“It’s Piscary,” I said by way of greeting. There was silence for five heartbeats, and I wondered if he had hung up.

“It told you Piscary is sending it to kill my witches?” Trent asked, the sound of his fingers snapping intruding. There followed the distinctive scratch of him writing something, and I wondered if Quen was with him. The weariness Trent had put in his voice to cover his worry didn’t work.

“I asked it if it was sent to kill you last spring, and who summoned it for the task,” I said, my stomach roiling as I paced. “I suggest you stay on hallowed ground after sunset. You can walk on hallowed ground, can’t you?” I asked, not sure how elves handled that sort of thing.

“Don’t be crass,” he said. “I have a soul as much as you do. And thank you. As soon as you confirm the information, I’ll send a courier with the rest of your compensation.”

I jerked, my eyes meeting Nick’s. “Confirmed?” I said. “What do you mean, confirmed?” I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.

“What you gave me was advice,” Trent was saying. “I only pay my stockbroker for that. Get me proof, and Jonathan will cut you a check.”

“I just gave you proof!” I stood up, heart pounding. “I just talked to that damned demon and it said it’s killing your witches. How much more proof do you need?”

“More than one person can summon a demon, Ms. Morgan. If you didn’t ask it if Piscary summoned it to murder those witches, you have only speculation.”

My breath caught, and I turned my back to Nick. “That was too expensive,” I said, lowering my voice and running a hand over my braid. “But it attacked us both under Piscary’s binding, and it admitted to killing the witches.”

“Not good enough. I need proof before I go about staking a master vampire. I suggest you get it quickly.”

“You’re going to stiff me!” I shouted, spinning to the curtained window as my fear shifted to frustration. “Why not?” I cried sarcastically. “The Howlers are. The FIB is. Why should you be any different?”

“I’m not stiffing you,” he said, anger making the gray of his voice turn from silk to cold iron. “But I won’t pay for shoddy work. As you said, I’m paying you for results, not a play-by-play—or speculation.”

“Sounds to me you aren’t paying me anything! I’m telling you it was Piscary, and a lousy twenty thousand isn’t enough to get me to waltz into a four-hundred-year-old-plus vampire’s lair and ask him if he has been sending his demon to kill citizens of Cincinnati.”

“If you don’t want the job, then I expect you to return my retaining fee.”

I hung up on him.