Okay, now I was curious. I couldn’t imagine the canal row houses being an “unfortunate matter”. Candy was at the bar when I saw the angel. I was hoping that wasn’t the “unfortunate matter” she was referring to.

I swung myself up and over the side of the pool, noticing Candy’s uneasy expression when she realized I was swimming in the buff. I decided to expand on this by pulling myself upright to stand square in front of her, and wringing out my hair onto the patio. I didn’t know whether she was more alarmed at the prospect of getting pool water on her gleaming white capris or the full frontal view.

“What’s up?” I asked as she looked around unsuccessfully for a towel to hand me.

“I am a representative for Bobby Winegarten” she said, giving up her search and deciding to only look at me from the neck up.

She said this like I should know who the hell Bobby Winegarten was. He can’t have been important or I would have remembered his name. Although I was really bad at names in general.

“Is he one of the county commissioners?” I guessed. “The one who dated the previous mayor?”

“No,” she said watching me carefully with those shrewd brown eyes of hers. “Bobby Winegarten was found dead in his house on Rosecrest Lane off Old Annapolis Road last night. I’m here because he was part of my pack. As head of his pack, I represent him.”

Oh fuck. The electrocuted unwashed crazy guy. It wasn’t on the news last night or this morning though. And what was a pack? Why was Candy even here? Did real estate agents moonlight as crime scene investigators? Was she undercover FBI with license to deviate from the bland clothing? She’d have to be better than Spencer Reid to trace this back to me, especially in such a short time.

“I don’t know him,” I said casually. “Did he leave me money or something?”

Candy sighed.

“No. You killed him and I’m here to claim weregeld as the head of his pack.”

I understood weregeld. We don’t have family so to speak, but we do maintain households and those in our households are our property. If one is murdered, accident or not, it’s not a big deal. The killer does need to pay a price to the owner, though. If not, it calls their status into question and they could be knocked down in the hierarchy, or even killed themselves. If Candy was the head of this Bobby’s household, whatever she called it, then I did indeed owe restitution. I’d gladly pay it, but only if she could prove I did it. Another demon would have been able to read my energy signature and pin this on me, but I doubted this human had a video tape of me doing the deed or something equally incriminating. A murder with no evidence was no murder at all.

“If this man was murdered why aren’t the police investigating it?” I asked.

“Do you really want the police investigating this?”

I shrugged and smiled. I’m not afraid of the human law enforcement officers.

“Well we don’t like to involve others in our matters. Our kind prefers to handle this on our own. I went to check on Bobby after he missed an appointment yesterday. I found his house in disarray; clear evidence of a fight and a struggle. Bobby was dead apparently from some kind of high voltage strike to the chest.”

I walked over to a lounge chair and sprawled into it making sure I flashed Candy all the good parts. She winced and darted her eyes back to my face. She didn’t want to involve the police, and her rambling about her “pack” sounded a little off the deep end. I was beginning to figure she was in the Klan or with some subversive terrorist group. I could take her. And no one would find the body. I shot a quick glance at Boomer, who casually got up and stretched before wandering off to guard against intruders.

“What makes you think I killed your friend?” I asked. “Is there a super high–powered defibrillator in my car with my prints all over it?”

Candy looked at me carefully as if she understood the gravity of her situation.

“Bobby came to me last week as his pack leader and advised me that a hell hound was spying on him. To be honest, Bobby had his struggles with reality and was always concerned that someone was trying to follow him or even kill him. I told him to continue to report on this hell hound, but not to engage it in a fight. I didn’t want him tearing up the neighbor’s Rotti and have to deal with covering that up.

“Late Friday night, Bobby called me and told me that the hell hound had broken into his house and he had severely injured it trying to defend himself. He was terrified that the demon who owned the hound would retaliate. I had a strong suspicion what you were after we met in the Wine Room, so I didn’t want to just dismiss his claims. I met with him Saturday morning, but couldn’t get a good scent on this hell hound Bobby was talking about. I could clearly smell the neighbor dog, though. Since Bobby was uninjured and there were no unusual smells I figured he was having one of his psychotic episodes. I had him take his pills and told him I’d check back with him on Tuesday. When I didn’t hear from him before then, I thought he’d regained some sense of reality.

“I went over there this morning and found him dead. He apparently died late Saturday night. There were very clear scents in the house. I recognized your scent from the bar, and this time I did pick up the scent of your hound on the door sill.”

“And what do my dog and I smell like,” I said. This woman was clearly off her rocker. She had nothing on me, and I was looking forward to killing her.

“Your dog smells like hot chocolate and wet dog.”

Yum. Well, except for the wet dog.

