Lilith Saintcrow: Night Shift

The body had been savaged, great chunks torn out. The face had been taken off, and his short cop-buzz haircut had beads of dried blood sticking to its bristly ends. The only thing left intact was the curve of a jaw, slightly fuzzed with stubble. He hadn't shaved, this man.

"That one's Sanders." Monty shifted his weight, his slippers squeaking a little against the tile. "About forty-five. Retiring next month, early."

A lifer. And before my time . Now he'd never retire. I drew the zipper down more, studying the mass of meat. His feet were stacked neatly between his knees, and his right arm was missing. The ribs were snapped, and the smell boiled up into my nose and down into my stomach, turning into sourness.

That's hellbreed, and something else. Something I should know. A reek like that is distinctive, and I should be up on it, dammit. Are we looking at a hellbreed working in concert with something else? They're not like that, most of them are jealous fucks. Still, it's possible. But nothing a hellbreed can control smells like this . The shudder bolted down my spine. I drew the zipper up, went to the next one.

"Kincaid," Monty supplied. "Twenty-eight. Good solid cop."

I nodded, pulled the zipper down in one swipe.

This one had a face. A round, blond, good-natured, blood-speckled face. I swallowed hard. The rags of his uniform couldn't hide the massive damage done to this body either—the purple of the torn esophagus, white bits of bone, a flicker of cervical vertebra peering up at me. His throat had been torn out and his viscera scattered. The bathroom stink of cut bowel flooded the chilly air. Both his femurs were snapped.

Marlow, the third, had been savaged. He'd been the driver in the first traffic unit, and whatever had attacked him had plenty of time to do its work. There was barely enough left to be recognizable as human.

The fourth—Anderson, Marlow's partner—was the worst. His arm had been torn off, something exerting terrific force to break the humerus just below the shoulder. The force had to have been applied at an angle for the bone to yield before the shoulder dislocated. His other limbs hung by strips of meat. All of them. And his head.

There wasn't enough of any of them left for an open-casket service.

As always, the shudder passed and the bodies became a puzzle. Where did this piece go, where did that piece go?

Then I would catch myself, horrified. These were human beings . Each one of them had gotten up out of bed this morning expecting to see sundown. Nobody is ever really prepared to die, no matter what you see in movies or read in fairytales.

My stomach churned, a hole of heat opening right behind my breastbone. Marty's Turns were starting to look pretty good. He bought them by the case, he wouldn't miss a few hundred.

I zipped Anderson's bag back up. Turned to find both Stan and Marty staring at me. "I'll drop in later for the files." My eyes burned, stinging, from disinfectant married to the smell of death. "What exactly did the first on-site traffic unit report?"

"Just 'something weird. There wasn't a code for it." Monty's paleness had long since passed from cheese to paper. "Jill?"

"I don't know yet, Monty. Give me a little time to work this thing. Have traffic units take precautions; if it's weird and there's not a code, don't stop . Tell the beat cops too—they're vulnerable. If they see anything weird, they're to report so I can get a pattern of movement, but they are not to pursue. Got it?"

He nodded. "Do you have an idea, at least? I don't want to know," he added hurriedly. "But…"

But you feel better when the hunter at least has an idea. I know, Monty. I know . I could have given a com-foiling lie. "No." I looked at the bodies, lying slumped under their rubber blankets. All safe and snug, never having to worry about the job or the cold winter again.

Bile rose in my throat. "No. But I'm going to find out."

Because whatever this is smells like hellbreed and rips things up like no hellbreed should. The claw shape is strange. If I didn't know better I'd think it was a Were. But no Were, even a rogue, would go near anything hellbreed.

Great.

False dawn gathered gray in the east, veils of fog from the river reaching up like fat white fingers as I gunned the engine. I winced as my orange Impala's full-throated purr took on a subtle knocking. Need to get that fixed. Should change the oil soon too .

The interstate—or the Drag, if you're a local—comes up out of the well of the city in slight curves north through Ridgefield toward the capital, striking for the heart of desert and sagebrush once it's out of the low-lying area watered by the river. Coming down into the city it veers through suburbs, taking advantage of the high ground and flying over deep gullies and concrete washes built to siphon off flash floods. Once it hits the actual city limits it becomes three lanes in either direction, jammed during rush hour and perfect for illegal races once normal people are in bed.

Just south of downtown there's a stretch with hills on either side, thick with trees and trashwood, the green belt going up to chain-link fences facing the blank backs of businesses and warehouses. The scene was still crawling with forensic techs, and when I parked at the periphery a thin, nervous traffic cop came bustling up to tell me to move along—and retreated as I rose out of the Impala, meeting his eyes and keeping my silence. He recognized me, of course.

They all do.

I've heard they have a pool on where I'm going to show up and when, and the betting is fierce; there is a whole arcane system of verifying sightings left over from Mikhail's tenure. Hunter sightings are comforting for them; lets them know I'm still on the job.

It's when I disappear for a while that they get nervous.

Two lanes of southbound traffic were blocked off, and traffic was extremely light. Still, the infrequent cars were slowing down to gawk, and the scene was being trampled.

I couldn't blame them. Cops never like to lose one of their own. Most of them were observing a respectful silence. Quite a few of them looked like they'd been rousted from bed, too. I saw Sullivan, his red hair catching fire on top of his lanky frame as the sun began its work in earnest. His partner, a short motherly woman in a sweater-coat and knit leggings, stood beside him staring at one of the long garish streaks of wetness on the road. The streaks everyone was hypnotized by.

Blood doesn't dry as quickly as everyone thinks, even out here at the edge of the desert. It stays tacky-wet for a long time before it turns into a crust. A flat iron tang rose to my nose, like a banner through the stew of humans milling around and the sharp dual stink of hellbreed and something else, something I'd never smelled before.

Mikhail would have mentioned something like this if he'd ever come across it, wouldn't he ? I caught myself. Concentrate on the job, Jesus, you're getting punchy .

Too bad I wasn't going to get any rest anytime soon.

I threaded my way through the milling crowd. As fast as people arrived others left, to go back to work or home after paying their respects. It was eerily quiet, and the scar throbbed on my wrist, tension and frustration in the air plucking at it. Got to cover that goddamn thing up .

Word of my appearance spread quickly, a murmur through the crowd. Foster, his sleek dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, was the only one brave enough to approach. Of course, he was my Forensics liaison this month since Pepper was out on maternity leave. He ducked carefully under the yellow tape keeping everyone back—in this crowd, there was no shoving. The mannerly silence was almost as eerie as the palpable grief.