Hyoid crushed. Vaginal bruising. Bedroom ripped to shreds.
“I’ll look into it. Can’t promise anything.” Even though I already had.
Monty almost visibly sagged. His chair creaked, and he dropped his gaze to the top of his desk, drifted with paper. Silence bloomed between us, a new and uncomfortable quiet.
Finally, he shifted and his chair creaked sharply. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” What are friends for, Monty? And if you’ve got one, you might as well use her. “I’ll check in.”
“Yeah. Try not to destroy any property, will you?”
For Christ’s sake. I was already at the door. “I can’t promise anything, Monty. See you.”
His curse was like a goodbye.
The plastic of the bus shelter’s window-walls was scarred and starred with breakage. I examined it minutely. Cigarette butts, an overflowing trashcan, the smell of despair.
Just like waiting for the bus anywhere, really. Dawn was coming up fast, the sky full of scarves dyed indigo, rose, streaks of gold and soft threads of orange over the furnace in the east. There was a blank brick wall behind the bus shelter, and a drift of paper trash in an alley to the side. Across the street, Percoa Park simmered under a pall of early morning half-vapor, trees breathing in relief as the sun rose. Michael Spilham. Thirty-four, college dropout, living with his mother and working in a shipping warehouse four blocks away from here. He’d be tired at the end of his shift, overtime wearing down his feet and shoulders. So, he’d probably stand here, leaning against the shelter’s support post. A nonsmoker, the file said, so he didn’t light up while waiting. He probably just stared down the street, thinking a normal man’s thoughts.
I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Smelled exhaust, the odor of poverty and footsore wandering, trash and concrete.
A sudden cessation of subaudible buzzing made my eyes fly open. The streetlamp to my left had switched off. I glanced down the street to my right. Edges of broken glass glittered like diamonds as the star we all roll around lifted itself higher over the horizon.
I left the shelter, cautiously. Intuition tingled and prickled down my spine, raised the fine hairs on my nape under the weight of silver-laden hair. My trenchcoat, still damp from hosing, whispered and fluttered. Time for a new coat; hellbreed claws are death on leather.
This lamp was busted, broken glass on the pavement. A star-shape of expended force glittered, bits and pieces arranged along rays of reaction. Intuition turned chilly, raising prickles along the backs of my arms. A faint distinct perfume evaporated as soon as I got a whiff. Corruption, and sweetness like burned candy. Huh.
I crouched easily, my bootheels digging into the pavement and my leather pants making just the faintest noise as dead cowskin rubbed against itself. My smart eye saw the strings under the surface of the world resonating to a powerful burst of bloodlust and fear.
My dumb eye wasn’t so dumb. Streaks and smears along the base of the streetlamp gleamed. Blood dries fairly quick out in the desert, but this close to the misty park it wasn’t completely flaking off yet. Huh again. These were transfer prints. Someone with bloody hands had clasped the bottom of the streetlamp. Now that I was crouched down I could see smears on the filthy sidewalk too, oddly pale—pink instead of red.
Blood shouldn’t look like that. Another chill touched my nape, tickling little fingers. “Shit,” I breathed, reaching down to touch the smears on the post’s concrete base. “Shit.”
My fingers came away with powdery pink clinging to them. As I lifted my hand, I turned a little so the sunlight hit my skin.
The powder vanished, little puffs of steam rising from my fingertips. “Goddamn shitsucking son of a bitch, ” I whispered. “Motherfucking hell. ”
There’s only one thing that dries blood to powder evaporating in the sun. And as much as hunters hate, hunt, and loathe hellbreed, there’s only one thing that a hunter fears enough to cross herself and shiver, one thing that sends us looking for backup and polishing whatever weapons make us feel a little safer. I settled on my haunches, my right hand dropping to the butt of a gun. “Shit,” I breathed one final time, before rising slowly to my feet and looking down at the long jagged wet-looking marks on the sidewalk. They pointed toward the mouth of an alley, yawning and shadowed even with the clear light of dawn coming up. No time like the present, eh Jill?
