The man got to his feet with a serpentine movement that made the hairs on the back of Jono’s neck stand on end. Jono tried to ignore the deep ache growing in his chest, but he knew what silver and aconite poisoning felt like. His rapid healing wasn’t going to fix this wound.
“The fuck is that?” Leon asked, his grip on Jono growing tighter.
Jono blinked, trying to steady his vision. The man standing in front of them didn’t seem to feel the severely broken nose on his face. It was flattened and bent to the side, the blood still trickling out of it black in the shadows cast by the nearby streetlamp. Jono had a feeling the man’s blood would be black even in broad daylight.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law when it comes to demons.
Patrick’s voice echoed in his mind from a past conversation as Jono sought to straighten up and shake off Leon’s hand. Jono’s breath came out in a puff of white as blood slid down his side and soaked into the jumper he wore. He pressed his hand against the wound, fighting against the sickly heat spreading away from it through his chest.
“Jono,” Austin said in a tight voice as he came up to flank them. “What the fuck?”
“Stay back,” Jono growled.
They were downwind, and the breeze that blew over the playground carried with it a mix of human and the rotten egg stench of sulfur. Whatever artifact the hunter had carried to hide his scent must have been damaged or lost in their scuffle. Jono wanted to scrub the smell out of his nose and mouth, but he’d settle for figuring out how to kill a demon taking up space in a human body without magic.
Most laws on the books still considered it murder if you killed a possessed man. Jono knew the courts didn’t favor the self-defense excuse when used by werecreatures unless it was within claimed territory. Even then, it was a gray area, but Jono wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
“The only good werecreature is a dead one,” the demon said around swollen lips and broken front teeth.
Jono flexed his fingers, claws lengthening at the tips. His attention skipped from the demon-possessed man in front of them to the ones crossing the street, no longer hiding in the shadows.
A rushing sound echoed in Jono’s ears as more vampires jumped off the surrounding buildings to land in the playground. The vampires surrounded the werecreatures but didn’t immediately attack them.
Fenrir’s presence seeped through Jono’s soul, and he didn’t have the capacity to hold his ground against the god, not with poison running through his veins.
Don’t, Jono said, trying not to beg. Don’t show them who you are.
The number of people who knew about his patron was growing, but Jono knew now wasn’t the time for word to get out about Fenrir. Enough of the wrong people already knew—Lucien and Ethan—that Jono couldn’t afford for rumors to start to grow. His pack wasn’t ready yet for the civil war heading their way.
Fenrir howled through his soul but let Jono keep control of his body and mind.
“We should get out of here. I don’t like what I’m smelling,” Leon said in a tight voice.
“Because they’re demons,” Jono said, breathing a little harder. The ache in his ribs was getting worse, the burn of silver and aconite making him sweat in a way he wasn’t used to.
The man with a bruised and broken face smiled at that, flexing the hand with a broken finger. Another silver knife dropped out of his jacket sleeve into his hand. Leon’s grip tightened on Jono.
“The bounty on your head was worth the drive north,” the demon said. The skin on his face seemed to move, black veins briefly showing through what skin wasn’t covered in blood. The smell of sulfur grew stronger, making Jono gag.
Before anyone could respond, one of the hunters on the other side of the fence was slammed to the ground by the force of the person that landed on him. Jono heard bones crack, the gurgle of a scream broken off by virtue of a throat being torn out. He heard blood spatter on cold pavement like rain before the vampire moved, flinging himself over the fence and into the playground with a speed that few others in the preternatural world could match.
“You wasted all that gas for nothing and came driving through my territory without asking,” the newcomer said.
Jono heard Austin swear from behind him as the master vampire for the Brooklyn Night Court landed amidst his followers. Jamere’s physical appearance was that of a teenager, but the vampire was over four hundred years old, and how he looked had no bearing on the viciousness he employed when it came to holding his territory.
“Bounty isn’t on your head, but we’ll kill you for the fun of it,” the demon said.
Jamere’s laugh was low and deep. The smile on his dark face showed off a mouthful of jagged fangs. “You wouldn’t be the first hunter to try.”
Whatever signal Jamere gave, Jono never saw it, never heard it. One second the vampires of the Brooklyn Night Court stood like silent shadows in the dark playground. The next, they were blurs of motion that Jono’s eyesight couldn’t keep up with.
Vampires couldn’t fly, but they moved with a speed that lay the foundation for the myths that had propagated over the centuries. The remaining two hunters beyond the playground scattered rather than fight, which told Jono they probably weren’t sharing their soul with a demon. Not standing their ground was their first mistake. Jono tuned out their screams in favor of making sure he got answers.
“Don’t
