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ring had been fastened to the outside wall. The curtain was metallic silver, the stuff theymade solar car windshield covers from. There were duckies embossed on it.
    Mercy stopped the mule in the front yard and waved at the house. “Go on and get him inside,” she said, still without turning around. “Just gonna get Zephyr unpacked, then we’ll see about setting that arm up.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “We really appreciate this.”
    She made a noncommittal grunt that could have been You’re welcome or Go to hell.
    I helped Ian down, who’d turned an unhealthy shade of green, and clumped across the yard with him. Hopefully he wouldn’t need too much time to recharge his magic. I wasn’t sure what Mercy intended to do with him, but I couldn’t exactly tell her he’d be fine once he could turn into a wolf again. At least he’d be resting.
    We made it onto the porch and through the door. The inside of the place looked a lot more organized than the outside. A pegboard just to the left of the door held a yellow rain slicker, a hooded sweatshirt, and a few empty hooks. There was a massive fireplace across the room, with the hearth and the inside grill swept clean and a few logs stacked in a metal basket beside it, and a sturdy three-foot cross mounted on the wall above. A couch and two chairs were arranged around a low coffee table on one side of the room, and behind the grouping stood bookshelves and a detached closet, with the folding door slightly ajar.
    The other side of the room contained a table with bench seats next to a curtained window, and a set of countertop cabinets with a two-burner propane stove. A coffee percolator occupied one of the burners. Next to the cabinets were a water pump and a metal bucket. A desk in the far corner held a newer model desktop computer with a flat-screen monitor, complete with active modem. That explained the satellite dish. I guessedanybody could have internet access these days, even if they lived on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Two open doorways led to other rooms, presumably the oddly shaped additions.
    I settled Ian on the couch but didn’t sit down myself. For some reason, the cross above the fireplace demanded attention. I moved in for a closer look. There were symbols carved on it. More djinn writing.
    “Ian. You see what I see?”
    He raised his head and grimaced. “Yes. It is a protection spell.”
    “What do you think? Should we make a break for it?”
    He breathed in, and a coughing fit overcame him. A fine spray of blood flew from his lips and spattered the floor.
    “Okay. I’ll take that as a no.”
    “She is human,” Ian rasped. “I do not perceive a threat here.”
    “Did you happen to perceive the shotgun?” Frowning, I paced back toward the chair. Maybe Ian was too injured to be paranoid, but I wasn’t. First the cave, now this cabin. If whatever the cross had on it was a protection spell, it might’ve been against the Morai we’d just killed—but who put it there? I couldn’t think of many reasonable explanations outside of Mercy knowing something about the djinn.
    Ian seemed convinced she was human. But we hadn’t seen her eyes. She’d made sure of that, and it was definitely deliberate. That was the thing about djinn. No matter how human they made themselves look, their eyes gave them away. They always retained the animal qualities of their clan—Ian’s were rounder than a human’s and ringed with black; Akila, like a hawk, didn’t have any whites.
    And all the Morai had slitted pupils, with swamp-mean hatred lurking behind a yellow-green gaze.
    I opened my mouth to say something and heard scratching sounds. Claws on wood. They were coming from the closet.My heart slammed a few times, and I tried to convince myself it was something domestic. Maybe a dog or a cat. I inched closer, cleared my throat.
    The scratching stopped. A low chittering took its place, an alien sound I was sure no self-respecting dog or cat could ever make.
    The