Shards and Ashes

doubt that gods could be real. All she could do was kill the monsters and hope that if this god was real, so were other—better—gods.

“Are you going to stay quiet all night?” Chris prodded.

“Sorry.” She leaned her head against him briefly. “Dad was weird; we’re working downtown; the news about Taylor . . . I guess I’m feeling . . . I don’t know.”

“Me too,” he said.

“We’re almost there. Let’s go kill something. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get more than one tonight.”

The shift in Harmony’s mood as she pondered the inevitable violence in their night was markedly different from Chris’ reaction. Every time they cornered a Nido, Chris was filled with fear of losing Harmony. Afterward, he was cheered, but until they were past the fighting, he was apprehensive. Harmony was comforted by the prospect of violence—of revenge—in ways he almost envied.

They entered Old Downtown and started to prowl the clubs. There weren’t as many people out this near curfew. Those who were fell into one of four categories: the devoted, the deniers, the deadly, or the dying. Which category a person fell into wasn’t always apparent at first sight. There were cues, of course. The people still denying the hell they were living in were the ones most likely to be wearing shoes not suited for running. Admittedly, though, the dying were prone to such folly on occasion. They weren’t necessarily rushing to their deaths, but sometimes their “what happens, happens” approach meant that they were as likely to flee from the corpse-feeders as not. The devoted wore shoes fit for running down prey. The deadly were clad in boots, easier to load with weapons and still useful for running.

“My girl’s not feeling well,” Chris told the doorman as they approached the line outside the Norns. “Can we get inside so none of the N—so no one notices?”

Harmony’s posture had shifted as they’d walked. She leaned on him, appearing fragile, and simultaneously tilted her head so that the bruises along her collarbone were visible. “It’s okay. I can wait out here,” she murmured to him. “I don’t mind—”

“I do,” he snapped. He pulled her closer, caught her hand in his, and lifted it to his lips to kiss her wrist. In the process, the sleeve of her jacket slid back, exposing the bruised and needle-marked skin of her arm. He wasn’t sure what she’d injected into her body. Drugs? Nothing? It wasn’t disease: he was certain of that. Harmony’s pallor, bruises, and demeanor were all lures. She counted on the illusion of sickness, and most nights, it was enough.

Chris caught her gaze. “Harm?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. She hadn’t been fine in a long time, but that wasn’t something he knew how to fix.

The doorman motioned them in. “You shouldn’t have her out here when she’s sick, man.”

The frown Chris gave the man wasn’t faked. “If I could keep her somewhere safe, I would.”

Harmony winced. “Come dance with me.”

Sometimes, he wished they could go out to the clubs for an actual date. Instead, their evenings were spent training, hunting, and killing. It had long since stopped being the life he wanted, but he couldn’t leave here without her. He wouldn’t. Instead, he kept his arm around her, and together they made their way into the crowd. Time hadn’t healed him; no amount of killing seemed to bring him peace. It had helped her, but he had been fighting for a couple of years before she had joined him. Maybe that was the difference: he was tired.

Harmony tensed as she saw her prey: a Nido approached, trying to sniff her out.

Chris wondered how far she’d go to ensnare them. The bruises on her arm were injection marks. As much as he believed that she wouldn’t sicken herself too much to fight, he also knew that if she could carry a disease that lured them, she would. Mentally, he made a note to try to get some clothes worn by the recently ill. Doing so was difficult, because the scent of illness faded too soon, but it was a strategy that added a little bit of extra verisimilitude.

“Couple fight now,” Harmony whispered as he pulled her toward him.

“Harm—”

“Teammates, Chris. I’m not as vulnerable as I look. You know that.” She looked down, so her forehead was resting against his chest while she spoke.

“I still worry,” he said. They could only use so many scenarios before they were caught. They rotated sections, rotated clubs within the sections, but even that wasn’t enough. Different scenarios made sense.

“It’s what we do; it’s worth it.” Harmony’s voice sounded raw. “If we’re going to die, it has to be for something, Chris. If we’re going to live—”

“I know,” he interrupted. You’re my reason, Harm. My religion. He put his hand on the back of her neck. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Not too fast.”

“Count five and go.” Chris watched the Nido approach with the same trepidation he always felt. He and Harmony had a system, and it worked—but so had the system he and Chastity had used.

“You don’t understand.” Harmony shoved him and turned away, running into the Nido’s arms as if she were unaware that he was there all along.

Now comes the hard part.

Chris stepped up to the bar and ordered a drink. He wasn’t going to walk out the moment Harmony left. More than half the time, Nidos in this part of town worked in pairs. It made this section harder to work, but it also meant that hunting here usually meant two kills. Of course, it also meant that their side often took more risks—and more casualties.

In the mirror that hung behind the liquor bottles, Chris watch as the Nido said something to Harmony. In barely three minutes, he had an arm around her, leading her away, taking her outside. The challenge for Chris was in not looking over his shoulder, not racing outside, not scooping her up and insisting they escape north to try to find a safer place to live.

Instead of doing all the things he wanted to, Chris waited, half hoping that the Nido’s partner would arrive and half hoping that there was no partner so he could move on to the next step of this strategy: run after his emotional girlfriend.

Harmony nodded and held on to the Nido’s arm as he directed her to a side door of the Norns. Her heart was steadier every time she did this, as if there was a calm almost in reach, and she wondered guiltily if the calm was death. She wasn’t going to slit her wrists or do anything drastic, but she was well aware that most hunters died. Dying while fighting for a better future seemed like a good way to go, maybe even a way to reach the kind of afterlife where she could be happy, where she could enjoy the sort of existence that people talked about when they talked about before.

The crack of metal on metal echoed as the door hit the handrail on the cement ramp into the alley. If she hadn’t been going outside to kill him, stepping into the poorly lit alley would be unsettling. As it was, she found the dark comforting.

“Do you have a car or something?” She slid her free hand into her pants pocket to withdraw the knife hidden there, but before she withdrew it, a beam of light flashed on, aimed directly at her and blinding her temporarily.

“You won’t need that,” the Nido beside her said.

Then another voice drew her attention: “She’s my only other child. We’ll be even now, right?”

“Daddy?” Harmony stumbled, partly from the inability to see and partly from the panic that washed over her. “Daddy! What are you doing here?”

She jerked her arm away from the Nido, but he caught her, gripping her biceps with a bruising hand before she could go very far. Think, Harm. Think. She couldn’t expect Chris to hear her if she screamed; the music inside was too loud. All she could do was buy time until he got there—except every scenario she knew was a blank then. Her father was it, the last family she knew she still had. Her sister was dead; her mother was dead.

The light lowered, and she saw another Nido standing beside her father. This one looked like a reasonably attractive woman, and she stood beside Harmony’s father like she was his date: a small smile on her lips and a hand resting lightly in the crook of his folded arm.

“She looks a lot like the other one,” the female Nido said.