It would be excruciatingly painful.

Well, that was the price of being a Trader criminal in my town.

I dropped him, looked up at Perry, the gun still held steady. “Back up.”

He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. “Your lack of faith wounds me, Kiss. It truly does.”

Will you quit calling me that? I didn’t say it. Giving Perry that opening would mean no end of trouble. “Back the fuck up.”

He took one single step back. “You owe me. I expect you here for two hours tomorrow. Midnight.”

“I’m busy.”

“With an attitude like that, you’ll never pay your debt.” His voice had turned silken.

Like I owe you for more than a month at this point. “I’m serious, Perry. This isn’t my only job. I’ll come on Sunday.” I decided it was probably safe, holstered my gun. His eyelids dropped a little, but that was all. I tried not to feel relieved. “Midnight.” You don’t own me. We just struck a deal, that’s all. And it was a good deal, we both get something we want.

You just don’t get all you want. You won’t, either. Not while I’m breathing.

He shrugged. “Two full hours, Kiss.”

“You already said that.” The bullwhip coiled back up as I flicked my wrist, I stowed it at my hip, and just for the hell of it I gave Elizondo another kick. My eyes never left Perry’s. The pretty blond man on the floor vomited, a sudden sharp stink. I bent down, snagged the cuffs, and hauled him to his feet. “Sorry about that.” My tone said clearly I wasn’t sorry at all. “Thanks for the assist. I’ll see you get some credit with the Chamber of Commerce.”

A ripple ran through the ranks of the damned. Their eyes bored into me, bright little points of light; I heard Riverson mutter something under his breath. Something like bitch.

Perry’s mouth twitched. If the smell bothered him, he made no sign. His eyes ran down my body, but his hands didn’t leave his pockets. “A round for everyone, on the house,” he said quietly. “Let’s celebrate the end of a successful hunt, for our Kismet.”

They shuffled, a polite and sarcastic cheer edging up from the crowd. I hauled Elizondo for the door as the movement to the bar started and the music began at low volume, ramping up slowly. They gave me a wide berth, and I heard the usual whispers.

I didn’t mind. After all, next week I might be hunting any one of them; Trader, hellbreed, or whatever else hung out in the shadows. Once damned, always damned, it was a piece of hunter’s wisdom.

What does that make me? The scar on my wrist ran with cold prickling, Perry’s attention on me the whole time.

Elizondo was an almost-dead weight by the time I shoved him out through the front door, past the glowering twin mountains of bouncer. My orange Impala was parked at the curb, in total violation of the fire lane, and Saul Dustcircle leaned against the hood, smoking a Charvil. He was tall and rangy, his skin a sweet burnished caramel; straight shoulder-length red-black hair glittering with sacred charms and small silver amulets tied with red thread. The tiny bottle of holy water on the chain around his neck, next to the small leather bag, glittered a sharp blue like a star. This close to so many Traders and hellbreed, the blessing in the water was reacting to the charge of power in the ether. To OtherSight, the Monde Nuit was a depression full of murky fluid, clearly a place where those allied with Hell came to party down.

Saul’s dark eyes brightened as he saw me pushing Elizondo along. He shifted inside his hip-length leather coat, and his white teeth showed in a smile I was very glad to see.

I finally began to feel like I might have survived my latest trip into the Monde.

Chapter Two

Every city has people like me. Every city. Usually the police and the local DA’s office have us on payroll as consultants; when all’s said and done it’s law enforcement we’re doing. Freelancers are rare, mostly because without the support system the regular cops provide we have a tougher time. Besides, even though most of us don’t play well by rules or with others, we are on the side of the good guys. Our methods are a little different, but that’s just because the criminals we catch are a little different.

Okay, a lot different. We do, after all, go after the things the cops can’t. What ordinary cop can face down a Were or even an ordinary shapechanger, or an Assyrian demon? Not to mention the contagion of scurf or Black Mist bloodsuckers, the adepts of a Sorrows House trying to bring back the Elder Gods, or the Middle Way and their worship of Chaos? What ordinary cop stands a chance against a Trader, even? The very idea will send the more flighty of us into hysterical fits of not-very-nice laughter. We are what we are because we know what’s out there in the darkness. People disappear all the time. It’s a fucking epidemic; some of the disappearances are murder, some are fugitives, some are kidnapped by other human beings. Some of them are even found again.

But a good proportion of them are taken by the things that go bump in the night. And then it becomes a hunter’s job to bump back.

Hard.

Morning isn’t my best time, so I cradled a double vanilla mocha breve, extra whip, while I waited for the room to fill up. Bright, shiny new rookies; each one with a pretty badge and that look every rookie has, eager but trying to contain it, like a dog straining at the leash. Buzzcuts were in for both genders this year, and they came in laughing and joking, sobering when they saw me leaning against the dry-erase board. My back was to the defensible wall; it was why I taught in this room with its gallery of windows looking out onto the Vice squad’s forest of cubicles. Each desk had an empty garbage can sitting next to it, and there were a couple of jokes about that, too.

I blinked sleepily and sipped at my coffee while they chose their seats, jostling and good-naturedly bantering back and forth.

On the other end of the dry-erase board, Captain Montaigne shifted his bulk. This was one of his less-favorite parts of the job. I heartily agreed.

I’d dressed normally, for me. Most hunters are sartorially odd, to say the least. So today it was leather pants, low on the hips; a tight Mark Hunt T-shirt, my long leather coat heavy on my shoulders. A gun rode my right hip, but I’d left the bullwhip at home. Instead, I wore extra knives. My hair was pulled back from my face with two thin braids, the rest of the long mass hanging down my back, silver amulets tied in with red thread. The braids were also woven with red thread and tiny silver charms; I wore the silver ankh earring in my left ear and the long fanged dagger earring on the right. A brown leather bracelet sat on my right wrist over my scar; my short-bitten nails were painted dried-blood red. The combat boots were steel-toed and scuffed; the tiger’s-eye rosary dangled down and touched my belly while the black velvet choker with the medal of St. Christopher moved as I swallowed. Just below the choker, the chunk of carved ruby on its short supple silver chain was warm.

I also wore enough eyeliner to make me look like a hooker. My eyes stand out even more when I outline them with kohl. One blue, one brown, the mismatched gaze a lot of people find hard to meet.

I didn’t paint them to accentuate it before. Not until I met Saul.

The rookies finished dribbling in, and Montaigne cleared his throat. I looked at the slide projector again, allowed a small smile to touch my lips.

Monty looked at the sheet in his hand, called roll. I let the names slip past me. They were like every other class of rookies, eyeing me nervously, wondering what I was, fiddling with the folders on their desks. Nobody had been brave enough to open one yet.