LITMIR.BIZ

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he kept the kayak and the beach furniture, in the area formed by the stilts and the rocks. He hit the sand and was instantly ankle-deep in surf. He clambered barefoot under the deck and then worked his way upward to the dry area, barely able to see in the underbelly of the house, where it was already night.

      And there it was, clinging to a plank.

      A cat.

      He could just make it out in the last moments of sunlight filtering through the slats. An unhappy cat, gray, frightened, mewling.

      “So you’re the baby.” He felt its terror and in response, slowed his own breath. “Come on, then.”

      But the cat was panicked, hissing, and as he moved closer it stood upright on its hind legs in a freakish posture, displaying its own underbelly. Female, clearly. Her neck seemed stuck to the wall. Declan inched closer and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, used the flashlight app and saw that her collar was caught on a protruding nail. The cat was so freaked out that she was in danger of strangling herself. He put away the cell and crooned to her, using a hypnotic voice. “Come on, girl, let’s get you somewhere safe. Warm and dry … nice bowl of milk … tasty piece of fish …” He pulled his T-shirt over his head and draped it around his hands as a shield from her claws, then grasped her and held on, letting her struggle as he worked on unhooking the collar. But for that he needed his hands, so cradling her against one shoulder, he endured her scratches until he’d released it, at which point she wriggled out of both his grasp and her collar. In a spark of movement she took off under the house and into the darkness.

      Leaving Declan behind, wet, bloody, shirtless and swearing, and holding her collar.

      Minutes later he was back inside the house, dripping on the bleached wood floors. He set his cell on the kitchen counter, its screen showing a voice mail message from Alessande Salisbrooke. He would call her later.

      “Look at this,” he said to Harriet, who’d brought him a towel. He handed her the collar, which had the Gucci logo on the leather and two green gems hanging from the metal ring like charms on a bracelet. “I believe those are real.”

      “Emeralds? Leave it to you, Mr. Wainwright, to rescue a cat and end up with a fortune. Does it have a name?”

      “The cat? Her name is Tamarind.”

      “Yes, here it is on the tag. With a phone number. Shall I call it?”

      “You needn’t bother,” Declan said, already stripping off his wet jeans. “There won’t be anyone home.”

      Alessande had the door opened before Declan could reach for the doorbell. She ushered him inside and took a long look out at the horizon, as if scanning it for information. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

      “My pleasure.”

      “Took you long enough.” She closed the door.

      He laughed and put an arm around her. “Took me no time at all, you ingrate. I came as soon as I listened to your message. What’s up?”

      “I found a woman up on Mulholland, unconscious. I need help with her.”

      “You have a dozen family members within shouting distance.”

      “They’re Elven. I don’t want any Elven near her.”

      “Why not?”

      By way of answer, Alessande led him into the living room, where a girl—a woman, actually—lay on the sofa. She was covered by a blanket, so he could only see a long arm and the top of her head. A large yellow dog lay beside her. The dog raised his head at their entrance, but Alessande made a hand gesture and he relaxed, tail thumping on the stone floor.

      “Is she sleeping,” Declan said in a low voice, “or unconscious?”

      “She goes in and out. It’s like she’s drugged. Go check out her eyes.”

      “Her eyes?”

      “Lift her eyelid.”

      He approached the woman. She had red-blond hair that spilled down the side of the sofa like a waterfall. His pulse quickened even before he came around and saw her face. It was heart-shaped, stunning in repose, with long eyelashes pointing the way to high cheekbones. A face he’d seen when it was awake and animated. Her extreme vulnerability now touched something in him. “I know her,” he told Alessande.

      “Who is she?”

      “In a minute.” He didn’t want to say the name aloud, knowing sleeping people will sometimes hear themselves called and pull themselves into consciousness. With a finger he brushed back a lock of her hair, gently, and with a growing suspicion of what he would find, he lifted an eyelid. He stared.

      After a moment he turned to Alessande. “How exposed were you to her?”

      “Enough. I carried her down the hillside. I’d begun to treat her wound when I thought to check her eyes.”

      “Get any blood on you?”

      “On my jacket. Nothing on my skin, as far as I could see.”

      “You were lucky.”

      “Do you think I’m all right?”

      “I think if you weren’t, you’d already be dead.”

      The woman grew restless, and her eyelids fluttered. Declan, acting on impulse, said quickly, “I don’t want her seeing me just yet. I’m going to shift.”

      He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, focusing on his astral body. Then he let in another image, the first person who came to mind—Vernon, his stockbroker. He would do. Vernon was shorter, somewhat heavier and fifteen years older than Declan, with a lot less hair. Declan watched the details coalesce and let the image take him, turning himself around so that he was now inhabiting Vernon’s body, looking at the world from his perspective.

      He opened Vernon’s tired eyes and looked into the eerie eyes of the beauty who, until a minute ago, had been sleeping.

      As images slid into focus, Sailor waited for something to look familiar, but in front of her was a man she didn’t know, in a house she didn’t recognize. A cabin, really, but a sophisticated one. She could see past the man to a woman, and beyond the woman to a kitchen, state-of-the-art, very modern, with a Wolf range. In a bay window hung an ornament, a carving in wood that she knew well, because her great-aunt Olga had an etched glass version of the same image: a tree with roots so long they circled up to meet its branches. Sailor’s eyesight was remarkably good, which was strange. Then again, at this point everything was strange.

      Her head hurt and her chest burned. She was lying on a sofa covered with a soft blue blanket. The blanket was stained with blood.

      “How are you feeling?” the man asked.

      “I don’t have a clue,” she said. “What happened to me?”

      The woman came closer. Elven. Typically beautiful. She was at least six feet tall, both athletic and voluptuous in the particular way that distinguished Elven women from human, except when the humans were surgically enhanced. She had white-blond hair and green eyes so pale they looked haunted. “You were attacked,” she said. She held a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sterile gauze.

      Jonquil stood, sensing a party taking place, his huge tail wagging exuberantly.

      “Sit,” the woman said, and the dog sat so eagerly that Sailor wondered if the stranger were a dog trainer. The woman said, “Do you remember it at all? It was half an hour ago.”

      Sailor thought about it. “There was a bird, or—wings, at least. It sort of sliced me open.” She looked down at herself and moved back the blanket to see that her sternum was bleeding, her chest exposed. She pulled at her torn tank top and jogging bra, trying to cover herself.

      “Let’s have a look,” the man said.

      “Are you a doctor?” Sailor asked.

      “Why

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