“And you’re the one who gets to decide when that is?” I demanded.

She faced me without flinching, not a millimeter. “Apparently.”

I leaned back in my seat and sipped beer with my eyes closed.

Murphy didn’t know everything that was at stake here. More than anyone else on the force, sure, but she was operating under only partial knowledge. If she made the wrong call, she could really screw things up beyond all ability to conceive.

She’d probably had that same exact thought about me, and on more than one occasion.

I’d asked Murphy for a lot when I’d asked her to trust me.

How could I not return the favor and still call myself her friend?

Simple.

I couldn’t.

Hell, if she decided to go in, she’d do it with or without me. In that circumstance my presence could mean the difference between a bloody victory and a disaster, and…

And I suddenly felt a lot more empathy for Michael’s confusion.

I opened my eyes again and said quietly, “You decide to bring CPD in, you’ll have my cooperation. But you’ve got to believe me: This isn’t the time for that kind of solution.”

She ran her thumb over a scar in the wooden table. “What if that building had been full of people, Harry? Families. These Denarians could have killed hundreds.”

“Give me time,” I said.

She put her hands on the table’s edge and rose, facing me with those same neutral eyes again. As she started to speak I got a twisty feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I wish I could,” she said, “but—”

The door to the pub slammed open hard enough to strain its hinges and leave marks against the old wooden wall.

A…thing…came through the door. It was hard for me to tell what it was at first. Imagine a big man trying to squeeze into a doghouse. He has to crouch down and go in sideways, one shoulder at a time, moving very carefully to avoid harming himself on the door frame. That’s what this huge, grey-furred thing looked like. But with horns and cloven hooves.

The enormous gruff—several feet taller than any ogre or troll I’d ever seen—squeezed all the way through the door and then rose to a crouch. His head, shoulders, and the top part of his back pressed against the ceiling. Hunched awkwardly, he slowly scanned the room, his golden eyes gleaming around their rectangular pupils. Each knuckle of his closed fists was the size of a freaking cantaloupe, and a heavy, pungent animal scent filled the air.

Thanks to the snow, the pub wasn’t crowded—just a few regulars, plus Murphy and me. But even so, this wasn’t something you saw every day, and the room went totally still.

The gruff ’s gaze settled on me.

Then he duckwalked toward my table. Mac raced for the switch that turned off the fans, but the first couple of spinning blades the gruff passed struck sharply against his curling horns—and shattered. He did not so much as blink. He stopped beside my table and surveyed Murphy, then turned his huge, heavy gaze to me.