I headed for the alley as traffic ran like water in the distance. The next bus wasn’t due for about ten minutes and the street was deserted. A ruffle of paper twisted in the intersection two blocks away, and I eased a gun out with my right hand and a knife in my left. Wish I had a flamethrower. Dammit. The alley swallowed me with shadows you only get in the morning—knife-edged and clear, like stiff black paper cut into animal shapes. A dumpster loomed in the alley’s throat, and I sniffed cautiously, seeking that perfume of burnt sugar and weirdness. Should have recognized that first-off. Goddammit. My heart kicked up, high and wild in my throat, a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. Training clamped down on my hindbrain, regulating the cascade of adrenaline through my system. Too much and I’d be a jittery mess, and if this turned ugly…
I eased into the dark maw, clicking the hammer back. They’re not going to be in the alley, not with day coming on. But they dragged him back here, you might find something. Pray you don’t find something. One step. Two. Easing down the side that held a little more light, though the entire alley was shaded. The dumpster was full of garbage, and as a stray breath of breeze touched my cold cheeks, the smell strengthened.
Oh God. Please. I quelled the tremor in my hands by the simple expedient of putting it out of my mind. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. Nothing to be done about it now. I stepped toward the dumpster. It was a big green number, half its heavy plastic lid closed and the other half open, resting against the wall of the alley. At the end of the alley’s confined space was a huge rolling door, probably for whoever took out the trash. I scanned the alley again—no, it was a blind hole. No place else to hide.
Don’t let me find anything, God. Please. Cut me a break on this one. Unfortunately, God wasn’t in a giving mood today. I saw telltale frosting along the metal edge of the dumpster, a fine powdery substance drifting in complicated whorls. And I heard, straining the preternatural acuity of my senses, a faint rustling.
Yup. God’s not in a good mood today, Jillybean. You’ve got a scurf infestation on your hands.
6
Scurf aren’t like Traders or hellbreed. There’s no pattern to their movements, no training, no instinctive predator’s grace. They’re just engines of messy hunger, ravenous and unpredictable. And contagious.
I emptied two clips into the motherfucker and ended up burying my knife in its side. Brick puffed into dust and the dumpster’s side was stove in, garbage spilling out into the alley, body-sized dents in the walls, and blood everywhere. My blood, which just served to drive the thing into a feeding frenzy. They can smell it. And even though they like it fresh from the vein, so to speak, they’ll lick it up from concrete if they have to.
In the end, I drove the skinny naked thing out of the alley, my fingers clamped in its throat and its claws tangling in my ribs. He wasn’t fully changed yet, the virus hadn’t turned his bones all the way to flexible cartilage or given him the thick slimy coating that makes scurf so slippery. But his eyes were blank pale orbs without iris or pupil—they don’t need to see—and even though he was newly infected and didn’t have the developed instincts for carnage, he was strong and desperate.
When they’re newly changed, they’re even more unpredictable than usual. It snarled and champed, teeth snapping with a sound like heavy billiard balls smacking together; foam splattered rank and foul, burning the skin of my hand and smoking on my leather sleeve. I cried out, miserable loathing beating frantically under my heart, as we tumbled out into the street and a flood of early morning sunlight. The scurf screeched, damage runnelling its face and its blind pupilless eyes popping, smears of
buttery eyefat glistening down its gaunt cheeks. Thin acrid smoke gushed, pale powdery drifts rising as the thing that used to be Michael Spilham squealed and imploded. The smell was gagging-strong, the reason most hunters don’t like cotton candy or caramel. Burnt candy, sweetness, and bad, all rolled up in one pretty package.
It screamed again, foam splattering in harsh droplets that sizzled where they landed. It took every ounce of hellbreed strength I had to hold the thing down, even as its flesh began to run like plastic clay, stinking and smoking. I held it, held it, and heard far-off traffic under its screams, the sound of the wind in the park trees. Lord, take this soul into Thy embrace. I couldn’t help adding my own little touch to the prayer— and will You do it quickly, please?
