 
Demon Dog

A Valeria / Brannigan Investigations Novella

By Claire Farrell

Peter and Val are close to dissolving their new partnership after a long dry spell until a chance encounter offers Peter the opportunity to prove himself to his son, and perhaps an entire community. Peter can't afford to let Emmett down again; all he has to do is persuade Val to help him.

The hunt for a lost pet seems farcical to both of them, particularly as a series of confusing occurrences unfold, but something darker and more dangerous might be lurking in the streets of Dublin, something that could establish the pair as a force to be reckoned with, once and for all.

Copyright © Claire Farrell

Claire_farrell@live.ie

Cover by  thecovercollection.com

Licence Notes:

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold.

Chapter One

It was the missing dog poster that did it. Emmett Brannigan's hazel eyes, so like his father's, widened as he took in the flapping piece of paper stuck to a lamppost by glittery sticky tape.

Peter took another couple of steps before realising the boy wasn't following. He looked back. Emmett was still standing there, his fingers clenching into fists. Sighing, Peter joined his son before the poster. A curl of discomfort rounded in his belly at the childishly hand-drawn image of a hulking dog that looked more like a monster than a pet.

"Look," Emmett said hoarsely. "Somebody lost their dog."

"Are those horns or ears?" Peter asked.

"Dad."

Peter would never get used to being called Dad. It went a long way to repairing all of those holes in his heart. As it was, he couldn't hide his smile. "Come on. I'm starving, and we still need to pick up a few things in the shop."

"But the dog," Emmett protested. "I mean, what if it's hurt somewhere?"

With a sigh, Peter took another look at the page. Written on the poster were the words:

Lost Dog!

Sparky is the best dog in the wurld.

Pleese bring him home!

So, okay, maybe it was a little adorable.

"I'm sure the dog will turn up again." Peter dug his cold hands into his pockets. "Now let's go."

"But it's lost." Emmett's hand reached for his eyebrow. Peter caught his fingers before he ripped out any hairs. The boy's eyes looked wild for a moment, panicked, like a trapped animal. "I was lost. I didn't turn up again for a really long time. Nobody found me."

That made Peter's breath hitch in his throat. He needed his son to know he would look for him forever, that he wouldn't give up a second time. He had made a mistake—more than one—and every now and then, it became apparent that both of them were still suffering for it. He had to find a way to repair his bad decisions.

More importantly, he wanted his son to love him, and he wasn't quite sure that had happened yet. He couldn't even blame him, but he would do whatever it took to earn the boy's trust. Their situation was unique, and hopefully, time would help close the distance between them. But in the meantime, he needed to act.

Emmett had been stolen away as a toddler then spit back out as a nine-year-old. Peter had learned to be a hard man in his absence, and he wasn't sure if he would ever be a good enough father, but he was damn well going to try. Recent events had put Emmett in danger yet brought the pair closer together than their previous time together had managed, and Peter would build on that in any way he could.

"I'll go see the kid," Peter blurted without thinking. "Val and me... We'll take this job on. For free."

Emmett's smile was sudden and warm, the panic seeping away almost instantly. "Really?"

Peter hid his regret behind a grin. "Can't let anyone go without the best dog in the world, right?"

Emmett's fingers unclenched long enough to give Peter a brief hug. Peter held him tight for a moment before releasing him to check his face. The sun behind Emmett's eyes was back. Peter relaxed, relieved. The whole parenting thing wasn't so hard sometimes.

***

Peter couldn't help but grin at Ava Delaney's reaction to his request.

"Hold on a second." Her blue eyes seemed to enlarge as she spoke. "You want me to take care of Emmett while you persuade the half-hellhound to help you look for a missing dog? I mean... really? That's the best excuse for me to babysit you've got?"

"It's true." He held his hand over his heart and made the sign of a cross. "And hope to die. Seriously, you should have seen him. The kid got this... this look in his eye when he saw the missing poster, and you know I can't resist trying to buy his love."

She folded her arms across her chest, her stern gaze penetrating his bullshit. "And what if the dog is dead? What if it got run over or this kid's parents decided to take it to a pound and pretend it went missing?"

"Who would do that to their kid?"

"Shitheads, that's who. The same kinds of shitheads who buy love, by the way."

He decided it would be best to let that one go. "You said yourself that Val and I need to get out there more."

"I kind of meant applying to work with the Senate, or, like, handing business cards in to be displayed on shop windows or something. I wasn't expecting you to hunt down lost dogs." Finally, a smile crept across her face, making it hard for him to look away. She had no idea at all what her smile did to him. "Even if that is sort of sweet."

"Sweet? That's quite a step up from selfish bastard."

She tossed her impossibly red hair and turned her back on him. "Don't get too used to it." She took a seat at her tiny desk in the corner of her living room, an apparent dismissal. "Of course I'll watch Emmett. Good luck convincing Val though."

As he turned to leave, he heard her make a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

***

He left a cheerful Emmett with his favourite grownup and tried not to feel jealous at the obvious bond the unrelated pair had together. He was often the outsider looking in around them, but he was determined that would change. He had come a long way with Emmett, but it hurt that both he and Ava still preferred each other's company to Peter's. Even so, he couldn't expect them to forget all of his mistakes just because he wanted them to.

It would have been nice though.

The next step wouldn't be as easy. About a year ago, his half-hellhound partner had moved out of the cul-de-sac that had been a kind of safe haven for him and most of his friends when life got tough. That was fair enough, but she had moved to a property owned by a certain fae prince whom Peter couldn't stand. And only a small part of that dislike was down to the odd connection between Phoenix, a literal son-of-a-bitch, and Ava, the woman Peter had managed to both win and lose with seemingly little effort.

Peter patted the steering wheel of his baby, a car he had kept for a long time because of the memories of Emmett's dead mother and a family he thought he had lost forever. Now, new memories were forming, and an unnatural attachment to an inanimate object was the least of Peter's worries.

The stick caught as he switched gears, and he swore, realising the car was halfway back into the mechanic's garage again. He really needed some paying work to pop up, and soon.

He drove out to what had once been a garage of a different kind, a cover for a sanctuary that hid rebels and those on the run from the old ruling Council. Those days were over, but Peter couldn't help shivering as he pulled up outside the gates. Phoenix owned the sanctuary and the house with it. He lived in the old creaky house with his half-fae offspring, while Val and her teenage charge lived in the converted garage, right above the sanctuary they had once hid in. It occurred to Peter that almost everywhere he went these days had a memory of the old days. Times had changed, but not quickly enough for some.

As he pulled in outside the house and conversion, the front door of the main house opened, and typically of Peter's bad luck, Phoenix stepped out, his freaky black and silver hair flowing out behind him like a fucking mermaid. Jesus, he detested the man.

Phoenix gave him barely a nod as he left his car. "Are you here to see me?"

"Val."

Another nod. "She's home, I believe."

"Keeping tabs on her, are we?"

One of Phoenix's eyes twitched. "Only when I must. How is Ava?"

Peter made a sound that he realised made him come across as childish, but he didn't quite care. "You mean after your death threats? Or after you forced her friends to move away? I'm never sure what you're referring to these days."

Phoenix's lips pressed together. He glared at Peter for too long before saying, "Her general health and wellbeing is what I referred to."

"Well, she's just great. Then again, you haven't tortured her in a while, right?"

Phoenix bristled. "Do we have a problem here, Peter Brannigan?" He spat the surname as if he despised the humanity of it.

"What was your wife's surname?" Peter asked smartly. "Or can't you remember that either? See you around, faery."

Phoenix spluttered as Peter strode away feeling pleased with himself. A tinge of guilt said it probably wasn't Phoenix's fault that he couldn't remember his human wife, but sometimes it was incredibly hard for Peter to change his mind about someone. And Christ if that wasn't Ava's problem with him.

"Fuck," he hissed, then turned on his heel to face Phoenix again. "I'm sorry," he spat. "I shouldn't have said that. It was out of line."

"You're sorry," Phoenix said coolly. His eyes were calm, and somehow, that was far more unnerving than his rage. "I understand how impotent you must have felt when I was angry with Ava over my daughter's disappearance last year, but I assure you, I would never have caused her harm."

He should never have said impotent in that scathing tone. Peter's hands clenched into fists. "So it's just me who remembers the harm you caused her for Mummy Dearest? No, wait, I'm pretty sure Ava remembers that special whip of yours, too. She still has nightmares about the time you were your psycho mother's bitch."

Phoenix took a step back as if he had been physically struck. Well, fuck him. He deserved to feel bad about torturing Ava. Double agent or not. And so what if Peter was the only one still holding a grudge. Somebody had to.

"I'm going to see Val, then I'm getting out of here," Peter managed to spit out before walking briskly away. The fae literally brought out the worst in him; it was official.

By the time he knocked on the massive garage door, he was feeling a little less confident about tackling Val. She arched her brows when she answered, inviting him inside then cracking her knuckles as she peered out the door as if trying to intimidate unseen enemies. For all he knew, she was.

Leah waved at him from a bunk at one side of the wall before returning to her book. The teenager was an avid reader, and she had been devouring books almost as fast as people could find them for her. Carl and Ava had been trying to outdo each other again, if the two oversized boxes by the bunk was anything to go on.

"This is worse than a fucking bedsit," he chided while working up his courage. "Why are you living in here, Val?"

She rolled her shoulders and took one of two seats around a small, sleek breakfast table. Her honey coloured eyes were as serious as always as she bade him to join her.

He sat and looked around the room. It was airy, for sure, but it was still just a room. Of course, there was plenty of space underground.

"It's safe," she said. "And the sanctuary is close by if we should ever need it."

His gaze went to the swirling tattoos decorating her forehead and neck. Tiny bumps ran from mid-forehead right through her hairline and down to the back of her neck. When she got mad, they sharpened and lengthened, and her entire body hulked out in size and ferocity. What better partner for someone as infamous in the supernatural world as Peter?

"When you're done staring, perhaps you'd like to tell me the purpose of your visit," Val said in a weary tone. She had been stared at a lot since the rest of the world cottoned on to the fact a supernatural one existed. People like Val had become something of a sideshow in the not-so-awesome new world.

"It's about work," he began. "The good news is that I might have found us a job."

"And the bad news?"

He hesitated. "It's not exactly a money-maker. Or prestigious. In fact, it's more about the goodwill than anything else."

She leaned her elbows on the table, a flicker of interest in her eyes. "Debt collection or a runaway?"

He pursed his lips and leaned back in turn. "I suppose you could say it's a runaway."

"The vampires again," she said eagerly. "Kidnapping unwilling volunteers, is that it?"

He ran his hand across the back of his shorn hair. "Not in... so many words."

She pounded her fist on the table. He tried really hard not to flinch.

"Stop tormenting her," Leah called out from the other side of the room. "Just tell her what it is and be done with it."

Nervous laughter bubbled inside Peter's throat. "The thing is, it's sort of a favour for... a child. In that, they're missing a pet, and we'll be the ones who find it."

Val's lips turned upward for an instant before a low growl came from somewhere in the back of her throat. "Our job is locating a missing animal?"

"Basically, but think of the good vibes we'll be pushing out into the world. Karma, baby."

"Don't call me baby, Brannigan. I'll rip off your ears if you do it again."

"Come on," he said, ignoring the threat. "We can't keep going on like this. Nobody's calling. Nobody's interested in us."

"Ava mentioned us on television last year," she said. "People will come to us eventually."

