A crisp wind ducked between the buildings and snuck beneath my light jacket, bringing with it the scents of bread and coffee and some sort of greasy who-knew-what from a food cart on the corner. I pulled my hood up and hoped the wind would take some of my own stench away in the process. Hours of running and sweating and all sorts of anxiety-making activities hadn’t left me feeling as fresh as a daisy. Fortunately, it seemed New Yorkers weren’t the type to pay attention to a scraggly waif in their midst or, at least, didn’t feel obliged to say anything about a little stink.
I had no doubt I looked like the greenest tourist in existence as I worked my way through the touch screen menu to get a MetroCard, but I finally managed to pay my fare and board the train I needed without having to ask the homeless guy sitting against the wall for help. A small crowd was already waiting for the train, but I continued farther down the platform and managed to score a car with only a few people in it. An Asian woman sat at the far end, headphones on and lips moving as if silently singing along to her music. A few seats away a black man in a business suit knitted something blue and complex. A man with reddish-brown hair and wearing sunglasses sat in the middle of the car, a German Shepherd sitting quietly at his feet.
The dog lifted its head and let out a low growl as I sidled past. I froze.
“Hush, Marla,” the man murmured, and the dog subsided and laid its head on its paws again. “It’s because you’re a pretty girl,” he continued, not moving except to speak. “Marla gets jealous of pretty girls.”
All right, so apparently he wasn’t blind since he knew I was a girl. Though maybe he was blind since I was far from pretty at the moment. “Yeah, well, tell her I’m not your type,” I said, probably a bit more grumpily than I’d intended, but blind or not, the dude creeped me out a little, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. I tugged my hood a bit lower, quickly continued to the end of the car and stood by the door before looking back at the pair. The man hadn’t moved and still seemed to be staring straight ahead, but Marla watched me intently. When my stop came I hurried off, weirdly relieved when they remained on the train.
Maybe Marla used to be a cadaver dog? I mused as I trotted up the steps of the subway station. Ed Quinn’s girlfriend, Marianne, had worked search and rescue with a dog who’d been trained to find corpses. Ed had used the dog’s ability to smell rotting flesh to find zombies, who he’d then stalked and murdered.
I shuddered, glad to emerge from the subway even though the sun had set and I didn’t know the turf. It was beyond unlikely that some random guy on a subway in New York would figure out I was a zombie—or even know about zombies in the first place—but the encounter still left me weirded out.
At the risk of looking like a tourist again, I consulted the map and peered at street signs to get my bearings. Fortunately, I looked raggedy enough that I didn’t make a tempting mark for pickpockets or muggers. Or maybe the ever-so-faint scent of rot wafting off me kept assailants at bay. Hey, whatever worked. Stuffing the map back into my pocket, I tugged my hood down low again and slouched east on Canal Street. Surely Brian would have enough brains with him that I could top off. It wouldn’t solve my spongy patches, but I’d take what I could get at this point.
After another quick peek at the map, I continued for several blocks on Canal—which wasn’t much like the Canal Street in New Orleans at all—then headed north on Greene. After half a block I slowed my pace and let myself drink in the charm of the area. With wrought-iron lamps, cobbled streets and granite blocks instead of pavement, the street instantly gave off a vibe of sedate and classy. Narrow buildings four or five stories high crowded together on either side, many with carved and columned store fronts, and with fire escapes painted the same color as the rest of the structure. The occasional bit of graffiti dotted a wall, but less frequently as I continued up the street. It was quieter along here, and even the thrum of car tires over cobblestones seemed almost melodic.
And, best of all, I spied the sign for Grand Street at the end of the block, as well as one for Betsy’s Bakes.
Hot fucking damn, I actually found it. I smiled. Look at me, getting the hang of this big city shit.
An elderly man strode by, humming softly to himself. A cyclist wove between cars and darted through the intersection with a Fuck You to traffic laws. A couple of young women exited Betsy’s Bakes, and a man talking on his phone on the opposite corner watched them for a few seconds before turning away again. The man’s bomber jacket looked like poor Chris Peterson’s, and a tug of grief went through me.
