Oh, great. Serious lackage of contractions. What’s up her nose? The larger part of the drive south had been accomplished while listening to The Best of Queen, Vol. 1 because it was the only tape in the car. Arra’s eyes had been closed, so Tony’d assumed she’d been napping. Maybe she had. Given her history, the odds were good she hadn’t been dreaming about Mel Gibson.

“Henry’s helped in the past,” Tony pointed out, punching in the number one-handed. “And he’ll be helping later, so if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll keep him in . . . Henry!” Henry could do both Prince of Darkness and Prince of Man over the phone, but tonight he sounded like neither. Talk about locking the garage after the car’s been stolen . . . After making arrangements to meet at Arra’s at 9:30, Tony hung up to find the wizard staring out the window at the collection of red brick buildings.

“That’s a large facility,” she said before he could speak. “It won’t be easy finding the shadow.”

“We’ll split up . . .”

“Oh, yes, that always works so well.” Her hands closed around her seat belt strap though she made no move to release it. “It won’t always be so easy.”

“Easy?” He waved the dog bite, now purple and swollen, in front of her. “And I’ve been grabbed, pummeled, kicked, shadowed . . .” Words seemed less than capable of describing what had happened with Henry, so he skipped it. “Two people are dead, one’s twisted, Mouse has a broken jaw, Lee thinks he’s going bugfuck, we have an enchanted electrician in the backseat, I’ve been living most of the last few days in a state of high terror, and you say it’s been easy?”

“Yes. So far, it’s been easy.” She turned to face him. “Even on you. Realize that it’s going to get a lot worse. The longer the shadow remains in a body, the more of the host’s characteristics it absorbs—it stops acting and starts becoming. Humanity didn’t become the dominant species on this world by playing nice. The shadow in Alan Wu chose to attack. His shadow . . .” She jerked her head toward the backseat. “. . . chose to run.” Her voice roughened. “There are other more terrible options.”

Tony stared at her for a long moment then pulled out the thermos holding the lesser amount of potion. “Drink?”

“Why the hell not.” There was just enough remaining to fill the cup. She drained it in one long swallow. Tony’s eyes watered in sympathy.

“Feeling better?”

“No. Now I’ve got to piss.”