Trigger (2 page)

I threaded my left hand through the leash's loop and wrapped it tight around my wrist. I'd need my right hand for the Colt at my hip.

The handler knelt down, offering Brutus a bloody cloth with the necro's scent. The man's lips were pursed tight, almost white. When he didn't make eye contact with me, I figured he didn't approve of the order but had enough sense not to disobey.

I glanced up at Dad. “Ready?”

He nodded, stripping the rifle off his shoulder and pumping a cartridge into its chamber.

“Brutus,
such
,” I said.
Track
—all our working dogs were trained with German commands.

The dog leapt forward, tail wagging, the only cheerful member of our crew. Everyone else was sober with the blood of our dead on our boots; steely with fingers on feather-light triggers; silent with the stress of stalking a killer.

Dad walked on my right side, his rifle tucked against his shoulder, Helsing ink visible on his hand. Our reapers had the Helsing insignia tattooed under their left index knuckle, but Dad's was outlined in a paper-thin red line. That line meant
commander.
The buck stops here. Boss.
My lack of one meant
expectations
,
scrutiny
, and most importantly,
heiress presumptive.
If I failed to pass muster, one of my younger brothers would inherit the corps instead.

I didn't intend to let that happen;
I
was the eldest. Leading the corps was
my
responsibility, and like the generations of Helsings who'd come before me, reaping the dead was my life.

Brutus led us into a warren of tunnels, tugging me through turns and corridors, his nose to the ground. Ryder had my back, and the rest of the Harkers moved single file behind him. Only the occasional boot scuff or whispered word betrayed our presence; the dogs even wore rubber caps on their toenails to keep them quiet. Sound would echo for miles in every direction down here, and who knew whose—or
what's
—ears those echoes might reach?

Some of the storm drains opened into large, crumbling rooms; others were intersections. Our flashlights brushed bits of rebar sticking out from the compound fractures in the walls. Sounds filtered down from the street: the rumbles of cars passing, horns honking, people shouting, laughing. Only a few feet of concrete and asphalt separated our dank, dark world from theirs, but it might as well have been miles. Help wasn't close. The party depended on me to spot the monster before it spotted us; the thought settled between my shoulder blades like a lead weight.

Brutus stopped, ears pricked forward, body trembling. Dad held up a closed fist, signaling to the crew to halt. Silence gummed up the air; only the murmurs from the street and the incessant
tap-tap-tap
of dripping water crept through the walls.

Brutus made no move.

Dad and I exchanged a glance. He dropped his fist.

I clicked my tongue at Brutus. He started forward. A few steps later, the dog paused again and listened, then whimpered low, flattening his ears to his skull. A healthy Helsing dog whimpered for one reason: they heard someone screaming. Someone crying. Someone
dying.

Tension laced my muscles. Ryder swore softly, and the sound of his voice punched through my nerve. I reached down and unholstered my Colt. The solid feel of a gun grip in my hand calmed the frantic pounding of my heart.

Dad shifted the rifle's butt on his shoulder. “We're close if the dog can hear—”

Without warning, Brutus whimpered and burst into a run, dragging me forward. The tunnel became a frenzy of bouncing sound and light. The dog outweighed me, big as a wolf, and his leash jerked noose-tight around my wrist.

“Brutus,
fuss!
” I shouted, silence be damned.
Heel.
Whenever I tried to dig my heels in, his force almost toppled me over. His leash ground into my wrist bones.

“Micheline!” Dad shouted. “Heads up!”

My brain registered the concrete wall. Then the knee-high drainage pipe sticking out of it.

“Brutus!”

Ignoring me, the dog leapt into the pipe. I dropped to the ground, slamming down on my right knee and grunting. My weight wasn't enough—Brutus jerked me forward, pulling me onto my stomach and straight into the pipe. My right shoulder banged into the pipe's lip, shocking my arm and spine with pain. The dog kicked mud and water in my face. My shoulders scraped against the pipe's concrete throat. Rocks clawed under my shirt and bit into my skin.

