He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was a compulsion. I saw him and I had to make him not be.”

“You worry me,” I told him.

He pointed back at the Guild with his thumb. “Pot, kettle.”

Some pair we made. There was nothing left to do but go home. I could use a quiet afternoon and a big early dinner before we figured out our next move.

•   •   •

“CAN I TALK to you?” Julie asked me as we pulled into the driveway in front of our home.

“Yes.” I knew that tone of voice. Something bad always followed that tone of voice. Something like “I crashed the car” or “I accidentally set the school on fire.” I couldn’t take more bad news today.

Curran and Derek went inside. I leaned on the trunk of the car. “What is it?”

She stepped close to me and whispered. “Adora is staying in George and Eduardo’s spare bedroom.”

“What?”

Julie went to the Jeep she or Derek usually took to Cutting Edge, pulled her backpack out, and ran back to me, digging in it.

“He sent some people after her a few hours after you left. I had to move her. The hospital wouldn’t let her stay. Here, they took pictures for insurance purposes and I got the extras.”

She thrust a stack of Polaroids at me. The first one showed a wall covered with blood. A big spurt of bright red blood, then the characteristic wave pattern as the victim stumbled along the wall. Arterial spray. Another Polaroid, more blood. I flipped through them. Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, headless body, another body crumpled up, a third corpse sagging in the corner, more blood, bloody sheets, and finally Adora, kneeling in the blood and sitting back on her heels, her sword in front of her, a big angelic smile on her face.

Why me?

“She said Roland’s people tried to bring her back and she told them she didn’t want to go.”

Well, at least she made a choice instead of blindly obeying. “So you took her to George’s house?”

“I didn’t know where else to put her. If I put her into one of the other houses, Curran would smell her. George has people working on her roof, so there are new smells all the time.”

“My old apartment?”

She opened her mouth. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

“Did you at least tell George who she was?”

“Yes. George was okay with it. She told Adora that if there was any trouble, she would sit on her.”

Coming from an enormous Kodiak, that was no small threat.

“She also wrote down all the sahanu information you wanted.” Julie dug in her bag. “It has some blood spatter on it but you can still read some of it . . . Kate?”