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“I really did want to talk to another necromancer.”

“It sounds like you’ve changed your mind,” he said. He watched me minutely, studying my face. When I moved a hand to touch my hair, his eyes tracked it.

“The grandstanding has taken up all my time. I’ve got an appointment with the police that I can’t really miss.” I’d added the police part on purpose because I had a feeling that Baco had known exactly what was happening out here. They hadn’t really hurt us, just embarrassed us or me. He came in just in the nick of time. Yeah, right.

“Like the two policemen that are waiting outside for you.”

I felt the knowledge flinch across my face, not much of a reaction, but it was enough. “Do you blame us for backup?”

“Are you saying you are afraid of us?” That brought a low rumble through the room, as if they had all drawn a breath together.

“I would be a fool if I wasn’t,” I said.

He cocked his head to one side in an almost bird-like movement. “And you are not a fool, are you, Anita?”

“I try not to be.”

He motioned to the woman still standing behind the bar. “Paulina does not like you. Do you know why?”

It was my turn to shake my head. “Nope.”

“She’s my wife.”

I must have still looked blank. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“She knows I have a weakness for women with power.”

I frowned at him. “She doesn’t have to worry. I’m sort of taken.”

He smiled. “No more lies, Anita. You and he are not lovers.” He took my hand again and gazed up at me with those black eyes. I realized for the first time that he considered himself a ladies’ man. And that his wife had reason to worry, not about me, but about other women. It was there in his eyes, the way he stroked my hand.

I drew my hand away from him and moved back to stand with Bernardo. I actually reached out my hand, and he took it. Both our hands were sticky from the bar, but I clutched at him.

Baco was half a body-length shorter than I was, but he made me nervous. Part of it was the push of his magic like a thick curtain filling the room. But part of it was the way any man can make you nervous. I didn’t like how blatant he was, with us unarmed. I glanced at Paulina, and her harsh face was stricken. Was it a game he played with her? Tormenting her? Who knew, but I wanted out of here.

“I need to be somewhere before dark. If you don’t want to talk to me, fine. We’ll go.” I started moving backwards, using my body to push Bernardo behind me towards the door.

“Without your weapons?” Baco made it a question, his voice lifting upward.

Bernardo and I froze. We were close enough to the door that we could have made a rush for it, probably made it, but . . . “Our weapons would be nice,” I said.

“All you had to do was ask,” Baco said.

I said, “May we have our weapons back?”

He nodded. “Harpo, give them back.”

Harpo never questioned it, just gave us back the guns, the knives. Then he stepped back to join the rest of the silent watchers. The guns and wrist knives were easy to slide into place. The knife in its spine sheath was another matter. I had to use my left hand to feel for the sheath, then feel the blade’s tip at the mouth of the sheath. I’d gotten in the habit of closing my eyes so that all I concentrated on was touch. It actually took only a few seconds now to put it away. The real trick was not chopping off a hunk of my hair as the blade slid home.

When I opened my eyes, Baco was looking at me. “So nice to see a woman who doesn’t rely exclusively on sight. Touch is such an important sense for intimate occasions.”

Maybe being armed again made me brave, or maybe I was just tired of the tension level. “Men who turn everything into a sexual come-on are such bores.”

Distaste, anger filled his face, turning his charming eyes to black mirrors, like the eyes of a doll. “Too good to fuck a dwarf?”

I shook my head. “It’s not your height that’s the problem, Baco. Where I come from, you don’t do shit like this in front of your wife.”

He laughed then, and it sparkled through his eyes, his face. “The sacrament of marriage? You’re offended for my wife’s sake? You are