"That's old news, Val. Nobody cares. Even at the time, the drama about the missing girl was just swallowed up by the first vampire news. The world has already forgotten we had a part in anything newsworthy."

"And a missing... pet is going to change that?"

"No." He swallowed hard, trying to keep his focus on the real reason he was pushing for the task. "It's just an upset kid, Val. Doing something good for a community is going to spread our names amongst the humans. They're the ones who'll need our help most often, right? We'll do this the right way, one job at a time."

"Is it a job if you don't get paid?" Leah asked in an innocent voice.

He dared to scowl at her for about two seconds before he became aware of Val's glowering. Clearing his throat, he faced front. "We need the goodwill. We need something. People like us are needed right now. Don't let somebody else take over because we think we're too high and mighty to help everyone who needs us."

She sighed, her shoulders drooping. "I imagined us taking on noble tasks, Peter. This seems... ridiculous."

"What's the harm in talking to the kid and maybe keeping a look out for the dog?" He gave her his best smile. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Chapter Two

Val rolled her shoulders, feeling as though she might burst out of her skin at any moment. The suburban neighbourhood she and Peter were currently walking through was home to more children than she had ever seen in her life outside of the slave market she had been born in.

Children didn't like her. Leah had grown up with her, Dita was somehow immune to a person's differences, and Emmett had grown up in Hell, so none of those three stared at her very often. These children, on the other hand, these children stared at her as if she were their nightmares come true.

When they saw her, they stopped what they were doing and followed her path, unable to take their eyes off her. She heard whispers about monsters and glanced over her shoulder uneasily. "I like this not, Peter. This was a foolish plan."

He looked around, apparently noticing the creepy children for the first time. "What the hell? What are you, the Pied Piper? Make them stop."

"Who says they're following me?"

She heard the stupidity even as she said the words. They were fascinated with her because she was different. Supernaturals who looked as unusual as she did had never lived openly before. But like it or not, the world had changed. Humans knew the supernatural existed, the old ruling Council was gone, the Irish slave market had been shut down, and she and Leah were no longer on the run from those who wanted to use Leah's unusual gift. And sometimes, Val was forced to just face her fears and see the horror in human eyes when they looked upon her.

Sighing, she halted, turned, and confronted her shadows. The children ground to a stop in turn, watching, waiting, wondering what she would do. She did the only thing she could do: she shifted into her other form, the terrifying—

"Val." Peter gripped her arm. "Cut that shit out. They're just kids!"

But it was too late. She could feel the rage in her stare as her body began its morph into something massive and unwieldy. She took a step that tremored, and as one, the children began to run, screaming hysterically.

"That was over the top," Peter huffed, inching away from her before turning his back. His shoulders had stiffened.

Maybe she had gone a tad overboard. She made an effort to hide the beast inside, to retreat back into her lesser shell. She touched the tattoos on her forehead, the magical ones which had given her enough rage and anger to kill the rapist hellhound who had fathered her. It probably wasn't necessary to invoke that same rage upon schoolchildren. Probably.

She followed Peter as she looked at house numbers, trying to figure out which street to take next. They had walked almost in a circle back to his car before they found the right street.

"Is it necessary for every single street to look identical?" Val asked.

Peter shrugged. "We're not known for our architecture for a reason. Look. It's the one with the white door."

"There's a child in the front garden."

"Relax. She's not going to bite." He straightened out a crumpled missing poster he had produced from his pocket. "Maybe she's the one who put up these posters."

"I hope this isn't an imaginary dog," Val murmured as they drew close.

The child was maybe six. Her dirty-blond hair was gathered in scraggly pigtails. She sat on the lawn, surrounded by an assortment of toys.

"Cute," Peter said. "Must be having a tea-party."

But when they reached the gate, the girl's conversation became clear.

"No, Mr. Bear, no staking vampires today. We need to feed the wolves."

Peter's eyes widened, and he gave Val a holy crap look.

Val shoved him aside and called to the child. "Girl. Come here."

The little girl looked up, revealing a freckled, heart-shaped face and massive blue eyes. When she smiled, her upper front tooth looked out of place, as if it might fall out soon.

Peter held up the piece of paper. Before he could speak, the girl was running toward the gate.

"Did you find her?" she asked excitedly. "Did you find Sparky?"

She had a lisp that made Val feel strange. She couldn't place the emotion, however.

"No," Peter said. "But we'd like to look for Sparky. Do you have any photos of your dog?"

She shook her head, looking longingly at the poster. "But I'm a good drawer." She pointed at her picture. "That's exactly how Sparky looks."

Peter smiled. "Who helped you put up the posters?"

"My slaves," she said, keeping a straight face. "I paid them in Smarties to do the letters, too."

"That was clever," Peter said. "How long have you had Sparky?"

"For always." She screwed up her face. "When everything went dark, I found her in the garden. She was hurt, so I took care of her, and she was happy."

"How did she go missing?" Val asked.

"We were playing in the garden, but then..." She rubbed her nose. "We heard a strange sound, so Sparky went to ives... inves..." She swallowed, took a deep breath, then blurted, "Investigate!"

"Sparky went to investigate?" Peter asked. The gentleness of his tone surprised Val.

"Yeah! She ran out of the gate, and all the way, um, that way." She pointed. "I followed 'cause I'm her 'sistant."

"You're her assistant?" Val asked, feeling as though she were talking to an incredibly strange child. She couldn't remember Leah ever acting similarly. That gave her a pang of regret. Leah had always been quiet and still, ever ready to obey and run for her life.

"Like I said." The girl rubbed her nose again. "So I followed, but Mammy caught me and brought me home." She lowered her voice. "She doesn't know about Sparky. She's my secret."

"Your mammy doesn't know you have a dog?" Peter asked. "Do you think maybe Sparky was somebody else's dog and she went home?"

She shook her head and folded her arms. "Sparky's my friend. She's my dog."

"Okay," Peter said. "What does she look like?"

"She's beautiful, but Eamon down the road called her ugly, so I bit his ear."

Peter stifled a laugh.

"What size is the animal?" Val asked. "Colour? Distinguishing marks?"

The girl held her hand up to her hip. "This size." Her hand wavered until it reached her knee. "And she's really black. Her hair is like yours."

Peter frowned. "I don't have black hair."

The girl looked around and heaved a sigh. "And she has big teeth like the wolf in my book, but she never bites me because she loves me."

"Does she bite other people?"

"She was going to bite Allison Kenny because she said I smelled, but then it was dinnertime."

"Gemma?" A woman came to the front door, looking worried. "Gemma, get inside. Right now."

"But, Mammy..."

"Inside," her mother snapped, keeping her eyes on Peter and Val.

Peter held up his hands. "We're just here about the missing dog."

"My daughter doesn't have a dog, you creep. Get lost before I call the police."

Val bristled, but Peter pulled her on. "Leave it," he murmured.

"And she looks like a unicorn!" Gemma shouted after them as her mother carried her inside. "She's a unicorn puppy!"

Val looked at Peter. "Carl willingly works with children. It's not a punishment. He even enjoys it. Does he have something wrong with him?"

Peter grinned. "Oh, come on. She was sweet."

"We know nothing about the lost animal, and her mother thinks we're some kind of monsters."

Peter's eyebrows arched just enough to justify a strike.

"Cut it out." He swore as he rubbed the back of his head. "No violence, Val. I'm human."

"I've heard enough stories about you to understand you're tougher than you look," she growled.

He cleared his throat. "Let's take a walk through the park in case the dog is hurt or something. At least we can say we did something."

"I don't believe there is a dog."

"We're already here. We might as well. And if anyone asks, we're on a job."

"I believe I'm mortified," she said. "This has been the most embarrassing experience of my life."

As they walked through the park, Peter looked at her. "So how's it been, living with the fae king of the universe?"

"He's merely a fae prince."

"Somebody should tell him, then." Peter's hands shoved deep in his pockets as he caught her look. "I know."

"Besides, we don't live with him. We merely reside on his property." She wondered how much she should say. It hadn't been a comfortable experience so far by any stretch of the imagination. Phoenix didn't want her there. He tolerated her only for his daughter Lucia's sake. And he had gotten it into his head that he would protect Leah, but that was Val's job.

Val had only moved to be close to Lucia, to figure out what it was between them, but Lucia had been different, too, spending far more time getting to know the fae world. As always, Lucia's twin brother, Lorcan, was eager and enthusiastic for new experiences, but Val had felt left behind, maybe even a little lost.

"It's not permanent," she said after a while. "Just until this business... works out. Perhaps Ava is right. We should officially apply to work with the Senate."

Peter scowled. "We'd just be their little bitches, running around at their beck and call. Besides, we'd have to go through testing and shit. They can't do anything without a big rigmarole first."

"Or as Carl said, you just can't get past your jealousy of certain people."

Peter spluttered with indignation. "He said what?"

A childish scream filled the air. Val glanced at Peter before setting off in a run toward the sound. Her heart pounded in her chest. Screams brought memories of things long forgotten. Screams riled up confusing emotions she wasn't ready to deal with.

In the distance, a group of children around Emmett's age gathered around in a circle, looking at something on the ground.

Their faces contorted with disgust and interest mingled together, and when Val reached them, she pushed some aside to take a look. The broken body of a mutilated cat lay on the grass. Only its head was intact, and its eyes were wide-open and glassy.

"What the fuck?" Peter whispered. He gathered himself and raised his voice. "All of you, back away. Right now."

Something in his tone had them all obeying.

"That was so disgusting," a girl said in an awed voice.

"Something ate it," a boy replied.

Val knelt by the body.

"Ew, she's going to touch it," one of the children cried, giddy with excitement.

Peter ushered them farther away, letting Val have some quiet.

She sniffed the air and let the scents tell their story. This, at least, was something she knew how to do. The death had occurred the night before. The organs were missing, perhaps eaten, perhaps not. But the way the animal had been torn apart spoke of a love of violence rather than a desire for food. What on earth had done this? There was a light scent she couldn't pinpoint, covered as it was by the death smells. It made her uneasy, nonetheless.

She joined Peter who was asking the children questions.

Val noticed a boy had a bandage on his ear. "What happened to your ear?" she asked.

The boy's cheeks flushed as the others laughed and jeered.

"He got bitten by a girl," one of the boys said.

"Not just a girl, a little skinny kid," another said, unable to hold back his laughter. "She's tiny."

"Gemma's a psycho," the bandaged boy said fiercely, "but I don't hit girls or little kids."

"So you're Eamon," Val said.

The boy looked too surprised to answer.

"Gemma did that?" Peter asked. "The girl with the missing dog?"

"There's something wrong with that dog," Eamon said. "It has rabies or something."

"You saw it?" Peter urged.

"Not really." The boy touched his bandage before dropping his hand. "I mean, it was dark, and I saw its eyes. It was hiding in the bushes, and it growled at me. I ran home, and the next day, Gemma bit me when I..." He shuffled his feet. "Whatever. They're both freaks." He looked at Val and appeared to be a little frightened by what he had just said.

"All right," Peter said. "Go home. No more poking dead animals with sticks, you little weirdos."

The group ran off with their football, entirely unconcerned.

"Think a dog could do this?" Peter asked.

Val shrugged. "It's possible."

They walked to the body again. Peter made a face. "I've never seen a dog do this."

"Perhaps her dog really is sick."

"A missing dog, then a dead cat. We need to get rid of this body before more kids see it, and find out if any other animals have been killed. At least we know the dog came this way."