“Brutus,” I shouted. “
Nein!
”

Before I could get him under control, we burst out of the pipe and onto a thin concrete walkway. Brutus halted and sniffed the ground, his headlamp throwing light all over the room.

“You
stupid
dog,” I muttered, wiping the muck off my face. Pushing into a crouch, I turned on my Colt's barrel-mounted flashlight. I found myself in a wide tunnel with a water channel sandwiched between two walkways. The channel ended in sluice grates on one side, darkness on the other. Large, round pillars supported the room's ceiling. The place smelled briny as seawater, so we must've been near the bay. And here, even my ears picked up a faint keening, sobs carried by the darkness and wet walls.

Brutus's headlamp hit a large sack suspended from the ceiling. No, not a sack—a body
.
He hung upside down by his ankles, bleeding from a puncture wound in his distended gut. His blood
drip-drip-dripped
off the ends of his fingers, hitting water below him like a macabre chime. An acid-orange uniform marked him as a public works employee. Blood bubbled at the corner of the man's mouth, small blisters that expanded with his breath.

He's still alive.

Brutus barked, the echoes ricocheting off the water and the walls.

“Quiet!” I hissed at the dog. Brutus put his ears back and paced along the water's edge.

My earbud comm chirped. “Micheline, are you okay?” Dad asked. Flashlights shined down the pipe, hitting me square in the face and killing my night vision. Their circumferences looked smaller than they should have, and I wondered how far the dog dragged me from the crew.

I touched my comm. “I'm okay,” I said, embarrassed by how much my voice shook. “I've found another victim.”

“Alive or dead?” Dad asked. “Reaper or civilian?”

“Civvy,” I said. “He's alive, barely—he's bleeding out fast, and the wounds match Delgado's.”

Dad cursed. “Can you help him?”

“Maybe,” I said, looking at the river of sewage running beneath him. “But I have to get him down first. He's suspended over the water channel, hanging from the ceiling.”

Several seconds of radio silence passed, punctuated by Brutus's whimpery barks.

“We can't come in after you; the pipe's too narrow,” Dad said. Apparently, the pipe wasn't wide enough to admit broad shoulders and reapers' gear packs—but crazy half-wolves and teenage girls, sure. “I want you to regroup ASAP. And shut that dog up; he's going to draw hungry mouths.”

“What about the vic—”

“He's as good as dead, Micheline. Grab the dog and regroup now.”

“But—”

“We'll get a med team down here. Best we can do.”

No arguing with him.
“Yes, sir,” I said, giving Brutus's leash a sharp tug. He didn't acknowledge me, just continued to bark at the corpse.

“Brutus,” I hissed through my teeth.

When the dog didn't come, I disentangled my wrist from his leash and held it loosely. I jogged over to him, keeping my footfalls quiet and on toe.

I didn't see the snare until it closed around my right ankle, yanking my feet out from under me. The man's body plummeted into the water with a splash. My head hit the floor, and my world tilted, then blackened for a second as the blood in my body rushed to my head.

My gun clattered to the ground, echoing like the
rat-a-tat
of a snare drum. I dangled a few feet in the air, swinging like a human pendulum, blinking the darkness out of my eyes. Once the initial confusion passed, panic seized me: My breath sawed into my throat, raw and serrated. Pain stabbed into the side of my head. I scrabbled at the air, trying to reach my gun, but my fingertips cleared the floor by three feet. Above me, I could barely make out the crude shapes of pulleys and rope—a makeshift trip-wire trap.

I should have seen this coming
, I screamed at myself, swiping for the ground again.
I should've known it the minute I saw the victim!

“Micheline?” Dad asked. “What's taking so long? What's your status?”

I put shaking fingers on my comm. “Upside down. The victim was a counterweight—oh, God, he's underwater now.” No bubbles rose to the water's surface. I'd as good as killed him with my stupidity.

“You're in a
necro
trap?
” Dad's tone could've scraped off skin.

“Ten-four.”

“Goddammit, Micheline,” Dad said. Those words would've hurt if I weren't frantic to get down. Then: “McCoy, what do you think you're doing?”

Voices floated down the pipe, too indistinct for me to pick apart their words. A flashlight's beam shot through the darkness, and my comm crackled. “Hang tight, Micheline.”