The man turned his head to glance down the cross street, and my heart gave a quick double-thud as his profile registered. Boat Launch Guy—Edwards, the security guard at Saberton who’d helped escort Jane out. He wasn’t in uniform now, but rather a dark green sweater, khaki slacks, and the jacket stolen from a murder victim. But I didn’t believe for a second that he was off-duty.
Pulse racing, I stopped and pretended to consult something on my phone while I continued to scan. Saberton. Did they have Brian? Or had Brian sold me out? Were they waiting for me?
I had no answers, and I also had no way of knowing if any of the other pedestrians were bad guys. No way was Edwards here staking this place out on his own, but he was the only one I recognized. And if I didn’t get the hell off the street, it was only a matter of time before they recognized me.
Doing my best not to appear suspicious, I ducked into the nearest shop and quickly closed the door behind me. Some sort of antique shop or interior design place, judging by the furniture and knick knacks and décor shit. I edged past a settee and a table full of globes to where I could peer out the window, angling so that I could watch Edwards on the corner as well as the entrance to Betsy’s Bakes. Another man ambled toward the intersection from farther up the street, and I caught the quick glance he exchanged with Edwards before he crossed. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of a tan trench coat. I had no trouble imagining weapons in them.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” a clear voice asked.
Startled, I spun around to see a sharp-featured, thirty-something man in a dark grey suit regarding me with a wary expression. “I don’t want any trouble in here,” he stated, then pointed toward the door. “Take it outside.”
I shot a quick look at the man in the trench coat, pulse quickening as he began strolling toward the shop. Shit! Had he seen me? Or was he simply walking and patrolling, or whatever it was called when bad guys did it? Either way, my level of “I’m fucked” was rapidly climbing.
I quickly moved away from the window and toward the shop dude. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled even as I cast another furtive look over my shoulder. I couldn’t see where Trench Coat had gone. “You got a back door I can use?” I asked him, not faking the desperation in my voice one bit. “I swear to god I’m not running from the cops.”
His eyes narrowed as they raked over me, and I had no illusions about what he saw. I looked like a homeless waif, possibly a drug addict. And not from New York either, not with my southern accent waving the not-a-Yankee flag. I half-expected him to reach for a phone to call the cops, but to my surprise he jerked his head toward the back.
“Thanks,” I breathed, then darted toward the little hallway that led to the rear of the shop. At the end of the hall was a small bathroom and a storage room, and to the left was an office with a loveseat crammed in a corner and a desk against the far wall. A brass coat rack held a black wool coat and a tweed fedora. But I didn’t see a back door anywhere.
I turned to Shop Dude in time to see him click the lock on the front door and flip the sign to Closed. That done, he turned and headed my way, an ugly smile on his face.
I’d almost been raped once, though I was drugged at the time and managed to almost die before it could happen. Since then I’d processed the various thoughts and feelings about that incident any number of times and wondered what would have happened if the guy who’d spiked my drink hadn’t taken that curve too quickly and died in the resulting car wreck, wondered what would have happened if I’d survived the cocktail of drugs in my system and he’d done the shit he’d wanted to do to me. I still had the occasional nightmare, even though I survived the experience in every way that mattered.
But all that shit came swimming back up to the surface as Shop Dude came toward me, confident and cocky. He was about to get himself a piece of southern tail from the pathetic homeless waif who’d wandered into his shop late on a Sunday afternoon. He knew he was in control. Maybe he’d threaten to call the police if I fought back, accuse me of theft or prostitution. He looked like a fairly respectable man, not at all sleazy or smarmy. Cops would believe his side of it, no doubt.
“C’mon, man, where’s the fucking back door?” I said, then ducked into the office as I saw Trench Coat walk past the shop. Shit. Maybe I was reading the whole situation with Shop Dude wrong. Anything was possible, right?
