Luther was a breed—the offspring of a Nephilim and a human. Being part demon gave him supernatural powers. Being less demon than human meant he could choose to fight on the side of good. A lot of breeds did.
“I’d hear Ruthie if she had somethin’ to say. Wouldn’t matter if I was sleeping or not.”
Ruthie Kane, my foster mother, had been the former leader of the light. Now I was. In the beginning, she’d spoken to me on the wind, in dreams, or in visions, to let me know what flavor of evil lay behind a Nephilim’s human face. Now she spoke through Luther. I had demon issues.
“There’s something out there,” I said.
Luther’s silver knife appeared in his hand as quickly as mine had. Silver kills most shifters, and if it doesn’t, the metal at least slows them down.
“Ruthie talking to you again?” Luther was already making his way toward the door that led to the back stairs.
“No.” I paused to retrieve both my gun and Luther’s from the nightstand—if a silver knife works well, a silver bullet works even better—then I hurried to catch up.
We tossed our knives on the kitchen table. The kid reached for the door, but I shouldered in front of him. Luther was a rookie.
Sure, I’d been on the job less than four months, but I was the leader, which meant I got to go through the door first.
In the past a seer—someone with the psychic ability to recognize a Nephilim in human form—worked with several DKs, or demon killers. However, that arrangement had gone to hell when the Nephilim infiltrated the federation and wiped out three-quarters of the group. Now the remaining members pretty much did whatever they could. Seers became DKs, DKs became seers, and everyone killed anything that got in their way.
“If Ruthie still isn’t talking, then how do you know something’s out there?” Luther asked reasonably.
I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d had a dream visit from the dead. Not that such news would be a shock. Luther got visits from the dead every damn day. I just didn’t want to share right now. Right now I wanted to know what was out there, and then I wanted to kill it.
I crept down the stairs, silent on bare feet. Luther was even quieter. He’d been born part lion. He couldn’t help it.
A door led into the parking lot behind the building. I opened it but didn’t step out. Instead I listened; Luther sniffed the air, then our eyes met and together we nodded. Empty as far as we could tell.
“Don’t shoot anyone I’ll have to dispose of later,” I cautioned, a variation on Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes or, in federation-speak, Don’t kill a human by mistake.
Nephilim disintegrated into ashes when executed correctly, eliminating impossible-to-answer questions and the annoying necessity of bloody body removal. People were another story.
Luther’s only answer to my caution was a typical teenage sneer combined with an irritated eye roll. I didn’t have to touch him to know his thoughts.
As if.
We stepped outside. No one shot us, not that a bullet would do much damage. Supernatural creatures, even those like Luther and me—more human than not—healed pretty much anything but the one thing common only to them. Which meant the killer had to know what that single thing was.
I indicated with a tilt of my chin that Luther should go around the building to the left, while I moved to the right. We’d meet back here then check out the dark gully at the far end of the lot where the Milwaukee River gurgled merrily.
My gaze shifted in that direction. There could be something hiding there—several somethings. Although the lack of a warning from Ruthie indicated that whatever I’d heard had probably been human.
Not that a human couldn’t be a huge pain in the ass. They usually were. And anyone sneaking around in the dark just had to be.
As I slid along the side of the building, back to the wall, I caught movement near the river and spun in that direction, gun outstretched. For an instant I could have sworn something slunk there, low to the ground, a black, four-legged . . .
I blinked, and the shadow was just a shadow, perhaps a log with four branches, perhaps the reflection of a distant streetlight off the river. There were also foxes in Friedenberg, a few coyotes, and dogs galore. But that had looked like a wolf.
“Sawyer?” I whispered. My only answer was the high-pitched keening of the wind.
I lifted my face, waiting for the air to cool my skin. Instead humid heat pressed against me; there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. Not the wind then, but definitely a wail.
Shit. Luther.