Night Shift

What was the matter with him?

"I rebuilt her," I said shortly. "I drive her."

"You rebuilt her?"

I stopped and rounded on him, my second spare leather trench coat swirling. He stopped as well, with perfect balance, not ru

Nameless fury worked up inside of me. I throttled it, kept my voice steady and even. "Look. I don't know what game you're playing, but it stops here. I've got a job to do, and the less I'm distracted the less people will die. I want this goddamn rogue and this goddamn hellbreed off my streets, and safely dead if at all possible. Whatever you're doing, quit I don't have time for it."

He studied me for a few seconds, his eyes humanly depthless. Not like a hellbreed's at all. "I'm not playing a game."

Then what the hell just happened? Or is that some arcane Were protocol I don't know about? I don't hunt your kind, I don't know all their ins and outs. "Whatever it is, stop." I figured that covered about everything. "I have enough to deal with."

"I'm here to help." Was that a scowl? He looked away, at the plain two-story frame house being swarmed by Santa Luz's finest. "There's Harp."

Just like a goddamn Were, looking away and changing the subject. "Fine. Just stay off my back."

"Huh." It wasn't affirmative or negative, just a sound.

Goddamn Weres and their goddamn noncommittal noises.

I wished the heat in my cheeks would go away, took a deep breath and looked up to find Harp standing, fists on hips, on the porch. She looked tense and furious, the feathers in her braids fluttering and her jaw set.

Great. I ducked under the yellow tape, nodding at the uniform on duty—it was Willie the Mouse, who flinched when his eyes hit mine, his left hand coming up to touch his right shoulder. A Trader had taken a chunk out of him once, before I could get there and put it down in a welter of blood and screaming, not to mention the stink of roasted flesh because the apartment complex had been burning down around us.

So many of my memories are tinged with smoke.

And blood.

I dropped my eyes as Saul ducked under the yellow tape behind me. "He's with me, Willie." I pitched my voice low and soothing. "How's the shoulder?"

Mikhail had once rescued him from two Traders and an arkeus. That was before my time. Poor unlucky Willie.

"Still hurts sometimes, Jill. Thanks." He didn't sound thankful—he sounded like he'd prefer I didn't talk to him at all.

He'd needed a solid two years of therapy before he stopped waking up screaming, I'd heard. The chasm between us yawned wide.

But at least he was still alive. That was worth something, wasn't it?

A knot of forensic techs swarmed around a particular spot in the dry grass of the yard. I saw Foster's sleek ponytailed head; he nodded and pointed up at Harp, a quick sketch of a movement.

In other words, I'll catch you later, go see the Feeb.

"Hey, Harp. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" It bolted out of my mouth, and her quick smile was iron-tense, a mere flicker.

"The usual. Blood and chaos. Smells like you just had di

The edges of her tan jacket fluttered a bit as I hopped up the steps and got a nose-watering dose of the smell from the open front door. Rogue Were, hellbreed, and death; the mixed reek scraped across my nerves and turned them even more raw. It was the only nice part of the night, sweets. You won't believe who's in town."

"At this point I'd believe just about anything. Come inside, I want to show you something."

"Harp." I couldn't put it off any longer. "Navoshtay Niv Arkady's here from New York; I came across him while I was cleaning out a Trader hole. Perry's off making amends and smoothing the troubled waters, since Saul knifed Arkady and I clocked him with a sunsword. The hellbreed we're looking for—our pretty blonde girl—is Navoshtay Siv Cenci. Navoshtay's daughter." And I am going to have hell to pay the next time I visit Perry. Maybe even sooner.

Harp actually went pale. Her eyes flickered up to Saul, who made some slight movement, having climbed the steps after me. Maybe a shrug, since his coat creaked a little. He moved closer to me, looming behind me and actually bumping into me again, softly.

Harp's eyes got as big as the plates down at Micky's. I moved away, irritably, and peered in the front door. "And there's even more, Harp. Hang onto your hat, because this one is weird."

She still stared over my head at Saul. I waited a beat for her to give her next line—something like well, life around you is never normal, Kismet. But she didn't give it. Instead, she looked at Saul like she'd caught him eating babies.

The Were behind me responded by moving even closer, crowding me so I felt his chest touch my back. I stepped away, to my left, taking in the front door's white paint and two deadbolts. Whoever lived here had been cautious.

Fat lot of good it had done them.

Saul moved in on me again. "Quit it," I snapped over my shoulder. "What is wrong with you? Harp, did you hear me? The head hellbreed on the East Coast is in my city, and he's after his daughter. Who, I'm told, has been a very busy girl."

Harp shook her dark head, the feathers in her braids fluttering. Her mouth opened, shut as if she couldn't find the words.

I could relate. I dropped my other bombshell. "I also know why she's hanging around with Our Boy Carnivore. If another hunter hadn't told me I wouldn't believe it."

That seemed to shake her loose. "Jill—" But she stopped, still staring at Saul.

I've had about enough of this. It isn't like you, Harp. "Come on, Agent Smith. You show me yours, I'll tell you mine—and we might have a chance at stopping this thing."

Dominic greeted me with a nod. He crouched, low and easy, in front of the cellar door. I took in his stance and the alert shine to his eyes, the way he settled into immobility after the quick sharp movement.

He was standing guard in case the rogue came back to his little nest and found a bunch of humans here. I felt a chill trace down my spine at the thought.

The ground floor of the house was oddly pristine. Here in the kitchen, where the door to the cellar stood wide open, stairs going down and that smell belching up in waves, there were clean white countertops and a rack full of washed dishes with a thin layer of dust on them. A blue washrag lay folded over the arch of the faucet, dried stiff. The table was layered with papers. The garage, visible through a wide-open door leading off the kitchen, held two cars—one of them a minivan with car seats.

I didn't want to think about that.

The only sign of violence was one of the chairs pushed over backward and a single smear of dark liquid on the clean floor.

"Family of four," Dominic said when my eyes fastened on the chair. "Near as I can figure, someone opened the front door and got subdued, then was brought back here to where someone else was doing bills. Everything on the table's dated for last month. I think this family was the first to go down, and he's probably been dragging kills back here—there's another entrance to the cellar out back, Theron's out there. He's the one that found a trail in this neighborhood."

I nodded. Theron was the bartender at Micky's, a lean, dangerous Werepanther. Good backup, even if he was an arrogant twit. If he was out in the backyard, I didn't have to worry about the people out there. It was a relief to know.