It could have been anywhere: the small coffee shop with its little square tables hidden under plastic and patterns, huddled next to the street which bustled in the lunchtime rush. People pushed and slid past one another, but cocooned from the crush, she sat at the table and read the newspaper.

 It could have been any day. War in the Middle East, strife in the Government, the usual fodder of crime and sex, gore splattered across the headlines with glee. Doomsayers and gainsayers bordered crop circles and conspiracies. The mundane and bizarre was crammed into the sidelines, and she, as ordinary as the plain black type, was just another by-line in a busy city day.

 Of course, she could have been anyone. That was part of her magic; she blended in with a chameleon's fearful style, dressed as if she was going back to the office in a few minutes, sipping at coffee. Her black hair was twisted into a neat bun, tamed by grips and mousse, and a briefcase stood beside her chair.

 From top to toe, she was an urban tiger, all pinstripes and commercial hunger.

 And like all stealthy hunters, Chatoya Irkil kept her eyes low and bided her time. The formal attire felt uncomfortable - it had that still-new stiffness, holding a shape that didn't quite match her body's outline.

 The years had not yet begun to leave traces on her; there was no trace of grey in her hair, much to her amazement, and no lines around the moss-green eyes to give away the passage of time. Yet she felt like she'd lived more in the last year than she had in all the others put together, so seeing the same face in the mirror each morning came as something of a shock.

 And undoubtedly, today would be more of the same.

 After all, in the basement of this ordinary coffee shop in this anywhere place was something which would make headline news all on its own. Or so she'd been told. Somehow, she showed nothing in her face except the intensity of an involved reader.

 But each time the door jangled, she looked up.

 Each time, she was disappointed.

 The faces she glanced at were unfamiliar, free of mockery and scorn, free of a certain softness she was almost certain he didn't know about.

 So she turned back to battles and blood, wondering why it seemed so much like old news.

~*~

 He was late.

 When he finally came in, she didn't recognise him. Cloaked by a glamour, her flamboyant soulmate was muted to just another passer-by. Only the magnetic pull of the soulmate link warned her of his presence: that young man strolling in, trim and dull.

 His face jolted her; he'd stolen her brother's features with a magpie's malicious skill, stolen her own features, she supposed. His eyes were the wrong colour and his hair the wrong shade, but she recognised each bend of his bones.

 You told me to look normal, Blue Malefici's cool smile said. And so I chose your face. Or the closest I could get.

It was a calculated insult, and it made her blood simmer in her veins, charged with anger. Nonetheless, she plastered on a cordial smile, and murmured a meaningless greeting. She would not give that arrogant fiend the pleasure of seeing her reaction.  

 In such ordinary hues - his hair a pale brown, his eyes a stern grey that spoke of filing cabinets and staples, something of the aura he exuded was gone.

 She had never noticed quite how reliant he was on his remarkable appearance, how much he took every aspect of himself and fitted it to his image. In his plundered face, his usual expressions didn't work quite as well. Chatoya kept the thought to herself, surprised by it.

 "Did you get lost?" she murmured, falsely concerned.

 "The traffic was terrible today." He spoke with studied boredom. "Not to mention the fact that your directions seemed to go through every dark alleyway and slummy street here."

 Had they? She didn't bother to hide her smile, understanding now just why she'd been warned to bring reading material. "Blame Vaje, he drew up the map."

 His eyelids fall over his stare, lending it a sinister air. "Chusson's attitude is beginning to grate on my nerves."

 "He says the same of you." In far more colourful language.

 His voice hadn't changed a whit, pouring over the air in a silken wash. "And you, witch of mine, what do you say? How long will this insolence be tolerated?"

 She put down the paper, letting the silence stretch out. She took a mouthful of coffee, and when only bitterness lingered on her tongue, she leaned forward until the space between them was pared down to a breath, halfway between the beginning of a kiss and the beginning of an attack.

 "As long as I tolerate your insolence," she stated bluntly, the words low and slow, "you will tolerate his. I may only run Pursang because you tricked me into it...but I'm not entirely friendless."

 His eyes narrowed. "Friendship has no part in business."