"If it was Gemma's dog who did this."

He frowned. "Somebody's dog must have done it. The sooner we find Gemma's dog, the better."

"So we're doing this job?" Val asked, surprised by Peter's sudden interest.

He knelt by the cat and sighed. "Look at what the dog did. I'm sorry for Gemma, but we can't let this animal run the streets. If it could do this to a cat, what happens if it moves on to something bigger? Something like a child. This is a family neighbourhood. We have to find this dog before a kid gets hurt."

Chapter Three

They moved on from the body to take a more thorough look around the park.

"I can smell blood," Val said, glaring at the horizon as if it were to blame.

Peter had a bad feeling in his gut. It twisted upward, calling out to him that something was wrong. His instincts were one of the few things he put his trust into.

"It's faint," she said, moving away from the path and into a small copse of trees.

Even Peter could smell the death in the air then. Rotting and putrid, the stench told a story.

"This way," Val said, sounding almost excited.

Peter's stomach, on the other hand, was turning. He had seen a lot of things that he had managed to block away, done even more. But now, he was afraid of what they might see next. Maybe the boy was softening the hardness in his heart, or maybe he was just getting too old for this shit.

Val held up a hand, her feet grinding into soil as she spun around, her eyes glistening with a tint of red. She moved away from Peter as if in a trance until they came upon a pile of bones and some rotting flesh, none of it discernible.

"What is this?" Peter muttered as he found patches of soil that had been recently dug up. Had more bones been buried? Or had something just decided to take everything out to play?

"Is this where it hides its kills?" Val shook her head. "But it left the cat out in the open."

"Maybe it was disturbed before it could bring it here." He buried his hands in a pile of disturbed dirt until he found bone. "Or it just hadn't gotten around to burying everything yet." He stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. "Do dogs do this?"

She shrugged, wandering around the bones with an expressionless face.

The smell was too much after seeing the cat's body. Peter left her there and moved out of the trees. The sooner they found the dog, the better. He shivered as drizzle began to fall. After everything he had seen, he wasn't sure why this particular set of bones made him uneasy, but something in his gut squirmed.

"We could wait for the thing to come back," Val said when she finally joined him. "There are all sorts of bones in there. Small mammals, birds, even. And larger ones. I believe I saw the remnants of a fox's tail."

"So the dog is, what, half-starved? Has rabies? Some kind of bloodlust?"

"If the dog were dangerous, surely someone would have noticed by now."

Peter rubbed his jaw. He needed a shave. He would have given anything to go home and spend time with his son, but the thought of a child getting bitten by a dog who would eat a fox stopped him from giving up on the entire thing. "We could contact the local dog warden and see what he's picked up."

They walked out of the park together as Peter made some calls and finally came in contact with the dog warden.

"I pick up dogs in that park all of the time," the warden said. "Little Fluffy gets out the gate and turns into fecking Cujo with a bit of freedom. It's not serious, mind you. The scents get to them is all."

"So this is normal? These kills?"

"I didn't say that. The thing is, there have been a larger than usual number of missing pets in the neighbourhood over the last year. Since the sky went dark, actually. I thought maybe the animals were sensing something and running away from whatever caused the darkness, but that mess is long over, and the pets are still disappearing."

"You don't think all of these missing animals are gorging in the park though, right?" Peter asked.

"I think something odd is happening," the warden said. "I mean, usually we pick up most pets. They're back within a day or two at most, especially with everyone being online. Somebody shares a photo, and half the world sees it. It's made my job easier. But lately? It's been too quiet. And that many animals don't just vanish off the face of the planet. Maybe one or more dog turned killer. It happens. Usually around farms until a shotgun takes care of it. But around here? Not so much. A dog pack capable of killing can't be allowed run the streets."

"What have you been doing about it?"

"Whatever I can. But that's the problem. Nobody's saying anything. Nobody's seeing a thing. The only other explanation is that people have been taking the dogs for dog-baiting. And honestly, that's the best explanation there is. People don't realise how big a problem dog fighting is. Almost as bad as the puppy mills and backyard breeders."

Peter sensed a rant coming on and got off the phone as quickly as possible. He looked at Val. "You hear all of that?"

"Yes. Is there a local pound? Perhaps they've had an influx of lost dogs that people just haven't claimed. How closely do wardens work with local rescues or pounds? Maybe this man doesn't know the whole story. Or maybe we have an unusual situation on our hands because it doesn't all add up."

Little was making sense to him either. "Maybe you're right. We can check it out."

"And after that?"

"I'll ask Shay to find out if there have been any recent dog-biting incidents, or if he's heard rumours about dog-fighters snatching pets nearby. After that, all we can do is go door to door and see if anyone has anything to say about it."

***

The pound made Val feel uncomfortable. A prickle of sweat rose on her upper lip. She swiped it away and kept her eyes straight forward, ignoring the whining from the cages on either side of her. The scent was the worst. It smelled like hopelessness and anxiousness and loneliness. It reminded her of Hell.

Peter stuck his finger into a cage. A mongrel with a patch over his eye licked his fingers then took a nibble. "Maybe Emmett could use a dog. All boys need dogs, right?"

Val tried not to roll her eyes. "I wouldn't know."

"This one isn't great with kids," the woman escorting them said sharply. "He's been here a long time. Most of them have. If we were busier, he'd have probably been destroyed already."

Val held in her visceral reaction.

"He looks healthy," Peter said.

"Most pounds are quick to put down dogs, healthy or not. We're in a better position here, but that doesn't mean it works out. Once dogs spend a couple of months here, that seems to be it. The new puppies, the cuter, smaller breeds, they go first." She sighed as she ran her hand across a cage that held some kind of husky that was way too large for the space. "Trends come and go. People see a dog that looks cool or cute and get the adorable puppy. They spoil it, never bother training it, then wonder why the adult version is boisterous and anxious. And then it ends up here with the typical excuses: we're moving, the child's allergic, he growled at a toddler pulling his tail, so he's dangerous." The woman squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them, a sheepish smile gathered on her lips. "Sorry. Bad day."

"You get a lot of surrendered animals?" Peter asked, still eyeing up Patch.

"That's been our most common way of acquiring new animals lately, unfortunately. We spend most of our time tracking down the owners of lost or abandoned animals, or dealing with the hmming and hawwing of people taking a dog for a weekend then bringing it back because it pissed on their carpets." Her eyes opened wide. "Oh, my God, I'm such a harpy today. Seriously, I love working with animals. It's the best feeling when one is homed. It's just some of the other things aren't as easy to take. Funding is always an issue. A successful rehoming story gives another dog time."

"I get it," Peter said. "People are arseholes. When something good happens, it's so amazing that you spend too long waiting for it to happen again."

"Maybe." The woman relaxed a little. "We always have something to do, although lately, it's definitely been quieter than before."

"A lot of pets have gone missing, according to the dog warden," Val said.

"He wouldn't know his arse from his elbow in any case. He thinks anything larger than a Jack Russell shouldn't be allowed to be a pet. But he's probably right for a change. We've had a lot of phone calls from certain neighbourhoods. I'm pretty certain the dogs are being abducted. A lot of the animals were unspayed females. Not all, but enough for me to draw connections."

"Why unspayed females?" Val asked, curious in spite of herself.

"They can be used for breeding," the woman said. She looked exhausted all of a sudden. "No matter what we tell people, most animals end up intact and hormonal. Less accidental breeding would help so much. And apart from every other reason to neuter an animal, it puts a serious target on the backs of popular breeds. They end up as breeders for dog fighters or puppy mills." A smile lit up her face. "One of the teenagers who works here part-time has a different theory."

"Which is?" Val asked.

The woman bit the corner of her mouth, suddenly uncomfortable. "Well, he thinks that all of this has happened since... the change. The world is suddenly full of creatures who might have... distinct tastes. What if something has decided it needs to feed on household pets now?"

Peter glanced at Val and shrugged. "But couldn't there be another reason?" he asked. "Something that isn't to do with fights or breeding, or, um, anything else."

"Like what?"

"We found a cat that had been badly ripped apart," Val said. "And eaten. It looked... unusual. We also found a kind of den. There was a lot of bones and rotting meat. Is it possible that one or more of these missing dogs could have turned... wild?"

"It's highly unlikely."

"But is it possible?"

The woman bit her lip again with a frown. "It's not something I've come across, but I suppose it's technically possible. Except some of the missing dogs are large animals. They wouldn't be easy to kill."

"But they could be the killer dogs then," Val said.

The woman shook her head dismissively. "Large dogs running around off-leash? We would hear about it. The dog warden would be called. Besides, dog fights are noisy. If a wild dog was going around attacking other animals, people would hear the fights."

"Could it be a pack then?" Peter asked.

"While that would make more sense in some aspects, in others, it wouldn't. The pack would be seen. They would need larger animals to support a pack, and they would find it a lot harder to remain unseen in the city. If this was the countryside, I would have a different answer, but for this case, in this area, I find it incredibly hard to believe."

"You seem really dedicated to your job." Peter gestured toward the animals. "You must love this."

A pink flush rose on the woman's cheeks. "I do. But I'm no saint. I have a life outside of here."

Peter smiled. "Thanks for your help in any case."

She licked her lips before smiling back. "It's not a problem." She rested her fingers on his arm. "Anytime you need help, just give me a call."

Val took a step back as a lustful scent rose in the air. The pair had locked gazes in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. Peter broke first, turning to give Patch a last smidgen of attention. "Maybe my kid would like to come see the dogs sometime."

"You can bring this one for a walk, I should think," the woman said coyly. "We have a lot of volunteers who come to help give the animals some exercise and help them socialise. Maybe your boy would help this little fellow get used to children."

"Sounds good," Peter said. Then he walked off, leaving the woman standing there, looking surprised.

Val covered her smile. "Thank you for your help," she said before following Peter. As she left, a howl rose from the dogs behind her. She wished she could set them free. But a free dog was likely causing all of the problems.

Outside, she nodded at Peter. "That was interesting."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said. "What the hell is going on around here?"

"That's not what I was talking about," Val said. "She was flirting with you, and I believe you were flirting back. Almost. You're not very good at it."

"Hold up." His face turned red. "I was not flirting. I do not flirt. And the woman was being friendly. That's all."

Val pressed her hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelashes. "Call me anytime."

"Jesus," Peter blustered, looking as though his head would explode. "You're supposed to be the serious one."

Val's hand dropped abruptly. "I am being serious. And I don't approve, by the way. You chase after my friend, but the first time a woman is moderately pleasant to you, you—"

"Hold on a minute. Ava and me are none of your business, and I wasn't doing anything back there, never mind anything wrong. Bloody hell, Val. Is this what working with you is going to be like?"

She refused to answer.

"Well, it can't be," he continued. "Ava has nothing to do with our business relationship. You can't hold shit against me based on your version of loyalty."

"My version? Loyalty is loyalty. There is no version I adhere to."

"You're dedicated," he said, catching her eye. "More than normal."

"My dedication is abnormal?"

He looked slightly afraid, but he sucked it up and carried on. She felt a slight increase in respect for him. "You swore your life to protect Leah. Your life, Val. And it's still happening. You're still in control of everything she does. And that's moved on to Lucia. That can be suffocating, you know? Leah's a teenager. You can't freak out every time she wants to go somewhere without you."

"How dare you talk about Leah? It's none of your business."

He grinned suddenly. "I know, right?"

