The Work of Hunters

by Laura Anne Gilman

  It was easier to stay focused inward, but Danny needed information, too, and maybe he’d figure something out from what she was seeing. “It’s about waist-high,” she told him, feeling rather than seeing him staying a pace behind her, giving her room to work. Her fingers and elbows tingled, the current in her core stretching out, intrigued by what she was following. She kept herself contained: she couldn’t risk contaminating the scene with her own trace, Pietr and Bonnie would never let her live it down. “And it’s staying to the walkway… well, mostly,” she amended, as it led them off the path and onto the grass for a short time.

  “It’s staying off graves,” Danny said. “That suggests sympathy, if not intelligence.”

  “Mmm. If you say so.” She zigged, and they were back on the path, heading for the gate… and the sparks of current went through the gate. “Boss? Are there fatae that can pass through metal?”

  “Gnomes. Maybe some others. Don’t tell me… ” there was a pause. “None of them could carry current.” He sounded definite on that, so she took him at his word.

  “Humans?”

  “No human can pass through metal. Even using current. If they could, you think Wren wouldn’t already have taught you?”

  “Fair point.” Her mentor wasn’t actively teaching her retrieval skills, but a few had come up in practice, anyway. “We need to circle around, see if we can pick the trail up on the other side.”

  She felt a hand come down on her shoulder, steering her away. “Keep focused,” he told her. “You’re navigator, let me do the driving.”

  This was similar to some of the training exercises she’d done with Wren, and similar to the trailing-a-suspect tricks she’d learned from Danny, but combining them was more difficult than either alone. It took them almost half an hour to make their way back to where the current-trail had disappeared, and for her to pick it up again, at which point Pietr pinged them to say that he’d called in for reinforcements, and would let them know the results later.

  She hadn’t even realized that the PUP had left.

  “Pietr says he’ll send us a report later,” she told Danny. “This way. The trace is fainter here, but….” She squinted. “It’s like it… compressed? No. Intensified. It… ” She shut her eyes for a second, but the residual image remained, dancing against her eyelids, in her brain. “It got stronger here. What happened here?”

  She opened her eyes again to find Danny looking not at her, but the corner, where a pile of flowers and a narrow candle in a glass holder had been placed against a signpost.

  “That’s a memorial,” he said. “Someone died here.” He frowned, and she could imagine the puzzle-pieces sliding around in his brain, slotting together. “Lots of power, a probably already unstable Talent, and a trigger. Boom?”

  She reached out a finger, as though she could touch the echoes of current. “Boom,” she agreed.

  oOo

  Hearing Ellen say ‘boom’ shoved something else in my brain, but it wasn’t quite ready to come out of hiding. I knelt down to look at the photo and laminated card attached to the memorial. An older woman, struck by a hit and run driver the day before our unknown Talent started to play. Was that enough to trigger someone into violence? Probably not alone, but I wasn’t a psychologist, it wasn’t my job to understand why, just figure out who, and how to stop them.

  I walked a safe distance away from Ellen, and turned on my cell phone. Two messages, one from an unknown number. I listened to that one first.

  “Hendrickson.”

  I didn’t recognize the voice.

  “My name is Elizabeth. I work for a friend of yours.”

  That covered a small but significant group. I waited, assuming Elizabeth would get to the point at some point. “Word has it that you’re going after a small problem that’s come up in the city recently. I’ve been told to tell you that whatever you dig up needs to be reburied when you’re done.”

  And that narrowed the group down considerably. The message ended without any more detail. I deleted it, and went to the next.

  “Call me.”

  That voice I did know. I hit the redial and waited until Meg picked up.

  “Megadeath Funeral Services, what’s your death wish?”

  “You never actually get funnier,” I told him. “What’s up?”

  “Word is, you might be looking into the dumpster deaths.”

  “Word has a way of getting around,” I said. “I hope it wore a condom.”

  “You never actually got funny,” Meg told me. He was a satyr, a distant Greek cousin according to the tangled fatae bloodlines, but unlike me, he couldn’t pass for human even on a bad day under an overcoat. Meg more than made up for being a shut—in by establishing himself as a serious digital player. “The Underbridgers are twitchy. They say that something’s been prowling, the past few nights, near some of their camps. Map of complaints looks like it’s a clean overlay around where your bodies were found.”

  The trick to being a successful investigator isn’t being brilliant, or even working your ass off, although both those things are useful. The trick is to know people who like to know things you didn’t know. “That’s useful, Meg. Thanks.”

  He didn’t say goodbye, or you’re welcome, just hung up.

  “Ellen.” She looked up when I called, but I could tell that her thoughts were elsewhere, probably trying to figure out where our human-shaped ball of energy had wandered off to. I thought maybe I had an idea.

