My body an adrenaline-infused weapon, I glided silently near, a shadow on their heels, swiftly revising my plan into one that would take out three birds, not two, with a single stone tonight: find out what they were up to; test my theory about my arm on one of them and, if it still blew him up through my clothing, take the other as food for the beast. If their deeds were as villainous as I suspected, I’d kill them anyway. No point in wasting blood.
I pegged the men as brothers, one a few inches taller than the other, moving with the same shambling gait, cut from identical genetic cloth with brown hair, the saggy, bloated skin of lifelong drinkers, mirror-image blunt features, and shifty, cunning eyes behind glasses. I know those eyes. They’re the eyes of frightened, small men who serve a dark master to stay alive, taking delight in the torment of others because each obscene task they perform is a way of convincing themselves they’re exempt: they chose to be predator not prey.
Was their master on the other side of that slim dark mirror? Might he be the “him” AOZ had threatened me with?
I’m not a predator. Nor am I prey. I’m the thing that crouches in the shadowy places between the two, native to no land but my own.
“We can’t go back empty-handed.” The shorter one sounded worried as he adjusted a slouchy, rolled beanie on his head.
I was an invisible wind on the salt-kissed breeze behind them, half into freeze-frame, but not in the slipstream. I’d spent a lot of time analyzing how Ryodan moved and had achieved a degree of his ability to melt into his surroundings. It took intense mental effort. I had to keep myself partially in an alternate way of moving, and partially not. It was like compressing myself to fit in a doorway, making myself no wider than a few inches, but occasionally part of me popped on one side or the other if I was startled by something or lost focus. I’d been getting better at it, though, working with Fallon, our young chameleon, determined to learn from her.
“Not tonight,” the other agreed with a curse. “He wants an even dozen. Told all of us to come back with no less. How the fuck are we supposed to manage that? We’re not bloody miracle workers! He’s got so many of us in this city, we’re stepping all over each other’s turf!”
I assessed them but discerned no sign of weapons. Perhaps they had a knife concealed somewhere, but most people didn’t walk these streets without a gun. I had a Glock tucked in my waistband, my PPQ in an inside hip holster on my right.
“Yah, it’s bullshit. My back still hurts from last night, and I swear I sprained my shoulder,” his companion complained. “Fuckin’ fat-ass people. Where do they even find enough food to be fat?”
His brother laughed, a thin, cruel sound, as he tipped a flask back and swigged. “No shit, right? Well, they don’t stay that way long.” He guffawed again but it died swiftly and he shuddered, shoving the flask and his hands deep into the pockets of his coat.
I narrowed my eyes, pondering that comment. They didn’t stay fat. Was it possible whoever they worked for had been holding the beast in my flat? But what was the point in starving people and/or animals to death?
“He needs to cut us some slack for it being so hard! They’re afraid now and not going out at night. We took too many. He’s gotta let us move again,” the shorter of the two complained.
“Never gonna happen, Alfie. Some bloody reason, he wants us here.”
“Fuckin’ bastard! How’s a man supposed to do his job with his hands tied?”
“Fuckin’ just like the world was before. Average guys like us is the ones doing all the hard work!”
It went on like that for a while, as I tailed them. Bitching about the world as if they were the good guys, badly abused by everyone, and how terrible it was they were being taken for granted and inconvenienced.
I swallowed the bile of irritation so many times I was about to vomit it when suddenly one of them whirled and I felt a tiny piercing pain in my left breast, just above my nipple.
I stiffened.
The poison hit my blood instantly.
Honey, I’ll rise up from the dead, I do it all the time
AT LEAST NOW I knew why they weren’t carrying.
Expectations. They trip you up every time. I’d scanned them for the usual, human weapons, not some kind of…tiny dart? I stared dazedly down at the dark, two-inch quill protruding from my left breast as I kicked up into the slipstream.
I went down instead, crashing to the pavement on my knees, foaming at the mouth.
My body was going numb. I couldn’t even persuade my hand to reach for a gun. Bloody hell, they’d complained about weight—was that because they were paralyzing and dragging people off somewhere? Were these men the reason so many adults had gone missing lately, the cause of the orphans in our city? Then they came back and bullied the children for the sheer, nasty fun of it? But why did kids end up thinking Fae took their parents? These were average, human men.
My mouth worked but nothing came out. I couldn’t feel my breasts or my stomach. My hips were tingling, fading.
“Stupid cunt didn’t think we knew you were back there.” The taller of the two tapped his beanie. “Fooled you,” he smirked and leered down at me as the drug took effect. “Damn,” he raked a gaze over me, “Alfie, get a load of that sword.” Thick, grimy fingers clenched in anticipation.
Alfie moved to join him. “What kind of woman carries—aw, shit, Callum, you know who we got ourselves here?” He laughed. “We caught us a bona fide vigilante. Bitch that keeps taking those kids, stealing our fun.”
Callum’s eyes narrowed, sharpening. “Well, we ain’t taking her to him.”
Lust has many faces. Some of them are ugly. I tried to push up from the pavement but my arms were noodles, my legs beyond central nervous system control.
“Nah, we’ll take her to him after,” Alfie said. “We can’t be wasting bodies like that. We don’t want to end up on one of his other crews, like the excavators.” He paled.
“If there’s enough of the bitch left to take,” Callum conceded. “But I get the sword. I hear it’s got some kinda special powers.” He bent and tugged my sword from the sheath across my back, tucked it beneath his arm then kicked me viciously in the ribs, shoving me from my fetal side-curl onto my back. Then he patted me down and stripped both guns from my body, tucking them in his own waistband. “Goddamn,” he breathed, eyes narrowing further. He reached down and plucked the quill from my chest then closed his hand on my breast and squeezed, hard.
I was screaming inside. Frozen, unable to stop him or spew a single of the many threats on my tongue. The toxin they’d used had magical properties—it was taking me way too fast; my insane metabolism burns off normal toxins—and I’d bet it was given to them by whomever they worked for. But how had they seen me following them? He’d touched his beanie when he said he’d fooled me.
Callum relinquished my breast with a sneer. “You want some of this, bitch?” He grabbed his crotch and laughed. “Don’t worry, bitch, you’re gonna get plenty. More than you know what to do with.” He turned and walked away, ordering over his shoulder, “Bring it. But don’t damage the goods. Much. Let’s get it off the street, enjoy it somewhere nice and private-like.”
Alfie whined, “Why do I always have to do all the work?”