Night Shift

Well, at least it was cleaner than the stench of dead hellbreed. And at least now I knew what a rogue smelled like.

Good. Keep thinking about that, Jill. Don't think about Perry. You've put it off until next month. Clever girl, aren't you?

I walked down the gully, the sides rising above me, fringed with succulents and other scrub. This was still part of the river-fed, low-lying cup most of the city rested in, the closest park to my house. Still, the gully at the back showed traces of desert, especially since it wasn't watered until the flash floods came along in fall—an event that wasn't too far away, this being the begi

Guess which side my warehouse sat on. Still on the wrong side of the tracks, even after all these years.

Around the bend, a sudden knot of activity swallowed me. More forensic techs, snapping pictures, triangulating. Montaigne, in a gray suit and a brown tie I knew his wife hadn't picked—it was far too ugly—stood sourly to one side, his hands dangling by his sides. He saw me, and I watched as if from behind myself the curious relief, then even more curious flash of dread cross his haggard face. "Jill!" He almost slipped on a loose patch of gravel, his wingtips not meant for grubbing out here in the brush. "You look—" He pulled himself up short, and I felt a click in my head, a door shutting away the feel of Perry's lips on my skin and the shaking temptation to just start killing until there was nothing left that could hurt me.

It was a good thing, that switch. I felt cleaner, though I knew I would strip down and scrub myself raw as soon as I could get home. It took a lot of harsh scrubbing and the water turning pink-red as it went down the drain before I ever felt clean after a visit to the Monde.

I don't keep a wire brush in the house because I'd be too tempted to use it.

"Hi, Monty." I squinted against the hot oven glare of sunlight, shifted inside my coat. When I lifted my left hand to push a strand of hair weighted by a silver horse-shoe back, the charm glittered in my peripheral vision. Like a mirage. "Just tired. What do we have? Foster said three, maybe more."

I spotted Harp up further on one side of the gully, bending down to examine something, her braids fastened back. Dominic stood next to her, his hair bound and his shoulders straight.

"It's over there." He pointed at the beehive of orderly activity. Half-moons of sweat darkened his suit under his arms. "Jesus. Do you have anything yet, Jill? Anything at all?"

I nodded. "Some things." Not nearly enough. A runaway hellbreed and a rogue Were. If ever there was an unlikely combination, that's one. "How's your man? The rookie?"

"Still in critical." Monty sighed. It was a weary sound. "Jesus fucking Christ. Sullivan and the Badger are next up, do you want them on this?"

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was a Homicide detective or two dealing with a rogue Were. "The feds over there are my people, I don't want any more of yours getting killed."

He took it better than I thought he would. He only paled more, and shivered despite the heat. Indian summer had struck with a vengeance this year. "It's bad, then."

Worse than you can probably imagine, cheesecake. "I'll go take a look." I wanted to touch him—clap him on the shoulder, maybe. Offer some comfort. But if I did, he'd just flinch away from my essential difference.

My essential taint.

She stinks of hellbreed. It hadn't been so much the words as the tone in which they were delivered. What should I care what a country-boy Were thought of me?

Because of the other voice whispering in my head, bland and weighted with terrible finality, as if he considered the deal already struck—a newer deal, one Mikhail hadn't approved. I've broken stronger Traders than you.

It wasn't so much that he said it. It was that I suspected, deep down, that he might be right. Without the steady compass and experience of my teacher, things were getting more precarious by the day.

I was getting more precarious every day. Out on the edge with nowhere else to go.

I flinched inwardly as I inserted myself into the dance of gathering evidence. A few of the techs looked a little green.

The bodies were tangled together in a messy heap under torn-down branches that had wilted in the heat. I saw a long scarf of brown hair crusted with sand, and thought maybe that one was female. But they were such a mess I couldn't tell for certain. Some of the bigger bones—femur, humerus—had been gnawed, sharp splinters worried up. The faces were marred with deep claw marks.

I looked again at the brush cover. The techs were photographing, picking up, and bagging each torn branch. The ends were ripped, not broken with leverage but torn straight out from the tree or bush that had hosted them. The tougher ones—juniper, sage, pine from the park, probably—were still springy and sap-full.

They were fresh.

So were the bodies. Really fresh, even though they stank in the heat.

Had the rogue just blown into town, killed a few cops, and started on an orgy of murder? It was a distinct possibility. The usual rogue Were rules—a kill every few days, mostly for food, a pattern of familiar places—wasn't holding true. What other rules was this case going to break?

A prickle touched the back of my neck, cold even under the sun's assault. Was it just nervousness from dealing with Perry, or was it intuition? As raw as my nerves were, I couldn't tell.

That's bad. You've got to take the edge off or you aren't going to be good for anything. I looked up, shading my eyes, as one of the techs, a slim Asian woman with her hair cut in a sleek bob, approached me.

"Can we move the bodies?" She didn't look me in the eye, rubbing her fingers together against the latex gloves. Latex was miserable in this weather, with the sweat and cornstarch. "Or at least start to? The Feebs said to wait for you."

I should have been looking at the bodies, marking each one and swearing to avenge them. I should have looked to see what had mangled them so badly, what had stripped the face off each one.

A rogue Were kill, dehumanizing the victims? That was standard behavior for them, but the shape of the marks on the faces were wrong somehow. Another click sounded at the very bottom of my head.

Why would a rogue Were kill cops? But some of them are Were kills, I recognized that claw shape on the others. And look at the bodies, those are Were claws. Why the different marks on the faces? Dammit. This isn't making sense, and there's a hellbreed in it somewhere.

The prickling at my nape slid down my back, goose-flesh rising hard. The mark on my wrist was a mass of tiny hair-fine needles, responding to the uneasy swirl of my aura as my senses dilated to take everything in.

Something about to happen, Jill. Look around. Be aware.

I looked up. Harp had come to her feet, immobile, even the feathers braided in her hair motionless despite the soft breeze. Her lovely face was set, color draining away and turning her ash-pale. Dominic unfolded slowly, like a cat will rise quietly from its haunches when it sees prey. My blue eye, hot and dry, saw the deep thrumming swirling through both of them.

"Hey." The tech was still trying to get my attention. "Can we move the bod—"

I was already moving, extending in a leap over the pile of bodies, touching down, and bolting for the end of the gully. A few pebbles drifted down, and the slim shape silhouetted against the sky vanished hastily with a flutter of pale hair. I heard scrabbling behind me, and a scream. Didn't care. My skin came alive, flush with heat, leather coat flapping as I sank one hand into the scree of the slope and made it up the hill, throwing up a chunk of gravel as I catapulted over the edge, recklessly pulling etheric energy through the scar.