"So you were proving a point?" She frowned. "Is this what you do then?"

"Only when I have to." He stopped walking and faced her. "Look, I know us working together has been weird. We're both oddballs, but we'll get shit done. But this whole pointing at each other's personal stuff isn't going to fly. It's just distracting. I mean, look how much time we've just spent standing here exchanging barbs. We need to push that stuff to one side and not bring it to work."

"And did you "not bring it to work" when you met Phoenix while looking for me?" she asked slyly.

His smile didn't vanish. "I totally brought it to work. I'm not that big a person, Val. We have a couple of things in common, and being territorial is only part of that. I have no idea what's going on with Phoenix and Ava. All I know is that I don't like it. But I won't involve you in my issues. So don't get involved in mine. Are we cool?"

She hesitated for only a second before nodding in agreement.

"Good." Peter unlocked his car. "And I was definitely not flirting."

Val found she had a smile on her own face when she sat in the passenger seat.

Chapter Four

Val closed her eyes and listened to Peter's telephone conversation. She didn't need to bring out the hound in her to hear. She heard more than people realised. Leah and Lucia had both taught her the beauty in listening more than speaking. She observed in ways others could not, and she had learned a long time ago to contain most of her reactions.

The scary side of herself was brought out in a calculating way, always. It was better if others assumed she was unpredictable, and she often inwardly smiled when the people who called her friend showed they were still scared of her deep down. They might even arm themselves when she was faced with bad news, but if she ever lost control, there wasn't a person alive who could contain her. She had only truly ever lost control once, and that had earned herself and Leah their freedom from Hell. There was no regret.

Well, perhaps one, but leaving Raven behind had been the right thing to do for Leah. Val had loved Raven more than anyone she had ever met before, but the magical tattooist had been too self-centred to give up everything for a child who was supposed to be special.

Except Raven had let Val go, even helped her leave. That was sacrifice. And Val had promised Phoenix's forgotten wife Helena she would take Leah away from the child slave market, without even knowing what the child could do. Maybe Peter was right. Maybe she did take her responsibilities on too strongly. But what was left when she stripped all of that away? Who would she be? She wasn't sure she'd like to know.

"I know," Peter was saying with a hint of impatience. "But this might be important. I need to speak to Shay. What do you mean this isn't— Fine. I'll call his mobile phone." He hung up and swore. "He's not in his office. They said it's not his office anymore. What the fuck is that about?"

"Maybe they shuffled the Senate around again." She refused to open her eyes. "You should have called his mobile in the first place."

"His reception is rubbish. They made it sound like... I'll call him."

Peter grew anxious too quickly, she thought. He covered it with anger and impatience, but she could still sense the anxiety beneath. Sometimes, she felt as though he were one of the more complicated people she had met since finding sanctuary.

"Shay?" he asked sharply. "I called your office."

"It's not my office anymore." Shay sounded guarded, so Val opened her eyes. The Garda Sergeant, and Senate representative, couldn't hide anything in his voice.

"Something I should know?" Peter asked.

"Not yet," Shay said. "What can I do for you?"

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "Val and I have taken on a job, and we've come across an odd situation. We're in a quiet neighbourhood on the Southside, and it turns out a lot of pets have been going missing since... Eddie Brogan did what he did. We found evidence of... Well, it looks like something's eating the animals, but we're not sure if it's all connected yet. The local pound hasn't been getting as many lost dogs in, and neither has the dog warden in the area. There's a possibility that the animals are being stolen, and an even smaller one of a wild dog pack gone blood-crazy. Have you heard anything unusual? Dogfights, biting incidents, maybe?"

"It's not really in my realm anymore," Shay said. "I can look into it for you. Just give me the details."

Val stared out the window as Peter passed on whatever information he had stored up in his head. He was more observant than she gave him credit for. She vaguely wondered if it was frustrating for him to lack her sense of smell. She inhaled deeply then stiffened. She rolled down the window and leaned her head out to sniff again. Something she couldn't identify was out there. Close. She smothered a growl that came uninvited.

Forgetting all about Peter, she let herself out of the car. The street they had parked on was quiet and clean. Most of the houses were painted the same cream and chocolate tones, and plenty of the gardens were filled with well-kept gardens and flowers in bloom. Neatly trimmed hedges lined every divide between houses, and all of the properties looked the same to her. But something didn't fit in.

She walked slowly, a tremor of uneasiness sliding up and down her spine. Something... something was not right. She heard a slight movement across the street and turned her head. A large tabby cat had leapt onto a wall and was glaring at her. Then, it too seemed to scent something in the air. All of the hair on its back stood on edge. It hissed into the growing darkness then fled all the way up the street.

Intent on finding whatever had scared the cat, Val slunk across the road. She heard Peter get out of the car and call her name, but she was already around the corner, following the scent of something dark. The tang on her tongue spoke of unfamiliarity, so how could it be a dog? She couldn't hear footsteps ahead of her, but the scent changed, as if whatever she was following had noticed her. The tang turned angry, and she took a step back, feeling a shiver run through her.

She scoffed at herself—she had fought and won a battle against a full-blooded Hellhound, after all—but something disturbing was out there, staring at her from behind one of those hedges. She just knew it.

"What's going on?" Peter asked, finally catching up to her. "You sprinted around the corner like a lunatic."

She hadn't noticed herself running. It happened that way, sometimes. She caught a scent and was compelled to follow. But only certain kinds of scents. She swallowed hard. The scents of beings who didn't belong. That was how it worked. She knew when something was wrong because it didn't belong. It had been so long that she had almost forgotten the instinct existed.

"I don't think it's a dog," she murmured. "There's something here, but it's not a dog."

"Where? What is it?"

Peter made to pass her, but she gripped his arm to stop him.

"Val?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what it is, only that it doesn't belong. I have to follow it and send it back."

"Back where?" Peter asked.

She gave him an anguished look. "I don't know."

"Get back into the car," he said firmly.

"It's right there," she said. But she couldn't see a thing. "Somewhere close."

"And your mind is elsewhere," he replied. "You're going to get back into the car and tell me exactly what's going on with you right now. If we're going to work together, I need to know why you look as though you're not even controlling your own body."

She looked down and saw that a weapon was held tight in her fingers. She frowned. She hadn't meant to take out a weapon. She sniffed the air again, but the scent was gone, already fading.

"It's gone," she whispered. "It got away."

And then Peter was in front of her, blocking her from following the thing she didn't recognise.

"In the car," he said, holding her gaze.

She looked at him. They were the same height. Strange how she hadn't noticed before. She could easily take him, but something in her head was screaming at her to calm down. She took a deep breath and realised she had half-shifted into her true form. That never happened without her say so. She gave Peter an apologetic look then nodded. He led her back to the car, and she wondered how she could start explaining things she had never understood.

***

Peter watched Val nervously. As soon as they got back into the car, she had shrunk back into her usual self, and the blank look in her eyes had been replaced by the keen one he was used to. If the hellhound lost control, he was the last person who would know what to do about it.

"I apologise," she said after a moment. Her voice had softened, but her jaw remained tense. There was little that was truly feminine about her, but she was interesting to look at, and the vulnerability deep in her eyes at certain moments made him feel as though he were supposed to look after her. At first, he had offered her the opportunity to work together because she was strong and unflappable. Now, he wondered if he had mistaken her all along.

"What happened back there?" he asked. "You ignored me calling you. You ran, alone, and I had no idea why. You talked in a voice I don't even recognise, and you acted like I wasn't really there. I feel like you weren't really there, Val."

She nodded, then shook her head, obviously unsettled herself. "It's been a long time since I felt it," she said after a moment. "So long, I had forgotten what it was like. You know what I am, Peter. My mother was human, but apparently special, like Emmett, like Leah. Except not so special as to be sold. My father was one of the Hellhounds who guarded the slave market in Hell. I was more like him than her."

"What could she do?" Peter asked.

"Likely nothing," Val said. "They only ever hurt the ones with no value. She would have become a carer for the other children, or even a breeder. But my father raped her, and my birth killed her." She said it without emotion, and Peter got the sense that she had displaced some of her past in order to deal with it. She stood apart from it in order to stay clear of the emotions associated with it all. He could understand that. After all, he had done that in his own way, too.

"So you were born," he coaxed. "You lived in Hell."

"I was born there, and I grew up more like my father, so I became one of the guards. I had enough of the hound in me, you see. We guarded against intruders. It's pure instinct. When Ava and I got lost in Hell while trying to get the twins home, they found us because they sensed her. She's called tainted, but she has a light in her that can't exist in Hell. They knew she didn't belong, and that they had to rid themselves of her. That's the way it is for the hound. Instinct takes over, and once it begins, there's nothing to stop us."

"Is that what happened back there? Instinct took over?"

"Yes." Her breathing grew heavy. "I scented something that didn't belong, and I had to make it leave. But I didn't recognise it. I don't know what kind of being it is, but it's dark and... and..."

"It's okay," Peter said. "Maybe it's one of the exiled who have returned. Maybe you feel like they don't belong here because they were sent away."

"It's not... that's not it," she said. "Elathan sometimes feels wrong to me. He was exiled, but I don't feel any compulsion to kill him."

"Ava sometimes feels weird around Elathan. She told me once that when he's angry, she can't look at him. And Coyle, the Guardian who murdered Koda, he made her feel sick."

Val nodded. "Ava has instincts of a different kind. At first, I thought she was sensing Hell, but then she would have sensed it from me. I was born there, after all."

"Are you going to lose it?" he asked, unable to stop himself.

She flinched then looked at him. "I really hope not, Peter. That wouldn't work out for any of us."

"Is there a reason we should be looking for whatever it is you scented back there?"

She shrugged. "It could have something to do with what we've been looking for."

"You didn't see it at all, right?"

"No." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I felt it looking at me. It sensed me, too, and it didn't like it."

"Should we tell Shay or Phoenix about this?"

"What would they do?"

He frowned. "Honestly? I have no idea. We don't even know if this being is guilty of anything."

But by the look in her eyes, he wondered if that would even matter.

Chapter Five

Shay hadn't come up with any useful information except for a complaint about clothes being stolen from a washing line in the area. Peter was just relieved that it gave them something to work with. He wasn't sure how any of the strange occurrences were connected, but a part of him was driven to find out. He hadn't told Shay about Val's episode with some unknown being, and when he called Ava to tell her he would be late picking up Emmett, he found himself keeping quiet to her, too, much to his surprise.

"That's fine," Ava said. "He can sleep here, if you like. Dita's with us right now. They're making chocolate Rice-Crispies buns, so I'm keeping this short or there'll be a lot more mess to clean up."

"Great," Peter said. "Thanks for this, Ava."

"I love having Emmett here."

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Peter cleared his throat. "Okay, well, I should get back to this."

"Of course. Um, tell Val I said hello."

"Will do."

He hung up and looked at Val. She was observing him again. She did that a lot.

"You didn't tell her," she said accusingly.

"So?"

"So what if I lose my mind out here? Who's going to know what to do?"

"Nobody, so it doesn't really matter."

Her lips twitched. "Fine. Can we go see the lady who complained now?"

They got out of the car and jogged across the street. Despite the late hour, a couple of kids were cycling up and down the road, apparently racing each other. One whizzed way too close past Peter's car.

"Watch it!" he shouted, but the children ignored him.