Ryder
.

“No pun intended, right?” I asked, trembling. If roles were reversed and Ryder's life hung in the balance, I'd come for him. I just wished
he
were the damsel in distress, not me.

Brutus growled. I froze. A growl meant one thing:
Something's coming.

I faced the pipe; the water was on my right hand, a wall on my left, and the dog stood beneath me, ears pricked forward, hackles raised. I glanced up and swore I saw the necro's ghostlight splashing on the walls, moving from pillar to pillar. Deep blue ghostlight.

Scissorclaw light
.

In a flash, I wrapped my free leg around the rope, then used my core to reach up and grab my calves. The trap's noose circled my ankle and might've broken it if not for the thick leather boots protecting the joint. Wincing, I fumbled for the multi-tool in my ammo pouch—an old Leatherman with a tiny-toothed saw. I skipped my hunting knife, not wanting to fall with it in hand.

Brutus growled again. A sibilant, low hiss layered itself over the
slosh
of water. I flicked open the saw and laid its teeth against the rope, my muscles aching, my heart screaming against my ribs. Palms sweating. The rope slit easy, filaments snapping under my saw, unraveling in my hand.

This will hurt like a mother—

The rope snapped. My stomach lurched in free fall, weightless, before my back slammed into the walkway below me. The hit knocked my senses and comm loose.

The necro shrieked, a high note played on rotting violin strings.

Gun
. I scrambled to all fours as Brutus leapt in front of me, head down, his growl throttling. A blur of blue ghostlight set fire to my peripheral vision
.
Lunging forward, I wrapped my hand around my gun's grip, rolled onto my back, and leveled my gun at the monster's chest.

I'd seen scissorclaws in diagrams and on autopsy tables, flat and dead—but terror gored me in the chest as the nightmare ran toward me, all rippling muscle and claws shaped like open shears. Every second stretched out too long—the necro's maw split open in another roar, teeth sticking like pikes from its gums, its tongue lashing out like a whip. Huge tusks protected the necro's jaw, and I couldn't tell where the monster's neck ended and its head began.
It's too big
, I told myself as my finger tightened around the trigger.
It's too damn big to kill with a .45!

The necro knocked Brutus aside with one swipe of its massive claws, so hard the dog hit the tunnel wall.

I pulled the trigger. The gunshot deafened, bullet slamming into the scissorclaw's chest. My ears rang as I fired a second time. Undaunted, the necro thrust one set of blood-blackened claws at me. I threw myself to the side, dodging dismemberment; the necro's claws screeched on the concrete. The monster slashed sideways, nearly nicking my jugular—I rolled and trained my sights on its torso.

Before I could pull the trigger again, rifle fire erupted. The scissorclaw's shoulder split open under fire, spattering blood all over me, exposing its sinew and bone. With a shriek, the necro swung the claws of the opposite arm around, ready to disembowel me. I fired, but the bullet didn't stop the claws' trajectory toward my gut.

With a snarl, Brutus leapt and sank his teeth into the necro's arm. His weight threw the scissorclaw off balance. When the creature tried to shake Brutus off, I lowered my sights and fired a bullet into the necro's knee to avoid hitting the dog.

Shrieking, the necro shucked off Brutus and dove into the channel. The silty water swallowed the necro's ghostlight.

“C'mon, Micheline!” Ryder shouted, his voice distorted by the ringing in my ears.

Pushing to my feet, I whistled for Brutus and ran. The dog sprinted after me, his headlamp throwing light all over the room. Upon reaching Ryder, I grabbed Brutus by his vest and guided him into the pipe.

“Call the bloody dog,” Ryder said into his comm. Brutus took off running as his name bounced down the pipe. Ryder cocked his head and listened, then said, “We're fine. Coming back your way now.”

Bubbles rose to the water's surface.
Large
bubbles. A man's dismembered hand bobbed up, streaking the water red. Ryder and I backed up a step. “Go,” he said, keeping his rifle trained on the water. “I'm right behind you.”

Fight or flight
—

Now we chose
flight.

 

 

JANUARY