately house. It is as marvellous,' she lowered her voice and breathed into his ear, `as our castle on Gorias.'

      Like a kid at Disneyland. Max's heart thrummed at the glow in her violet eyes and the innocent flush of her cheeks. She was too young to be a warrior on a quest.

      `But how curiously ugly!' She had spotted the large and eerie mascarons, with their grotesque faces and pointed ram horns, that adorned the walls beneath the first-floor balconies.

      `The Romans used them to ward off evil spirits thousands of years ago. They became popular again in the 1800s as a sign of wealth.' And vulgar taste.

      `Do they?'

      `Do they what?'

      `Ward off evil spirits?'

      He grinned. `I'm still alive, aren't I?'

      They made their way through the foyer, crowded with extravagantly-dressed guests, including a snake-bejewelled Cleopatra and trident-armed Poseidon, until they reached the main hall where Marie Antoinette danced with Julius Caesar and Dracula downed expensive champagne.

      Shahkara's armour and weapons meant she blended perfectly with the incredible costumes, while Max's shirt and jeans made him stand out like every boring piker at a fancy dress party. Socialites cast him condescending glances: McCalden's loser son, the one who should have died instead of Ethan.

      The ridicule singed his nerves and made him crave a drink to settle the doubts swirling inside

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