Shaking his head, he followed Val into the garden. He rang the bell when they reached the door. A woman answered. Her hair was pinned back, and her eyes were bloodshot. Her nicotine-stained fingers shook as she stared at the strangers on her doorstep.

"Can I help you?" she asked after a few seconds of apparently trying to figure out who the hell they were.

"We've been told you've been having some trouble with clothes being stolen on your washing line, and we wondered if—"

"I found them." Her expression turned hard. "Some bastard dog chewed them to bits."

"The clothes?" Peter asked. "A dog stole them and chewed them up?"

"No, those gurriers outside stole them because I didn't give them their stupid ball back, and then a dog chewed them up. Covered in mud and blood and God knows what else."

"Did you see the dog?" Val asked.

The woman looked her up and down. "If I saw the dog, I wouldn't have let it chew my things up, now would I?" She nodded at the cyclists outside. "Mrs. O'Brien down the road saw that lot though. Giggling and shouting with my sheets trailing after them. Do you know how much those sheets cost?"

"I have no idea," Peter said. "Thanks for your time."

"Go tell those kids that next time they steal something of mine, they'll get a boot up the arse!" she called after them as they left.

Peter looked over his shoulder. "Maybe next time you should just give them the stupid ball back."

"My garden. My ball!"

Val opened the gate. "That was useless."

"Yep. Idiot kids. If you're going to pick on the biggest bitch on the street, then don't get caught. I mean, come on."

"You did that sort of thing as a child, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. Nothing worse than your ball landing in the garden of the most hated person in the neighbourhood." He smiled at the memories of days before he knew that hellhounds and vampires and shifters existed.

And then one of the kids on bikes veered against his car—his baby—and knocked off his wing mirror.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Peter bellowed, rushing over to save what was left of his precious car.

Val muffled her laughter.

"Don't even start," he snapped. "You!" He held up the broken mirror. "Get back here, now!"

Most of the kids laughed and cycled away, but the one who had broken the mirror cycled back, still wobbling. He looked a couple of years younger than the rest, and his cheeks burned red. Mousy-brown hair peeked out from under his cap, and Peter had never seen so many freckles on one person's face before.

"Sorry, Mister," the boy said, unable to look him in the eye. "It was an accident. I swear."

"My car," Peter began, but the kid could barely cycle straight. "Wear stabilisers if you can't bloody ride the thing properly."

The kid's eyes filled up with tears. "I said sorry. I'll... I'll clean your garden or something if you don't tell on me."

The boy was even younger than Emmett. Peter felt himself soften and cursed himself. "Who am I going to tell?"

The boy hung his head, but the corners of his mouth were lifting.

"This kid," Peter said. "Look at him. He thinks it's funny."

"Leave my brother alone," a girl said, speeding up to them on her bike. "Or I'll tell everyone you're a big perve."

"Jesus," Peter muttered under his breath. "Your brother fucked up my wing mirror."

"It was an accident," the girl said fiercely. "I'll pay for it. I have a paper round."

"I'll let you away with paying for it if you help us find a missing dog," Peter said.

"What dog?" the girl asked suspiciously. Her gaze fell on Val. "You're not normal."

Val stared back soundlessly.

The little boy nudged his sister. "Stop, she might bite you."

"She won't bite me. They need our help, remember?" She nodded at Peter. "Which missing dog? There's, like, a million of them."

With a great deal of embarrassment, Peter held out the drawing of Sparky.

The girl snorted. "That's not even a dog. Are you mad or something?"

The boy's eyes opened wide. "Remember what Michelle said?"

"Michelle's an idiot." But the girl frowned. "Some kids were saying there was a monster in the bushes. The little kids. They said it had yellow eyes, and it was growling. I bet it was a fox."

"Do you ever see foxes around here?"

"Sometimes at night. They rip up the bins. Da says they're a nuisance and they should be shot, but I like them. I haven't seen one in ages though."

"I saw a monster," the boy whispered. "I saw it out my window."

"That was a dream," the girl said. "Come on. It's time to go in."

The pair cycled off, the girl expertly, and the boy wobbling all the way. The girl turned around and pointed in the opposite direction. "Check the hut!"

And then they were gone.

***

They followed the direction the girl had indicated until they found an abandoned house. The windows were boarded up, and the blackened exterior told a story of a fire. The garden was overgrown. Busted footballs hid in the tall grass.

"Is this what she meant?" Peter asked.

Val shook her head. The building only smelled of ash and dust. "Let's take a look around. The building doesn't look safe."

Peter was already halfway up the garden. He peered through the broken glass of the front door. "Looks bad. I don't think anyone has been in here. The place is gutted inside. Lots of webs and dust."

Val had noticed something in the grass. A flattened patch that stretched across the weeds as though something had been dragged. A couple drops of blood had landed somewhere close by, but it didn't smell like death. This place wasn't like the den of bones they had found in the park, but something other than children had been in the garden recently.

She followed the flattened weeds around the side of the house. The concrete was dusty, and a number of footprints criss-crossed over each other. She heard Peter following but paid him no attention. A locked wooden gate stopped them from proceeding any farther. Peter rested his foot on the lock and deftly threw himself over the gate. She heard him land on the other side. She wasn't going to jump anywhere. She gripped the chain lock and broke it apart, then punched the bolt on the gate. A crack sounded, and the gate swung open, revealing Peter's stunned face.

"Really?" he said. "You couldn't just... Why do I even bother?"

She brushed him aside and continued on the path. The back garden was even more of a wilderness than the front had been. There was a makeshift tyre swing hanging from an old tree, and a shed at the back of the garden was decorated with childish graffiti.

"This must be where the kids come to play," Peter said.

Val gave him a quizzical look.

"In pretty much every neighbourhood, there's some creepy place that kids can play without grownups shouting about noise or whatever. A hideout. A den. This." He screwed up his nose. "Although, it tends to look a lot cooler when you're a kid."

She nodded. What would she know about childhood games?

"Has that... thing you were worrying about been here?"

She shook her head. She would already know. "There are a lot of scents," she said. "It's hard to distinguish between old and new."

"I'm going to take a look in the shed," Peter said, already moving.

She followed, curious to see what kinds of things children kept in their secret hideouts. The door didn't shut neatly, she could see, and when Peter pulled it open, a host of scents invaded. Her eyes watered at the stench of urine, and she blinked back the tears, holding her breath.

"Get anything?" Peter asked.

"Can't breathe," she whispered. "It's too bad in here."

"I'll look by myself."

But she couldn't bring herself to walk away. "Is that one of those woman's sheets?" she asked.

Peter looked in the corner and shrugged. "Maybe. Who knows? Looks like a bed, doesn't it?" He knelt by the cushion that had been wrapped in the sheet. "Hair on it. Think maybe a cat or something?"

She had no idea. "Bones," she said, looking in the other corner. "Piles of tiny bones."

"Birds?"

"Chicken," she said, surprised. "This one has meat left. It's cooked chicken."

"So kids have been feeding something."

"As you say, it could be a cat."

"With so many missing pets, it could be a kid trying to catch their own pet," Peter said, frowning.

"But something else could be eating the food. How would they know?"

"Maybe they don't care. The point is that this is a place where an animal could... What's wrong?"

She was staring at the roof. "I heard something." She moved outside and looked, but whatever had been there was gone. She inhaled deeply, trying to find the scent, but the urine stench was so strong that nothing else could get through. Was that the point, perhaps?

"What is it?" Peter asked by her side.

Frowning, she turned, catching a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

"The tree," she murmured, already moving.

Golden eyes shone from a gap in the thick branches, then they were gone as quick as they appeared.

"It's on the roof!" Peter called out.

Val looked just in time to see a dark shadow disappear off the side of the roof. Peter climbed the wall, but he shook his head. "Can't see a thing. It's gotten too dark out here."

"Let's walk around," Val said, "and see if I can pick up a scent away from the shed."

"Did you get a good look at it?" Peter asked. "It had to be a cat, right? A dog can't climb or jump like that."

"It looked too big to be a cat," she said. "But it was hard to tell. It moved too quickly. I couldn't catch its scent at all. Are we just following the neighbourhood tomcat around?"

Peter shrugged. "Maybe. Tomcats smell, and you couldn't handle the stench back there."

"Is this how children's hideouts usually look? What did you do in your secret den as a child?"

He shrugged. "Smoked, sometimes. Read comics and ate snacks we robbed out of our kitchens. Later, we might share a can somebody robbed when their da got too drunk to notice. It was harmless at the time. It was just a game. We never robbed the neighbour's sheets though. I have a feeling. I don't know. I just feel like something's going on here. Something strange."

"There's nothing normal about what we found in the park," she said. "Nor how I acted earlier."

"But it probably has nothing to do with this shed." He kicked a stone and swore. "Does any of this have anything to do with each other?"

"We should ask those children again," Val said. "They see things others don't."

"Could Sparky just be an imaginary friend? Whatever happens, we need to find out what the hell has been nesting in the park."

"We could look now. In the dark, there'll be no one around to disturb us."

"Fine," he said. "One last trek around the park, and then we're out of here."

"For good?"

He smiled. "Just until the morning. Then we'll be asking those kids more questions."

Chapter Six

There was something eerie about parks at night, Peter had always thought. The playground looked fun in the daytime when children were around, laughing and playing. But at night, the wind made the swings creak in a way that reminded him of every horror film he had ever seen in his youth, back when things like that were scarier than real life.

"This isn't the right way," Val said. She spoke down to him sometimes, stating the obvious as if he were too stupid to notice.

"We're taking the scenic route. Just in case there are other... dens."

"This could be nothing," she said in a dull voice. "This could be a waste of time."

"Life can be a waste of time. Giving up on it tends to feel a lot worse."

She made a chuffing sound that reminded him of the big cats in the zoo. "Is this experience talking?"

It was better to ignore some questions.

They finally passed the playground of nightmares and walked past the rose bushes.

"It's been here," Val said, abruptly coming to a stop.

He turned and walked backward to face her. "What has?"

"The... thing I had to... I felt compelled to..."

"I get it."

He stopped and waited for her to decide what she needed to do. He almost felt sorry for her. He had seen his friend Carl forced to obey compulsions, and it was something he wouldn't be able to handle himself.

"Val," he said, thinking of something. "Did you have to get rid of it because it didn't belong in Hell, or just didn't belong, you know, here."

"I have no idea. What are you thinking?"

"I'll let you know if I ever figure it out."

He pressed his lips together. Something living in the neighbourhood made a hellhound want to destroy it. It was a predator of some kind, but nobody knew what it looked like. What if all of the vampire-created beasts hadn't died as everyone suspected? What if one was still around, hiding out and eating raw flesh in an attempt to survive? He shook his head. Not possible. Those creatures would never be able to stick to animal blood when there were people running around in droves.

No, there was another possibility, something he wouldn't have even considered if it hadn't been for the problems he'd had with a certain haunted house.

"Val," he said, then hesitated. "What if it's something new?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if it's something that came into this world when Eddie Brogan broke everything? What if it's something demonic?"

"Why would the hound want to kill a demon?" she murmured as if to herself. She stopped walking. "The bins have been disturbed."

The body of the cat had been placed in one of two large bins. Peter hadn't realised they were that far around the park yet, but there they were, both bins sprawled on the ground. The contents had been flung all about as if something had been searching.

They reached the bins and gingerly took a look amongst the rubbish.

"I can't find the cat," Peter said. "It would have to be a pretty big dog to do all of this. Those bins are huge and heavy. It takes a lot of effort to knock this type over. That's why they have them here."