 "Maybe not in Nightfire." Certainly not in Nightfire, from what she had heard. Blue was respected, but he was not liked. "But your inability to build any bond beyond what you contract for is not my problem."

 His mouth twisted. "I did not contract for you, my witch."

 "Good job. You wouldn't have been able to afford me." She snapped the words with an arrogance borrowed from Cougar Redfern, proud of her steely tone. "It's easy to be respected in the Furies, Blue, if you have the guts to go to Hades."

 The mere thought of that dank, unholy place was enough to raise gooseflesh on her arms.

 "Having the guts to go is never the problem. Coming back with your guts still in is the issue." He spoke lightly, but there was a cold truth under the words.

 "I managed," she answered coolly, though she had never told him what had passed there. There were days when she still woke slick with sweat, her lips bleeding from where she'd bitten them, chewing herself right out of the nightmare. "I got their respect. Liking...well, that's harder, but more rewarding."

 "I doubt it, somehow," he drawled.

 "You would," she muttered. She didn't press the issue. For starters, not only was the thought of a cuddlier, nauseatingly sweet Blue somehow terrifying, it was to her advantage if his rule of Nightfire was dominated by cruelty and calculation.

 "Enough small talk. In case you'd forgotten, we're not here to chat." He was glancing about, and where his eyes fell, customers began to put down their drinks and fall silent. Within moments, people were pouring out of the shop, spurred by whatever thoughts he'd put in their heads.

 She was suddenly very glad he had no such powers over her.

 As the last customers trickled out, she kicked back her chair and went to the door; a quick shove shut it, and as she shot the bolt and flipped the sign to read 'Closed', no one glanced back.

 The proprietor glanced up from behind the counter, his expression shifting into relief. "Well, you took your time-"

 Blue pulled off a silver ring and tossed it on the table. As it left his hand, the glamour vanished, and he was revealed in all his extravagant glory, a blade of a boy with hair as shockingly blue as a jolt of electricity and eyes that took in the scene, took in her, always taking, never giving.

 The owner stopped mid-sentence and the colour drained from his face.  

 "I see you remember me," purred Blue, strolling towards him with slow steps that had a gentle menace, a promise of distance reducing, of closeness - of touch, and then of pain.

 The man nodded, lips seamed shut. He didn't seem to trust himself to speak.

 "What's going on?" she asked, and the man's eyes flicked to her, filled with a fear she recognised all too well.

 "Old friends catching up," Blue answered, never taking his attention from the man. "Now, now, Marcus, don't quiver so. I'm not here to hurt you."

 'This time' was the implicit threat, louder in absence.

 "It was an accident," Marcus stammered. His voice was high and breathy, too young for a face sagging in middle age. "I didn't know the lock was iron! They told me it was silver, see, they said-"

 Blue cut him off with a short gesture.

 "Marcus has a passion for rare creatures," Blue informed her. "Rare, dangerous creatures. There's a certain sort of crowd who like to pit, say, a tiger against a demon, and see which comes out alive. He makes a lucrative profit from it, but they're tricky to import. And equally difficult to contain even when you have an iota of common sense, which Marcus doesn't."

 "The lock..." muttered the man, his hands clutching at the counter as if it was all that held him up. Probably it was.

 "Unfortunately, his last import managed to break free. One of our most promising initiates was on the same boat, and was caught in the ensuing eruption. Last anyone saw of him, he vanished along with the demon in a puff of sulphur. Needless to say, this cost Nightfire particular financial distress. I am not pleased."

 "I doubt your initiate was overjoyed," she pointed out sharply. "I'm sure someone told him life with Nightfire would be hell, but he probably didn't think you meant it literally."

 A brief derisive flick of his eyes, scoring over her. "Make no mistake, I'm equally displeased with him. Hence why I've left him in the demon's tender care. It might hammer the point home, so to speak."

  She repressed a shudder, having read a fair amount about the places where demons resided. Perhaps she could convince one or two of Pursang's members to make the journey to-

 He was watching her. Chatoya stamped down hard on the thought, packing it into the most secret compartment of her mind.

