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“IT’S GOING TO TAKE hours to find our target,” I complained, whispering so my voice didn’t carry.
“Then we’d better begin our search,” Ruen said fatalistically.
With no idea which building the demon lived in, we were going to have to check every structure that contained their kind. The worst part was that they were probably all guilty of crimes that carried a death sentence. The inhabitants would either fight or flee when they realized a pair of Lord Gilden’s bounty hunters were here.
My prediction came true as we approached the first decrepit apartment building. A demon stuck his head out through a glassless window to peer down at us. He swore beneath his breath when he recognized me. One look at my long purple hair and sexy leather and lace outfit was enough for him to figure out who I was. “Bounty hunters!” he shouted, then ran for his life.
Ruen and I split up to cover the front and back of the building. I held my mini crossbow in one hand and a knife in the other. None of the people who scattered from the structure matched the description Lenny had given us. A few demons escaped through windows from the sides of the building, but Ruen was fast enough to get a look at them.
“Did you have any luck?” I asked my partner when he trotted over to me.
He shook his head, not at all puffed from sprinting backwards and forwards. “I didn’t see any blond men with brown patches on the backs of their heads,” he replied.
“Psst!” a voice hissed and we both spun around. I lowered my crossbow when I saw a wererat peering at us from the corner of the building across the street. He beckoned at us with a filthy finger, then drew back into the shadows.
“Do you think we should see what he wants?” I murmured.
“I think he’ll lure us to his starving pack, then they’ll try to kill us so they can feast on our corpses,” Ruen said sourly.
I snorted out a laugh, then decided to speak to the shifter. He might have information for us, if I was willing to part with some cash.
Ruen caught up to me after a few strides. Unseen eyes watched us as the demons in nearby apartments tried to figure out if we were after them. I kept glancing backwards to make sure no one was creeping up on us, even though I’d be able to sense them if they were. My sidekick would be able to hear and smell them coming as well.
The wererat was waiting for us inside the rusted-out skeleton of a car. The seats were still largely intact, so I guessed it was his temporary home. In his sixties, he stank of sweat, dirt and unwashed greasy hair that hadn’t seen a barber in at least a year. “I know where the demon you’re looking for is hiding,” he whispered, eyes darting around furtively. It wasn’t easy for shifters to get drunk, especially on the cheap wine that this guy reeked of. He’d have to drink a couple of gallons of it to become inebriated. His clothes were threadbare and he was obviously down on his luck.
“Where’s his lair?” I asked.
“How much is it worth to you?” he retorted slyly.
“Will two hundred bucks do?”
His eyes flared wide with desperate hope. “Yeah. That’ll do it,” he rasped and held a grimy hand out.
“Tell us the demon’s location first,” Ruen ordered him.
“How do I know you’ll pay me?” the rat asked suspiciously.
“I always pay my informants,” I told him and took the cash out of my wallet. “Where’s the demon?” I asked, holding the notes up enticingly.
Licking his lips, the shifter snuck a look over his shoulder again before replying. “He lives in a ramshackle hut under the bridge a couple of blocks from here. He’s sharing it with a couple of his no-good friends.”
I slanted a look at Ruen and his vampire mojo enveloped the wererat. “Are you telling us the truth?” he asked.
The informant went rigid and nodded woodenly. “That piebald demon has a thing for female joggers. He’s killed six of them so far.”
We’d only heard about two of his victims, so the demon was getting sloppy. “Thanks for your help,” I said as my partner released him from his spell.
The rat snatched the notes from my hand with a scowl at having his mind invaded. “Damn vampires messing around in honest peoples’ heads,” he muttered as we walked away.
We returned to Ruen’s car and he drove us closer to the bridge. There were plenty of parking spots on the street. This area was sparsely populated, since few people wanted to live in such a squalid suburb.
“The bridge is only a few minutes from here,” Ruen said and led the way.
I sensed four demons as we approached the bridge that led to a far more affluent area across the river. We quietly descended a few flights of concrete stairs, then the vampire motioned for me to wait. He listened intently, then shook his head in disgust. “Our target is definitely in the hut,” he said. The hut in question was a few sheets of plywood nailed together.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He was bragging about what he did to his victims,” he replied. “He intends to search for more women to accost tomorrow night.”
It was too late for humans to be jogging now, unless they had a death wish. “Cut him off if he tries to run,” I requested bleakly. Six women had died beneath the demon’s hands. I wasn’t going to give him a chance to act out his deranged fantasies on anyone else.
“I’m sure Lord Gilden will understand if you need to eradicate them all,” Ruen said with a glint in his dark eyes. He’d have a ringside seat to the fight that was about to occur. While he couldn’t join in the fun, he could enjoy watching me in action. He would be able to hear everything, even if the battle happened inside the hut.
I rolled my eyes inwardly that my bloodthirsty partner was so keen for me to slaughter all four demons. Walking as quietly as possible in my heeled boots, I approached the hut. The demons were all pimples, including the target. They must have heard me coming, but they weren’t curious enough to check who was encroaching on their turf.
“Knock, knock,” I said in a friendly tone when I reached their door. It was just a loose sheet of plywood that had been dragged over a gap in the boards.
“Who is it?” one of the inhabitants asked in a sing-song voice. They broke into giggles and I smelled some kind of drug issuing through the cracks. It took a lot to get supernatural beings high. Normal drugs did nothing for most of us, so aspiring drug lords had come up with concoctions that were far stronger.
“Girl guides,” I lied.
“Man, I could eat a dozen boxes of cookies,” one of the demons said.
“I could eat two dozen,” another one bragged.
They were so blitzed that they didn’t realize it was after ten o’clock at night. Girl guides would be tucked in their beds, fast asleep by now.
The plywood was dragged aside with a grating noise and a demon with pale blond hair looked out. “I don’t see any cookies,” he said belligerently. “Did you eat them all yourself, fatty?”
“What’s that?” I asked, hiding my weapons behind my back as I looked over his shoulder in mock fear. He turned away to take a look and I saw a brown patch on the back of his head. When he turned around again, he sucked in an alarmed breath when he saw my crossbow pointing at his face. “By the way, I’m not fat,” I told him coldly. “I’m curvy.”
He opened his mouth to shout for help, but my bolt lodged in his eye before he could make a noise. His flesh sizzled as the blessed silver reached his brain. He jittered on the spot, then collapsed to the ground.
“That was harsh,” one of his friends rebuked me as the stoned trio gathered around the corpse.
“What did you do that for?” another asked. They were almost as filthy as the wererat informant. Their clothes hung on their thin, malnourished bodies.
“He had a bounty on his head for murdering human joggers,” I said.
“We told him that was a bad idea,” the third demon said, shaking his head sadly. “But he didn’t listen to us.”
“Can you drag his corpse out of here before he starts to stink up our hut?” one of his friends requested.
“Sure,” I said wryly, then put my crossbow in my kill-bag. I held my knife ready, just in case they tried to attack me, then bent down to grab hold of the target. I heaved him outside and the plywood door was promptly slid shut again.