“What’s your hurry?” he asked, stepping into the office. He closed the door behind him, eyes traveling over me with a combination of distaste and nastiness in them.
Nope. Wasn’t reading the situation wrong one little bit. Damn it. I backed away out of pure instinct, stopped when I came up against the desk then lifted my chin.
“Seriously?” I loaded my voice with exasperation, though it sounded high and shaky to my ears. “Is this where I have to give you a BJ to get out of here?”
“For starters,” he replied, then reached behind him and locked the office door, a move that I knew damn well was meant to intimidate me.
I pushed the hood back from my face and bared my teeth. I had a gun, but a gunshot would bring the Saberton guys running. “You do this often?” I asked. “You see girls in trouble and figure you can get some action?”
He shrugged as he unbuckled his belt, eyes remaining on me in a way that made my skin want to crawl off and take a hot shower. “All I see right now is you,” he said, unzipping.
I looked down at the semi-hard cock that flopped out of his pants. “I’m gonna take that as a yes,” I said, then returned my attention to his face. “No way is this your first time.”
“Suck my dick, you little whore,” he sneered, “or I call the cops and tell them I caught you shoplifting.”
Even though I’d known he was going to say that, it still robbed me of my breath for an instant. My pulse raced as old fear yammered in the back of my head, trying to tell me I was weak and small and couldn’t possibly fight back against this guy. Old insecurities joined in, adding that I wasn’t worth fighting for, that it would be easier to let it happen and try and put it behind me later.
I heard a low growl and realized it was coming from my own throat. Fuck the fear and fuck the insecurities. I was worth fighting for. Every woman was worth fighting for. Didn’t matter if they were trash or addicts or rich or popular. Didn’t matter if they dressed like a homeless waif, or in tight skirts and heels, or in jeans and flannel. No one deserved to feel helpless and worthless the way this goddamn asshole wanted me to feel and, I had no doubt, made other girls feel.
“If you’re going to call the cops to report a crime,” I said, flexing my hands, “it should be for something more interesting than theft.”
A flicker of hesitation passed over his face, but he recovered and let out a chuckle before giving his stupid cock a couple of strokes. “You think I’m scared of a little whore barely half my size—”
The rest of his sentence died in a gurgling cry of pain as I punched him as hard as I could in his pretty nose.
He staggered back against the door, hands automatically going to his face and the gush of blood. I fell back into a stance and without a broken hand, which meant that my success with Carol Ann at the bar hadn’t been a fluke. I guess all those drills on the punching bag paid off!
This guy wasn’t a weenie like Carol Ann, though. It only took him a couple of seconds to recover, anger burning through the pain. He pushed off the door to grab me, one hand reaching out like a claw.
Time didn’t slow down or any crap like that. I didn’t have a cloud bubble above my head with my sensei telling me what to do. But I still grabbed that extended wrist with one hand, seized his shoulder with the other, yanked his balance onto one foot, and then executed the prettiest damn osoto gari any martial artist had ever seen.
Okay, it wasn’t actually all that pretty, since the office was cramped, and Shop Dude had no idea how to fall properly—shame on him. But I did manage to sweep his leg—to my unending shock—and sent him crashing to the floor. And if I happened to lose my balance and land on him with my elbow in his solar plexus, well, shame on me.
His breath whooshed out, and he turned some pretty shades of purple. I replaced the elbow with my knee and grabbed his throat as I knelt on top of him, then reached my other hand down to grab hold of his balls. A part of me wished I could bring myself to bite his damn cock off, but, eeew.
“I’VE HAD A REALLY SHITTY DAY,” I yelled, my face inches from his. “And then you come along, and you try to make it worse? Are you fucking kidding me?”
He made a strangled sound, and I loosened the grip on his throat a bit—just enough to keep him from turning blue.