 "Well, he could hardly have been that promising if he was tricked so easily," she remarked with as much indifference as she could muster. "And I'm sure Marcus has learned his lesson."

 "Obviously not, or we wouldn't be here." Distaste oozed from Blue's voice, arching on the syllables like a stretching cat. "This will be the last time you contact the Furies, Marcus. If you cannot control your creatures, don't buy them. Next time one of your precious pets causes you trouble, I will take no currency but flesh." His mouth curled into a small smile, shaped by scorn. "You could stand to lose a little anyway."

 The man's eyes widened, and she felt the fear rolling off him like a stench. She had no doubt Blue meant it: she knew for a fact that the saying 'to pay an arm and leg' came from the Furies' price of old.

 Despite herself, she had little sympathy for him. She had seen enough magical creatures in the last few months to convince her anyone who tried to market them was maddened by greed.

 "Shall we get down to business?" she interrupted. "Where are they?"

 "In the basement," muttered the man, gratefully turning his attention to her. "Only place that'll hold them. They got out of the cage somehow, and if that room wasn't reinforced with silver alloys..." He shuddered.

 "You'd better show us," she said wearily. "What are they?"

"Over-hyped," threw in Blue.

Marcus shot her a guilty glance. "You'll see."

~*~

There was a small porthole set in the door; Blue stepped up and glanced through. As he brushed by, she breathed in the wintry scent of him, clear and cold, as if the city smells had left no imprint on him at all.

"Very seasonal," he murmured. He put down the briefcase he'd brought with him, and his eyes rested on Marcus. Chatoya had seen that look before: Blue was reducing him down to numbers and paperwork, his azure eyes becoming empty and sterile as a body bag, filled only by Marcus's reflection.

 When he moved away, his fingers drifted over her hip in a casual touch, but he didn't so much as glance at her.

 Business, she reminded herself, which means unfortunately you'll have to pretend these games aren't going on. It's not polite to kick your colleague in front of a customer, after all.

 Pity.

 She peered through the glass and-

 "What the hell are those?" she demanded, recoiling.  

 They were like pixies gone horrible, horribly wrong. She couldn't count how many of them there were: small ugly creatures with skin the lurid green of limes, scaly as lizards, except for the coarse ginger hair that covered their heads. Two spiralling horns poked out from their hair, matching the black claws on their hands.

 Pieces of metal were scattered on the floor - what had been the cage, she supposed.

 "Leprechauns," Blue said into her ear. She nearly jumped at his closeness.

 She stared at the leering creatures, who capered around the remnants of the cage. "Those are leprechauns?" she squeaked.

 "You wouldn't steal their Lucky Charms, would you?" said Blue, obviously amused. "And unless you're a complete fool, you wouldn't steal them from their homeland and ship them over the ocean."

 "What are we going to do with them?" she asked, fascinated by the creatures' swift, darting movements. They tumbled around the room in dizzying tumbles and leaps, breaking boxes, smashing chairs, pulling apart whatever they could lay their hands on.

 "Round them up and ship them back. As you can see they're rather nippy, and they aren't as harmless as they look."

 They didn't look remotely harmless to Chatoya, but she supposed Blue had a very short list of things he considered dangerous. "How?"

 "This is where you come in. If you can weave a strong magical shield to keep them away from us, I'll pick them off one by one and tie them up with these." He bent to the briefcase and snapped open the locks. Inside were odd ropes: looking closely, she saw they were made up of hundreds of shamrocks threaded onto a thin wire. "Make sure the shield goes all around us - those claws may look nasty, but their worst weapon is their saliva."

 That was a new one. In the six weeks she'd spent working intensively with Pursang, Chatoya had seen two clawed monsters, one with some ridiculous fangs and one with a tail that could bring a whole new meaning to whiplash. But...saliva?

 "Understand?" he said, looking up sharply. There was nothing but a brisk professionalism in his voice, and in an odd way, that infuriated her. He done it again, as he had every time they'd met in business dealings: reduced her to nothing more than a co-worker, a blank face to do a job.