"It took back its prize," she said slowly. "If it meant so much to it, why did it leave the body in the first place?"

"Who knows?" Peter wrinkled his nose. "This stinks, even to me. Sorry you're suffering with aromas tonight."

"It's fine." She pointed. "There's blood. I might be able to follow the trail."

But the trail went nowhere. "This is so frustrating," Val complained after a few moments. "I can still smell the urine from the shed. It's screwing up my sense of smell, masking the things I need to follow."

"Animals mark their territory," Peter said.

She gripped his arm so hard that he winced. "That's it," she said. "The scent isn't still lingering from the shed. It's the same smell, the same animal, marking its territory. It's here." She ran back to the bins and went over to them, sniffing constantly. "Yes!" she called out triumphantly. "It's marked here, too."

"I'm not sure what's happening," Peter said.

"The animal at the shed is marking its territory," she said. "It's claiming this territory as his, no, hers."

"Do females do that?"

She glared at him. "Are you arguing with me?"

He held up his hands. "Not at all." He kept his actual thoughts to himself. "All right, then. Why is it claiming this territory?"

She frowned. "Because something else moved in. Another predator. Me. Except..." she frowned. "This one doesn't make me want to fight it."

"So it's not whatever you scented before. Wait, is this a cat, fox, dog, what?"

"I can't tell what I'm scenting. Only some hormones. It's not me." She looked frustrated. "It's the hound. It has reactions to things in a way I don't."

"So you think of the other part of you as a different person?"

Her cheeks flooded with colour, strangely making her look more human. "No. I think of it as an animal."

"Okay," he said, choosing his words carefully. "And the hound realises that this particular creature is marking its territory, but the hound doesn't need to fight it."

"No, because the hound accepts it's in another's territory."

"Then why did you want to chase it back there? Why did the hound need to get rid of it, but not now?"

"It smelled a threat before. Not here. Not this." She shrugged. "I don't understand. It's not supposed to happen this way. I'm not... not a..."

He could see her getting worked up and stopped her before she shifted again. "Let's find that den again and see if you can pick up anything. Now that we know... a little more."

Not that they truly knew anything. All they had to go on was a hellhound's instincts and the various stories of people in the neighbourhood, mostly children.

He led the way to the den they had found earlier, frowning as he thought of the consequences of his theory. What if another demon really had come through the rift? His only demonic dealings had been with the shadow of a demon. That shadow had needed to attach itself to a spirit in order to move around. What if a true, complete demon didn't need to attach itself to anything?

So what did the urinating animal have to do with anything? If it really was the same animal that had leapt off the roof of the house, it had to be a cat. So why would a cat mark territory when there was possibly a cat-eating demon running around? Unless the demon had attached itself to the animal to move around freely, and the cat was in control some of the time. That theory might work if it wasn't for the time lapse.

Nothing made sense. Especially not Gemma's story about her missing dog, Sparky. Had she ever had a dog? Or was she leading them on a wild goose chase that had coincidentally forced them to follow a possible demon and a territorial cat? Or the combination of both. But his biggest question was this: would anything he did ever be straightforward?

***

Val sniffed the air eagerly, although her eyes still watered. If all animals smelled so awful, Leah was never getting a pet. But this scent seemed unusually strong, intended to warn, or maybe disguise. A second animal could have been warning off the predator, or the predator could have been attempting to cover its tracks.

She could tell Peter was getting frustrated, but she felt they were growing nearer to the truth. She had just been ignoring the hound for so long that she wasn't sure how to translate its signals. It was possible the hound was just leading her in a hunt, but the hound could be untrustworthy. That was exactly why she pretended that side of her nature didn't exist, most of the time.

The night wind chilled her, but the silence was disturbing. There were no sounds, no rustling in the bushes, no small animals running around close by. That told her terrible things. A lack of life always did. A predator had scared everything with a sense of smell away. Except for her and the animal marking its territory.

"It's too quiet," she whispered.

Peter nodded, but he didn't seem as concerned. He should have been. Then again, he was human. He couldn't smell what she could. There was fear on the wind. Fear and death.

They had almost reached the den when she heard a growl in the distance. The growl rumbled, and she could almost swear she felt it underfoot. "Did you hear that?"

Peter frowned but didn't answer.

Val stopped walking and looked around. She could have sworn she saw the glint of something gold in the trees, but it was gone in a flash. A shiver ran down her spine, and she felt herself falling toward a shift in preparation of a battle. She let the hound reach the surface.

She walked on, faster this time. The growl came again, but this time it turned into an indignant howl that faded off into the distance. Val broke into a run. Peter couldn't keep up.

Her feet pounded concrete then grass as she veered toward the den. A variety of scents assaulted her, but one overloaded her nostrils and flooded the rest away. Fresh urine. She reached the den in time to see a shadow leap away, faster than she could ever run. Something mingled in the air, the scent that drove her hound crazy, and the vile urine that masked everything else.

She made to chase the scent she needed to hunt down, but an image appeared before her eyes: another predator. She had lost the last fight she had been in. She saw the first vampire as if he were living before her, and she took a step back.

For one of the few times in her life, she was paralysed with fear. She had lost only two fights in her entire life, but both had been important. The first had been the very first time she fought her own father. The nightmares that followed had almost broken her. And Raven had remade her from the shattered pieces, fooled her into believing she could win any fight with the magical tattoos she gifted to her.

And she had fought a glorious second battle with her father, buoyed by the thought she would be a champion, a protector, the anti-hellhound. And her confidence had kept building with every fight that followed. She would always win. Until she faced the first vampire, created by Lucifer himself. Her underestimation of his strength had been comical, and she had been of little help to her friends. She still didn't understand how they had managed to defeat him when he had struck Val so hard that she lost consciousness.

She couldn't let that happen again, so she backed away from this battle. The hound roared a protest in her head, making her dizzy.

"What's wrong?" Peter's voice made it through the haze.

She shook her head, sweating and shivering all at once from the effort of fighting against herself.

"Val," he said. "What's wrong with you?"

She knew she looked a mess. She was half-shifted, full of the hound's adrenaline, with nowhere to put it. The hound longed to win, couldn't stand to be on the losing side. And Val couldn't face suffering another loss. "I can't," she said. "I can't do it again."

"Do what?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"Fight," she gasped. "I can't fight anymore."

He studied her for a moment before nodding. "I'm not asking you to fight."

"The hound... needs it. Is... trying." She gasped as her throat burned. The hound needed release, and that was a battle she was losing. "It's hard to... stop."

"Just try to calm down," he said. "Did you see something?"

She shook her head. She couldn't even remember. Her vision blurred, and she breathed through her mouth. "I have to go," she said, swallowing hard. She expected him to push her to continue because that was his way, but he didn't.

"I'll drive you home," was all he said.

But back at the car, she had calmed down and was ashamed by her visceral reaction, by her fear. Her one shame, her one weakness, something she thought she had overcome a long time ago, and here it was again, rearing its vile head at the least convenient moments.

"Want to talk about it?" Peter asked as he started the engine.

She shook her head. She was desperate to talk about it, but she just couldn't form the words. She was a broken hellhound. A half-blooded monster who had lost herself to her own fear. How could she admit that to anyone? The words wouldn't come, even when he dropped her home. She couldn't open her mouth to say anything lest a truth she couldn't face fell out.

He called out a goodbye then waited until she walked through the gates to drive away. It was late, but the lights were on in the fae home. As she expected, Leah burst open the front door with a smile. No matter what had happened, the child always greeted her as if she was happy to see her again. Why, when she didn't deserve it?

Lucia followed Leah, looking puzzled when Val didn't say hello. Val nodded at them then gruffly spat, "I need to sleep."

Both looked surprised. Leah made to follow, but Val shook her head. "Stay there tonight." She ignored Lucia's pleading eyes. Lucia, who had offered herself to the first vampire without even warning Val first. How could she ever trust her again? She had played with Val's feelings, played with not only her heart but her responsibilities. She had begun to fall apart when she heard Lucia was gone, and even having her returned hadn't helped. Val had only offered to hunt the first vampire with Ava to get away from Lucia because she couldn't bear to look her in the eyes. And now... now she couldn't even fight. She was nothing. She was worthless. She deserved everything she got.

Chapter Seven

Ava looked surprised to see him on her doorstep. Her hair was ruffled, and there was a definite chocolate stain on the front of her shirt.

"Had fun?" Peter asked as he leaned against the doorway.

"Yeah, but," she bit the corner of her lip, "Emmett's asleep already. Want me to wake him?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I just..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Today was a weird one."

She frowned. "Do you want to come in for a bit then?"

"I shouldn't have disturbed you."

"Don't be an idiot." She had a stubborn look on her face. "Get inside before the entire neighbourhood thinks you're stalking me."

Smiling, he followed her into the kitchen. He found a beer in the fridge that he or Carl had left there. But when he opened it, he didn't take a sip. He just liked the feel of it in his hand. It was comforting. Something cool and steady and familiar to tether him into place.

She was watching him with wary eyes. He hated that. He wished it could be as it was before, but he had ruined that, time and time again. The worst bit was that if she forgave him easily, he'd lose respect for her. Nobody could ever win. Their own instincts always betrayed them in the end.

"Need to talk?" she asked at last.

He wondered how long he had been staring at the bottle in his hand. "I don't know."

"We can sit here in silence if you like, but eventually, I'll need to sleep." Her tone was sharp, a sure sign she was worried about him. That made him smile. It was weird how warm it felt when somebody cared.

"Val is..." He thought about it. What was Val? More complicated than he expected, that was for sure. And she deserved a little loyalty from him. She didn't deserve his running to Ava whenever she did something strange.

But Ava was waiting patiently, her blue eyes wide with a strange kind of innocence. That was the thing with her. She could be naive one second, and a seasoned warrior the next, but even she had yet to find the middle ground. Perhaps that was what was wrong with Val. Maybe that was what was wrong with all of them. They needed to find that perfect balance when the earth kept shifting beneath them. Christ, he was in some mood.

"I shouldn't have come here," he muttered. "I don't know. Nothing's ever what you expect."

"That's life." Satisfied that he wasn't going to lose his mind, probably, she got up and put on the kettle. "How did it go today? If you're having trouble getting along, just give it time. You need to get used to each other, that's all. You haven't worked together very much yet. Give it a chance."

He definitely needed to get used to Val. She terrified most people she met, and he had assumed that would be a bonus, but there had been a moment that day when she had terrified him, too. He couldn't let that happen again. He had to take charge. But how exactly did one take charge of a hellhound?

"There's something out there," he said, knowing he had to fill the silence before she started needling him for answers. "We don't know what it is, but there's a chance it could be... something demonic."

She stopped moving. Her back to him, she clenched the spoon in her hand. "A demon? From..."

"Yeah, from when the book was opened. You and Carl both claim that something escaped. And maybe Val and I are wrong, but we don't have an explanation for the things we've seen." And he had already had his very own demonic dealings that he still hadn't told her about. Perhaps one day he would, but for now, he wanted to forget the ghosts of his past long enough to deal with this extremely strange situation.

"What did you see?" she asked in a tight voice. He knew she blamed herself for what had happened when the book was unleashed on the world. Not just the demons, but for those who had died. She was foolish the way she kept herself shrouded in guilt, but that was her way. For now, she would be lost without using that guilt as a shield sometimes, but someday, she would have to fully accept that some things were out of her hands. As if he could talk.

