Page 17

Silence. Cor glares at me as if I just called his mother a harbor whore in polite conversation, but that’s it. I’m still unsure how much he actually understands, and he can’t seem to form more than single word sentences, so my hopes weren’t high to begin with. But something about what we just heard, what I experienced tonight, makes me queasy.

It’s not just the callous way Asha wrote me off as a work accident that can be fixed with money. That’s a Hunter thing, and I will rip her a new one later. But from all I’ve seen and heard, something fishy is going on here, and not just because Asha just openly took a bribe from a supe. That talk about leashes and blocking charms makes something in the back of my brain itch, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. Yet. Shaking my head, I rub my temple and glare up at Cor. He’s shifting and tugging at his rags, lips curling unhappily as he eyes the surroundings. “Do you know what’s going on, Cor?” I ask him in a low voice, slowly, each word pronounced carefully.

He gazes back at me at the sound of his name and tilts his head slightly, again giving me the impression of a dog trying to figure out what its master is cooing about. He starts to shake his head, then whips around before he finishes the motion. A low snarl slithers out between his grinding teeth as he strains his ears, and I lean forward on instinct, trying to catch on to what he is seeing. Or hearing. A little further, and I can finally peek around the edge of the vending machine—

He is gone before I finish the motion. A second later, Asha saunters around the corner, ice bucket clutched beneath her arm.

She’s almost past me when she finally notices she’s not alone. Alone, like I was when she left me. I gnash my teeth and twist my lips into a snarl. “Hello, Asha.”

Her squeak warms my vindictive heart, even when the ice bucket hits my chest hard enough to make me cough. Her gun is pointed at my forehead before I finish gasping, her eyes as opaque and empty as the muzzle in front of my eyes. Fearful. Resigned. It feels like an eternity passes until her eyes find that spark again, until she finally relaxes and lowers the gun, fingers shaking. “Jesus, Gideon!”

Another moment later, she’s on me, hugging me so hard I can’t breathe. “Jesus, Gideon,” she repeats, choking up.

WE END UP in our motel room, me freshly showered and condemned to idleness, and Asha scavenging the first aid box for supplies. The telltale redness on her cheek where Arzel hit her is already fading. I don’t think she even knows it’s there.

“I really thought you were dead,” she mutters, thumbing through the sterile wound compresses. “I heard you shoot and shoot and then suddenly stop, and I thought they killed you. So I ran. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes wander over the fresh bite wound and the half-moon impressions of fingernails on my neck, arms, and chest. The long, deep gash on the underside of my right arm makes her hiss and wince, but she doesn’t move yet. She looks back down on the collection of sterile pads and gnaws at her bottom lip. If I didn’t know better, I would say she looks guilty, but Asha is a Hunter. Has been a Hunter longer than I’ve been allowed to drive. Hunters don’t feel guilt.

On the other hand, Hunters don’t lie to each other, and right now Asha is full of it. “You heard me emptying my clip into that ugly slimebag of a woman,” I say calmly. I don’t feel calm, but my voice hasn’t gotten the memo. Not a flinch, not a twitch, not a shiver. I might have become a psychopath at some point tonight. “She was down—” -ish, “and I called for you, but you were already gone.”

Already half-way out the window while I was still shooting Cor’s prison guard. Not even close to what she described. She didn’t wait for me. Had what she needed and high-tailed it out of there. I want to yell at her face how full of it she is, but that would show my hand. There’s too much weird shit going on to risk it.

Asha’s face lightens up with relief. “So she’s dead? Thank fuck. Good job, puppy. Too bad the other one got away, though.”

I’m not a fucking puppy. I want to snarl the words at her face, but I swallow them down. That, too, would tip my hand before I’m ready. I could, of course, simply ask her outright what she was doing with Arzel and what magic amulet they were talking about, but she would just clamp up, give me some excuse and make sure I never ever get near her again. As long as she doesn’t know I’ve heard more than I should, she will keep being sloppy. Unfortunately for me, I can’t act like a total moron either, because if she’s half as clever as I think she is, she will see right through that. Happy middle it is.

“I thought Arzel maybe had told you the news already,” I say, pulling on all my acting talent to sound reasonably surprised.

Asha freezes. Her fingers tense around the disinfectant spray. “You saw him?” ‘What did you hear?’ says the slight tremble in her voice.

“He passed me when I reached the hotel. Didn’t see me though.” I shrug and grimace when the bite wound smarts. Ouch.

Ripping open one of the compress packages, Asha scoots closer and lifts the wound spray. “Hold still,” she orders and proceeds to set fire to my arm. I wince and growl and curse under my breath as she uses little tape pieces to hold the wound together, until she presses clean white fibre cloth against the wound and pokes me with the spray. “Hold that there so I can tape it.”

I do as she asks and try not to wiggle. I was never good at acting, but I’m a people watcher. Asha wants to say something, ask something about me and Arzel, but if I prompt her, she will spook. Which means I have to sit here, act dumb, and wait for her to make up her mind. It sucks.

When she finally speaks, I claw the bedding to keep myself from jumping up and hooting. “Arzel was here to ask me if his information helped. I guess he’ll want something in return at some point,” she mumbles vaguely. “And he wanted to know if we saw anything strange or out of place. I told him thanks and no, and that was it.” Then she stares at me quietly, motionless. Intently. Waiting for me to call her out on her lie.

If I hadn’t been left to die today, if I hadn’t met Cor, if I hadn’t had to shoot three more vampires, fight for my life, lie to a bunch of vikings, and finally walk alone through the hell that is the Dark City district, I would flinch. I couldn’t keep a straight face. I would be emotional, hurt, betrayed. A puppy.

This puppy has grown up very fast.

I take a deep breath, grimace again, and look at her with a calm I don’t feel. “Everything was strange and out of place for me, so I can’t say if I saw anything or not. Looked normal enough to me. Vampire attacks, thralls, shootout, vampire dead, thralls dead, just one more vamp to hunt down before the job is done.”

Her cheek tics. “So you didn’t think a big silver box was strange?” she asks slowly, brow rising.

Ah. “As I said, everything is strange and out of place for me. It was my first mission, remember?”

She doesn’t look convinced. Fine then. “But now that you mention it, what was up with that box?”

“No idea,” she sighs, smiles relieved, and opens the medical tape roll. “Let’s patch you up and get outta here. I’ve had it with this city.”

What? “But we’re not done here yet, remember?” I stutter, surprised by the panicked throb in my chest. “There’s a second rotting vampire we need to hunt down.”

Asha snorts and her eyes dart away from my face to study an empty corner of our room. “Prudent, my, my. Aren’t we a teacher’s pet. For me, the job is done. We killed the vampire who murdered students and that’s all we had to do.” Then she goes back to patching my wounds, spraying disinfectant, ignoring my winces, and taping a buttload of wound pads to my body.

I can’t let it go this easily, though. “How do you know it wasn’t the other vampire? What if it turns out you were wrong and the killings continue? I’m not risking my literal neck just because you feel homesick—“ I stop myself and take a deep breath before I can go on and fuck up my ruse. Must not sound too eager to stay. A scared, hurt puppy wouldn’t fight tooth and nail at the first sign of resistance. I will have to make my point calmly.