“Hey!” I protested when the car started moving before I had my door shut. Ignoring me, David scanned the street as I buckled myself in, bracing against the dash when he took a corner too fast. Weres had excellent reflexes, but this was pushing it. “David. Slow down.”

“I’ve doped her up on bane,” he said, managing the wheel with one hand as he fastened his seat belt with the other. “I can’t let her wake up and find me gone. The pain is killing her. I don’t think it’s going to stop until she turns back. This was a mistake. God, what have I done?”

My fingers felt the outline of the focus in its lead-lined bag. I didn’t think the artifact was going to help. The dulling of pain happened when Were packs combined into a round. The focus only allowed them to do it more efficiently.

“David, slow down!” I repeated, when he came out onto a one-way, driving like he was in the Indy 500. Jenks hugged the stem of the rearview mirror. He looked a little green. “The I.S. is watching for me,” I added. “They usually have a cruiser in the church up on the right.”

David slowed, a shaky hand on the wheel. The lot was empty, and he picked up speed.

“What do you mean, the FIB has tapped your line?” I asked as we got on the interstate to cross the river from the Hollows to Cincinnati. “They can’t do that.”

“They did,” David said grimly. “Officer Glenn thinks I’m responsible for the Were deaths. Not just the suicides, but all of them. Thinks I’m a Jack the Ripper meets Mr. Hyde.”

I made a scoffing bark of laughter, then tensed when he darted across the path of a semi. “It’s Trent,” I said in the fading adrenaline. “He told me himself. And watch what you’re doing. God! You’re a worse driver than Ivy!”

David gave me a quick look. “Trent Kalamack? What for?”

Jenks’s wings were an odd shade of green. “He’s after the focus,” the ill pixy said. “He found out this morning that Rachel has it.”

“Damn me back to my mother’s bitch,” David swore softly. “Do you have it? Is it safe?”

My head bobbed. “I’m going to give it to Piscary to put it back into hiding.”

“Rachel!” David exclaimed, and I pointed to the truck stopped at the red light just off the bridge.

“I can’t keep it safe,” I said as he hit the brakes. “What am I supposed to do with it? I don’t have enough magic to hide it once someone knows I’ve got it. At least Piscary has enough clout to keep people from drugging him into telling where it is.”

David’s eyes were worried. “But it belongs to the Weres.”