"We found a den of some kind. There were bones, some rotten meat. A fresh kill that had been partially eaten. Something marking its territory, something that might be a cat, might be something else entirely."

She turned around and looked at him. "Cats kill."

"Rarely foxes and dogs," he said softly. "We don't know yet, but there's something strange going on out there. Missing pets, and Val caught the scent of something she couldn't identify."

Ava sat at the table with a frown, her drink forgotten. "Tell me the whole story. Start to finish."

So he did. She concentrated on his words; he could almost hear her thinking it over. It helped him to go through it all. It had been a day of hits and misses and confusing almost-links that never quite made sense.

"Something," she muttered when he finished. "Too many ifs and maybes. Go back to basics."

"What do you mean?"

"Start again. Knowing what you know now, after seeing what you saw, go back to the start and ask questions with a better understanding of what the answers mean."

Peter stretched. "All of this over a missing dog that might not even exist."

"It exists to the little girl. And apparently, it exists to Emmett." A smile curved her lips. "He was boasting about you earlier. This is a bigger deal to him than anything else you've done."

"Kids are easily pleased." He returned the smile. "It's a pity the same thing couldn't be said for adults."

"And now it's time for you to go."

"What, no kiss goodbye?"

He eyes narrowed, but a twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her.

He rose and moved closer to her. She froze. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "Thanks for taking care of Emmett today. Can he stick around tomorrow, or should I ask Anka or Carl to take over?"

She looked up at him. "Of course he can stick around. He always has a bed here."

On a whim, he cupped her cheek and held her still. There was panic in her eyes, and a brief hint of longing, and that was enough for him. "Good night," was all he said before he left.

***

Peter rapped his knuckles against the converted garage door. Val almost ripped the door off its hinges in answer.

"It's early," she growled.

"Not really." He peeked inside and saw she was alone. "Where's Leah?"

"Out with Phoenix." She stepped aside and let him in. "They went to the children's home."

"You trust him with her?"

"Leah's not foolish. And he indulges her. She's easy for him to be around."

"That's an odd thing to say."

She took a seat. "We are odd people. I take it you want to go back out today."

"We talked about it, didn't we?" He glanced around the room. There was nothing that marked out Val in any distinct way. "Why did you agree to this partnership?" he asked.

She blinked, looking surprised. "It's... a job."

"You could have done other things. Hired yourself out as a guard. Worked with the Senate. Why this?"

She frowned. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He grinned. "But not now? I spoke to Ava last night. We talked about what's going on."

Heat flared in her eyes immediately. "You talked to Ava about me?"

"Not you," he said as calmly as he could manage when her eyes turned red like that. "About what we've discovered."

She breathed deeply, and he realised she was panicked rather than angry.

"Is talking about you an issue?" he probed. "Or is Ava the issue?"

She laid her palms against the table. "She could have died because of me. They all could."

"What? When?"

"When Seth... the first vampire, when we went after him. I was no help."

"Jesus, we need shorter memories around here. Look, that's not how Ava tells it. You all worked together, helped injure him, and—"

"I was unconscious," she snapped. "You don't understand how strong he was. And I, the one everyone looks to for strength, couldn't face him without losing."

"He's the first of his kind," Peter said, confused. "Of course he was stronger than you. That's why nobody went after him alone."

"Ava, and even the teenage girl, Jessica, didn't fall."

Peter frowned. "He didn't want them dead. He wanted to keep them, remember? He had to take out the strongest, or he would have had no hope. And he didn't kill you. You didn't lose."

"I lost," she said bitterly. "And I can't face losing a third time."

"A third time? When else did you lose?"

Her eyes looked anywhere but at him. "In Hell. In the slave market. I tried to stop my father from raping Raven, and I failed. I couldn't stop him, and I had to watch. That was my punishment for fighting back. Raven depended on me, and that's why he did it."

"I thought you killed him."

"Next time," she said fiercely. "But I was terrified. Raven helped me, and Helena made me feel like I could be someone different. Someone my mother might have been proud of. But I had to be a whole other person to fight him again. You don't understand what it was like to face him twice, knowing what happened the first time. He would have killed Raven if I didn't kill him."

"And you did."

She was somewhere else. A small, wicked smile began to spread across her face. "I did. I did it, and I felt invincible. I knew nothing could stop me, so I took Leah and we hid, and I fought when I had to, and I knew I could protect her."

"Nobody wins every battle," he said softly. "Nobody. Some things are out of our hands, Val."

"You don't understand," she said sharply.

"Really? Me? I don't understand being helpless while my loved ones are hurt? Come on, Val. You know my history. I was right there—right there—when Emmett was kidnapped. Don't tell me I know nothing of failure. I couldn't even get him back home, and when I had him again, he ran to Ava, a complete stranger, rather than be with me."

She stared at him. "Raven couldn't look at me after it happened. She saw him in me. No matter what, he ruined it all. I sometimes thought she helped me leave so she could forget about the both of us. And when I finally left, I could have persuaded her to come with us, but I didn't even try. I left so she could stop looking at me, and in an awful way, that was probably my punishment for her. So now you know. I'm as bad as you ever imagined."

"You wanna know why I asked you to partner up?" he asked after a moment of rapid-fire planning.

She looked at him. "Yes, actually. No, wait, let me guess. To scare off the so-called bad guys."

"Not quite." He observed her with a thoughtful gaze. "The real reason? I wanted something for myself." He held up his hand. "That sounded creepy, so let me explain. Emmett has this bond with Ava that I can't even think about matching up to. Ava and Carl have in-jokes and the remnants of a blood bond. I can't contend with that. Everyone has something. Everyone but me." He frowned. "I thought you might understand that. I thought you and I had enough in common to find out our own thing that has nothing to do with anyone else."

"Why would I understand?" But the pulse in her neck ticked.

"We're both left out of things. We don't know how to join in like normal people. Our pasts hold us back sometimes. We're both outsiders, standing on the edge, struggling to find a place in this new world."

"Leah doesn't need me anymore," she admitted. "Lucia has her family, and even Ava sometimes understands her more than me. Esther is conditioned to see me as a rival. But Anka and Ava are my friends."

"But they don't need you. Nobody needs us the way they need others. And maybe we don't need anyone either."

"Two lone wolves working together?" She smiled. "I was ashamed. That's why I came to live here. And I knew if I stayed, I would only ever be Ava's... sidekick."

He laughed. "I understand the feeling. But you don't have to be ashamed. We all make mistakes. Hell, look at me. Spread your wings, Val. The only one holding you back is you."

And when she nodded, disbelief mingled with hope, he realised he could manage just fine with a hellhound as a business partner.

Chapter Eight

"Anything might be useful," Peter was saying as he drove.

He repeated himself a lot. She wondered if that was because he was used to people not listening the first time, or if he was nervous enough to fill up every silence. She sniffed. No nervousness. Excitement, perhaps. Anticipation, certainly. After their talk, she felt freer. She was ashamed of the things she said, but she trusted Peter not to pass it on. They would keep each other's secrets. And that was the key. Trust. He was unpredictable, but so was she, and when it came down to it, they both had a certain kind of loyalty.

Maybe it could work. If they found actual paying jobs. They had both spent too long re-organising their lives to profit from the help they had provided to the Senate in the past. They hadn't taken advantage of the momentum in time, and then it had disappeared.

"Ava made us business cards," she said abruptly. "Valeria Brannigan Investigations."

"People are going to think there's one investigator."

She shrugged. Who cared? "She also thinks we should apply to the Senate to be official reps. They have already accepted outside help."

Peter squirmed in his seat. "I don't know."

"They could use our help," she said. "If we don't take the opportunity, others will keep doing so until it's too late for us."

"Do you really want to be tied to the Senate?"

"As long as the Senate exists, we can use them as they use us," she said. "We'll still be free to take on our own jobs. We need to work, Peter. I need to work. We faced hurdles that we crossed, and now we're living in a brand new version of this world. That means paving a path in it. And I, for one, don't want to be tied to Phoenix for my entire life. I need to be able to support myself."

"We can take a look at the forms," he said grudgingly. "But I'm not guaranteeing anything."

"There are no guarantees anywhere. We're not renowned enough to be fussy."

"I just hope you're not imagining we'll be a crime-fighting duo running around with capes and future technology."

She glared at him.

He laughed at her. "I'm serious. That's not how it is when you work for this kind of government."

"Then how is it?"

His smile dropped. "It's dirty."

"Seriously, Peter. What did you do for the last government?"

"The Council was a different... everything. Different methods, different ideals, different opinions. I worked for Koda before he was murdered. It wasn't official, but everyone knew about it. For a while, I was... an executor. I was angry and happy to take it out on the supernatural world. I hated everything that wasn't human, and I was full to the brim with a need for vengeance, a need to punish anyone other than myself."

She glared at him.

"I'm not as hateful anymore. Even before I met Ava, it was wearing me down. The violence, the constant anger. It was hard to keep feeding it some days."

"So you turned to alcohol."

He shifted uncomfortably. "That was one reason for it."

She observed him with a keen gaze. So he had other secrets, ones he wasn't ready to tell.

He glanced at her. "Koda sent me on the kinds of jobs the Council couldn't be seen to touch. Getting rid of the riff-raff without an entire species turning on the Council for it."

"I thought you said everyone knew about you."

"That was the thing." He shook his head. "The Council needed it to be known that nobody should mess with them because they had ways of silencing you that wouldn't kickback on them. Little did we know that Fionnuala was the real enemy all along. Sometimes I picked up money owed. Shut the mouths of those who had dirt on the wrong people. I didn't even care at first. I was given a target, told to make it messy, and I obeyed because it fed the vengeance in my soul."

"And now?"

"Now I'm seeing that the vengeance took me over. I'll never be a truly good person. It's too late for that. Whatever happens when we die, I'll be judged harshly, I've no doubt, but I've learned, slowly, that the world isn't as black and white as I once hoped."

"It's easier that way," she acknowledged. "Easier to believe in good and evil. Easy to take a side."

He nodded. "Absolutely. I thought I was on the right side. Doing bad things, of course, but for the right side. And then Emmett came back, and he wasn't normal. Not purely human."

"He sees the dead."

"He does. Sometimes the dead can be loud." He sighed. "This world is a complicated place. I don't know if it'll ever be normal."

"Does it have to be?"

"I suppose not." He looked at her askance. "You're chatty. What happened to you?"

"I don't know." She was surprised herself. She suddenly had a lot to say. "Perhaps I've been saving up."

He flashed her a grin. "Hey, I wasn't complaining. I get the feeling that we didn't know each other at all before this. It's good that's changing."

She looked out the window. Was it really a good thing? Did she really want someone to truly know her? Peter was safe. He was as screwed up and twisted as anyone else, and that made him no better than her. So what if he learned a few things about her? It wasn't as though he could judge. And he might have had a dark past in which they would have been enemies, but they were both after the same thing: a way to protect the special human child under their care.

It was strange how little she assumed they had in common. A few conversations on the fly, and a whole new avenue was opening up. But that didn't mean they were friends. It just meant... she had no idea what it meant. That she wouldn't kill him, perhaps? She looked at his hands on the wheel. Scarred hands. Hands that would never be pretty. Peter was an average looking man, but there was a danger about him, too. He wasn't a stranger to violence, and even the hound was glad he was an ally rather than an enemy. He didn't scare her, but there was an element to him that she would never understand. Perhaps he wouldn't try to kill her either.

