“You ready for this?” Talbot asked as I climbed into the van.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I plopped my backpack on the seat between us and pulled out my running shoes from deep inside my bag. I kicked off my school flats and changed into the sneakers.
“So where’s your partner? Ditching out again?”
I smirked. “I arranged for him to find twenty dollars in quarters on his bus bench. That should keep him busy at the arcade for a few days.”
Talbot laughed. “I like the way you think.”
“So what’s in store for today? Are we going to have any time for, you know, training?”
“I actually took care of our assignment before I got here. Plus, we’ve got an extra hour before the bus returns, so we’ll have plenty of time for going over the basics.”
“What basics?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
We drove into an area called Glenmore on the outskirts of the city, a neighborhood that had probably been nice in the mid-twentieth century but now was a weird mix of low-income apartments, the original homes of elderly grandparents, and old houses that had been turned into stores. We were only a couple of blocks from the highway when Talbot pulled the van over near a pawnshop called Second Chances. The first thing I noticed about it was the X of police tape across the doorway, and another one over the shattered storefront window.
Talbot grabbed his large backpack from behind his seat and got out of the van. I followed. He walked right up to the storefront. Talbot looked back and forth along the street and then twisted hard on the door handle. I heard a pop as the door unlocked and opened. Talbot pulled the police tape aside and gestured for me to go inside the shop.
“Um, isn’t that kind of illegal?” I wasn’t exactly big on sneaking into places.
Talbot shrugged. “Sometimes you’ve got to bend the rules in this line of work.”
“What if we get caught?”
Talbot tapped beside his ear. “The place is empty. The security cameras are still disabled. And we’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes. I just want to test something.”
“What?”
“You.”
I looked into his green eyes and cocked my head, but I didn’t say anything.
“Come on, before we lose our chance,” he said.
I hesitated for only a second longer and then ducked under the tape and into the store. Broken glass crunched under my shoes as I did a little circle, inspecting the damage around me. All the display cases had been smashed in, and it looked like all the merchandise was missing.
“This place got hit last night,” Talbot said. “Whoever did it cleared out the entire inventory and walked off with a six-hundred-pound safe in less than the six minutes it took the police to respond to the silent alarm.”
“How do you know all this?”
“It helps to have an in with a detective.”
“Oh. So let me guess, no security camera footage?”
“Nope. I questioned my detective friend this morning about it, and he says it’s the same as all the other supposedly invisible bandit jobs. No fingerprints, no camera footage, everything gone in a matter of minutes.”
“So what are we going to do here?”
“Take a deep breath.”
I gave him a quizzical look.
“Go on. Do it.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Whatever it was that he wanted me to do must be interesting if he thought I needed to practice deep breathing before he told me. The air tasted sour, like too-old milk, and I let the breath out immediately. I looked around for a water fountain so I could rinse out the nasty taste it left in my mouth. When I couldn’t find one, I glanced back at Talbot. “Okay, so what’s up?” I asked tentatively. “Why are we here? What kind of test am I supposed to take?”
Talbot raised an eyebrow. “The deep breath was part of your test. You didn’t taste anything?”
“Well, yeah. It tastes like sour milk in here, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Hmmm. We have more work to do than I originally thought. I’d assumed you’d have some hunting abilities.”
I felt a rush of embarrassment. “No. I get what you mean now.” I took in another deep breath and held it in the back of my throat. All I could taste was the sour milk, but I forced myself not to exhale the air. I didn’t want to fail in front of Talbot. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t up to training. I knew that I was probably getting a bit blue in the face by this point and that made me annoyed with myself. I finally exhaled the air through my nose, and as I did, I caught another scent that I hadn’t noticed before. “I taste sour milk, but I smell something else. Like bad meat, maybe? Something rotting.”
“Good,” Talbot said. “Or bad actually.”
“Well, if I didn’t do it right, then show me how to do it better. You’re supposed to be training me, remember?”
“No training yet. Not until after your test. You did just fine, though. It’s just that sour milk means we’ve got a couple of Gelals on our hands, but the rotting-meat smell means there was at least one Akhkharu here.”
“Akh … a … what?”
“Ahk-hay-roo,” he pronounced for me.
I scrunched my nose and didn’t even try wrapping my mouth around that word again.
“Yeah,” Talbot said. “Just call them Akhs—rhymes with socks. It’s much easier to say. Or some people call them vampires.”
I could feel my eyes go wide. “Seriously?”
“Except they’re not the same as the traditional, I-vant-to-suck-your-blood kind of vamp.” Talbot shrugged. “Let’s get moving before somebody comes back. We’ve got another stop to make as part of your test before I get you to your bus.”
“And that is?”
“Let’s just say it’s a good thing you brought your running shoes.”
A FEW MINUTES LATER
Talbot hitched his backpack over both of his shoulders and led me to the end of the block. He stopped at the corner with his nose in the air. The street was empty except for an old woman sitting at a bus stop. “You smell that?” Talbot took in a quick breath.
I did the same. “Yeah, it’s that same sour-milk, rotting-meat odor.”
Talbot nodded with approval. “We’re on their trail.” He took me by the elbow and we crossed the street, Talbot still testing the air. “Yes, this is the way they went. They were on foot.”
