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chamber or two away he heard Mac singing—if it could be described as such—at the top of his lungs, “Kill the wa-a-a-a-abbit!”
    Despite himself, Reynard smiled. Mac had been a human officer of the law, become a fire demon, and now described himself as head of Castle operations. There was much to admire—courage, loyalty, and a shrewd mind. There was also much about him that puzzled Reynard.
    “Kill the waaabbit!”
    Puzzled him a lot.
    Reynard turned the corner. Mac was in a small room to the left, writing on the duty roster he had pinned to the wall. Mac was large—a head taller than Reynard and bulky with muscle. He was wearing the same modern clothes many of the outsiders wore—jeans and a T-shirt that left his tattooed forearms bare. But Mac was no outsider. He was as close to a friend as Reynard had known for at least a hundred years.
    “Did you kill the wabbit—er—rabbit?” Reynard asked. “I thought you merely wanted to recapture it.”
    Mac gave him scandalized eyes—an odd look, since they held a glint of demonic fire. “Of course I didn’t kill it. We took it back to its habitat. Some idiot had left the gates open.”
    “Then why are you singing about putting the creature to death?”
    “I’m quoting Elmer Fudd.”
    “One of your modern poets?”
    A look crossed Mac’s face. “Not really.”
    “Do I surmise that this is one of those cultural gaps no amount of explanation will close?”
    “You got it.”
    Reynard could hear the hubbub of the guards’ quarters a short distance away. Since Mac had arrived, the anti-appetite magic had been reduced in the quarters of the common men. Something close to a normal, noisy, messy life had returned—at least for the new recruits. For the old guard, as he’d said to Ashe, things never changed. They were subject to the Castle’s laws, but there was other, additional magic that ruled them—spells that denied them any benefits from Mac’s kindlier regime.
    Reynard could smell the oily stink of roasting meat and hear the muted babble of one of those television devices. He edged a few inches away from the sound. They had a way of hypnotizing a man. He’d find himself wasting hours unless he was cautious, lost in images of things he could never have or do.
    “How was the trip?” Mac asked.
    “It was successful.”
    “That much I got from the sofa-sized rabbit hurtling through the portal.”
    Mac made a notation on a clipboard that hung on the wall, using a mechanical pencil leashed to the board with string. As if that would stop a thief . The Castle residents were notorious for stealing pens, flashlights, and anything else that was new. Such small wonders were as candy to children. Try as he might to ignore modern fripperies, even Reynard knew about cell phones and net-books. And—he was ashamed to admit—he had been known to carry off the occasional roll of duct tape. That stuff could be used for everything .
    Mac glanced up from writing. “What I’m asking is whether you enjoyed your trip.”
    “It is better if I do not enjoy myself. It makes returning all the harder.”
    “Ever hear of the concept of vacation?”
    “It’s different for us.” Reynard had seen soldiers go mad once they reached the open air, throwing civilization aside like barbarians sacking a town. “Killion left on a mission and murdered five farmers before we took his head. At the end, he was babbling about too much open space.”
    “I think he was at the extreme end of the sanity bell curve.”
    “Killion was not an isolated case.”
    “You think your head would explode if you took a few weeks for yourself? Everyone deserves time off. I mean, it’s up to you, but you’re not one of the men I worry about.”
    “Thank you, but no.”
    Reynard thrust the idea aside before it could infect him. He liked to say he had two and a half centuries of overdue leave, but Mac didn’t understand. As capable as he was, there were things he didn’t know about the