“Well, ’ullo, lovely,” I said in a horrible British accent. “’Ave you come for tea?”
The creature’s head jerked up, and the crowd jumped as one. Blood dripped from its remarkably human face.
And I thought the vampire monster form was gross, with the swampy look and the claws. This thing was way worse.
“Scatter, you guys,” I said to the bystanders around me, slashing the chain with my sword.
“Are you a part of it?” someone asked as the creature straightened up.
“No, but you might be if you hang around.” I launched into the room. A chair tumbled as I pushed it out of the way.
The creature lashed out at me. I dodged, letting thelong talons on the ends of its three-fingered hand sail past my face. It screeched like a bird of prey before blasting into a swarm of birds, much too close together to be natural.
“Holy shit,” someone exclaimed. “How did he do that?”
“Magic,” someone else said as the mass of birds swirled around me, scratching at my head.
I sliced my sword through the air, hitting one or two birds before the swarm rushed through the house. Without delay, I followed, jumping over a couch and seeing an open back door. Maybe it hadn’t snuck in through the front after all.
Once outside, I watched it swoop into the air, rolling and swirling, like ink in water, before heading west. I took two fast steps and leapt onto a small storage shed before launching myself onto the wooden fence. I ran along it, my balance perfect in the heat of the moment, before jumping onto a rooftop and taking off across the city after it, using the jammed-together houses as a kind of multileveled sidewalk.
In the distance, barely discernible, I saw the swarm dive downward. The creature didn’t plan to go far. Good.
At a gap in houses, I dropped down and ripped out my phone.
“Captain,” I said, barely out of breath. “I’ve got asighting. That sucker flies.”
“What’s your twenty?”
“Heading east. I’m at Ursulines and Dauphine. It touched down four or five blocks away. It turns into a half man…thing, and a half big-legged wolf…thing. That’s when it isn’t a flock of birds.”
“Reagan, if they’re old enough, they can change sex at will. They can also adopt a true human form, though usually disfigured. These things start out human. Stay vigilant. I’ll meet you there. And whatever you do, don’t engage on your own.”
No promises.
Chapter Four
Acar honked as I darted out in front of it to cross the street. When I hit the sidewalk, a tourist stepped in my path with his hands raised, beads swinging from them. “Show me your tits,” he yelled.
I punched him in the throat.
He made a choking sound as his hands fell from the sky. Served him right. I wasn’t that kind of girl.
I pushed him out of my way as his friends screamed with laughter.
Idiots.
A deep-throated shout caught my attention. Then another from the east. A lithe and agile wolf ran up ahead. One I recognized. It was a shifter. A real shifter, not anaswangturned shifter. They also helped police the Brink, which was what we called the human world, from supernatural creatures.
Boy, hopefully there weren’t more of thoseaswangs, because that might get confusing for the poor shifters.
I crossed a grassy area where homeless were gathered. To the right was a collection of jazz bars where mygood friend Red, a weak shifter and an excellent source of information, always hung out. Another shout drew me forward, into an area blanketed by darkness. I could see in it just fine, one of my (not as special) traits.
“Don’t go that way,” a homeless man said in a scratchy voice. “They got trouble up that way.”
A surge of adrenaline had me pushing faster. “Thanks,” I said, not heeding his words.
After another half-dozen steps, I saw a body crouching with his hands held out. Getting closer, I realized it was the captain, his attention focused on a space between a house and a fence.