 She didn't know how he could simply change so. It was as though in business dealings, he was free to ignore the soulmate link. At all other times, he felt compelled to challenge her and to challenge it, to provoke and to needle, to explore, to infuriate - and bittersweet as all those things were, she could deal with them. It was personal; those were the moments that belonged to no one else.

 This could have been anyone's moment with him, and it surprised her that somewhere along the line, she had become used to thinking of him as hers.

 She suspected he wouldn't have appreciated the observation.

 And she knew better than to say anything to him.

 "Understood," Chatoya replied in a voice as colourless as his.

 ~*~

 It took her several minutes to draw up a shield, and it was a piece of craft that made Marcus Arlin, who was, after all, a fellow practitioner, blink.

 "Shouldn't you be using something a little more...appropriate?" he asked as she drew out a piece of paper and a felt-tip pen.

 So he was one of those. Chatoya glanced up. "This isn't ceremonial magic."

 "Well, yes, but what you're doing seems...disrespectful," he muttered as she began to sketch out the spell. It was one of Pursang's creations, a mingling of Norse runes and hieroglyphs.

 "Do you have to be in the middle of a sacred circle to pray?" she answered. "The gods are everywhere, Marcus, and whether you write out your spells in blood or earth or a biro, if you're sincere, they'll hear."

 He was craning his neck, trying to learn the spell. She turned and fixed her eyes on him, giving him the hard look she had learned made as good a threat as harsh words. He quickly stepped back, pretending he hadn't been caught.

 She finished the last rune, touched her fingers to the paper and murmured a few words, careful to get her pronunciation just so. The phonetic nature of hieroglyphs meant that one small mistake could lead to one very large crater where you'd been standing.

 The sigils began to glow with a soft blue light which rose outwards like a bubble expanding, passing through her with a cool sensation, leaving only the crackling scent of ozone behind. Under her hands, the paper felt strangely solid, and was rigid as sheet metal. She fixed the leprechauns in her mind, pushing threads of her own power into the runes to key the shield to them.

 "Okay," she said, holding the paper in front of her. "Ready. Stay inside this shield, or you will be at the mercy of those things."

  "Duly noted." Blue stepped up behind her, a hand at the small of her back, thumb brushing over her spine. She wasn't sure if it was a gesture of warning or possession or perhaps even of comfort, and it really wasn't the time to think it over.

 As she pushed open the door, the shield eased through the wall, forcing the creatures back. They had paused to watch, a dozen beady eyes fixed on her with unnerving intensity.

 Hooked claws rattled on the stone floor. "Come 'ere, missus," one cajoled in an Irish accent as soft and melting as butter. It didn't match the goggle-eyed face, horned and pustule-covered. "Come an' dance with me. Everyone's got a bit o' Irish in 'em, and when you've had my bit, you'll never want another."

 Oh god, they were propositioning her. If it could be called that.

 "Now, now, the tasty ones go to the leader o' the craic first," purred another one, its voice just as mismatched with its appearance. "An' last time I checked, I was the one who danced on the rivers and wore the golden crown." It knuckled its way to the front, and it did indeed have a crude crown on its head, covered in dents. This leprechaun was almost two feet high, and it licked its lips. "Aye, she'd be a tasty morsel, and she'll be mine first!"

 "Thank you, but no," she said firmly. As she stepped forward, the shield pushed them backwards, their claws, scraping on the floor. "I'm taken."

 "By that ugly freak beside you?" demanded the king, clapping its talons together. It flashed a toothy and possibly-trying-to-be sympathetic grin. "Oh lady, 'tis a travesty when a maiden fair as yerself must suffer so. Why, his skin is pale as maggots, and he's as long and stretched as a man who's been dancing the hemp fandango for a week!"

 Chatoya had to swallow her giggles. This was business, after all, but she couldn't quell her urge to glance back at Blue's face. Despite his lack of expression, something in his eyes told her he wasn't entirely flattered by their description.

 "Do ye not want a handsome man?" chirped another, its accent thick as cream. "Our king is radiant in his beauty."

 Radiant in its radioactive skin, perhaps.

 "Aye," purred their leader. "Why have that beast when you could have a man with fire in his hair and fire in his loins!" With one horrifyingly quick gesture, it ripped off its loincloth, and only the need to hold onto the shield stopped her from clapping her hands over her eyes.

