Chicks Kick Butt

A heavy cream-colored card, with the address of our house written in rusty ink, a fountain pen’s scratching at the surface of the paper. Ancient, spiky calligraphy, but still readable enough. It reeked of him, the perfume of a Kin.

Dear gods.

I closed the file. Brought it to my chest and hugged hard, the heavy paper crinkling.

Wolf whined low in his throat.

In a few moments, I had the other information I needed. Three locations, one of which was certain to hold this captain of theirs.

There was enough of the night left to accomplish that part of my revenge before I found the traitor who had given pictures of my family to these monsters. And I would make him pay , no matter how old, powerful … or Promethean.

I stared at the petrol canisters for a long moment before shelving my rage once more. There was work to be done.

When the house was aflame, we left.

* * *

The first location—an anonymous ranch house in the suburbs—was empty, but I found evidence of their presence. It was the second, a slumping tenement in the worst sink of the city, that held the prize. The entire place smelled of despair, urine, fried food, and the burning metal of poverty and danger.

I had rescued my Amelie from a place such as this. My hands made fists, loosened, made fists again.

I slid down the hall, crushing the cheap stained carpet under my fouled boots. My hair reeked of smoke again, and my fingers stung with splashed petrol. Wolf padded behind me, his head down. He would need more food before dawn, and a safe place to sleep.

Soon. Very soon.

We rounded the corner, and I saw the door, number 613. It was open a crack, spilling a sword of golden light into the dimness. I halted, and Wolf almost walked into me. He stopped, and tension sprang up between us.

A soft growl, far back in his throat. “Vrykolakas.”

Even through the slurring, I had no trouble deciphering the word. I did not know whether to be saddened or relieved. My own answer was a whisper. “As I am.”

For I sensed him too.

I pushed the door open with tented fingers. Stepped inside. Had he wanted to kill me, I would never have scented him. I would never have heard his strong, ageless pulse.

The apartment began as a tiny hall, a filthy kitchen to the right, a foul bathroom to the left. At the end of the hall, a single room with only a bed and a chair crouching on the colorless carpet.

The narrow bed held the captain’s body, facedown. The dried, shriveled things hanging outside the slits between his ribs were his lungs. It is an old torture—the suffocation is drawn-out and excruciating. His wrists and ankles were lashed to the bed with cords, probably from the cheap blinds covering the window. Or brought to this place, because a careful killer is a successful killer.

Perched in the other chair, his back straight and his sallow face expressionless, was Tarquin.

Wolf snarled and lunged forward. I caught him by his hair, and he folded down to the floor, his knees hitting with a thump that shook the entire room. “No.” I yanked his head back, exposing his throat. “ No , Wolf. He will kill you.”

He might very well kill us both . I met Quinn’s flat dark gaze, his jaw set and a muscle ticking in his cheek. His hair was cut military-short, as ever, and he wore boots to match mine. No spot of blood fouled his leathers. The room could have been a charnel house and still he would have been pristine. Only once had I seen him covered in blood, and screaming.

I shuddered to remember.

“I am not here to kill you.” Flat, as usual, each word with the same monotone weight.

Wolf surged forward. I tightened my grasp in his shaggy hair and pulled him back. Quinn watched this, and a shadow of amusement fluttered in his dark eyes.

“Then what?” The enormity of the treachery threatened to choke me. “ He did this. Your precious White King. He gave over his own kind to mortals!”

“Eleni.” Tarquin’s gaze dropped to the lykanthe. “You were a Promethean, however briefly. You were a prize for him . When you left, he took it ill.”

“No more ill than you did?” Old hurt rose.

That garnered a response. His face twisted briefly. It was shocking, a break in his customary immobility. “I made you. I do not wish to see you unmade.”

He said it as if it would be so easy. I did not doubt that for him, it would be.

Then why had he not done it already? Why wait here, with the last victim but one of my vengeance dead on the crusted sheets of the narrow bed? “Why?”

“Because Leonidas is my King. I cannot stop him.” He paused, considering. “Not yet.”

Somewhere in the tenement, a baby woke. Its shrill faraway cry spiraled into an agony of need. In the street, gunfire echoed.

“But you will?” I did not credit my ears. His name was synonymous with loyalty, and had been for far longer than my own long lifespan.

He nodded once and rose, smoothly. Wolf tensed, and now Quinn looked faintly amused. “Only you would preserve a lykanthe .” One corner of his mouth pulled up, a millimeter’s worth. On him, it was as glaring as a shout.

I opened my mouth to tell him what he could do with his amusement, and his master. But he forestalled me.

“Take your dog and flee. I will tell Leonidas you are dead. Preserve what you can elsewhere, and stay away from the White Court and the Red.” He indicated the bed with a swift, economical motion, and I dragged Wolf back as if his hair were a chain. “Some day, Eleni, I will avenge all his victims. Then I will need your help.” He stopped, hands dangling loose and empty by his sides. “Do we have a bargain?”

I considered this. “Why should I trust you?”

“You are still breathing, are you not? And so is he.” This time it was a flash of disdain as he stared down at the growling lykanthe . Sooner or later my hold on Wolf would slip. Then what?

“Very well.” The words were ash in my mouth. “Make him suffer, Quinn. He must suffer to his last breath.”

“Have no doubt of that.” Quinn pointed at the bed again. “I am not merciful, Eleni. That is why you left me.”

“No—”

But he was gone. The window was open, and the cloth-tearing sound of a Kin using the speed slapped the walls. I stared at the body on the bed, the dried lumps of the lungs. Exquisite, and I could be sure Quinn had done it with no wasted motion, not a single wasted drop of blood.

“I left because you did not love me,” I finished, because it must be said.

Wolf sagged, and I realized my hand was still cramped in his hair. I let go with an effort. He caught himself on splayed hands, crouching, shaking his head as if it hurt.

“Bad.” He peered up at me, craning his neck. “Bad vrykolak. ”

“Yes.” There was no reason not to agree. “Now we must leave. It’s too dangerous to stay here.”

But before we left, I examined the body on the bed. The face was left intact, in a mask of suffering, the eyes stretched open but clouded by death. I put my face near his hair and inhaled deeply. Underneath the mask of death, yes. The smell of male, dominance, gunfire, and a faint fading tang of smoke and petrol. It was indeed one of the mortals who had been inside my house.

My vengeance was—mostly—achieved. But all I felt was emptiness.

* * *

The long gray of predawn found us miles away from the city limits, in a north-facing hotel room. The Rest On Inn was cheap, but it was safer than staying in the city. Stealing a car was easy, as was changing the license plates; I had also stopped in an all-night bazaar and bought another jacket for Wolf as well as a load of groceries. Simple, high-carbohydrate and high-protein things, either easily heated or good to eat cold. The