I silently counted to ten in order to regain some calm. Or at least the Angel-version of calm. “Let’s try this again,” I said, keeping my voice nice and even and friendly-like. Well, maybe not all that friendly, since I had my fingers dug into the sides of his neck, and the grip on his balls . . . well, that wasn’t friendly at all. “Listen close, asshole. I want to be damn sure you understand what I’m about to tell you.”
His eyes met mine, and for the first time I saw doubt and, yes, fear. Hunger coiled hot and tight in my gut, and I inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring at the scent of his brain beneath the fear. I wasn’t hungry enough to be out of control, but that didn’t mean I was unaware of the Food beneath my hand.
“I know all about monsters,” I purred, face close to his. Sweat broke out on his upper lip, and he made a quick attempt to throw me off, but I simply tightened my grip on his throat until he gasped and coughed. “Shh . . . We’re talking here. You’re being rude.” I relaxed my hand enough for him to suck in a breath. “You get off on being a monster. How many girls have you done this to?” His eyes darted around the room, and I shook my head. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. You won’t tell me the truth anyway.”
He saw it in my eyes, saw what a real monster looked like. The fear wafted off him like bad cologne. I could kill him, eat his brain. On the surface it sounded like a great idea. The guy was a piece of shit, and society would be better off without him.
But the reality was a lot stickier—literally, in some ways. Killing him would draw all sorts of attention, and—so far at least—I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. I’d killed two men in my life. One was William Rook a.k.a. Walter McKinney, whose skull I’d smashed after he shot me a bunch of times. I didn’t feel any guilt about him whatsoever. He was a despicable and horrible person who’d killed plenty of people who hadn’t deserved it one bit.
The other one . . . Every now and then, that one kept me up at night. He’d been a Saberton man sent to retrieve Naomi—back when she was still Heather—after she broke her brother’s nose and ran. During a firefight out on a deserted highway he shot me as I came at him. In response, I took a baseball bat to his head. In the heat of that moment, he’d done what he had to do, and so had I. But I couldn’t console myself with the idea that he was a terrible human being, so it was okay to kill him. None of this shit was black and white, and everything had consequences.
I released the dude’s throat and balls, then stood. He rolled to one side and tried to cradle his nads and his nose at the same time. “You broke my nose,” he whined. “Jesus Christ. My nose.”
“I let you off easy,” I said sharply, then stepped past him, unlocked the office door, and peered cautiously out. No sign of any Saberton guys hanging around outside the shop. I eased to the front and peeked around the globes. Edwards and Trench Coat were nowhere in sight, and I didn’t see anyone else who could remotely be a security type in disguise. I decided to be cautiously optimistic that no one had seen me.
Shop dude was still curled on the floor when I returned. “What are you going to do?” he asked, voice muffled by the hand he held to his bleeding nose.
I gave him a disgusted look. It pissed me off that I couldn’t do anything to this guy except leave him with a broken nose, but all the other options would draw a bunch of unwanted attention to me. “I’m going to leave, you fucking prick.”
Anger and fear danced across his face. His eyes flicked from me to the door, as if unable to believe it could be that simple.
I wanted to make it as unsimple as possible, but I only had a few options at the moment. I prodded him in the lower ribs with the toe of my shoe. Hard. “Gimme your wallet,” I ordered.
His jaw tightened, but he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and slapped it onto the floor in front of him. I crouched and checked out the contents. Looked like over four hundred in cash, and an absolutely ridiculous number of credit cards. I yanked his ID out and peered at it. “You’re a piece of shit, Jerome Womack.” I wanted to leave him with some sort of threat about how I’d deal with him later, but at this point I needed to get the fuck out of there even more. In a perfect world I’d be able to take care of all my other shit, then return here and exact glorious vengeance for every woman this shitstain had abused or taken advantage of. But this wasn’t a perfect world. I knew that from hard experience.
Straightening, I jammed the wallet into the pocket of my jacket then grabbed a rubber band off the desk. “Have fun cancelling all your cards, asshole.”
With that I grabbed the black wool coat off the rack and tugged it on, slapped the fedora onto my head, and left.