 "Enough flirting," Blue said with something of a bite to his voice. "I recommend you...creatures cooperate with us, and this will be quite painless."

 "Ah, but will it be fun?" the king cooed. Around him, the leprechauns screeched and chattered. "Mayhap you'll let us eat that cowering man at the door?"

 Blue looked as if he was seriously considering it.

 "No," she said firmly. "We're here to return you to your homeland."

 All of them fell silent.

 "We have no wish to return," announced the king. "This is a fine land, and if it's full o' fine women like yourself, we'll stay and find the craic!"

 The thought of them running amok in the city was far too horrifying. "There's no choice in the matter," she informed them.

 "Aye..." and there was something thick and cold in the king's voice. "I see your leman has made chains for us."

 "Correct," murmured Blue, setting all but one of the ropes on the floor.

 "And do you think leprechauns are so easily caught?" it said, and it spoke with a ruler's sternness, even if there was nothing regal in its form. "We will not return!"

 "Wrong." Blue gestured to her, and she poured a little more of her magic into the spell. The shield split, part of it walling off the leprechaun at the end of the mass while the rest of the spell continued to hold off the remainder.

 The lone leprechaun backed up, chittering in a language she didn't understand. The next thing she knew, it had spat at the shield - a damp gold mess that struck the shield and oozed down it-

 Goddess, what was happening?

 Where it touched, she felt her spell begin to unravel. This was crazy - as long as the piece of paper was complete, the spell should keep working, but she could feel it dissolving around her-

 The shield's breaking down! she flung at Blue frantically.

 Impossible.

 Very much possible, she shouted back, trying to keep panic at bay. It's-

 And then the rest of the leprechauns spat, and her spell was crumbling under her fingers...

 This was ridiculous. It was insane. No one, no one should be in trouble because of expectorating demons. Yet it was happening, and she felt Blue at the edges of her mind, thumbing through her emotions as if they were a book, his belief solidifying.

 Time for a swift exit, he said simply. We'll discuss the situation outside-

 She turned in time to hear the click of the key turning in the lock, and Marcus Arlin's pale, triumphant face at the window. He'd known. He'd known, and he had trapped them.

 She caught a waft of cold, seething anger from the soulmate link before Blue's mind slammed shut with the finality of a portcullis. The holes in her shield were growing, and soon would be enough for the little brutes to get through...

 Got your phone? He interrupted her rising fear, voice lashing her like a whip. No comfort to be found here, only that infuriating wall of professionalism. Just another Fury, another fool following his orders. It rankled.

 Nonetheless, she scrambled in her pockets and finally threw the cellphone to him.

 I'll get hold of Chusson, Blue said with only the faintest hint of distaste. I think this is the point where we need help,no matter how inept. Especially if those Irish horrors get loose. Can you fix whatever they're doing?

 For a while.

Do it, then see if that handy Drax power can unlock the door. Don't worry about damaging it - they can't stand the touch of silver. We know that much about them, at least. A shame no one mentioned their corrosive saliva.

Chatoya was busy trying to shore up the shield around them, patching over the gaps with more power while the leprechauns taunted her, the king cackling wildly. As fast as she fixed the holes, more appeared as they spat at her. The floor around the shield was covered in glistening gold goo, and managed to be both the most disgusting and the most bizarre thing she'd seen to date.

Finally, she'd done enough damage limitation. None of the holes were large enough for them to get through. Gratefully, she turned her attention to the lock. The dragon powers coiled up in her, dark and vicious as poison, and-

 Something hit her. She looked down, and there was leprechaun saliva on her arm-

 No, she realised, a sick feeling welling up in her stomach, she hadn't left a gap big enough for them to climb through, but to spit through...?

 Strange heat washed up her arm, spreading through her body with the deathly speed of cyanide; her head swam, her vision blurred-

 If she passed out, the shield would vanish. Blue would be at their mercy.

 With the last of her willpower, she threw the shreds of dragonfire at the lock, and as her knees buckled, heard a satisfying crack...

