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She glared at me for a long time before doing as I asked. I think she was also irritated that I’d named our boss, Colonel Benjamin Benson, after a clock in London. Mulan got offended by the strangest things.

I sighed and looked around. “So where are we in our quest? We found five of the missing women in the basement. With Lina and the other wolf, that makes seven of the original twelve accounted for. As for the wolves smelling death, well, Zara admitted to me that she’d killed five women. Rasmus may be locating what’s left of those unfortunate souls right now. At least we found a few live ones before she did the transfiguration ritual again. Her magick must take a lot out of her.”

When Conn walked toward me, the demon wolves sat down in the grass where he left them. They glanced warily over at the Isaiah’s wolves who were still lounging and waiting.

“Those other wolves helped find ya. They won’t hurt ya,” I told them. “There are a few more wandering around, so don’t be scared when they show up. None of them are scarier than Conn.”

Both demon wolves whined in acknowledgment. Conn whistled and they followed him as we all started walking away. The sound of sirens had us hurrying up to get out of the park and to our car.

Rasmus appeared from somewhere and ran over to join us. The two wolves from Isaiah’s pack left him and ran through the park toward where we’d left the rest of their pack lying in the grass.

Rasmus cleared his throat. “The wolves found a huge pile of dead ducks covering a dirt mound. I moved a few of the dead ducks out of the way and one of the wolves dug into the loose dirt. He pulled out a human leg bone with flesh still on it and stopped digging. Both wolves walked off and sneezed trying to get the scent out of their noses.”

With sirens getting closer, we hustled to leave before they arrived. The demon wolves jumped into the backseat first.

I handed the keys to Mulan. “Drive so we don’t have to adjust the seat. I’ll send an update to Ben to get the cops to look at the dead duck mound too. Rasmus, text me the coordinates of where ya found.”

“Sure. I marked it on the phone Ben gave me to use,” he said.

Mulan’s mouth twisted at my orders, but she dutifully climbed into the driver’s seat which had been adjusted to fit me. I heard her mumbling in Chinese under her breath but was coming to know that was just part of her normal.

I climbed into the passenger’s seat and started texting. We stuck Rasmus in the back with Conn who’d changed into a demon wolf himself to save space. My familiar looked remarkably like them. How had he replicated them so quickly? It usually took him several days to learn to do a new creature.

My fingers tripped over the keys as I hurried to update Ben. He said he would call me back once he got a report on everything. Before I disconnected, I reminded Ben again that it wasn’tallof the missing women. Only a few were found alive.

I purposely left out the part about the demon wolves for now. It was doubtful that they would be changing to human again soon. Plus, they were a show-and-tell sort of situation for Ben when they ended up there.

My thoughts were churning about everything, but I was focused on the reaction of one person. “When the press gets hold of this news, the few we found will morph into all of them being located. Ya can bet Zara is going to know we freed her captives by tomorrow.”

“Will she know it was us who did it?” Rasmus asked.

“Hopefully not until we’re ready to deal with her,” I said, and meant it. Just because I had a strategy for subduing her didn’t mean I wanted to engage in a full-out war over messing up her plans.

Conn nudged the demon wolves closer to each other until he could morph back into a man. “She will know that someone magickal took her demon wolves because they were under her control before I intervened. Her grasp of demon magick is that of a youngster who’s barely learned it, but she’s strong-willed. It’s remarkable that she made it work. I can’t see Lilith working with her, so it must have been some other demon.”

Rasmus must have been thinking along those same lines. “The dead women could have been found by anyone. It will take days for the bones in the mound to be checked. They’ll have to collect DNA from family members to compare them and make matches.”

“We need to contact Ms. Malcom and warn her before she sees the news.” I glanced back at Conn and the wolves. “Tell her Lina hasn’t been found yet. That’s close enough to the truth for now. We’ll turn the hairbrush in for DNA from Lina. Ben can do that for us.”

Conn nodded. “What do we do with the demon wolves?”

I blew out a breath. “They will stay with us.”

Everyone in human form gasped at my declaration. I swiveled in my seat until I could see all of them.

“I know what ya’re thinking. The wolves could stay at Ben’s new facility, but Zara might have some way of locating them. Ben’s not yet staffed for security and humans wouldn’t be able to fight someone with her powers. The wolves will be safest with us until I can figure out how to change them back.”

The demon wolves whined in agreement. Conn chuckled and shrugged.

Rasmus cleared his throat. “If that’s the plan, they can sleep in the garage with me tonight. I can keep an eye on them.”

“Perfect. We’ll have to be discreet about letting them out in the yard. They could pass for dogs, but demon horns would be hard explain to a nosy neighbor.”

Mulan murmured something in her own language before switching to English. “You will need much bigger house to take in strays from every job.”

I laughed at her complaining. “Guess it’s time we take a look at the property Fiona found for us.”

She glared at the windshield. “Does house come with accommodations for demon wolves?”