Its throat collapsed into stinking sludge, powder lifting on the wind and sparkling in the sunlight. I coughed, deep and racking, struggling for purchase on the still-moving mass of almost-liquid ooze. Keep it in the sun, ohGod Jill keep it in the sun, for the love of Christ don’t let it go now.…
It squirmed and heaved, almost squirting free. If I lost my grip now it would scurry off into the alley and I’d have another fight on my hands. The longer I fought, the bigger the chance of a bite. The scurf that had been Michael Spilham collapsed into final true death, and I let out a whispered prayer that was half a sob. Got off lucky. It was only then I realized I was bleeding from its claws, the gouges whittling deeper as acid in the powdery slime exhausted itself. The charms in my hair ran with blue sparks and the scar on my wrist throbbed. The dead body subsided, bubbling into powder, and I scraped both palms on the pavement as I backed away hurriedly, staring at the smear. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
“OhGod,” I whispered, as my left hand grabbed a gun and I cleared leather, pointing it at the stain on the pavement.
That’s the trouble with the damn things. Sometimes scurf just don’t stay dead. My heart leapt and shivered inside me. I coughed, tasting blood and adrenaline, stripes of fire along my ribs as acid hissed and bubbled in my flesh. There was another clawstrike on my thigh, and one down my back. Hot blood dripped down my cheek. It had damn near taken out my eye.
Lucky. Jesus Christ I’m lucky. The scar pulsed, pulsed under the cuff. The burning bubbling went away, preternatural healing replacing tissue faster than the acid could burn. Most hunters are walking factories of scar tissue, healing sorcery notwithstanding, I should have been glad I don’t need healing spells. I wasn’t. I almost never am.
After a little while I decided the flood of sunlight was enough to take care of the scurf. Besides, I couldn’t sit here with a gun out all day, could I? I cautiously hefted myself to my feet, and forced myself nearer the bubbling grease spot.
My tiger’s eye rosary bumped against my midriff. The chunk of carved ruby at my throat was warm, humming with power. The scar throbbed. Silver clinked and chimed in my hair. Everything was present and accounted for.
No bites. I’m up to date on my garlic shots anyway, thank God. I stared at the smear for a long time before holstering my left-hand gun. Scurf. What next?
Get going, Jill. You’ve got work to do, and not a lot of time to do it. Jacinta’s killer was going to have to wait. I headed for the alley to collect my other gun and the dropped knives. My knees only trembled a little, but when my pager went off, buzzing silently in its padded pocket, I almost leapt out of my skin.
Micky’s on Mayfair Hill is the type of restaurant locals like to keep to themselves. Good food, quiet atmosphere, and pictures of silent and classic film stars on the walls. I’m not used to being in Micky’s during daylight, unless it’s just before dawn and I’m tired and bloody. Normally I wouldn’t go around civilians like that—but Micky’s isn’t just the best restaurant on the Hill, where the gay nightclubs rollick and roll all night long.
It’s also the only restaurant on the Hill run by Weres.
I didn’t stop to be seated, just stalked through the tables—very few of them occupied at this hour—and headed for the bar. Two steps down into the dark cavern where it was always dusk glinting off bottles and the jukebox in the corner, and I caught Theron’s eye.
The tall lanky dark-haired Were raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. I went behind the bar for once, without breaking stride, and a bleary-eyed businessman with the perfume of something unnatural hanging on him blinked, shifting uneasily on his stool. Micky’s is where the nightside comes to drink, and if you don’t make trouble you’re welcome here.
If you do make trouble, well… the staff will have you out the door on your ass in seconds flat. Probably minus a few body parts, too. And if I’m around I’ll help.
I snagged a bottle of vodka off the rack and headed for the back door. Theron followed, setting his towel down. He waited until I swept the door open and stepped out into the alley, where Amalia, one of the lionesses of the Norte Luz pride, leaned against the wall and made a slight moue of surprise to see me. I’m sure I wasn’t in my finest form.
“You going to pay for that?” Theron stopped short when I rounded on him. “Jesus, Jill. What’s wrong?”
I twisted the cap free and took down a jolt of colorless liquid courage. “Disappearances on the east side of town. Four women and a man, probably more.” I took another slug, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The habit of drinking steadied me more than the alcohol would, since I burn it off so quick anyway. “I need every Were in the city running sweeps.” I took a deep breath. “We’ve got scurf.”