 This is the most demeaning way of being defeated I've ever experienced, she thought glumly, struggling to keep consciousness. He's never going to let me live this down.

 The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the floor.  

~*~

 She opened her eyes onto a strange ceiling, her body slumped and heavy as wet cement. For a long time, she couldn't summon the strength to move, but finally, she managed to twist sideways like a landed fish, startling the man sitting next to her bed.

 His cigarette jolted from his lips, straight into the glass of clear liquid he held: a blue flame licked up the sides of the glass, which he dropped with a yell. His book tumbled after it, and with a damp 'whoosh', the whole lot burst into flames.

With minimum effort and maximum cursing, Ross managed to stamp out the fire, eyeing his smouldering book with regret. Chatoya could only watch in astonishment.

 "You might have said something," he accused, his cherub's face full of reproof. "Have a nice sleep?"

 She struggled to sit up, but there was no strength in her watery limbs. "I feel horrible."

 "Well, that's what happens when a leprechaun gobs on you," he said succinctly.

 Of course. His words prompted her memory: that burning on her arm...

 A quick glance revealed a bandage swathing her from wrist to elbow. "Little bastards."

 "Now, now," he chided, his china-blue eyes alight with glee. "We don't all get to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you know."

 Obviously taking pity on her, Ross bent over to help her to a sitting position. She caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath, mingled with nicotine. Still, his eyes were less bloodshot than usual, and he looked lucid, for once. Maybe he was managing to stick to a cocktail of legal drugs.

 "What happened?"

"Enchanted coma, hallucinations - did you know you talk in your sleep? You're not as much of a saint as I thought." He chuckled nastily. "I'd blackmail you if I didn't owe you. Maybe I will anyway. Got anything worth taking?"

 "Don't even think about it," she muttered, adding trepidation to the resentment and wooziness she was already feeling. He couldn't be enjoying himself more, could he? "How long was I-" A thought struck her.

 Ross controlled Pursang's affairs in Europe - despite his unsavoury habits, he spoke three languages fluently, and filled in any comprehension gaps with a universal knowledge of violence. Along with his special brand of psychosis came a passion for history, particularly Europe's complex mythologies, which made him ideally suited to oversee the research there.

"Wait...what are you doing here? Who's running Europe?"

He settled back into his chair, fingers drumming lightly on the arms. His smile was angelic, lending a sweetness to his features that hid the grit underneath. "Still me. You're in Ireland."

 "Ireland!" Aghast, she could only stare. "But...why?"

 "World's leading leprechaun experts. And when I say 'leading', I mean 'only'. They're a weird bunch, but they know their stuff." With a dour, ghoulish smile and a touch of self-deprecation, Ross added, "Apparently, they call themselves craic addicts."

 The pun made her groan.

 "Anyway," he continued, the nasal whine of his voice scraping along her hearing, "they cast some spells, or whatever it is witches do, then left me here to watch you. You and Malefici should be just peachy."

 "Blue?" she said, startled. "What happened to him?"

 "Same thing that happened to you," he answered, watching her with wary eyes. "The leprechauns got him. Lucky that café owner locked you in, really, or it would all have been curtains. If they'd escaped..."

 "Lucky," she echoed with venom. When she caught up with Marcus Arlin-no, better yet, she'd let Blue catch up with him. That was a far nastier vengeance than anything she could come up with.

 "Anyhow, Chusson got over to you as fast as his zimmerframe could take him. As it was an emergency, he called everyone nearby, which was a lot of people, because for some reason, when Malefici takes Pursang's leader out on a field trip, everyone gets a little worried about whether you'll be coming back."

 "I'm touched," she murmured, hiding her surprise.

 "Of course, if more of them knew you two were road-testing the Kama Sutra, they might be less worried," continued Ross. Disbelief coloured his words, and she couldn't blame him - she sometimes had trouble understanding her thorny relationship with Blue. To everyone else, it must be one of life's greater mysteries. "You ever going to tell them?"

 "Eventually. When the time's right." A few people knew, but she was choosing who she told very carefully. "What happened to the leprechauns?"

