Night Shift

Chapter Three

The precinct house on Alameda wasn't very active tonight. I nodded to the officer on duty, a tall rangy rookie who paled and looked down at his reports instead of nodding back. I placed his face with an absent mental effort—yes, he'd been in the last class I'd conducted. The one where I told each batch of shiny new faces about the nightside, and how and when to contact their local hunter.

Or as Detective Carper calls it, "Puking Your Guts Out While Kiss Talks." Each desk has a wastebasket sitting next to it during that class, and the janitor is busy those days. Still, very few of the rookies leave the force after that little graduation ceremony. The nondisclosure clauses they sign are very rarely breached.

Most humans don't want to know about the nightside, and they unconsciously collude in making a hunter's secrecy easy.

I don't blame them. Some days even hunters don't want to think about what they do for a living.

Montaigne, his dark hair rumpled, was in a pair of blue-striped pajama pants. He wore a button-up and suit jacket over them, and palmed a handful of Turns as I came into his office, his bleary dark eyes rising to meet mine. He didn't flinch at my mismatched eyes—one blue, one brown—but I noticed he wore slippers instead of his usual polished wingtips. His ankles were bare.

Oh, God. I halted just inside his door, resting my right hand on the whip-handle. This looks bad. "Hi, Monty. Sorry I'm late, I had to drop off a Trader. What's up?"

"Jill." His cheeks were actually cheesy-pale. "There's something I need you to take a look at."

As usual, he sounded like he didn't quite believe he was asking a woman half his size for help. I barely come up to Monty's shoulder, but even if I gave him an Uzi and a little help he'd still be no match for me. Still, he'd never doubted my ability, once Mikhail introduced me as his apprentice.

We're back to Mik again. Dammit, Jill, focus. "Animal, vegetable, mineral?"

"Homicide." Most of the time, that was the case. Monty ran his hand back through his hair again. It vigorously protested this treatment, becoming even more ruffled.

"How many bodies?" I was past uneasy and heading into full-blown disturbed. The charms in my hair tinkled, rubbing against each other. I realized I was slumping and snapped up to stand straight, dispelling the urge to yawn. I would be up to greet the dawn again and probably go all day, too. If I had to.

"Five."

A respectable number. But you're just calling me in now? "How fresh?"

"Two hours. I'm due at the morgue as soon as you show up, Stanton's going to do the dicing." Montaigne's jaw set. I began to get a bad feeling, hearing the way his heart was pounding, ticking off time. He reeked of fear, not just the usual uneasiness of facing me down and being reminded of the nightside. Monty had decided he didn't want to know about anything other than when to call me, which made him wiser than most.

"Come on, Monty. Drop the other shoe." I folded my arms. "Five bodies? Found two hours ago, or—"

"Killed two hours ago, Kiss. And they're all cops."