“You smell like dark burnt chocolate — that’s very strong. You also smell like the human form you have now, and behind all that I can smell wisps of hundreds of humans and animals. I can’t differentiate the humans and animals. You have the most complex smell I’ve ever known, and the most distinctive.”

“It’s nice that your nose is so acute,” I said in a bored tone. “You’re quite the human bloodhound.” It was time to wrap this up because I suddenly wanted some pudding. The kind you cook on the stove so I could eat it warm right out of the pot.

Candy looked at me as if deciding what to do. Slowly she began unbuttoning her shirt and slipping off her heels. I watched her disrobe with interest. She clearly wasn’t aflame with desire. I could only assume that maybe she felt she would negotiate restitution better if we were both on an equal, naked playing field.

Candy obviously worked out. Hard. Her body rippled with lean muscles, and her breasts were small and natural with a slight gentle droop that comes from age and childbirth. Her belly showed confirmation of childbirth too. Low down on the six pack abs she had soft folds of skin and a cesarean section scar pale above her light brown curls of pubic hair.

She carefully folded and placed her clothes on a dry lounge chair. Facing me, her muscles began rolling under her skin like a thousand tennis balls, and her bones twisted and turned. I shot up out of my chair and stared in horror.

“Fuck! Fuck! Oh shit! Fuck!” I shouted as her body twisted and turned beyond the capabilities of the human flesh she wore.

Now to put this into perspective, I don’t gross out easily. I think Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a comedy. Pain and suffering doesn’t bother me, but this was brutal. Watching her spend ten minutes contorting her body, changing small sections at a time as she converted was agonizing. I can’t imagine how painful this must be, and I wondered how she didn’t pass out. Finally she was done and a huge wolf stood before me panting with eyes a little glazed from the difficulty of the transition. She was grey, with black tips on the edges of her coarse fur. The same shrewd brown eyes looked back at me as I admired her.

It was a good conversion. Excellent control and command over the details of the body. Solid, well formed. A bit bigger in the fore body than I would have done, but powerful and imposing none the less. The wolf took a deep breath and began to transform back with the same agonizing slowness. No, it actually took longer and it looked like some portions got stuck and had to be forced into the correct form. I winced quite a few times. This would clearly win a torture contest back home. I made a mental note.

Candy stood naked before me and slowly sat down on the chaise trying not to look weakened. She didn’t need to prove herself any further to me; I was impressed all to hell.

“Holy shit on a stick!” I shouted at her. “Why the fuck did you take so long to do that? You didn’t have to make it last that long to impress me. You are one tough bitch, girlfriend.”

Candy looked at me puzzled.

“You’re not surprised that I’m a werewolf? Like something out of a horror movie? I doubt you’ve ever seen one of us before, since we need to keep it hidden to be in compliance with our existence contract.”

“Hell, yeah I’m surprised you’re a werewolf. I thought that dead guy had some mutated form of Hypertrichosis, but I didn’t realize he could convert. Can you only convert to the two forms? And why did you take so long to change form? Damn that must have hurt like a motherfucker!”

Candy stood up a bit wobbly and put on her clothes.

“We are only able to assume the two forms. I don’t think it’s the same kind of form change that you can do. It can take anywhere from ten to twenty minutes to do a full change. It’s also very difficult to change back so quickly.”

When I convert, I change everything simultaneously. It takes less than a second. Basically, I hold my core personal energy, my spirit, along with any raw energy I have stored, explode out all the other molecules and structures, and then collapse them back in the form and order that I need. There are times when I do a slow conversion or a modification. Like when I want to scare the piss out of someone by having horns on my head. It’s much more effective to “grow” them by extending them out my skull slowly. Flash, bang, instant horns isn’t as scary. It hurts to form them slowly like that, but it’s manageable. Slowly converting my entire form over up to twenty minutes was something I’ve never wanted to do.

“It must suck when you’re attacked and it takes ten minutes to change your form.” I commiserated.

“If the wolf form is optimal, we try to prepare beforehand. With today’s weapons technology, though, we mainly use our wolf form only for the joy of hunting and socializing with our pack. We’re strong and we have some special skills in both of our forms. If we’re really in a tight spot we can change and hold a partial form for a brief time to get out of danger.”

That explained the claws and elongated jaw on the dead guy. I sat back down on the lounge. Candy had earned my respect. I’d admit guilt if a demon detected my energy signature at a crime, and as a werewolf, Candy’s nose was in the same category. I was ready to pay my weregeld. Just not too much.

“So, how much was the life of this psychotic troublemaker worth to your pack?” I asked.

Candy began to speak, then paused gesturing at me.

