“Yeah.” And now possibly the shadow-held wizard. Tony wet his lips and tried not to think about that. “Like I said, I was doing a little on the job training with her; learning a different bit of the business. She was working on this new thing and she says she thinks better when she drives, so she was driving. I was just along for the ride. Anyway, I saw Alan Wu go into the church and I remembered I needed to tell him that he hadn’t filled out the ACTRA sheet on Friday . . .” A safe lie because Alan never remembered to do his paperwork. “. . . so I got Arra to stop and I went into the church and he fell over. I couldn’t find a pulse. I started CPR. You guys showed up. Well . . .” He picked up the cardboard cup and turned it around in his hand. “. . . the paramedics showed up first.”

“And Arra Pelindrake is where?”

Looking the RCMP officer in the eye, Tony shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess she kept driving after she let me out.”

“What is it about her that makes you nervous?”

“What?”

Constable Elson’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t repeat the question.

Oh, crap. He’s not as dumb as he looks. Unfortunately, I’m afraid she might be a minion of the Shadowlord wouldn’t go over well.

“The Shadowlord? Is this some kind of a gang thing?”

“No, it’s an evil wizard setting up to invade thing.”

“Funny guy, eh? You know what we do to funny guys around here?”

Make them listen to bad tough cop dialogue. Make them piss in a cup. Make them miss the next gate so that a shadow gets back through with the information needed to destroy the world.

And Constable Elson was still waiting for an answer.

Tony shrugged again. “She blows stuff up. And there was this thing with maggots . . .” The shudder was legit. Yeah, not very butch of him, but so what.

“So you being there in the church when Alan Wu dropped dead, that was coincidence? Bad luck on your part?”

“Worse luck for Alan.”

“I guess it was. Bad luck for Nikki Waugh, too.”

“Yeah, well, if I am killing them, I wish you’d find out how because I’d really like it to stop!” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, gave some serious thought to puking—just, well, because—and looked up to find Constable Elson watching him, wearing what was almost a sympathetic expression. Or the closest he’d come to it all afternoon.

“No one’s accusing you of killing anyone.”

“I know. It’s just I was there and you were there and . . . fuck it.” He sagged back in the chair, confused by the outburst. It was either spontaneous method acting or he was more screwed up about all the shit going down than he thought. “Any chance of another coffee?”

“No.”