Inked

“Just tell me what you know,” I said, because something had really spooked him. I couldn’t believe that this was the first dead body he’d seen—he lived in Tartarus after all.

“That’s the Predators’ mark!” He pointed a shaking finger at the deep wounds on the man’s chest. “They always leave the body carved up like that. It’s like their signature or something.”

“The Predators?”

“A Were gang. One of the worst!” He took off again and this time, I let him go. Things were starting to get a little dangerous for a bystander, even a not-entirely i

I bent over the wardsmith again. He had a bent back, a scraggly beard, pouchy cheeks and was wearing an old pair of jeans and a faded sweatshirt. He looked like a street person, but the Thunderbird tat on his arm was a stu

I brought out the three wards I’d found in the sofa and compared them. Each wardsmith has his or her own personal style, sort of a signature on their pieces. An expert could probably have told at a glance whether the same hand had made these. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one. But there was something in the rounded, almost abstract quality of the pieces that looked awfully—

The attack came so fast that I never even heard it—at least consciously. But my shields slammed into place right before a blow landed across my chest, jarring through my bones into my teeth. If I hadn’t had shields, it would have killed me. As it was, I went skidding on my back through the side of the tent and across the road, before rolling into the open side of a used-clothes shop.

I landed in a pile of sweaters the proprietor was sorting and bounced back up, fighting with the smothering blanket I’d taken with me. I tore free just in time to see someone lunge for me in a blur of motion. And the next thing I knew I was flying backward through the air with what felt like half my ribs broken. I struck down with a thud that jarred my whole body, momentarily knocking my breath out, and then he was on me.

The guy—young, greasy brown hair, angular face, baggy pants—was one of the Weres I’d fought in the first drain, the one who had taken a bullet in the leg. Only the wound didn’t appear to be slowing him down much. He hadn’t changed, which limited his strength, but then, he was doing fine without it. He picked me up by the legs and began bouncing me back and forth between the floor and the low, rocky ceiling, trying to pop my shields.

It wasn’t exactly a textbook maneuver, but it was doing a hell of a job anyway. I’d have flung a spell, but the commotion had brought people ru

I was trying to get a hand on my potion belt when he slung me into a column. My shields collapsed, my head struck rock and everything whited out for a second. I blinked back to consciousness in time to see a blur of motion streaking down the corridor, about the same moment I realized that the wolf wards were gone. Damn it!

I got up and then went back down to one knee, as a stab of agony ran through my temple and spread over my skull. My head was spi

By the time I got to my less-than-steady feet, the screaming had reached earsplitting decibels. That seemed a little odd for a group used to Weres acting badly. And then a crowd of people almost ran over me, headed for the back of the cavern. One of them was the Were.

He blew past me like lightning, and close on his heels was a huge, malodorous beast with small curled horns, a large shaggy body and an evil glint in its eye. Someone had let the bo

“Oh, my God!”

“Cool, huh?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dieter. He’d acquired some jeans and a pair of sandals, courtesy of one of the abandoned shops, I assumed. He also appeared to have found some backbone. Instead of shaking, he was bouncing on his toes, looking pleased with himself.

“It shits napalm?”

“I said you didn’t want to know.”

“I assume you let it out?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“’Cause this is why everybody pitched in and bought the thing. Bo

“I meant, why help me?”

“I wasn’t. That fucker was one of those who burnt me out this morning.”

“He’s a Predator? You’re sure?”

“Damn right I’m sure! I woke up to see my tent burning over my head and that bastard holding a torch. I lost everything because they decided they didn’t need the competition.” He gri

The Were didn’t seem to be liking it. It also distracted him enough that he ran full tilt into the large cocktails sign, which crashed to the floor, sending bulbs bouncing and then shattering against the hard-packed ground. A second later, he changed, leapt over a counter and was gone—impossibly fast for so huge a beast.

“You said you were staying off Decatur, right?” I asked Dieter.

“Yeah.”

I smiled. I hadn’t managed to tag the Were, but it didn’t worry me too much. You don’t need a tag when you have an address.

“So, we going back to jail now?” Dieter asked hopefully.

“Naw. They’d just process and release you.”

“Yeah, but sometimes they feed us first.”

I tucked a fifty in his jeans. “Lunch is on me.”

It took me precious minutes to get out of Tartarus. The old man weighed maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, and no way was I in any shape to carry him out of there. But leaving him behind wasn’t an option, either. Not with a ten-thousand-dollar tat on his arm and a hungry Aswang in the vicinity.

I would have normally used magic, but right then I didn’t have any to spare. So I rigged up a travois out of plywood and blankets from the shop and dragged him out. Weak sunlight was filtering through angry clouds when I emerged, matching my mood. I leaned against the side of the drain, heedless of the mildew sliming my coat, and dug out my phone. The fact that it took me three tries to grab it probably wasn’t a good sign.

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen a young man?” Caleb asked, before I got a word out. “Bad skin, lots of piercings, dreads—”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll come up at your court-martial!” Jamie said heatedly. Oh, great. We were on speakerphone.

“I don’t think I’m likely to be put on trial for borrowing a junkie for a few hours.”

“No, but you might be for disobeying the direct command of a senior officer!”

“Hargrove isn’t that much of a—”

“Not him! Sedgewick! The old man told him he’d sent you on an errand, or he’d have you up on charges right now!”

“Hargrove is covering for me?” Okay, now I knew I was hallucinating.

“Yeah, and I’d love to know the story behind that one,” Caleb put in.

“So would I,” I told him. “But it’ll keep. Right now, I need some—”

“You need your head examined!” That was Jamie, of course.

“Yeah. Concrete is pretty hard when you get slammed into it by a three-hundred-pound Were.”