"What is it?" Alex peered at the thing resting in the stainless steel tray, seven to eight centimeters long, curved, black, and indisputably lethal. The light glinted from it as Jason Bartlett, the coroner, shifted his grip on the tray. Alex felt her skin crawl.

"It's a claw."

"A what?"

"A claw. At least, that's what we think." Bartlett dropped the tray onto the steel countertop with a loud clatter. "My best guess at this point is that it's from some kind of big cat, or maybe a bear, but I haven't been able to match it to any of the pictures I found. We're still waiting for results on the DNA, but I know this is a rush, so I have someone coming in from the Toronto Zoo tomorrow to give us an expert opinion. You never know—we might get lucky."

"A claw," Alex echoed, staring down at the object. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Trent had remained by the door, showing no interest in their reason for coming to the coroner's office. That figured. She turned her attention back to the coroner. "In one of the victims."

"Victim number four." Bartlett peered at a chart beside the tray. "Still a Jane Doe."

The door beside Trent opened to admit an assistant medical examiner along with Raymond Joly and his partner. Alex flashed them a tight smile of acknowledgment and plucked two latex gloves from a box. She looked askance at Bartlett. "May I?"

"Be my guest. Careful, though. The thing is razor sharp."

She lifted the claw gingerly from the tray and grunted in surprise. "It's cold," she said. She held it up for Joly, who had come across the room to join her.

"I know. Like ice. It doesn't warm up no matter how long you hold it, except—" Bartlett paused.

"What?" Alex asked. "You have something else?"

"Maybe. But damned if I can explain it. We measured the actual temperature of the thing at twenty-one degrees Celsius."

"But that's—"

"Room temperature. I know. Like I said, I can't explain it."

The claw's cold suddenly pierced all the way to Alex's bones. She shuddered and dropped it back into the tray. Peeling off the gloves, she leaned around Joly and dropped them into the garbage bin beside Trent, meeting her partner's flat gaze before turning back to Bartlett.

"Anything else?"

Bartlett leaned back against the autopsy table in the center of the room and crossed his arms. "Just that it was lodged in the anterior side of the scapula. The shoulder blade."

"Anterior—you mean the front of it? As in—?"

"As in it had to get there from the front of the body. Through the chest cavity. And when I say it was lodged, I do mean lodged. It took me almost twenty minutes to pry the thing loose. Whatever put it there has one hell of a swing. Which reminds me: given the strength it would take to inflict this kind of damage, I think we can safely rule out any possibility the killer is female."

Alex stared at the coroner. "He cut through bone?"

Bartlett nodded.

"Maybe we should rule out the possibility he's human, too," she heard Joly mutter as he followed his partner and the assistant examiner into another room.

Alex sensed Trent's sudden stiffness from across the room, but ignored him in favor of glaring after Joly. Great. Now she'd be up all night with nightmares of some bizarre cat creature roaming the city. She massaged the back of her neck.

"All right. I'll let Roberts know about"—she waved her hand at the tray—"whatever it is. Call me when you have something more on it."

***

A claw.

Alex climbed the steps to the exit door and stepped out into the shadows of the buildings that blocked the evening sun's rays. A silent Trent followed close behind her, but to her everlasting relief, she felt no tingle at his nearness, no heightened awareness. The alley episode might have been hell on her nerves, but it seemed to have done for her hormones what no amount of internal lecturing had been able to achieve. Thank God.

A claw.

No such thing had been mentioned on the list of possible weapons for any of the murders. It had never even been hinted at. Probably hadn't been thought of. She opened the driver's door of the car and reached inside for the unlock button. What was next, fucking Catwoman?

She leveled a hostile look at her partner across the roof of the sedan. And what the hell was with Trent's complete lack of reaction to all this? He hadn't displayed the slightest interest in either the claw or Bartlett's observations. Hadn't reacted at all until Joly's flip suggestion that the killer might not even be human.

Trent glowered back at her. "What?"

"Nothing." She slid behind the steering wheel. They'd finished the task Roberts had set for them—well, she had, anyway—it was seven o'clock, she'd passed exhausted three days ago, and she refused to extend this day by a single second. Especially not by participating in another of those conversations with Trent.