 Ross awarded her a full, lazy smile. "We weren't taking any chances. We rang the craic addicts for advice - they told us to set fire to those shamrock ropes. The fumes knocked the leprechauns out, and they've been released back into the wild. Where they should have been left in the first place."

 Huh. Shame neither she or Blue had thought of that.

 "How long was I out for?"

 He gave a lazy shrug. "A few days. The craic addicts did a good job. You shouldn't even have a scar, which is more than most people who lock themselves in a roomful of demons can say. And you might want to thank Malefici."

 She frowned. "Why?"

 "For some reason, his urge to get you out overrode his sense of self-preservation. Go figure." Ross's face said he would have no such quibbles, though she rather thought he was kidding himself on that count. "What hold have you got over him, witch? And don't give me the soulmate crap. Not even my stone-cold bitch of a fated other half could make me walk into a shower of leprechaun spit."

 It was nice to know Ross's personal reformation didn't extend to his turn of phrase. Chatoya couldn't help but find comfort in his cynicism, because it meant she wasn't the only one who'd noticed her life had taken a bizarre turn.

 "You'd have to ask him," she answered, puzzled. "Though he probably didn't realise that they'd dissolved the shield enough to get him."

 "Come again?"

 She explained patiently, and Ross's expression grew slowly more and more incredulous. Finally, he shook his head. "Erosive spit, huh? Well, that explains why the little fiends keep escaping all the traps we lay for them. Useful to know."

 He glanced at his watch.

 "Time for me to go. Meeting in Birmingham tomorrow. Hey - lady witch?"

 She looked at him.

 "No more stupid stunts. You're not actually as appalling as I thought you'd be, and you might even be good for Pursang. So next time you and Malefici decide to try and bond, keep away from work, keep away from people Malefici's pissed off - that's just about everyone - and I never thought I'd say this, but keep away from magical saliva."

 On that note, he ambled out, leaving her speechless.

~*~
 
 Blue's vampire blood had obviously helped him to heal faster, and she supposed she shouldn't have expected him to visit her, but she still felt a sting of disappointment when two days passed and she didn't see so much as glimpse his shadow at her door.

 Finally strong enough to walk, she found him in the room next door, sitting on the floor, apparently writing a letter. He glanced up, not a flicker of surprise in his face. A livid red mark covered half his face, and one eye was swollen, but otherwise he appeared his usual impervious self.   

 "Why didn't you leave?" she demanded, not bothering with formalities. They were long beyond that, after all. "Ross said you tried to help me."

 "A rare moment of folly," he threw at her, voice spiced with black humour. "It won't happen again."

  "But why?" she persisted, staring down at him. "It was stupid. You should have got out, done something brief and horrible to Marcus-"

 "I can't help but feel slow and very horrible is the way to go."

 She waved a hand. "You would. Anyway, yes, and got me later. That's what every rule of the Furies says. And I'm pretty sure you helped write them."

 He put down the pen and watched her. His face was as blank and terrible as a death mask, betrayed by that silky, cool voice. "The rules do not apply to you, witch of mine."

 And strange, the answer satisfied her.

"Good," she said simply, and turned to leave. Then she half-spun back, aware there was something she hadn't said to him in a very long time. Maybe never. "Thank you."

 "Don't bother," he said dismissively. "You'll regret it later."

  You still don't know me as well as you think, Chatoya thought.

She was at the door when he spoke up, his voice holding just the hint of a purr. "A moment, my witch. While you're here, you could be of use."

"What with?" she asked, cautious.

"New precautions for dealing with exotic creatures." The hints of a smile danced around his mouth, which she supposed was as close as he'd get to seeing the funny side of this situation. "Yourself excluded, of course. I'm becoming quite adept at dealing with you."

Don't be so sure, she thought, but didn't say it aloud. She was almost certain he had heard it anyway.

"I could spare a few minutes," she agreed.

"Spare more than a few." And for all the arching arrogance in the words, she knew that no one else would ever realise it was not an order, but a request.

No, she realised. I will never just be business to him.

"We'll see," she said, and his smile curved as if he already knew those few minutes would stretch into hours. Maybe he did. Maybe he was right.

But like him, she'd be damned if she'd admit it.