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one of their aspects.”
    “Bad news?”
    Well, not particularly good news.
I shrugged. “We’ll see. If he was mixed up in something, we’ll find out. I’ll pick up the file from Avery and—”
    “Dinner first?” It wasn’t like him to interrupt me.
    I was tired, my head hurt, and I smelled like death warmed over. “Dinner first,” I agreed, scrubbing at the quick-drying blood
     on my face with my free hand. “This doesn’t look right. It makes my weird-o-meter tingle like mad.”
    “That’s saying something. Come on. Let’s close this up and go home.”
    “In a second.” I gave him a squeeze, freed myself, and checked the small bathroom. A bar of coal-tar soap in the ringed bathtub;
     toothbrush, box of baking soda, and a straight razor in a ceramic mug next to the sink.
    The razor was a nice one, antique. Had to be 1920s, if my guess was good. A black scale with mother-of-pearl inlay, and a
     well-preserved steel, sharp as a suicide’s whisper. I flicked it open, saw the shadow of blue swirling under the surface of
     the metal. I blinked, and it was gone.
    Now that’s interesting.
I closed it carefully, dug in my pocket for a Ziploc baggie, and found one. Slid the straight razor in and sealed it.
I wonder…
    “What have you got there?” Saul said from the door.
    “Clue.” I slipped the razor in my pocket, turned. My coat brushed the sink, and the mug clattered down into its rusted bowl,
     spilling the toothbrush as well. “Shit.”
    “Which one? Clue or shit?” It was a pale attempt at humor, but one I appreciated.
    “The former, catkin. Come on, I’m hungry.”
And I need to work some of these nerves off. Maybe you’ll help me with that.
    “Mh.” He let me out of the tiny, tiny bathroom. Hot air soughed through the broken windows. “Sure made a mess.”
    “Can’t have an exorcism without breaking a few beds. If he’s clean we’ll figure something out.”
    “And if he’s not?”
    I didn’t have to work to sound tired. “Then a smashed-up apartment is the least of his worries.”

4

    D ust swirled like oil, covering my city in waves. Autumn was moving across the mountains, the nights getting chillier and the
     days only slightly less hot. Soon the thunderstorms would start rolling in. But for now the far hills were tawny, and the
     clouds only stayed, threateningly, in the distance.
    I hit the ground hard. Drew my knees up and shot my bare feet out, using the momentum to fuel a leap, propelling myself up.
     Whirled, my hand shooting out; he avoided it with a liquid jump to the side. My hand turned into a blade, chopped down.
    He caught my wrist, brown fingers locking, and twisted, pulling back as he dropped into a crouch, swinging his center of gravity
     down and back. My arm almost yanked out of its socket, his foot smacked into my midriff as he hit the mats on his back, and
     I flew. Twisted in midair, doubling on myself like a gymnast, and landed a bare half-second before he was on me, a fast hard
     flurry of strikes and parries. Each one pushed aside, combat like a dance, no more than the barest touch needed to redirect,
     to score a hit, pulled at the last fraction of a second.
    A hunter relies on firepower and sorcery to even the playing field. Still, we never fight Weres, even rogues. They’re just
     too quick, too powerful, too graceful. They have no corruption, like in a hellbreed, that a human can latch onto and track.
    I’ve wondered about that. I wonder about a lot of things, the more I work this job.
    I’m harder to hit now, and a hell of a lot harder to hurt. And it was times like this that the bargain seemed a better thing
     than just a stopgap measure until I could figure out how to send Perry screaming back to Hell.
    Hard.
    Saul drove me across the length of the sparring room, dying sunlight falling liquid through the windows, sweat on both of
     us and the sounds of deadly serious mock-combat echoing. I stamped my back foot down hard, dipped, and spun as he