Right before dawn a hush falls over Santa Luz. The things that live and prey in the night are either searching for a burrow to spend the day in, or looking for one last little snack. The closer to dawn, the harder the fight, hunters say. Predators get desperate as the sun, that great enemy of all darkness, walks closer to the rim of dawn.

Which explains why I was flat on my back, again, with hellbreed-strong fingers cutting off my air and my head ringing like someone had set off dynamite inside it. Sparks spat from silver charms tied in my hair, blessed moon-metal reacting to something inimical. The Trader hissed as he squeezed, fingers sinking into my throat and the flat shine of the dusted lying over his eyes as they narrowed, a forked tongue flickering past the broken yellowed stubs of his teeth.

Apparently dental work wasn’t part of the contract he’d made with whatever hellbreed had given him supernatural strength and the ability to set shit on fire at a thousand paces.

I brought my knee up, hard.

The hellbreed this particular Trader had bargained with hadn’t given him an athletic cup, either. The bony part of my knee sank into his crotch, meeting precious little resistance, so hard something popped.

It didn’t sound like much fun.

The Trader’s eyes rolled up and he immediately let go of my trachea. I promptly added injury to insult by clocking him on the side of the head with a knifehilt. I didn’t slip the knife between his ribs because I wanted to bring him in for questioning.

What can I say? Maybe I was in a good mood.

Besides, I had other worries. For one, the burning warehouse.

Smoke roiled thick in the choking air, and the rushing crackle of flames almost drowned out the screams coming from the girl handcuffed to a support post. She was wasting both good energy and usable air by screaming, probably almost out of her mind with fear. Bits of burning building plummeted to the concrete floor. I gained my feet with a convulsive lurch, eyes streaming, and clapped the silver-plated cuffs on the Trader’s skinny wrists. He was on the scrawny end of junkie-thin, moaning and writhing as I wrenched his hands away from his genitals and behind his back.

I would have told him he was under arrest, but I didn’t have the breath. I scooped up the handle of my bullwhip and vaulted a stack of wooden boxes, their sides beginning to steam and smoke under the lash of heat. My steel-reinforced bootheels clattered and I skidded to a stop, giving her a once-over while my fingers stowed the whip.

Mousy brown hair, check. Big blue eyes, check. Mole high up on her right cheek, check.

We have a confirmed sighting. Thank God. Now get her out of here.

“Regan Smith.” I coughed, getting a good lungful of smoke. My back burned with pain and something flaming hit the floor less than a yard away. “Your mom sent me to find you.”

She didn’t hear me. She was too busy screaming.

I grabbed at the handcuffs as she tried to scramble away, fetching up hard against the post. She even tried to kick me. Good girl. Bet you gave that asshole a run for his money. I curled my fingers around the cuffs on either side and gave a quick short yank.

The scar on my right wrist ran with prickling heat, pumping strength into my hand. The cuffs burst, and the girl immediately tried to bolt. She was hysterical and wiry-strong, choking, screaming whenever she could get enough air in. The roar of the fire drowned out any reassurance I might have given her, and my long leather trenchcoat was beginning to smoke. I was carrying plenty of ammo to make things interesting in here if it got hot enough.

Not to mention the fact that the girl was only human. She would roast alive before I got really uncomfortable.

Move it, Jill. I’d promised her mother I’d bring her back, if it was at all possible.

Promises like that are hell on hunters.

I snapped a glance over my shoulder at the Trader lying cuffed on the floor. He appeared to be passed out, but they’re tricky fuckers. You don’t negotiate a successful bargain with a hellbreed without being slippery. Of course, since I’d caught him, you could argue that his bargain hadn’t been that successful.

More burning crap fell down, splashing on the concrete and scattering. A lick of flame ran along an oily runnel in the floor, and the girl made things interesting by almost twisting free.

Dammit. I’m trying to help you! But she was almost insane with fear, fighting as if I was the enemy.

It probably messes your world up when you see a woman in a long black leather coat beat the shit out of a Trader, using a bullwhip, three clips of ammo, and the inhuman speed of the damned. Silver charms tied in my long dark hair spat and crackled with blue sparks, hot blood slicked several parts of me, and I’m sure I was wearing my mad face.

I hefted the girl over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and spent a few precious seconds glancing again at the motionless Trader. Burning bits of wood landed on him, his clothes smoking, but I thought I saw a glimmer of eyes.

She beat at my back with her fists. I sprinted down the long central aisle of the warehouse, hell-lit with garish flame. Fire twisted and roared, stealing air and replacing it with toxic smoke. Something exploded, a hurricane edge of heat mouthing my back as I got a good head of speed going, aiming for a gap in the burning wall.

This might get a little tricky.

Rush of flame, a crackling liquid sound, covering up her breathless barking—she had nothing left in her to scream with, poor girl, especially not with my shoulder in her stomach—and my own rising cry, a sound of female effort that flattened the streaming flames away with its force. The scar—my souvenir from Santa Luz’s biggest hellbreed—ran with sick wet delight as I pulled force through it, my aura flaming into the visible, a star of spiky plasma light.

Feet slapping the floor, bootheels striking sparks, back burning—I’d wrenched something when I’d brought my knee up. Probably still feel better than he does. Hurry up, she can’t take much more of—

I hit the hole in the wall going almost full speed, my cry ratcheting up into a breathless squeal because I’d run out of air too, darkness flowering over my vision and starved muscles crying out for oxygen. Smoke billowed and I hoped I’d applied enough kinetic energy to throw us both clear of the fire.

Physics is a bitch.

The application of force made the landing much harder. I don’t wear leather pants because they make my ass look cute. It’s because when I land hard, something snapping in my right leg and the rest of my right side taking the brunt of the blow, trying to shield the girl from impact, most of my skin would get erased if I wasn’t wearing thick dead cow.

As it was, I only broke a few bones as we slid, muscles straining against the instinct to roll over on her to shed momentum. I managed just to skid on my right side. Spikes of rusty pain drove through each break, right leg cramping, ribs howling.

Concrete. Cold. The hissing roar of the fire as it devoured all the oxygen it could reach. The girl was still feebly trying to struggle free.

It was a clear, cold night, the kind you only get out in the desert. The stars would be bonfires of brilliant ice if not for the glare of Santa Luz’s streetlamps and the other, lesser light of the burning warehouse. I lay for a few moments, coughing, eyes streaming, while my leg crunched with pain and the scar hummed with sick delight, a chill touching my spine as the bone set itself with swift jerks. My eyes rolled up in my head and I dimly heard the girl sobbing as she stopped trying to get away. She’d be lucky to get out of this needing a few years of therapy and some smoke-inhalation treatment.