“With a six-hundred-pound safe?” My voice held more than just a hint of disbelief.
“Don’t underestimate demons, kid. Those Gelals went down easy the other day. Too easy, if you ask me.”
My stomach did a little flip-flop. That had been easy?
“You ready for the next section of your test?”
“Yeah. Sure. I guess.”
Talbot still had me by the elbow, and he pulled me in close to him, our bodies almost touching. He stooped his head so his face nestled close to my neck, and he took in a long, deep breath. When he let the air out, it tickled across my skin, sending tingling goose bumps down my back.
“Did you just smell my hair?” I asked, my voice sounding far too unstable.
“I’m getting your scent. You should get mine, too, in case we get separated.”
“Get your scent?” I almost laughed, because I couldn’t help thinking of myself as one of those tracking dogs that the police make smell a lost kid’s shirt or something before they set out looking for him.
Talbot pulled me closer, my lips practically skimming his neck. His hand squeezed my elbow tight. I took in a deep breath and held it in the back of my throat. Talbot smelled like mint gum, fresh sawdust, and something else that I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up without my developing wolf sense. He smelled like my dog Daisy used to when she’d spent the morning lazing in the sun on the back porch. It was a smell that I’d always found slightly unpleasant in the past—especially when she’d try to nap on my bed smelling like that—but now it made my toes curl with the memory of warm,
familiar things.
“You smell like lavender and vanilla,” Talbot said. He was so close I could feel his words, warm like sunlight, against my face. He tugged on one of my dark curls.
I took a step back. I’d let him get too close. “It’s just my shampoo.”
“Well, it’s nice and trackable, in case I need to double back to find you. You got my scent?”
I nodded.
“Now that’s just plan B in case you lose your way. I want you to focus your concentration on the Gelal and Akh scents. But their trail is old and fading, so don’t feel bad if you lose it. My trail will be nice and fresh if we do get separated, so fall back on that.” He smiled, all dimply. “And do at least try to keep up with me. Won’t be any fun if I find them without you.”
“Whoa, wait, we’re tracking down the thieves … right now?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yeah, but I thought we’d ease into it. I thought we were going over the basics for a while.” That was how Daniel would have handled it. Take it slow. Stay balanced. “I mean, you haven’t even taught me anything yet.”
“These are the basics, Grace. We’re demon hunters. No time for taking it easy.” Talbot rolled up the sleeves of his red-and-blue flannel shirt.
“So, um, what do we do if we find these demons?”
“We’ll figure that out when we do.”
“When?”
Talbot laughed. “This is going to be fun,” he said, and took off sprinting down the street.
He was down the block and about to go around a corner before I even realized he was gone. I bolted after him, because I knew I was going to lose him right off if I didn’t get a move on. But when I rounded the corner, he was leaning against a tree with his hands in his pockets. When I was about three feet away, he laughed and bolted again. I followed him as he started and stopped like this—a game of cat and mouse—through the lonely neighborhood streets.
Talbot seemed to enjoy himself all too much, which only annoyed me. He ran in the parkour manner that Daniel had used back when he had powers—taking the easiest passage through, or over, things in his way, rather than going around them. I watched him bound up a flight of concrete stairs to an adjacent building, dive through the railing at the top, land in a head-over-heels roll on the ground, and then pop up again.
“Come on, kid!” he shouted.
I took in a deep breath and followed his lead, shocked and happy with myself when I pulled off the same move. Talbot cheered. A woman walking her dog dropped its leash and stared.
Talbot took off again, running even faster than before. I ran after him, calling on my powers to help me catch up, letting hot, lightning heat push me forward. I was only twenty yards behind him when he veered to the left and then leaped over a six-foot wall and disappeared.
It took all my concentration to change my course. I shifted direction and went careering toward the wall—too fast. But just as I was about to smash face-first into it, my feet kicked off from the ground and I jumped up in the air. My fingers lightly brushed the top of the wall as I leaped over it in half a second flat.
My feet hit the ground with barely a sound, and I slowed to a jog as I approached a three-way intersection. The road stretched out to both the right and left, and a gravel-strewn lane led into a cul-de-sac of dilapidated houses. Talbot was nowhere to be seen, but I could taste his warm scent.
I took a few steps to the left and tested the air. I picked up on the Gelal stench and took another five steps. The Gelal scent faded, as did Talbot’s trail. I did the same thing heading right, but that wasn’t the correct direction, either. I went back to where I’d started in the intersection and picked up the mixture of scents again. I jogged into the cul-de-sac a little ways. The scent was still strong in the air. Talbot had headed toward one of these houses. But which one?
I turned in a slow circle, breathing in air. Which pretty much made me feel like a dog chasing her own tail. But I picked out a strong path of smells and cautiously followed it to the driveway of what had once been a beautiful Victorian mansion, but now looked as if it should have been condemned at least a decade ago. The smell of rotting meat and sour milk got positively overwhelming as I approached the gravel driveway. Talbot was still missing.
“What now?” I asked out loud with a huff. And then I felt something hard clamp over my mouth and I was pulled behind a tall bush.