Amalia paled and straightened. She was golden-blonde, with a cat Were’s characteristic dark eyes and wide cheekbones. Feathers knotted into her long honey hair fluttered as she pitched her cigarette into the buttcan with a clean economy of motion. Muscle rippled in her bare arm, the sleeves torn off her Cruxshadows Tshirt. She shot Theron one eloquent look.
“You’re sure?” The lean dark Were reached for the vodka. I surrendered it without demur. It was formulaic—
I wouldn’t be here unless I was sure.
I pointed to my leg, where the leather was shredded. Underneath, the angry red of clawswipes was visible, with the trademark jagged curl at the end. “I’m pretty goddamn sure, Theron. I need patrols run in every inch of the city. I’m going home to call Leon right now.”
“How many did you tangle with?” Theron passed the vodka over to Amalia, who barely touched it to her mouth to be polite. Most lionesses are teetotalers—when they drink they like to hunt, and not many men can keep up, Were or human.
But what a way to go, eh?
“Just one. New one, vanished last night. I found him this morning. Hadn’t gotten all chewy and bendy yet, and was probably just a random infection. There was no sign of a nest.” But there has to be one, and he would have found it tomorrow night. Ugh. My pulse trembled, came back to regular. “Have everyone be on the lookout, and I’ll drop by Galina’s on my way home. She’ll break out the emergency garlic.”
Amalia made a mournful face. “I hate that.”
“Better than waking up slimy.” Theron actually shivered. It was utterly unlike him—but the Weres have been fighting scurf for longer than anyone. There’s not a single one of them, even a pup, who doesn’t have a scurf scar or two. Of course, they heal faster and better than humans, but still. “The east side of town, you say?”
“Yup. There were disappearances, but nothing out of the ordinary—if you can call anything on the nightside ordinary.” My pager buzzed again, but I ignored it. It didn’t make me jump this time, thank God. “I’ll be digging for the entry point soon. There’s got to be more disappearances I haven’t heard about.”
“Okay.” Theron’s face thinned out, his dark eyes taking on an orange cast in the alley’s shadow. One end was blocked off by another dumpster, and there was a row of castoff plastic deckchairs for smoke breaks near the door to the kitchen. That door was ajar, and I smelled the grill, hot oil and bacon frying. My stomach gurgled. I turned sharply on my heel, heading for the mouth of the alley. “Put the vodka on my tab, furboy. See you soon.”
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“Get your garlic up to date, Jill. And eat something!” He yelled the last, but I was already gone, gathering myself to leap, one hand thudding onto the dumpster’s lid to push me up and over. My boots touched home and I hit the street, up the slope of Mayfair to where I’d parked the Impala. Along the way I stopped right outside the Episcopalian Church— ALL Welcome, its sign said, with a rainbow arching over the words to drive the point home—to use a payphone. I dropped spare change in and dialed.
“Montaigne,” he snarled.
“It’s Jill. Listen, Monty—”
“Where the hell are you?” He sounded about halfway to frantic. “There’s another disappearance on the east side. This time it’s a cop.”
My skin went cold. “Who?”
“A blue named Winchell. Just walked away from his cruiser. We found it locked on Rosales and Fifteenth. He missed his four A.M. call-in.”
I did a few swift mental calculations. That was pretty far away from Percoa, but again in a shabby clutch of industrial buildings and railyards.
Plenty of dark little holes for scurf to live in. If they had a range that big we were looking at serious trouble.
“Keep everyone away from the scene. If you have people there pull them back. Stay away and set up a cordon.”
“How big?” A good lieutenant will never question a hunter. In Monty’s case, he’d known Mikhail. And he’d once screamed his lungs out while watching me take down a Trader whose bargain had included a deep, nasty hunger for human flesh—mostly sautéed, with garlic and onions. Monty had a chunk missing from his right buttock, probably the only tender part on him.
After that, there was never a quibble. Most cops are smart enough, after the obligatory orientation, to just do what I tell them. Very few dig their heels in after a brush with the nightside. And word gets passed around, by hook or by crook.
I don’t know, Monty. “Forget the cordon. I can’t answer for anyone’s safety down there. Pull everyone out. If he’s still alive, I’ll bring him to Mercy General.” If he’s still human, that is.