I explained to Harry, after getting him back in order, about the dream and his seeing my father through our blood connection.

"Okay, but what does that mean?" he asked, sitting on the edge of his bed while I leaned against the wall. "Can they feed on me from the Nevernever as well?"

I frowned. "I think they can activate something if you dream in the Nevernever, but the connection isn't there. They had no way to feed off you. As far as I could tell, they'd created a situation where"—I stopped dead. It's not something I'm comfortable with discussing anyways, but used on Harry? Even accidentally, I wasn't eager to have him look at me the way he might. Knowing I have the potential to hurt him in a thousand ways. Harry is safe from any erotophage feeding in their normal way—when you feed on lust, getting love in the mix is toxic. But Harry has been fed on by phobophages before and he isn't touch by the faith or forgiveness that could make him immune to them in the same manner. If I was a thymophage, I could feed from him. It was a potential, but I would have to switch over—something like what my cousin Madrigal has done. He's been lingering with the Malvora, giving power to their house, and he's become a phobophage. In response he's become weaker in a number of ways—he doesn't have the level of good looks myself or Lara possess any longer. But he can feed much more widely. I have the potential to switch—if I killed a victim after sucking out all the anger I could from them. Think of it as… moving apartments. You gotta put a deposit down first.

But that potential meant nothing, not that the Alecto knew it. They might have been tempting me to switch with Harry as bait, but I'm still an erotophage, and love still kills to touch, especially when I'm the one feeling it. I clenched my tingling hand, stinging slightly like it did after washing dishes in hot water for too long. Almost an itch, a tight feeling in the skin.

"Where what?"

I hadn't realized I'd trailed off in the middle of the sentence, and Harry, after waiting a minute for me to finish, was pushing slightly. There are a lot of things I can't share with my little brother—he's got enough wars to deal with. But when he's in direct trouble and there's no way for me to protect him without his knowing about it, he needs a modicum of truthful answers. Still, I retained my best poker face, trying not to reveal more than I should.

"Where they could get me to help them by tasting anger." I sighed. "Look, they opened you up. They were tempting me. Thymophages don't have the most powerful families, and the way we feed tends to bind us together. Maybe they thought I'd be more loyal to them if they made me crave anger instead of lust—then I would go to them for help on how to control it. And they thought maybe they'd get you in the bargain."

Harry's eyes had taken on the investigator's look. "Maybe the one they're after is you, and I'm just a bonus."

I ran a hand through my hair, and it settled back down curly, rumpled, and sexy. "Yeah, but the lust gig is so much better. They haven't got a prayer." I grinned. "I gotta hang around until they call at six. Then I'm borrowing your coat and going to meet them. You're staying here." I said this because he'd already opened his mouth. Harry is used to being in command, but today was my freakshow. "Don't even think it. These are my stock, and you're in danger because I was here. If there's anything I really know how to handle"—I neglected to point out that I know how to handle a lot—"it's the White Court."

Harry almost sounded sullen. "I know how to handle vampires." Hah. Little brothers who want to tag along. Such a pain.

"Oh yeah—like how you 'handled' Bianca by walking right into her trap?"

"You did too."

"I knew you would be there to cover me."

Harry was flabbergasted. "You knew nothing. I could've fed you to Bianca on a silver platter with an apple in your mouth."

I laughed at that. "I believe I was the one doing the apple mouth-stuffing. Face it, Harry, you're no good with subtlety. That's my department. Besides, if you walk outside the apartment, you're vulnerable to them feeding off you directly. All they have to do is make a 'your momma' joke and you'll be breathing fire, and that'll be that."

He ground his teeth, moving his jaw forward stubbornly. "I can control my anger."

"Right. Weatherman says it's awfully snowy in Hell today."

"Damnit, Thomas"—

I leaned down and got in his face. "You can't." My voice was low. "If it was fear, I'd say yes. Lust, totally—how else would you be the dateless wonder for this long? But not rage, Harry. It's made you really strong, but right now it's your weakness. Let me handle this, man."

"I'm not letting you face these guys alone. You're the only family I've got."

God, I was way too underfed and tired for this. And the room was warm again.

But of course it wasn't. Harry's subterranean apartment in winter is an icebox, and I knew that then, too. The fire in the main room was low and there's no electricity in the place—to compound matters my brother was shivering slightly. I avoided the question and the subject.

"At Bocks—was there any point where your gear could've been tampered with?"

He shook his head. "I would know, Thomas. Wearing it especially—you don't just change the purpose of a talisman or a magical tool and hand it back to a wizard. It's like handing a cocaine-filled sausage to a drug-sniffing dog."

I snorted; he was right of course. Harry might be a meathead magical thug sometimes, but he's not a total idiot—just dense.

"And the books you went through…?"

"On the level. I would've sensed mojo like that in a heartbeat. This is more like a case I had some years ago, the one I was working on when the war started."

I nodded. "The nightmare thing and that girl Lydia I helped you exorcise. Doesn't that require turbulence in the veil between the Nevernever and the mortal world?"

He nodded. "Or a large amount of energy to create a rift while I'm sleeping. But they'd need a bond to me. A way to access me."

I rubbed my temples. "Any ideas how? If they were smart they'd have a connection to your rage—then they could feed on you. But they don't."

