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It seemed like I’d spent most of the last four years arriving too late. Too late to save people, too late to keep the monsters away. I was cleanup crew, someone that came after the bodies were scattered around and mopped up the mess. I killed the monsters, but only after they’d done terrible things. Even now, Chimera had already butchered and tortured, but I could confess to myself, if to no one else, that part of me didn’t give a damn about the others. I mean, I was sorry for Gina’s pain and Bacchus’s lover, and Ajax getting chopped up, but they were abstract to me. Cherry and Micah were real. How very quickly Micah had become that real to me frightened me, but if I didn’t look too closely at it, I could keep moving forward, could keep thinking clearly, could keep breathing normally. Thinking too much tended to make my thoughts jump around, my breath come a little too fast.

The main part of the club had been dark and empty. The party, as they say, was upstairs. It was the room at the end of the big white hallway that we’d gone down to rescue Nathaniel and Gregory days ago. Chimera waited outside the door in his black hood, and his eye slits were unzipped so I could see pale gray eyes. He wore a rather ordinary looking suit, complete with tightly knotted tie and white shirt that met oddly with the black leather of the hood. He had his hands behind him, leaning against his arms. He was trying for casual and failing. He was nervous, and I didn’t need any lycanthrope powers to notice.

Gina had needed help from two of the werehyenas to make the steps. Zeke and I could have helped her, but he was pretending to guard me, and Gina had a note under her shawl to slip the hyenas. The note was from Bacchus, asking one of them to let him in the secret entrance. Apparently Chimera had never asked if there was a secret entrance to the club, so no one had told him.

Chimera’s eyes looked past me to her. “Gina . . .” He shook his head. “Take her away, get her some medical care.”

The two hyenas didn’t argue, just turned and went back down the hallway. The snake man that had been with them stayed where he was, his black-and-green striped eyes never leaving Chimera’s face. I would have said he stood at attention like a good soldier, but it was more than that. There was something on his face that went beyond that, as if standing there waiting for Chimera’s orders was the most wonderful thing in the world. That look of patient adoration was creepy all on its own, and I knew why Bacchus had said the snakes had to die. Not because of what they’d done to the hyenas, not revenge, but because people who worship their kings as gods don’t participate in palace revolts.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come, Ms. Blake.”

The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place from where. “You didn’t give me much choice.”

“And for that I am sorry.”

“Sorry enough to let me take my leopards and go home?”

He almost smiled, but shook his head. “Micah is not your leopard, he’s mine, Ms. Blake.”

Again, the voice rang familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I shrugged. “You got me down here with the understanding that both Cherry and Micah would be set free, unhurt. Sounds like they’re both mine.”

He shook his head again. “To give up Micah I would have to give up all my leopards, and I am not willing to do that.”

“Then you lied to get me down here.”

“No, Ms. Blake.” He took his hands out from behind his back. He wore black leather gloves. “Join your pard to ours, strengthen us.”

I shook my head. “I came down here to free my people, not to join your club.”

He looked at Zeke. “Didn’t you explain to her what I wanted?”

Zeke shifted beside me. “You told me that if she came down here unarmed you would free Micah and the other wereleopard. That is all you told me.”

Chimera frowned; even through the hood I could see it. He rubbed at his face behind the leather as if something hurt. “I know I told you that I wanted her to join us.”

“You have said many things over the last few weeks,” Zeke said, voice very careful.

“How long have you been