  “How do you feel about camping?”

  oOo

  “This wasn’t exactly what I thought you meant,” Ellen said an hour later, as we picked our way through the debris that partially blocked the underbridge passage. Technically, the DOT was supposed to make sure these underpasses were cleared at all times. In reality, there were a lot of bridges in New York City, and they didn’t have the manpower nor the give-a-shit to worry about anything that wasn’t likely to flood or catch on fire — or get any news channel notice.

  “Yeah well, if you want we can dig out the tents and the rucksacks and go for a weekend hike in the Catskills,” I said, and I half-meant the offer, if only to see her freak out the first time a mouse tried to crawl into her sleeping bag, or a spider dropped into her hair. “When you’re on a hunting trip, you need to go to where the game is.” I stepped over a particularly rusted-looking spoke of something long-abandoned, and looked back at her shoes again, just to reassure myself that yes, her footwear was sturdy enough to be doing this. Ellen might own a pair of impractical, open-toed shoes, but if she did, I’d never seen them.

  I looked forward again, and came to a sudden stop as a figure appeared in front of us. It had moved quietly, and stayed upwind, apparently, since the moment it came close, I could smell the miasma of stale human sweat, old dirt, and dried food stains that wove around it, clinging to the skin.

  “Got any spare change?” Its teeth were horrible, its hair knotted so badly I couldn’t tell how long it was or what color, and the skin was the sallow tone of someone who hadn’t seen a vitamin in any form in way too long.

  “I got some, if you’ve got time to talk.”

  “Talk?” It cackled, and moved closer. I managed not to flinch. “I can talk. What do you want to know?”

  When I’d been a uniform, I’d done my share of street person interviews. The badge and the gun had actually made it harder: they flickered between being scared, and being pissed. The trick was never to lead the conversation, but make them take control of it. The more in control they were, the more they’d tell you.

  “Heard there was some disturbances, lately. Unofficial ones.”

  “Here? Who’d come here?” He — and it was a he, I finally determined — spread an arm wide to indicate his kingdom. “Who’d come here who didn’t have to?”

  “A good point,” I admitted, and waited.

  “Tell ‘em.” Another figure approached. Less filthy, but thinner, younger. Someone who hadn’t been out quite as long, or hadn’t embraced it so ha
rd. “Tell ‘em, Sam.”

  “You tell ‘em, you’re so determined to talk,” Sam said, but didn’t back off.

  “Something’s been sniffing around,” she said, with a glare at him, for putting her on the spot. “Thought it was a dog at first, big dog. That kind of sniffing. Or maybe coyote, they say some of ‘em are in the city now. But it wasn’t. No dog stares like that.”

  “I thought it was one of them,” Sam said, and there was a capital T to his them, even spoken. “The night-walkers.”

  Fatae, he meant, although I wasn’t sure if he had a specific breed in mind, or just the vague fear humans had for the unknown.

  “But they ain’t never hurt us,” Sam went on. “We got nothing they want, and too much cold iron.”

  I didn’t have any desire to break it to him that cold iron didn’t faze a full two-thirds of the fatae — how could it, if you lived in the city? Better he sleep feeling secure. He was right, anyway; most of the fatae would have no interest in him, and the ones who did prey on humans generally preferred them younger. And cleaner.

  “So what was it?” Ellen hadn’t come any closer, but neither of the Underbridgers started; they’d seen her, and decided she wasn’t a threat.

  “Dunno. It snuffled at us a few hours, then went away.”

  “Rose saw it, too.” The woman jerked a shoulder vaguely behind her. “Rose camps over there, couple-three miles off. She doesn’t like company, though.”

  “She’s too mean for anything to bother,” Sam said.

  A woman alone? I wondered if they’d seen her recently. But so far, all the victims had been male. “And nobody’s gone missing?”

  “Nobody we know,” Sam said. “That don’t mean much. Some folk are here and gone and you can’t say what happened for sure.” It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he just didn’t care. I got it. I didn’t like it, but I got it.

  “You can show us where you saw it sniffing around, exactly?”

  Sam waited, and I reached into my pocket, pulling out a fold of bills. Three tens and a fiver; small enough to be used easily, large enough to look impressive. Giving them a handful of singles was more likely to put their backs up than appease them.

  The bills disappeared into an equally grubby hand, and he turned and started walking away. I followed, with Ellen at my left shoulder. The woman hung back, either because she didn’t want to get closer, or because someone had to watch their things, I didn’t know. I didn’t see anyone else moving in the shadows under the bridge, so maybe they’d fought off everyone else to claim this space as their own.

  You can’t save everyone, and some people don’t actually need saving. I try to focus my energy on the ones who not only needed it, but had asked. Even if they weren’t aware they’d asked us, specifically.

  “Here.” Ellen stopped dead behind me, and that one word locked my knees in place. Ahead of us, Sam turned to look back. “No, up ahead.”

  “Here,” Ellen said again. Her eyes were round, too much white showing around them, and her mouth was open a little. I knew what that meant.

