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“My Oba wishes to meet with you.”

I moved my head enough to see the clock and groaned. I’d barely had two hours of sleep. I could manage an hour nap and feel okay, or go without sleep, but somewhere between two and three hours just felt worse. “I work the night shift, Ulysses, whatever Narcissus wants can wait until later in the day.”

“The word went out yesterday that any information about the missing lycanthropes was to go through you.”

That woke me up a little. I blinked and tried to be more awake than I felt. “What information?”

“He will only talk directly to you.”

“Then put him on the phone, I’m all ears.”

“He insists that you come down to his club, now.”

“I have had less than two hours of sleep, Ulysses. I am not dragging my ass over to the Illinois side of the river at the crack of dawn. If he has information that can help us save shapeshifters’ lives, just give it to me, and I’ll see that the info gets to where it needs to go.”

“My Oba insists that if you do not come down to the club now, he will not share the information at all.”

I sat up, leaning against the headboard, closing my eyes. “Why now?”

“It is not my way to question my orders.”

“Maybe you should work on that,” I said.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. I didn’t know if he was puzzled and didn’t get my comment, or if it had struck too close to home. He finally said in a quiet voice, “Right now the lions’ Rex is alive. That may not be the case in a few hours.”

I sat up, eyes wide, completely awake at last. “How do you know that?”

“My Oba knows many things.”

“Narcissus would really let the lions’ Rex die, just because I won’t come down to the club at the ass crack of dawn?”

“My master is very insistent.”

“Shit,” I said softly and with feeling. “Tell him I’ll be down, but tell him this, too. The next time he’s in trouble, maybe no one will help him either.”

“This is more help than he has ever been to any other animal clan.”

There was something in Ulysses’s voice now, something. He was lying. I could hear it in his voice. I didn’t know if it was vampire powers or werewolf, or wereleopard, and I didn’t care. The question was, why lie about the fact that the werehyenas had helped no other shapeshifter group more than this? Why was that worth a lie at all?

“Narcissus helps out more than he wants people to know, doesn’t he?” I said.

“What makes you say that?” There was a thread of fear, almost panic, in Ulysses’s voice.

“What would it hurt if the lycanthrope community knew that the werehyenas were helping other animals out?” I asked.

His breath came out in a long sigh. “Narcissus would never want anyone to think that about the werehyenas. It would . . .” he hesitated, “be bad for business.”

“If Narcissus is so concerned about Joseph the lion, then why not give me the info over the phone?”

Ulysses laughed, abrupt, amused. “Narcissus has never given anything away for nothing. There’s always a price with him.”

“So my dragging down to his club on no sleep is the price?”

“Something like that.”

“Can I bring my people?”

“My master would love to see any of your people you care to bring.”

I didn’t like the phrasing on that. “How big of him.”

“When will you be here?” Ulysses asked.

“How do you know I’m coming?”

“Because you know that he’s enough of an egotist that if you don’t come now he may not share the information at all. You know he’d let the lions’ Rex die just because he’s not the same animal we are, and you not coming down now would be an insult.”

“This clannish shit has got to stop, Ulysses. We need to start helping each other more.”

“Not my place to change the system, Anita. I’m just trying to survive in it.”

He sounded sad. “I don’t mean to yell at the messenger, Ulysses, I’m just tired of the system.”

He laughed again, but not like he was happy. “You’re tired of the system. Jesus, you have no idea. When can I tell him to expect you?”

“An hour. Less, if I can manage it. I want Joseph alive to see his baby.”

“His mate will probably lose it like all the others.”

“I thought you