"I got it, Malik. Be careful, sheela are tricky.” And if you get yourself killed I'll have to put up with training a whole new skin.

"I'll see you back at rendezvous in the morning.” Paul was evidently expecting to have a good night. He eased out of the alley and was soon gone, his sport coat flapping as the edges of his Drakul-laid shielding blurred to make him one with the coming night. Ryan sank back, listening to the slow song of concrete and steel that made up a city. His nose twitched, a little—he could smell the death of a demon, burned flesh and nose-stinging ammonia. A skornac, taken down by a non-Malik hunter, in a free city. If there was someone out there looking to tip the precarious balance, they had to be brought in. Questioned. And then invited to join the Malik… or put away. And if it was one faction of demons declaring war on another, or the High Ones coming to town, it was even more imperative that the Malik know about it.

Not to mention the sorcery used, a spell that had vanished when the Halston books had—a spell usually only a Golden could use. There had to be a cache around here somewhere, and odds-on someone at the library knew where it was. Melwyn Evrard Halston hadn't been a fool, and had hidden his books in this city. Who better to track down books than someone who worked at a library? Besides, the entire building thrummed with etheric force, and that was a recent occurrence. Someone had awakened whatever latent potential lay in the walls.

He waited, leaning against the wall of the alley, practically invisible. The library closed down, lights going off, people shooed out the front door. At seven sharp, a tall, willowy form that had to be the sheela came striding out, her faint perfume of lilacs threading through the chill, rainy air. She couldn't have more than a trace of sheela in her, just enough to make her tall, sleek, and dangerous. Sheel often intermarried with human women; they were fickle but had the gift of manipulating females. Unfortunately, they rarely stayed after the first child, and the human women usually remarried, having enough of the sheel on them by then to snare skins with no problem.