Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “No, you can keep that.”

            “Thought so.” I was glad Glenn was content to let me be the bad guy, and I eyed the monitor on my finger as if it was a new manicure, smiling. “I’m simply trying to move my day along. David, you look better.”

            The Were rolled himself closer, Cassie tight to his side. “At least I don’t forget to take my clothes off before I Were,” he said.

            “You saw that?” I said, embarrassed, and Cassie smirked.

            “It’s trending,” she said as she moved my shoulder bag off the chair and sat down.

            Yes, I was still angry with Cassie, but seeing as Cassie was sore and David was in a wheelchair, I figured she knew it had been a bad idea to romance David’s location from me and then give Doyle the last dance.

            “You want me to make him talk?” David said, and Walter slowly uncurled.

            “Yep.” Extra sass in me, I bent over Walter and arranged his sheet. “So if you have any hope of coming out of this alive, you should tell me who the mage is before Parker kills you to shut you up. Now. Did you meet him before or after I put Hodin away?”

            “I want a lawyer,” he wheezed, and Cassie snickered.

            “You don’t get a lawyer,” I said. “You get me. I want to know who the mage is, or Detective Glenn from the FIB is going to take the agent off your door and walk away.”

            David pulled Cassie down and whispered in her ear. I didn’t hear what he said, but I think Walter did, as his brow furrowed.

            “See, Walter,” I said, hips swaying as I went to peek past the blinds. “I know what it’s like to have a lot of power. You tend to piss people off, and if you don’t make amends, they remember it. One day, you lose your power. And then all those people you made angry or afraid come back. Real fast. Real ugly.”

            I turned, probably nothing more than a dark silhouette against the sun-bright blinds.

            “Okay, ease up, Rachel,” Glenn said softly. “You’re starting to scare me.”

            But he hadn’t been the one responsible for two little girls, terrified as Parker and I fought.

            “Let me try,” David said, and I gestured for him to have at it.

            David turned his attention to Walter and went still. Slowly his pupils widened until his eyes were nothing but black orbs. His face became gaunt, and a wild, feral tension took over his stance. Breath by breath, his mien changed until it wasn’t David sitting there. It was the focus. I stifled a shudder. It was always there, but David rarely gave the sentient curse so much freedom.

            David had taken the living curse into himself to save my sanity when I had stupidly tried to control it. Even now I wasn’t sure I understood what the curse did to give him sway over the multitude of packs that Cincinnati boasted. I’d never heard him make one decree, or promise, or threat, and still what he wanted seemed to get done, whether it was helping to quell a vampiric uprising or finding a parking space. He might seem to be living a charmed life. But watching the raw, wild power surge through him, I realized it was more of a burden than he ever let on. To control this was not easy.

            “Rachel needs to know what you know,” he said, and I glanced at Cassie. She’d gone pale, clearly shaken. She hadn’t seen the depth of it, I realized, hoping this wasn’t going to change things between them. “What’s the invocation phrase to break the chakra curse?”

            “You can . . . stuff your tail up your ass,” Walter rasped, his expression drawn as he fixed his gaze on David’s. My lips parted. He was afraid. I’d never seen that in him before, not even when his wife lay dying in his arms.

            “Walter,” David all but whispered, and I started. His voice had changed, becoming wispy and cunning. I recognized it from how my own voice had sounded when I held the focus. Madness drifted through my memory, and I retreated until I bumped into Glenn.

            “You’ve been leading others alone for too long,” David said, and Walter’s eyes bulged as he clenched his jaw. “Breathe easy. Run smooth. I know. I am. See me. I am. Let go. Set your burden down and live.”

            Walter groaned, expression twisted. “You were supposed to be mine. Mine!”