“Can you please put on some clothes? Or at least a towel.”

I met her gaze then slowly reached up and pinched my nipples. Candy turned bright red and looked up at the sky shaking her head.

“Fine. It’s not money I am requesting, but a service.”

This was so fun, flustering her like this. I was tempted to lean over and lick one of my nipples, but she did have a legitimate petition here and I needed to be serious.

“I can’t accept or decline until I know what sort of service you require.”

I’d expected a dollar figure, or a request to pay an inflated price for the row houses. Judging from compensatory damage awards in lawsuits, humans put a dollar value on everything. This service request was unusual and more in the nature of what a demon would have asked.

“What do you know about angels?” she asked keeping her eyes firmly above my neck.

I went cold. What did she know about angels? Humans thought of them as a vague manifestation of their deity. They bought hideous, kitschy decorative figurines depicting pious winged figures, supposedly what the angels looked like. I had no idea why the humans associated those benevolent statues with the creatures I’d heard about back home.

“Not much. Few demons still around were alive during the wars. Since the separation treaty took effect, no demon has ever survived an encounter with one. We usually pop over here for some short time fun, then get the hell out of Dodge before they kill us. They can sense us when we convert, although no one is really sure how much energy usage or how close they need to be for us to show up on their radar. Once they lock in on our energy signature, it’s difficult to come back. Pretty much game over if one is on your trail.”

Back home, we didn’t talk much about the angels or the wars. I know we used to live together in Aaru, what the humans called heaven. We’d always had strong philosophical differences though. Angels are all about self control. They hold to their spiritual form and only become corporeal when absolutely necessary. When they are in physical form, they endure it by holding themselves apart from the form and denying themselves the experience of the flesh as much as possible. They believe that physical manifestation sullies their purity and dims their capacity for enlightenment. We on the other hand feel that experiencing everything we can in the physical realm, diving deep within the sensations of the flesh, is a necessity of life. How can one possibly be whole without feeling, touching, knowing everything one can?

I knew that these differences set the stage for the war and eventual separation. I suspected there was more to the war than philosophy, but either no one remembered or no one spoke of it. It’s not like we could just walk up to an angel and discuss it. The treaty completely separated our kind. And if we met one over here, we were dead. Not much time for an enlightening conversation.

Candy waited to make sure I was done, and then dusted off a lounge chair, sitting down and putting her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward toward me.

“By our count, there are about fifty angels in this realm at any given time. I don’t know what a lot of the angels do, but there are groups that are enforcers. There’s one in charge of Werewolves, and one is a liaison to the Vampires.”

Vampires. I hadn’t seen one of those in six hundred years and I’d assumed they’d died out. Candy continued.

“These enforcers catalog everyone in their group. They ensure everyone acts within the parameters of the existence contract and kill anyone who violates the contract. Basically, werewolves all exist at the whim of the angels. This isn’t a paternal kind of relationship.”

“Wow, sucks to be you,” I told her cheerfully. I couldn’t imagine having an angel breathing down my neck every second, waiting for one to pop out of nowhere and lop your head off because you forgot to put the cap on the toothpaste or something.

She ignored my comment. “The angel in charge of enforcing the werewolves is named Althean. A few years ago, he started killing werewolves, and we knew the kills weren’t justified under the contract. Lately, he’s escalated.”

“So why is he killing you off? Why now?” I asked suspiciously. “If he’s just gone off the deep end, can’t you report him up the chain of command? He’s got to have a boss. They all have bosses.”

Candy looked uncomfortable.

“Some of the angels hold the opinion that we’re Nephilim. I’m not sure how far up this goes. It could be that Althean’s boss approves of his actions.”

“What’s Nephilim?” I asked. It sounded like a type of cookie.

“The offspring of fallen angels and humans. Back when humans were just starting to evolve, a group of angels began having sexual relations with them. They had supposedly spawned a whole race of hybrid beings before the rest of the angels found out and came down on them with holy fury. There were no werewolves prior to this event, so many angels figure that we were the product of this joining: the Nephilim.”

No way. She had to be making this one up. Angels hated being in the flesh. They would never have lowered themselves to reproduce with humans.

“Others think we were just a random event of evolution,” she continued. “If we’re Nephilim, then we’re condemned to extermination as a reminder of how even angels can go wrong. If we’re a product of evolution, then we fall under the protections and privileges that the human race holds.”

Angels took forever to decide these kinds of things. It was likely this guy was just some vigilante, but he could have supporters who agreed with him, who were likely to turn a blind eye to his actions.

“Wait,” I interjected. “Is this Althean the angel we saw in the bar?”

