I found Zee lying on his back under a car, so all I could see of him was from the belly down.

Siebold Adelbertsmiter, my former boss, is an old fae, a metalworker, which is unusual for the fae who mostly can't handle cold iron. He calls himself a gremlin, though he is a lot older than the name, coined by flyboys in WWI. I have a degree in history, so I know useless things like that.

He looked like a fiftyish, thinish (with a little potbelly), grumpy man. Only the grumpy part was true. Thanks to glamour, a fae can look like anyone they want to. Glamour is the thing that makes something a fae—as opposed to, say, a witch or werewolf.

"Hey, Zee," I said when he showed no sign of noticing my presence. "Thanks for coming out this morning."

He rolled himself out from under the car and frowned deeply at me. "You need to stay away from the vampires, Mercedes Athena Thompson." Like my mother, he only used my full name when he was angry with me. I'd never tell him, but I've always kind of liked the way it sounds when pronounced with a German accent.

He took in my face in a single glance and continued. "You should be home sleeping. What is the use of having a man in the house, if he cannot take care of you for a while?"

"Mmm," I said. "I give up. What's the use of having a man in the house?"

He didn't smile, but I was used to that.

"Anyway," I continued briskly, though I kept my voice down so the people in the office couldn't hear anything. "There are two werewolves and a dead vampire in my house and I thought it was full enough to do without me for a while."

"You killed a vampire?" He gave me a look of respect—which was pretty impressive since he was still lying on his back on the creeper.

"Nope. The sun did. But Stefan should recover in time to face Marsilia tonight."

At least I was assuming it would be tonight. I didn't know much about the vampires, but the werewolves' trials tend to convene on the spot rather than six months after a crime. They are also over in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, rather than months. Can't convince your pack Alpha you are less trouble to him alive than dead? Too bad. Pack law, necessarily brutal, was one of those nasty things that Bran was keeping under wraps for a while.

"Samuel told me you are going to be at a trial for the vampire."

"He called you," I said, outraged. "What did he do? Ask you to call him when I got here safely?"

Zee smiled at me for the first time and got out his cell phone. With oil-stained fingers he punched in my number. "She's here," he said. "Made it fine."

He hung up without waiting for a reply and widened his smile further as he dialed another number. I knew that one, too. But in case I'd missed it, he used names. "Hello, Adam," he said. "She's here." He listened for a moment; I did too, but he must have had the volume turned down low because all I could hear was the rumble of a male voice. Zee's smile turned into a malevolent grin. He looked at me and said, "Adam wants to know what took you so long?"