A clatter of wings was my only warning, and I jerked away when Jenks vaulted through the pixy hole in the screen. “David!” he called out, looking great in his casual gardening clothes of green and black. Hovering at eye level, he brought the scent of damp earth into the kitchen. “Thank Tink’s little red shoes you’re here,” he said, pulling up two feet when Rex appeared in the doorway, her eyes big and her ears pricked. “Matalina is about ready to dewing me. You gotta get this thing out of my living room. My kids keep touching it. Making it move.”

I felt myself blanch. “It’s moving now?”

Ivy and Kisten exchanged worried looks, and David sighed, putting his hands into his pockets as if trying to divorce himself from what was coming. He wasn’t that much older than me, but at that moment he looked like the only adult in a room full of adolescents. “What is it, Rachel?” he said, sounding tired.

Suddenly nervous, I took a breath to tell him, then changed my mind. “Could you … could you just take a look at it?” I said, wincing.

Jenks landed on the windowsill and leaned casually against the frame. He looked like Brad Pitt gone sexy farmer, and I smiled. Two weeks ago he would have stood with his hands on his hips. This was better, and might explain Matalina’s blissful state lately.

“I’ll have the boys bring it up,” Jenks said, tossing his hair out of his eyes. “We’ve got a sling for it. Won’t take but a tick, David.”

He zipped back out the window, and while David looked at his watch and moved from foot to foot, I pushed the window all the way up, struggling with the rain-swollen frame. The screen popped out, and the air suddenly seemed a lot fresher.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the Were sentry at the end of the block, does it?” David asked wryly.

Whoops. I turned, my eyes going immediately to Ivy, sitting before her computer. I hadn’t told her Brett was shadowing me, knowing she’d throw a hissy. Like I couldn’t handle one Were who was scared of me? Sure enough, she was frowning. “You saw him, huh?” I said, putting my back to her and moving the sauce to Kisten.

David shifted his weight and glanced at Kisten as he nonchalantly spread it thinly on the dough. “I saw him,” David said. “Smelled him, and nearly dropped my cell phone down the sewer calling you to ask if you wanted me to, ah, ask him to go away until he … mmmm.”

I waited in the new silence broken by shrill pixy whistles coming from the garden. David’s face was red when he swung his head back up and rubbed a hand across his stubble.

“What?” I said warily.