Turned out Takata had seen my frizzy hair and wanted to know if it was spelled or natural, and if natural, did I have a charm to get something that wild to lie flat? Starstuck and repeatedly embarrassing myself, I admitted it was natural, though I had encouraged it that night, then gave him one of the charms my mother and I spent my entire high school career perfecting to tame it. He laughed then, unwinding one of his blond dreadlocks to show me his hair was worse than mine, static making it float and stick to everything. I hadn’t straightened my hair since.

My friends and I had watched the show from backstage, and afterward, Takata and I led his bodyguards on a merry chase through Cincinnati the whole night. I was sure he would remember me, but I hadn’t a clue as to how to get in touch with him. It wasn’t as if I could call him up and say, “Remember me? We had coffee on the solstice four years ago and discussed how to straighten curls.”

A smile twitched the corner of my mouth as I fingered the answering machine. He was all right for an old guy. ’Course, anyone over the age of thirty had seemed old to me at the time.

Nick’s was the only message, and I found myself pacing as I picked up the phone and punched in the Howlers’ number. I plucked at my shirt as the number rang. After running from those Weres, I had to take a shower.

There was a click, and a low voice nearly growled, “ ’Ello. Ya got the Howlers.”

“Coach!” I exclaimed, recognizing the Were’s voice. “Good news.”

There was a slight pause. “Who is this?” he asked. “How did you get this number?”

I started. “This is Rachel Morgan,” I said slowly. “Of Vampiric Charms?”

There was a half-heard shout directed off the phone, “Which one of you dogs called the escort service? You’re athletes, for God’s sake. Can’t you pin your own bitches without having to buy them?”

“Wait!” I said before he could hang up. “You hired me to find your mascot.”

“Oh!” There was a pause, and I heard several war whoops in the background. “Right.”

I briefly weighed the trouble of changing our name against the fuss Ivy would raise: a thousand glossy black business cards, the page ad in the phone book, the matched oversized mugs she had imprinted our name on in gold foil. It wasn’t going to happen.

“I recovered your fish,” I said, bringing myself back. “When can someone pick it up?”

“Uh,” the coach muttered. “Didn’t anyone call you?”

My face went slack. “No.”

“One of the guys moved her while they cleaned her tank and didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “She was never gone.”

Her? I thought. The fish was a her? How could they tell? Then I got angry. I had broken into a Were’s office for nothing? “No,” I said coldly. “No one called me.”