Maybe the angel in the bar was looking for Candy and not me. That would make my life so much better.

“No, based on my information, I suspect that the angel in the bar is one named Gregory.”

I let that sink in. I knew where this was going.

“So who is this Gregory angel?” I asked with a growing sense of doom. Cue the scary music.

“He’s over all the enforcers and takes on anything serious that’s beyond the lesser angels.” She looked at me sympathetically, “He’s the angel who takes out the demons. If the others sense a demon presence they think they can’t kill, they defer to Gregory to handle it. Gregory has killed pretty much every demon that has been killed in the last eight thousand years. From what I’ve been told, he has a sword he uses to kill demons. The sword sucks the power from them and reduces them to a pile of sand.”

I felt rather sick.

“What does any of this have to do with the service you are requesting?” Hopefully if we changed the subject I wouldn’t be dwelling on the ever increasing likelihood of my being turned into a pile of sand.

“I want you to kill Althean. “

I stared at her. This was not within a mile of what I’d expected. What an insane request.

“You’re fucking kidding me. My eliminating an angel, which no one has done since the war, somehow equates to the life of a crazy vagrant?”

“It’s genocide. He’s on a rampage to kill off our species. If he’s not stopped, we’ll all die.”

“And that matters to me why?” Did I look like the Lone Ranger or some kind of super hero? Demon Zorro to the rescue?

Candy switched tactics.

“You’ve got Gregory on your trail right now. He was there in the bar for you. You know this. You’re going to need to go home real soon. Imagine going home with this feather in your cap. What would this do to your position in the hierarchy? There’s a reason the angels end up deferring to Gregory when it comes to demons. None of them can handle more than the weakest among you. You could take Althean out and go home a legend.”

Now, that was tempting. It was also absolutely insane to even dream that I’d be strong enough to take out an angel. Plus, I was hoping I could lay low and Gregory would go hunt down some other demon. A huge battle with another angel wasn’t exactly laying low.

“We’d be blameless, and there wouldn’t be any retaliation on us. That’s important because we have to live here. You can go back and forth. You can take the blame and the fame. And the other angels would believe it was you who took out Althean and not us because they truly fear you. That’s why you were banished.”

We weren’t really banished. It was a stalemate with a division of realms. Kind of like North Korea and South Korea.

“You’ll just get another angel assigned to you,” I told her. “Maybe a worse one. If this is their grand plan to exterminate your species, this will only delay that not prevent it.”

Candy looked pained.

“I hope that the other angels don’t care as long as we follow the rules. If this is a segment of a larger campaign though, then killing Althean will buy us time. Give some of us a chance to try and go underground or prepare to take as many of them out as we can until we’re dead. I’m hoping the former.”

I snorted. This whole thing was insane.

“What makes you think I could possibly take out an angel?”

Candy smiled grimly. “You’ve got the talent and power to do this.” She looked at me speculatively with those shrewd eyes. “You’re smart. Most demons could never be here this long posing as a human and remain undetected. Clever and enterprising. I think you’ve got great power, but you may be rusty since you haven’t used it in so long.”

She was good. Flattery to butter me up, then subtle insults to manipulate me into doing what she wanted. I was full of admiration. And I was NOT rusty.

“Even if I could, that Gregory guy is nearby. He would be on me like flies on shit. He’d probably kill me before I could finish the job. No deal. Think of something else for weregeld. Maybe I buy those canal properties at fair market value?” Michelle would kill me for paying so much for those things. Ugh.

Candy took a breath and looked at me cautiously.

“I’ve let every pack leader in North America know about you. Your appearance, your financials, your smell signature, everything. It just takes one call and the angels will have you. They’ll kill you, disburse your assets, eliminate the humans you’ve marked as yours.”

I winced. I normally don’t care about humans, but Wyatt. . .

“If you leave, we’ll let the angels know about you and wipe clean everything you’ve put together,” she continued. “You’ll never be able to return, either. They’ll be on the lookout for you, and we will too. Doesn’t matter what form you take, we can smell you and turn you in.”

Fucking bitch. I might only be an imp, but I’m still a demon. I envisioned Candy in my basement with duct tape, her skin hanging in strips from an oozing body. Of course, I’m sure every werewolf in the nation knew exactly where she was. One werewolf I could take, more than five, probably not.

“He was there,” she added. “At Bobby’s house. The angel. Not Althean, Gregory. He’s closing in on you. He sensed your energy usage, and he’s coming for you. Any day now, he’ll be sniffing around your house. You’ll come home and find him standing over your dead dog, waiting for you.”

