We subsided into silence again.

Adam said, “Guayota has Joel. Only a man who had those dogs’ trust could have killed them, sacrificed them that way, one after another without their fighting back.”

“I know,” I agreed.

“You think that he’s found a way to turn Joel into one of his dogs, the tibicenas, like the one you killed who turned back into a man.”

“I do.”

He bowed his head and growled. It took him a few moments to find his words again. “Joel is a good man. He would never have killed, have sacrificed those dogs of his, given any kind of choice. He’d have killed a person before he killed those dogs.”

“Agreed.” Anyone who’d talked to Joel about his dogs knew that.

“We hit the trail at Joel’s backwards,” Adam told me. “Joel and Guayota went to the kennel first. Joel killed the dogs, then, in the shape of one of the tibicenas, he destroyed his bedroom.”

“Yes,” I agreed. The destruction in the house hadn’t been Guayota. If he’d been as angry as the animal who had attacked that room, he’d have burned the place to ashes. “He was hunting his wife, and she wasn’t there. He responded like a territorial animal in a rage.” Rage at Guayota redirected at the things he loved most.

I blinked back tears at the wrongness of that.

“Some sacrifices are worth more than others,” said Gary.

Adam still didn’t look at Gary, but he nodded. “Whatever tore up that bedroom was a lot more lethal than the dog you shot. Bigger.”

“They are shapeshifters like Guayota.” It wasn’t a guess. I’d seen the size of the claws on the walls.

“There is probably no way to get Joel back,” Adam said.

I heard the guilt in Adam’s voice and knew that this was the issue at hand. I narrowed my eyes at him. I could argue all night about why he shouldn’t feel guilty about Joel and how we didn’t know enough about Guayota to know that Joel was lost. We had a lot of alternatives to explore before we gave up. But sometimes taking another tack worked better.

“If I hadn’t killed the male tibicena, then he wouldn’t have needed a replacement. If I hadn’t gone to talk to Lucia, maybe he wouldn’t have tracked down Joel.” Unless he had some way of finding the people who were tied to the Canary Islands.

“If you folks are done with me,” Gary said, “I think I’ll get going.”

Adam glanced at him. “You wait a moment.” To me he said, “You know it isn’t your fault.”

“I know it,” I agreed. “But if we’re accepting blame, I think that I’m closer to the cause than you are.”

He grunted irritably. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Adam took a deep breath, and I could sense the cloak of civilization that he pulled over the beast who wanted to kill something, anything, because Adam and his wolf were united in their dedication to justice, and its defeat could send them off in a rage. He took a second breath, and the mantle settled more firmly in place.