  “Hang back,” I told Sam, who probably didn’t need telling. Then her entire body shuddered once, violently, and something passed over her face, a spasm just under the skin, a twitch of pain and shock and horror and fear there and gone again, as her eyelids closed and her skin flushed.

  “El?”

  Her right hand lifted, just the fingertips, but it was enough to tell me to wait. So I waited. Eventually, maybe four-five minutes later, her fingertips relaxed again, the muscles in her neck eased, and she opened her eyes.

  “Another body?” Three in two days was a spree killer, she knew that much. That would mean there would be more bodies, piling up.

  “No. Not yet?” She was always a little woozy after a vision hit, but we’d managed to work past the panic that used to hit her, too. Knowing what it was, and that she could do something about it, had made that part easier to bear. Or maybe she’d just seen too much to panic, now. “It was the killer. Again. Same… same details as before. I…. Why am I seeing through their eyes?”

  The expression on her face was too close to the one she’d worn when we first met: too proud to beg, but desperate enough to, if it could ease the pain and confusion. So I did what I couldn’t do back then, and reached out, pulling her into a loose hug, arms over her shoulders, her face tucked down against my shoulder.

  “I don’t know, Shadow,” I told her, ignoring our audience. “I don’t know but you’re not alone. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  oOo

  It shouldn’t have made Ellen feel better, but it did, knowing that Danny was next to her, and that he was armed. He didn’t talk about it, never made a big deal of it, but she’d seen the pistol he kept in the locked drawer in his desk, the box of bullets next to it. She knew he didn’t go out on cases without it.

  She had felt it pressing into her side, under his jacket, when he’d hugged her.

  The hug probably had a lot to do with feeling better too. She wasn’t touchy-feely, had a distinct aversion to being held or restrained in any way, but Danny’s hug hadn’t felt like that. She wasn’t really surprised; for all that he had the facade of tough guy, she’d figured him out early on. He didn’t just make a career out of helping people; he actually liked people.

  He liked her.

  Despite all that, the snap and crackle of the killer’s… glee was still in her, trying to reach her own core, trying to… she breathed deeply, dropping into fugue state even as she kept walking, making sure that her core remained still and calm, the tendrils of current resting, not restless. Control. She had it, she would not give it up, no matter how invasive the visions became.

  “You okay there, Shadow?”

  “Fine.”

  She’d told him what she’d seen in that brief vision, more an aftershock than something new: the sense of future-time-not-now familiar enough that she was certain that it was the killer anticipating, not actually doing, and he’d handed another bill to the homeless man they’d been speaking to and hauled her back into Manhattan via subway, never letting her get more than a step from his side.

  They knew where the killer was planning to be, now. Where, and a vague sense of when. They’d solved cases on less. She knew that, but uncertainty still made her skin prickle.

  “You’re sure he didn’t get anything from you?”

  “Yes.” She’d told him that three times already. Wren had taught her how to keep herself separate from the visions, and after the first time the killer had caught her off-guard, she’d focused on using those lessons, and everything she knew about pinging, to wall herself away from intrusions. She hadn’t been sure it would work, but she was reasonably certain it had.

  Certain enough that Danny thought they had a good chance of catching the killer off-guard. If they got there first. She’d described the surroundings, and he’d nodded like he knew.

  “And when we get there… ” He’d told her this three times already too, but she needed to hear it again.

  “I bluster, and you whammy.” He’d gone into more detail the first time, but by now it was like her “fine” — a pushbutton reminder that yes, the other person knew this already. She tried to relax, listening to the hum of the subway rails, the fine lines of current running along the tracks, throughout the city. She siphoned off just a hint, less to refill her core than to reassure herself, like double-checking you had your keys.

  The day and time was displayed on one of the subway monitors, and the sense of uncertainty and unreality increased. Two days since she’d had the first vision, and barely enough sleep to matter. Had Danny slept at all?

  You made mistakes when you were tired. They couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

  And then it was their stop, and it was too late to second-guess or raise doubts, even if she’d known what to say.

  The killer’s glee shuddered through her again, the satisfaction it took, and she took hold of Danny’s arm, feeling the rough cloth and mus
cle under her palm.

  “Hang in there, Shadow,” he said, and they were pushing through the mid-day crowds and walking up the stairs, coming out on a little side street that looked too narrow and crooked to belong in Manhattan.

  She kept her hand on his arm. “Where are we?”

  “Pine Street,” he said. “What you saw, it’s down this way.”

  “This way” led down the street several blocks, past a Dunkin Donuts where they stopped to get two coffees, and then on to a small plaza built around what looked like a several-stories-high glass pyramid, surrounded by office buildings on all sides, and lined by a rack of rental bicycles. There were metal benches scattered at angles around the plaza, and Danny led her to one, urging her to sit down.