Harry stared at the wall, trying to think. "I don't know. I should be investigating those attacks Murphy got me in on. Might give us a clue." He bit his lip for a second. "I can't leave the apartment, but if I can't sleep I might as well investigate. I was supposed to get the files from Murphy this afternoon." My brother quirked an eyebrow at me. "If I promise to be a good boy and stay here wide awake, alert, and enthusiastic, Brother Thomas, will you swing by and get them from her?" He was grinning. Wiseass.

I sneered slightly. "Sure, but you have to stay away from the stove. And I'll be pinning your medication, lunch, and mittens to your shirt before I leave."

His voice was dry and amused. "What would I do without you?"

~*~

I had several hours before the Phone Call of Doom was to arrive, and we'd established that Harry would only do his best impression of a pug getting raped by a pine cone when asleep, so I felt reasonably safe leaving him there to do some investigating. He'd sent me with a note that he was "sick"—declining my offer to tell Murphy that he needed her bedside manner posthaste—and that she should provide me with the files, sealed of course, and send along anything else he may need to know. This of course precluded him from actually getting a magical read on scenes of the crime or from the bodies themselves, but he'd have to live. I had a feeling Murphy wouldn't be tickled to hand over the files to me, but she knows I'm his brother, and so long as said files stayed sealed until I handed them to Harry, she couldn't threaten either of us with jail time. As though Harry wouldn't share the files with me anyways, honestly. Or like she could keep us in jail for long. Ah, normals. So cute.

Hopefully by now you've seen the wrench in the plans. I hung up on Murphy that day and by now she knew I'd fled the scene of the Starbucks shooting, so in the course of this I would also have to be honest with her about being there, having been shot at, and running because I'd thought Harry was in danger. I'd have to lie a little and say that I'd found out he wasn't and all was clear and had nothing at all to do with Harry suddenly being home "sick," but this wasn't my plan. Harry was right—we needed to figure out what we'd walked into. Murphy would understand me running out the way I had (Harry does it too) and she'd cover our asses. I'd just have to get around anyone trying to run me down first. Gee. Being a super-strong vampire stud couldn't possibly help me with that.

I took Mouse with me just in case—he's good company when you're walking into potential danger. He can't fit in Harry's coat pocket anymore, which I was currently making a suave fashion statement out of, but he senses Bad Things much more keenly than I or even Harry does, and he's awfully loud about it. And did I mention how much easier it is to cruise for girls when you have a puppy?

Oh yeah. That. I was also planning on grabbing a psychic bite while I was out. And making it up to Harry by bringing him a steak sandwich.

Yeah, okay, that's guilt talking. I hate the look on his face when he knows I've just fed—two parts disgust, three parts disappointment, and ten parts confusion and ambiguity, adding up to fifteen parts translated shame on my end. It's one thing to loathe yourself for something, but when someone expects better out of you and wants you to be good, or at least better and you just can't be—it hurts to watch. It would be nice if he didn't have those expectations, but my brother believes in me. If only I could find a way to live up to that belief.

Instead I found myself keeping an eye out for likely prey on my drive to the department, listening to my Hunger gleefully give me information about each one, ways of seducing, temptations to make me act faster.

In the immortal words of Popeye: I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam.

I drove Harry's little shit-mobile with its gay pride colors and alley surplus interior, while Mouse got his little fuzzy head out the window to bite at the cold air whipping his ears around. My demon chose a woman-free stretch of road to change subjects on me, sounding low and persuasive.

We could switch, you know. I would adapt well to rage. There would be more options open to us—not as delicious as lust, of course, but we could feed from others. From enemies instead of loved ones. You would be sated. You could be with our sweet Justine again, protect your brother, hold down any job you like. When well-fed you could stop others from being affected by the lure.

Yeah, that lure. The lure of thymophages makes people around them turn irritated, angry and hateful, unleashing pent-up anger. Unless they stay well-fed, fights will break out around them. Sounds worse than women taking their clothes off at random when you walk by.

The offer was tempting, but if there's one thing I could say about being an erotophage, it's at least knowing what I deal with. I don't need anyone training me, and there aren't any nasty surprises. And it keeps males (especially related males) safe from me, as well as those I know are touched by love—like Justine. If I truly switched to a thymophage—and I don't just mean sipping rage in a pinch, I mean truly Switching Over—love would stop affecting me. My own love wouldn't harm me. And it wouldn't stop me.

Your brother would be open, true. But he could stand to lose some rage. Were he to forgive what was done to your mother, he would be immune.

I stopped the car with a screech of tires, making Mouse tumble to the floor with a puppy whimper.

"That's it," I said to the dog, aloud. Mouse perked his ears and turned his head to the side, inquisitive. The demon had said it to seduce me, but I had sensed the truth in its words—it's in my soul, after all. It may try lying to me, but I can usually tell. "If Harry forgave, really forgave something awful that's been done to him. Something at the root of all the anger he normally feels. He'd be immune." I sat there, letting the revelation wear away slightly. People who have true faith are immune to phobophages—I've seen it first hand. Being touched my forgiveness runs along those lines, but it has to be deep.

I could never forgive someone like Justin DuMorne or my father for the things they'd done. Harry is a decent man, but he's no saint.

I made a note to myself to ask someone I knew for advice on the theory of forgiveness and started back up on my hunt for a pretty lady, spotting one with nice curves who walked with her head down, towards an empty apartment nearby, a cat and an empty bed, TV dinner in the freezer and a favorite program on the tube. Perfect.

Mouse gave me a small growl, as though sensing what I planned.

"Hey, do I begrudge you your kibble? Get on the lead and look cute."