I thrashed at my assailant at first, but then I was enveloped in Talbot’s warm scent and I heard him whisper, “Shhh. They’ve got supersenses, too, you know.”
He uncovered my mouth, and I turned toward him. “They?” I whispered so softly I was practically just mouthing the words. “So they’re here?”
Talbot nodded. “See if you can tell how many.” He tapped my ear to indicate that I should listen carefully.
I held my breath, My heart still pounded from running, and I willed it to calm. I listened beyond the crickets chirruping in the bush with us, and pushed away all nearby noises until I could concentrate on the sounds behind the walls of the house. “There are three of them,” I whispered. “There’s someone snoring, and another two people who sound like they’re sitting at a table.”
“Four,” Talbot said. “There’s someone else on the second level. The one sleeping is probably a Gelal. Akhs don’t usually sleep.” Talbot took off his backpack and opened it. He pulled out what looked like a short sword, the hilt wrapped in black leather cording, and a thick piece of wood, whittled into a point at the end. “You prefer steel or wood?” he asked.
“What?”
“You look as if you like wood,” he said with a smirk, and tossed me the stick … or stake, I guess I should say.
My hand snapped out and I caught it in midair without even thinking. I could definitely get used to these reflexes. “What are you doing? We’re not seriously going in there?”
“Of course we are.” Talbot unsheathed the sword. It looked awfully sharp. “Four against two. Those aren’t bad odds.”
“Okay, no way.” My hand shook so hard I almost dropped the stake. “This is a little more than basic training for my first day. I can’t go in there.”
“Yes, you can, Grace,” Talbot whispered. He stared at me with his piercing green eyes. “What if this was your one chance to rescue your brother, and you just walked away? What if he’s in there right now? What if they’re holding him captive? Maybe that’s who’s upstairs. For all you know, they’ve got him chained up in there and they’re saving him for their next meal. Don’t you want to make them pay for that?”
I could feel that tight, flaming knot forming in my stomach—the same feeling I’d had when I saw that masked Gelal with that gun to Talbot’s head. Suddenly, I could picture Jude tied up in that house, bloody and bruised. A monster crouched over him, threatening to tear him apart. I wrapped my fingers around the stake. “Okay, let’s do this.”
62.5 HEARTBEATS LATER
Talbot kicked in the door, and the two of us burst through the doorway. A man and a woman, who had been sitting at a table playing cards, shouted when they saw us. A third man, who had been asleep on a couch, suddenly shot straight up, looking confused and feral. He lumbered toward us and took a wild swing at me. I easily deflected his blow and pushed him away. The woman threw the table aside, accidentally knocking over her companion, and lunged at Talbot. Talbot punched her in the gut, and she stumbled back. She snarled and threw herself at him again.
The noxious demon smell in the room made me dizzy and nauseous. The feral man snarled at me. I assumed he was Gelal from his sour-milk stench. He threw another punch toward my face. I ducked and was about to sweep at his legs with a kick when I caught the glint of steel out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head toward the flash as Talbot swung his sword at the woman’s throat. It sank deep into her skin with the sound of a knife plunged into a watermelon—and, with a spray of blood, her head separated from her body.
Talbot had cut off her head!
I screamed
. Like I didn’t know I was capable of screaming. Talbot killed that woman! I dry heaved, and I scrambled back away from her head as it rolled toward me, an expression of sheer surprise on the face.
What had just happened? What had Talbot done?
He killed her!
I didn’t know what I’d expected before we crashed in here. We’d subdue these criminals and leave them for the cops?
But not murder them!
The woman’s headless body took another step toward Talbot, then crumpled to the ground … and shattered into dust before my very eyes. Her head disintegrated, too.
“What did you do?!” I screamed at Talbot.
And then I took a direct blow to the face from the Gelal.
I flew backward and slammed against a picture frame on the wall. I could feel the glass crunch against my shoulder and pain rip into my back. I dropped to my knees. I was stunned, the whole room swimming before my eyes, when the man lunged at me. His fingers elongated into pointed claws, aimed at my throat. Talbot flung his sword at the man. It skewered him through the back and out through his chest. Black ooze spurted from the wound and onto my face. It burned like acid on my skin, and I tried to wipe it away. The man fell over at my feet, clutching frantically at the sword sticking through his chest, but unable to do anything but slice open his own clawed hands.
“Oh, God.” I scrambled forward and reached out to help him.
“Don’t touch him!” Talbot shouted. He was now in a hand-to-hand struggle with the guy who had been at the table.
The man in front of me shook with agony and then suddenly went rigged. His stiff body rocked back and forth and then exploded into ooze. I jumped to the side just in time to miss the brunt of the burning acid.
I shook as I stumbled as far away from the sour-smelling mess as I could get. I steadied myself against the banister of the stairs that led to the upper level. My breathing came too fast. My stomach lurched. I was about to lose the contents of it when somebody grabbed me from behind. My feet left the ground before I could even react, and whoever had grabbed me flung me toward the couch. I landed half on, half off it, but I had no time to move before someone jumped on top of me. A woman. With pink-and-black hair, and sharp, pointy teeth. She grabbed me by the throat.