I needed the work.

“That was Murphy,” I said, “making a duty call.”

“This late at night, what else could it be?” Bob agreed. “Watch your back extra careful, boss.”

“Why do you say that?” I said, shrugging into my coat.

“I don’t know if you’re up on your nursery tales,” Bob said, “but if you’ll remember, the Billy Goats Gruff had a whole succession of brothers.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Each of them bigger and meaner than the last.”

I headed out to meet Murphy.

Weregoats. Jesus.

Chapter Four

I was standing there watching the fire with everyone else when the beat cop brought Murphy over to me.

“It’s about time,” she said, her voice tense. She lifted the police tape and beckoned me. I had already clipped my little laminated consultant’s ID to my duster’s lapel. “What took you so long?”

“There’s a foot of snow on the ground and it doesn’t show signs of stopping,” I replied.

She glanced up at me. Karrin Murphy is a wee little thing, and the heavy winter coat she wore only made her look smaller. The large, fluffy snowflakes still falling clung to her golden hair and glittered on her eyelashes, turning her eyes glacial blue. “Your toy car got stuck in a drift, huh? What happened to your face?”

I glanced around at all the normals. “I was in a snowball fight.”

Murphy grunted. “I guess you lost.”

“You should have seen the other guy.”

We were standing in front of a small five-story apartment building, and something had blown it to hell.

The front facing of the building was just gone, as if some unimaginably huge ax had sliced straight down it. You could see the floors and interiors of empty apartments, when you could get a glimpse of them through the pall of dust and smoke and thick falling snow. Fires burned in the building, insubstantial behind the haze of flame and winter. Rubble had washed out into the street, damaging the buildings on the other side, and the police had everyone cordoned off at least a block away. Broken glass and steel and brick lay everywhere. The air was acrid, thick with the stench of burning materials never meant to feed a fire.

Despite the weather, a couple of hundred people had gathered at the police cordons. Some enterprising soul was selling hot coffee from a big thermos, and I hadn’t been too proud to cough up a dollar for a foam cup of java, powdered creamer, and a packet of sugar.

“Lots of fire trucks,” I noted. “But only one ambulance. And the crew is drinking coffee while everyone else shivers in the cold.” I sipped at my cup. “The bastards.”

“Building wasn’t occupied,” Murphy said. “Being renovated, actually.”

“No one got hurt,” I said. “That’s a plus.”

Murphy gave me a cryptic look. “You willing to work off the books? Per diem?”

I sipped coffee to cover up a wince. I far prefer a two-day minimum. “I guess the city isn’t coughing up much money for consultants, huh?”