"I'm considering it," Griffen said, determined to be honest with Harrison. "I'm not sure I have the manpower to cover the responsibilities I would have. I was spread too thin . . ." He had started to mention the convention. Harrison stiffened, but Griffen didn't have a choice except to continue in that painful vein, "over Halloween, and I don't want to screw up something as important as Mardi Gras."

"Good that you're taking the time to think something through," Harrison said grimly. "You got all the permits?"

"Yes, sir," Etienne said.

"You have a theme worked up yet?" Harrison scanned the room, taking in the half-finished floats with an experienced eye.

"It's a secret, Detective," the werewolf said, with a grin that was almost a leer. "But you invited to the tableau ball. C'mon around and see."

Harrison echoed the grin, which looked no less feral than Etienne's. "I'll do that, if only to look at this guy in his king costume."

Griffen was alarmed. "Uh, no. I'm not even sure I'm going to do it."

Harrison's face changed from grim to shrewd skepticism. "Oh, you'll do it, McCandles. I know you--or I thought I did."

He turned and marched out into the sun. Griffen couldn't help but gawk after him. I deserved that, he thought. That's a bridge I have to rebuild, and soon.

Three

A deck of red-backed Bicycle cards flicked neatly out into a double fan. Each half arched like stretching cats, then flew at one another until they formed a single neat rectangular cube. The white French cuffs surrounding the spare wrists of the man folding the cards in and out between one another were bedecked with warm gold cuff links, each containing a single green, cabochon-cut stone. To the casual onlooker, they looked like smooth pieces of glass or perhaps plastic, almost translucent.