Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

Wow, these things do a lot of damage. Won’t help with the breed, though. Speed it up, Jill.

The long hall stretched in front of me. Doors on either side, each as anonymous as the next. But thanks to Narcisa, I knew which one I was aiming for.

The one at the end.

The one standing ajar, slowly opening as I pelted down the hall, whip jangling and right hand flashing down to my belt, grabbing what I wanted with a swift jerk and snapping it away.

Everything now depended on speed.

I hit the slowly-opening door going full throttle, it snapped away from the hinges and I rode it like a surfboard, my boots gripping its surface. The shock of landing was broken by something kind-of-soft; I still used it to push off and landed on the table. It was a long dinner-affair with wrought-iron candelabra at even intervals, I kicked one off as I pounded down the table. Hellbreed scattered — the movers and shakers of the local community, gathered here to carve up a helpless city like a big fat roast.

Narcisa had told me enough to guess what they were aiming at. With the city’s hunter out of commission, they would have free rein until another hunter could be found. We are so few.

At the far end, something white hung from the ceiling, a shape against the black wall. Two arms, stretched up and clasped in leather cuffs, and a pale body topped with a shock of black hair. Stripes of blood, dried and fresh, marred the paleness. Bruises glared.

The squealing behind me ratcheted down into a growl. I didn’t stop, just tossed the grenade back over my shoulder and leapt off the end of the table, over the empty twisted monstrosity of an iron chair at the head. Hit the wall, fingers digging into leather restraints and my knees slamming into concrete. My other hand swept with the knife, leather parting like water. We swung, and the metal pins driven into the ceiling gave with a shriek.

That’s the price of hellbreed-enhanced muscle and bone. A heavier ass. I didn’t need to cut the leather he was hanging from anyway — my weight would have torn it free — but I’m glad I did.

It pays to be sure . Almost-sure can get you killed.

BOOM.

The impact would have crushed me against him if we hadn’t already been falling. I twisted , hoped I wasn’t going to break any of his bones, took the shock of the landing on my right side. Silver nails driven in through my ears, a warm gush from my nose, a rib snapped but my arm wasn’t broken. I knew this because I was already hauling him up. Smoking silver-laced shrapnel peppered the walls, and every single hellbreed in here had taken a full shot.

Move fast, Jill. Move now.

He was limp laundry. Deadweight hefted up over my shoulder, and now I had to get us both out. I couldn’t stop to check his pulse, but if he was dead I could at least make sure he got a burial or a pyre — the Weres would know what he preferred. And afterward I could serve vengeance on every single hellbreed in this room. They don’t heal quick after their hard shell is breached with silver, and I’d marked everyone in here with that handy little grenade. I had two more of them, too.

Now it was just time to get out of here.

I found out I was yelling. “Holding the line, Slade!” My voice sounding oddly muffled because I was half-deaf from the shock of the grenade. “ Holding the fucking line !”

And I guess it was my night for miracles. Because as I headed for the hall, my right hand flashing down to get another grenade and my legs pumping, the scar burning as it burrowed in toward bone, he stopped flopping bonelessly against my shoulder. He twitched, and kept moving a little, helping as much as he could while in a fireman’s carry. I also heard, through the ringing deadness in my ears, that he was yelling.

Goddamn.

Slade’s house was full of Weres. They were repairing his door, cleaning up the mess I’d made in his sparring room, and just generally setting things to rights. One of them, a lithe tawny werecougar, was in the kitchen humming while he cooked something that smelled really good. That’s Weres for you — there’s no event on earth they won’t serve munchies for.

I hadn’t even asked any of their names.

Slade coughed. I eased him back down on the bed and lowered the glass of water. Even healing sorcery takes a toll on the body, and he’d been in bad shape. But internal bleeding was stopped and as long as he had a day or so of rest and quiet, he’d be all right. I ran my smart eye over him again, critically, seeing the thin fine lines of blue sorcery humming in his flesh.

“Jesus,” he whispered when he finished hacking. “I got to quit smoking.”

I snorted. He didn’t smoke, but the bravado was necessary. When you get torn down and carried out of a hellbreed hole during a firefight, completely naked and yelling, the humor becomes a need instead of a luxury.

“Narcisa.” His face screwed up under its mask of bruising. Two of the lioness Weres had helped me sponge-bathe him, rumbling the deep throbbing noise they use when one of their own is badly hurt. It’s their own peculiar kind of healing sorcery, and he’d needed all he could get. “Female, hellbreed, black hair—”

“I got her.” In your dining room, as a matter of fact. “She’s not going to hunt any hunters again.”

“Good deal.” He thought for a couple of seconds. “Moroc, too? Head hellspawn … brown and green, likes to … wear velvet … like fucking Lord Fauntleroy? Was by the door … when you busted in…”

I considered telling him to take it easy. Knew he wouldn’t anyway. “I don’t know. I think the door landed on him. Grenade might’ve got him.”

“Grenade.” A shadow of a smile on his tired, bruised face. “Knew you’d…” Trailed off.

“Of course you did.” My face felt like stone. I’m a hunter, Slade. Of course I came when you called. And if you’d been dead, I would have cleaned out that hole and done my best before I had to go back to my city. “I’m holding the line, Slade. Rest.”

“They were going … going to … with my city—”

With him out of the way, the hellbreed could do what they liked. Hunters are stretched thin, for all the Church and the authorities do their best to help. It’s not everyone who can do this sort of thing. It’s not the kind of job you can apply for or put on a business card.

Because really, there’s such a thin line between them and us. We have to be like what we hunt in some ways.

But we hold that thin fine line. I don’t know if it makes us truly better. I do think it makes us different.

At least, I hope it does. If it doesn’t, it means every hunter commits murder every night for nothing. I refuse to believe that. For every one we kill, a victim lives. Maybe even more than one.

Does one balance out the other?

It has to. I have to believe it does. We all have to believe it does.

“Your city’s safe.” It had been a long time since I even tried to sound soothing. “You’re back on the job. The Weres will stay here. You should be ready to get ornery tomorrow night at the latest.”

On the outside, helped with sorcery, yes. I didn’t want to ask what he’d suffered after Narcisa got hold of him. To be stripped of your weapons and at the mercy of the hellbreed we hunt, to know your city and the innocents that depend on you are vulnerable and unprotected … Jesus.

He nodded. Sagged back into the pillows. I smoothed the coverlet down over his chest. The scar was flushed and full under its copper carapace.

“You look good, Kiss.”

I made a face. Don’t call me that . “Mayhem suits me.”

His face changed a little, and I thought he was going to thank me. To stop him, I dug in one of my pockets. “Oh, hey.” I tried to sound casual. “These are yours. Some of them, probably.”