Bennett made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “This is what it is to be Night Shift,” she said. “We don’t even get to die in peace.”
“Maybe they’ll put that on next year's recruitment poster.” Marlow pulled his backup gun and scrambled over the bird-shit decorated roof to the far side of the building. He stood on the edge and looked down. A wolf—mostly white under the grime and blood matted into its fur—hauled itself up the side of the building. Thick black claws dug into the walls, the stucco render torn away from the frame in chunks.
He shot it in the shoulder. Blood sprayed out from the wound, bone splintered and flesh tore, and its arms went weak. The wolf screamed like a hurt child and dangled for a moment. It tried to drag itself the rest of the way up on three limbs but couldn’t quite make it. After a second, it lost its footing and fell back into the street.
It wouldn’t kill it, the fall or the bullet, but the silver in its shoulder would hobble it for the night. Hopefully.
Marlow should have taken the headshot. That was how Piper had taught them.
“A crippled wolf can still rip you apart,”he’d said. Marlow could remember the drill-sergeant bite of it on his nerves during the qualifying target practice for the Academy.
Franklin wouldn’t have hesitated. They were right: hesitation got you killed. It would get other people killed along with you.
Marlow was just sick of it.
The wolves didn’t care. More came out of alleys and around corners, heads up and noses flared to show red flesh as they sniffed the air. The injured white wolf tried to defend its claim to the hunting ground, but with one ruined arm it was soon driven off. It fled with its tail between its legs. And that just left Bennett and Marlow.
It felt like hours. It was probably minutes.
The Black Hawk choppers swooped out of the cloudy sky, the chuff-chuff of the rotors loud enough to deafen. Weighted ropes dropped, straight as plumb lines, and Night Shift officers in full TAC gear swarmed down them onto the roofs and into the streets. Their guns stayed slung over their backs as they waded into the pack of wolves with batons and tranq guns.
The last thing Night Shift needed right now was a slaughter.
A few wolves got through the cordon, though. Gil dropped them from her perch on the landing gear of the chopper, boots braced and harness pulled tight as she swung out for a better angle.
Marlow recognized the tactics. It was straight out of the playbook. Clear the space you wanted to control and then—
The first gas canister arced in and smashed through the window of the shop opposite. Gas leaked out in a thin white cloud and sank toward the ground. It settled over wolves who retched and tore at themselves as their skin burned. Another canister bounced off the street and got stuck in the muck of spilled honey and blood. The gas sprayed out at ankle level and spread.
They’d have to cordon off the block for a week to decontaminate it. The local shop owners would have to be compensated for their time. It worked, though.
The wolves, blind and blistered, took the path of least resistance away from the gas and the masked Night Shift officers. A few—hungrier or angrier—veered back and smashed themselves against the wall of Kevlar and silver-laced batons.
Marlow lowered his gun. His hands weren’t shaking, they never did until later, but they’d gone numb with the build-up of stale adrenaline.
He turned to check on Bennett just as her leg went out from under her. She landed badly, broken leg awkward and stiff as it overextended to the side, and sank her teeth into her lower lip to try and stifle a scream.
“A minute,” Marlow said as he headed over to her. He grabbed her under her arms, the edges of the Kevlar vest rough against his fingers, and hauled her back to her feet, more or less. “Just hold on another minute, Bennett. We’ll be out of here.”
She jabbed an elbow back into his ribs. “What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?” she asked. “Just decide to die instead?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
She laughed, a ragged hiccup, and didn’t deny it. On the chopper, Gil glanced their way. Marlow couldn’t see much—between the distance and her helmet—but he could imagine her expression. She acknowledged them with a tilt of her head and twisted to yell something at the pilot. After a second, the Black Hawk pitched forward and headed their way.
Something pale and quick moved, just in the periphery of Marlow’s field of vision. He turned and saw the white wolf—shoulder still raw meat but the rest of its injuries healed—as it launched itself off a nearby roof.
Marlow lifted his gun and squeezed the trigger in one smooth, practiced motion. The gun clicked on an empty magazine, and the wolf crashed into the roof. Dislodged slates rained down on the street below as the wolf scrambled to its feet.
The angle of the Black Hawk meant that Gil couldn’t see them. Not yet.
Black lips wrinkled back from jagged yellow teeth, gums bright red, and the wolf swung at them with one long, thick-muscled arm. The hooked claws caught in Marlow’s sleeve as he dragged Bennett out of the way and scraped a thin paper-cut painful sting of a cut from his elbow to his shoulder.
“Fuck this,” Bennett snarled. She took a hobbled step forward and threw a roundhouse punch—her fist weighted with her empty gun—at the wolf. The crack of impact did more damage to her hand than to the wolf, but it stumbled backward and lost its balance. It took a second to drop to street level, and Bennett nearly followed it.
Marlow grabbed her collar, a jolt of pain shooting up into his shoulder as he took her weight and yanked her back.
They both fell backward and sprawled, sweaty and panting, on the remaining slates.