I felt my heart pound. I’d used a small amount of energy at the tenant’s house, plus what I’d done to heal Boomer, and the electricity at the werewolf house. On their own, they might not have brought attention, but all together and with an angel close by. . . I was so fucked.

Either way, I was dead. One, I go after Althean and go out in a blaze of glory. The other, I run and hide under rocks until this bastard, Gregory, finally hunts me down. I was so tired of being just an imp, a lowly cockroach.

Candy leaned forward, her face sympathetic and friendly.

“We can cover for you. Give you time to get away. You can probably still remain here, too, if you keep your energy usage low. We’ll offer you friendship with the werewolves. We’ll always cover for you and run interference between you and the angels. Think. You’ll have the status of taking out an angel, you’ll satisfy the weregeld, and you’ll have valuable allies that will be duty–bound to have your back.”

I thought furiously about how this might work. I could make the kill with as little energy usage as possible. If the werewolves stalled any other angels, and I held my energy tightly to myself, I’d probably have a few hours before they tracked me down even in the worst case scenario. That would give me time to get to a gate and get out.

“You need to vow to protect Wyatt, too,” I told her. “I’m under no illusions that I’d be able to stay after this. I don’t want the angels taking their fury out on him. I need to know that he’ll be safe.”

“Who is Wyatt?” Candy asked perplexed.

“My neighbor,” I said, not sure what to call him. “You werewolves, each and every one of you, vow to protect him with your life, or it’s no deal.”

Candy didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”

“If I do this, you and others need to be actively involved. You’re not just going to point me at him and shoot like I’m a cruise missile. I know you want to stay off the radar on this thing, but I need your knowledge and familiarity with this guy. We would need to work together to review intelligence and plan an attack. If I’m the muscle here, I’d need you to be the strategist and set up the actual event.”

Candy nodded in agreement and a look of relief began to dawn on her face.

“Let’s meet next week sometime for a planning session. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some zoning documents I need to review before this evening.”

“Tonight. We need to meet tonight. I’m afraid we’ll miss an opportunity if we wait any longer to review details and strategize.”

That seemed pretty fast to pull all this together. In fact, the whole thing seemed a bit fast and meticulously well planned. Like a carefully thought out game of chess. I began to suspect Candy had orchestrated this whole thing, vagrant guy and my dog and all.

I nodded in agreement. “Okay, let’s meet at The Eastside Tavern tonight then. It’s off Route 26, just a few miles east of here. Bring everything you have and we’ll see what we come up with.”

Candy indicated that she would be there tonight and left promptly.

I put my head in my hands. How the hell am I going to kill an angel? I’m assuming demons could. The wars had gone on for thousands of years and we’d managed to hold our own, so we must be able to take them out. Still, they’d killed every single one of us they’d encountered since the treaty. Not exactly good odds on my part. Then there was the pesky problem of getting away even if I’d managed to kill the damned thing and survive.

And Wyatt. Just when things were starting to get better between us, this had to happen. I’d never see him again. Even if I managed to sneak back over, it could be a hundred years or more. He’d be dead of natural causes if an angel didn’t bring vengeance down on his head for knowingly associating with me before. I needed to let him know about this, show him where everything was for when I left and what to do if the angels came after him. He was just starting to come to terms with my being a demon, and now I needed to tell him about angels and werewolves. Great.

“Sam, your stupid dog just bit me. Do you think he’s rabid? He did get bit by that bear or something. Please tell me you remembered to get him his shots this year.”

I lifted my head and saw Wyatt coming around the corner of the house holding his hand. Boomer was trailing behind him looking smug. I jumped up and went to look at his hand.

“Crap, I’m so sorry. I had someone here for a business meeting and I asked Boomer to guard against intruders. He should have known that didn’t mean you.”

Actually, I wouldn’t have liked Wyatt to hear the conversation between Candy and me, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I looked at his hand. Boomer hadn’t even broken the skin. Even so, I looked over at the dog and sent a disciplinary burst of energy at him. It was the kind of thing we did to naughty children or household members who got out of line. Boomer yipped and looked at me with big hurt hound eyes.

“Bad dog. No biting Wyatt.” I told him.

I looked up at Wyatt and realized that while I had been occupied with his wound and Boomer’s discipline he was staring at me with raised eyebrows.

Oh, damn. I was naked.

“I was swimming in the pool and Candy just came by.” I trailed off unsure what to say. “I didn’t put on any clothes because she’s a repressed tight ass and it was funny to freak her out. She doesn’t swing that way.”

His eyes roved over me with interest and my breath caught. I was still holding his hand. And I was naked.

“I totally forgot why I came over,” he said in a rather distracted tone.

I sighed with regret.