"So where am I dropping you?" she asked as he closed the passenger door behind him.

"Dropping me?"

"Roberts said we were done for the day once we'd seen the coroner. Is your vehicle at the office, or do you need a ride home?"

Silence met her query. Alex switched on the ignition, put the car into reverse, and looked sideways. Trent stared out the windshield, his face like carved stone. She squashed her curiosity like a bug. Don't ask, her inner voice growled. Don't you dare ask.

She backed out of the parking space, drove to the exit, and then, when Trent still didn't seem prone to respond, prodded, "Well?"

"You shouldn't be alone."

Alex braked, sat for a moment, and then slid the gearshift into park. Maybe she should just resign herself to every exchange with this man turning into one of those conversations. Maybe expecting it would somehow make it easier.

"And why would that be?"

"If you did see the killer, then he saw you."

Alex's hands tightened on the steering wheel and she bit back a reminder that he had denied anyone else's presence in the alley. "So?"

"It's not safe for you to be alone."

The hard plastic grips imprinted ridges on Alex's palms. "I appreciate your concern, but even if he did see me, he doesn't know who I am or where to find me, and there's no reason to think he'd come after me specifically. His victims are random. He—"

"Trust me," Trent interrupted. "Once he realizes wha—who you are, he will come after you. You can't be alone."

She suddenly found herself replaying that afternoon's scenario: the way Trent had turned as she'd come up behind him; the way he had grabbed hold of her arms; the way he had shoved her back, away from the scene; the way he had sheltered her with his own body. Stop, she told herself. Stop now. But her voice took on a life of its own. "You don't know that," she said. "You don't know him."

A harsh inhale from Trent's side of the car made her turn. She flinched a little from his white-hot fury, felt the iron control he wielded over himself, and, in a flash of intuition, recognized the anguish that underlay both. That underlay the man himself. Because he did know the killer.

And it was personal.

But before the cop in her could react to the realization—before she could muster her thoughts or phrase her questions or demand answers—another part of her hijacked her thought process. A part that felt ageless and timeless, and made her earlier response to him pale into insignificance as she reached for his shoulder. Reached to comfort him, to relieve him of even a tiny part of the burden she sensed he carried. Reached—and connected with something invisible. Soft. Warm.

Unmistakably feather-like.

The blood drained from her face. She snatched back her hand, clenched it into a fist in her lap, tore her gaze from Trent's and turned again to the windshield.

Shit.

Fuck.

Fucking shit.

Nausea rolled in her gut, began to spread. Panic fluttered in its wake.

"Detective—" Trent began.

"Get out."

"Listen to me."

"Shut up. Shut up and get out." She bit down against the sickness rising past her chest and into her throat. "Now."

Trent hesitated for another second, and then he opened his door and silently slid from the car.

***

Before Alex pulled away, leaving him standing on the street, Aramael had already considered and discarded the idea of putting himself back in the vehicle without her knowledge. He didn't trust himself to stay hidden from her, or her not to sense his presence despite his best efforts.

A touch of his hand unlocked the door of a dark gray sedan parked at the curb. Another touch fired the ignition. He didn't hesitate, didn't consider his actions. Knew only that he had to follow her, that he couldn't allow her to be out there in the city on her own. Caim would seize on an opportunity like this, might already be watching for it.

Aramael pulled off the side street and into the traffic, heading in the direction he'd seen Alex take. For a moment, he couldn't find her, and his heart turned to lead in his chest. Then he felt again the connection between them, the gossamer thread that ran from his soul to hers, fainter than it had been in the alley, but there. He traced it and found her car turning left at the intersection ahead. He slid into the line behind her, made it through on the same green light, and settled back into the driver's seat.

Only then did he think about the consequences of what he had done. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pressed down harder on the gas pedal as Alex accelerated ahead of him. Car theft. Another first for a Power. Maybe now the Highest Seraph would see fit to—

To what? The only possible option might be to have another Power join the hunt, and Aramael rejected the idea with a vehemence that threatened the welfare of the steering wheel he gripped. It was too late for that. He could never tolerate another hunter going after his brother. Caim was his.

And so, Heaven help him, was Alex.

*********************

Sorry I was so late with last week's chapter! I promise I'll do better this week.