Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives

My heart hurt. But when the slice of door appeared in the back of the club and the hellbreed stepped out, silver twinkling around her seashell hips and a black umbrella opening like a poisonous flower over her carefully-mussed curls, I moved without hesitation. I hung in midair for a bare moment, etheric energy burning in a sphere and rain flashing crystalline all around me, before the drop swallowed me and there was no more time for brooding.

Even if your heart is breaking, you’ve got to get the job done.

I didn’t feel too good about dragging the hellbreed into Slade’s house by her curling black hair, but I didn’t have any other place that would serve. She splashed black ichor and rainwater over the worn blue carpet in his front hall. By the time I had her tied in a high chair from the breakfast bar separating the dining room from the kitchen, my left arm was aching high-up from where the humerus had snapped and there was a trail of guck from the battered-in front door to the dining room.

Slade apparently practiced in here, it was hardwood and weapons hung on the wall, not a table in sight. But then, I didn’t have a dining-room table either. Cooking was a low priority. I poured down takeout and liquid courage when I remembered to. Or when my body insisted point-blank.

I tested the silver-coated handcuffs again. Secure. I had extra handcuffs, around her matchstick ankles. Slade had some blessed silver-threaded rope hanging up in neat loops near his AK-47 and a rapier on the wall, and I’d hooked it down while I dragged the bitch in. I took my time tying her up — elbows, knees, everything. She was trying to chew through the gag.

It’s not every day you kidnap a ‘breed. I wanted no mistakes.

I stepped back, looked at my work. More blood on my face, drying on my torn T-shirt, one leg of my leather pants shredded and flopping and soaked with more blood.

Killing her would have been cleaner than what I was about to do. Disgust bit in under my breastbone, hot and acid. I swallowed it.

Once in New Orleans I’d been up against a mass of Traders, working the disappearance of a teenage girl. Dropped right into a snake’s nest. The scar on my arm was still fresh, I was new to the jacked-up sensory acuity and power it provided, and I’d had my doubts about the whole damn thing, including my survival. Then Slade kicked the door in and from there it was nothing but work. The same kind of work it is every night, for every hunter in the world.

I’d thanked him, but he shrugged it off. For Slade, not looking for me just wasn’t an option. Not diving into the fight, where we were outnumbered twelve to one, wasn’t an option.

I will hold you the line, milaya. Mikhail’s voice, again. The first time I ever went between, the decent into Hell that makes a hunter what he or she is. The thing that strips away the shell so we can see the twisting. I stay right here, and I hold you the line.

I pushed the thought away. Pulled out my second-biggest knife, and the hellbreed stilled. Her eyes were black. No iris, no white, just black from lid to lid. Like tar, swallowing a struggling animal whole.

I lifted the knife a little, and those black eyes widened. But behind the fear — it was just a screen, really — was the calculation. The cold ratlike look. How can I make this work for me? What do I do to get out of this?

“Slade,” I said. “Hunter. Taller than me, black hair, silver charms.” I let my eyes drop to her waist, where the black dress hadn’t torn and the charms glinted. One flour-pale breast sagged out of the tight top, and sequins dripped when she heaved against the ropes. Her pale leg tensed, slipping out from under the torn skirt like a waxen maggot. “You have one chance.” I sounded flat, tired. Almost bored. My blue eye was hot, watching the space around her for any shimmer of bad intent. “After that, I start cutting.”

The last thing I did was cut the silver charms away and stuff them, jangling and spitting with blue sparks, into one of my pockets. The hellbreed’s body, what was left of it, slumped, held up only by the ropes, corruption racing through its tissues.

They rot fast, when they go. Bile fought for release in the back of my throat. What I’d just done was in no way clean combat. I swallowed hard, telling myself that at least I’d granted her a quick death once I knew she had no more to tell me.

Her victims hadn’t gotten the same deal. Oh no. They never do.

It was faint comfort. The kind that wasn’t really comfort at all. I looked around at Slade’s weaponry and took what I needed. That’s one thing about a hunter’s house — the weaponry is always logically arranged.

Outside, the rain had turned into a persistent curtain of sleet. How did people live here? Jesus. But it did wash the stink of fear and hellbreed ichor off me.