She leaned back in the chair, suddenly on equal footing with another person, and tried to relax at the idea.

***

He watched Val out of the corner of his eye as they walked around the neighbourhood. She discreetly sniffed the air, trying to pick up some kind of scent.

They reached the old hut in the back of the abandoned house. Nothing new. Only the tart stench of urine that seemed to mask everything else.

"I don't think it came back here," she said after they had explored farther.

"Maybe we scared it off."

She frowned. "Perhaps it was nothing all along."

"We'll find out," he promised.

He had thought the whole find a lost dog thing was lame, originally. He wouldn't say that to Emmett, of course, but still, it wasn't the most exciting use of anyone's time. But since then, everything had gotten so twisted that he had grown eager to find out more. After spending years trying to find answers to the mysteries in his own life, he was addicted to the thrill of the hunt.

"It's Sunday," he said. "Kids are off school. I bet we'll find some in the park."

"We need to take another look there anyway," she said. "To see if anything returned to that den."

"Might as well head on there now."

The park wasn't far, only a couple of streets away, but Peter was suddenly weary. He hadn't slept much the previous night, for a number of reasons. Getting up early to hunt wasn't ideal. So why had his veins electrified? Why was he walking with such purpose?

The park was quiet. As a dog walker approached with a white terrier, Peter stopped her.

"Hi," he said. "Sorry to disturb your walk. I was just wondering if you had seen anything unusual in the park? A dog that seems a little aggressive, perhaps?"

The woman frowned. "What's this about?"

Val fished out a business card and handed it to the woman. "We're on a case."

The woman took the card and stared at the words. "Valeria Brannigan. You're a private investigator?"

"Of sorts," Val said.

The woman jerked her chin in Peter's direction. "And what about him?"

"He's Brannigan."

The woman frowned. "He's your husband?"

"No," Peter said impatiently. "She's Valeria. I'm Brannigan. We're—"

"That doesn't even make sense," the woman said scornfully.

Peter held in a smart remark. "Just keep an eye on the dog. A lot of pets have gone missing around here lately."

"Was that a threat?" the woman asked.

Peter sighed and moved on, sick to death of stupid people.

"Is everyone suspicious of you on sight, or is it just this particular neighbourhood?" Val asked in a dry tone.

"It's not my fault there's an abundance of stupid around here. Let's check out the weird den thing, then we can see if there are any of those kids hanging around."

Val shrugged then led the way. When they reached the den, Peter realised it had been disturbed. Something had dug holes.

Val reached into the holes while Peter kicked over piles of dirt. Most of the bones were gone.

"Think it's trying to cover its tracks?" Peter asked.

"I'm not sure," Val said. "All of the bones have been marked."

"The peeing machine," Peter muttered.

"There are too many bones. We need to tell someone about this. Phoenix would know what to do."

"Tell him what? We don't have anything yet, Val. We don't even know what we're looking for."

She looked thoughtful. "Then let's find out, but as soon as we have more information, we have to hand this over." She held his gaze. "And then we need to think about whether we're calling this a day or doing it properly."

He scuffed the dirt with his shoe. "You really want to make this official, don't you?"

"I want to do whatever needs to be done, and it's clear we aren't drumming up business by ourselves. Help is there. Why not take it?"

"Because it feels like giving in." He swore under his breath. "Fine. When this is over, we'll apply. But as soon as we can run things ourselves through word of mouth, we're going it alone."

"I don't have a problem with that."

They walked through the rest of the park, peering behind hedges and looking under trees for signs of attacks or, well, anything really. Peter spotted a group of kids whooping as they raced on their bikes. A lone figure trailed behind, wobbling from side to side.

"There's the kid again," he said. "Let's see what he knows about the hut."

They caught up to the boy easily. Peter almost felt sorry for him. And that reminded him that he had to buy Emmett a bike and teach him how to ride it. Then swimming lessons. Maybe some tree climbing. Val nudged him out of his reverie.

"We went to the hut," Peter said to the boy whose ears had turned red. "What have you kids been feeding back there?"

The kid shrugged. "I don't go there anymore. The girls leave out food. They tried to make the place nice, but it's starting to smell. There's a cat or something. Jennifer thinks it's her missing fat cat, but it's not. Her cat is ginger; this cat is black, I think."

"You've seen it?"

"Not really." He got off the bike and walked next to it instead. "Just in the bushes. It's bigger than her cat. Noisier. My sister said it must have been a dog, but dogs don't have yellow eyes, right?"

"I dunno," Peter said.

The sister cycled toward them, looking furious. "Get away from my brother, you creepers."

"They just want to know about the cat," the boy said wearily. "And I'm tired of trying to catch up. I'm going back to the hut."

"You are not!" his sister huffed. "You have to stop hanging around with little girls. Do you want to get beaten up?"

"You're a girl," he said sullenly.

"I don't do princess tea parties."

"Neither do I!"

"Look," Peter said. "We just want to find out what's going on with this cat. Or whatever it is."

"It killed Jennifer's cat," the girl said, eyeing her brother. "We found the body in the park the other day."

Peter frowned. "You were there."

She popped a bubble with her gum. "So were you."

"You think a cat did that?"

"I don't care what did that. All I know is that this slowcoach can't be left on his own."

"You're scared," Val said. "You're scared of this cat."

The girl nodded at her brother. "Catch up to the rest. I'll follow you."

Looking uncertain, the boy obeyed, glancing over his shoulder as he left.

"I don't know what it is," the girl said. "But I've heard it fighting at night."

"Cats make a lot of noises when they fight," Peter said.

"Yeah, cats do. They yowl and make weird sounds, but this wasn't the same. This would give you nightmares."

"So what is it?" Peter asked.

The girl swallowed hard. "It's a monster." And she cycled off as fast as she could.

Chapter Nine

"So there's a monster out there," Peter said with a little laugh as they strolled toward the entrance of the park.

"She was scared. That was real."

"She doesn't even know what she's scared of. It's a childish—"

"It's not," Val snapped. "She didn't want her brother playing childish games, and she kept him close because she knows something is out there. Whether we like it or not, there's something out there that shouldn't be. I don't think there's a cat or a dog. I think there's a demon, and we need to catch it."

"I know."

Something in his tone sounded off. "What is it?"

"There's something I need to tell you. Something that happened to me recently."

Her stomach sank. "Well?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Remember when I sold my house?"

"You mean the time you couldn't look for a case for months on end because you were too busy?" she said wryly. "I have a vague recollection, yes."

"Smartarse. Last Halloween, the house was sort of haunted."

She frowned, trying to work out what that had to do with anything.

"It was technically haunted," he continued. "But the real problem was the demon that was attached to one of the spirits."

Her mouth fell open. "Are you serious?"

"It wasn't a true demon. It was the shadow of one. It's complicated, but it was able to piggyback a ride on a spirit, and then it intended on gathering enough power to call forth its true self. My point is that if this shadow demon was able to escape, then yes, we might be dealing with a real one now."

"What did you do about it?"

"Kind of had a bit of an exorcism."

Her eyes widened. "And it worked?"

"Well, we hope so. We've no real way of knowing, do we? But that demon wasn't corporeal most of the time, not until Halloween gave it more strength. Either because it was attached to a spirit, or just because it was a shadow of its real self. What's at work here is definitely something solid."

"Solid and demonic," she said.

"So how the fuck do we catch a real demon?" The constant flexing of his fingers said that he was as unsettled as she was.

"Let's find out," she said.

"We don't know if there's really a demon though."

"We don't know there isn't."

He sighed. "We should tell Gemma that we couldn't find her dog."

"Agreed."

They quickly drove to Gemma's home. She was in the garden again, but this time she stood at the gate, plaintively gazing outward. Her tiny fingers clung to the bars, and when she saw Peter and Val approach, her face lit up.

"Did you find Sparky?" she asked, her lisp more pronounced.

"I'm sorry," Peter said. "We haven't found Sparky."

"What the hell are you doing back here?" Gemma's mother practically screeched from a front window.

Val held up her hands. "Your daughter put up missing posters. We were trying to help reunite her with her dog."

"She doesn't have a dog!" Exasperated, the woman came outside but pulled up short when Peter showed her the poster. "Gemma," she scolded. "Did you play a trick on these people?"

The girl shook her head slowly, her big eyes widening.

"Gemma."

"I didn't!"

"We think she may have secretly owned a dog," Val said.

"Or it could be an imaginary friend," Peter added. "Either way, we haven't found it."

Gemma stamped her foot. "Sparky is not 'maginary."

The woman laid her hands on her hips and gave her daughter a stern look. "Gemma, were you feeding a stray dog?"

Gemma looked at her feet. "Maybe."

Val found herself hiding a smile. Luckily, so was the mother.

"Oh, Gemma, why?"

"You said I couldn't have a puppy. And I found Sparky in the garden, and she was hurt, so I made her better, and I gave her food, and she kept the monsters away."

"Gemma, there are no monsters." The woman glanced at Val and looked apologetic, which only stung Val.

"But Sparky's gone," Gemma said. "And the monsters will come back. I heard them last night."

"Baby, that was just a dream." The mother ran her hand through Gemma's hair. "Next time you hear a scary sound, come to me, okay?"

Gemma nodded and moved back to the gate while her mother stepped outside to speak to Peter and Val.

"I'm so sorry she wasted your time."

"She didn't," Val said.

"Other children have mentioned hearing noises at night. Haven't you heard anything?" Peter asked.

"Oh, there are a lot of cats around here. They're always fighting. I sleep through it."

Val stopped listening. She swallowed hard, feeling something trace across her skin. What was it? She glanced around and saw no movement, but the hound was disturbed, frightened even. She gave a low growl. She felt Peter glaring at her, but she couldn't help it. She was shifting because she scented something in the air. Something strong, something dark, something that didn't belong.

"It's back," she murmured through clenched teeth, but Peter's face was confused, as though she hadn't spoken in a language he understood.

The mother edged backward, and Val's head snapped to front, glaring at her.

"Don't move," Peter was saying, getting in front of the woman in a protective stance.

But Val wasn't bothered by the humans. She heard something move, but the scent was coming from the opposite direction. Confused, she spun in a circle, finally moving toward a full shift.

And then Gemma began to scream, one long, piercing sound that cut through her eardrums. Val flinched, but her body was already moving toward the gate.

The mother screamed, too, but Peter held her back as Val made to move past them.

Something tall and long slunk out of the hedges and was staring at the child. Its hairless grey skin looked like wet rubber, and its eyes were black holes. Not yellow at all. Its scent drove the hound crazy. It crept on all fours then rose on its back two feet and opened its mouth. Its mouth dropped open as if unhinged, and four spiked needles displayed themselves. Two top, two bottom. The front paws looked more like hands, and a knife-life claw shimmered in the sun. The creature made a screaming sound of its own, but that sent the hound into a rage, and Val rushed to jump over the shut gate.

Ignoring her, the creature advanced on the child. Val prepared to launch herself, but something else got there first. A dark figure streaked out of the bushes from behind Gemma. The smaller creature ran past the child and defended her, launching itself right into the belly of the larger creature.

The smaller animal made a growling sound that was almost familiar to Val, who had defensively moved in front of the shaking child. The small creature launched into a swift, shaking movement that sent the larger one into convulsions. The black holes sparked an awful orange colour that made the creature look almost reptilian. Apparently injured, the larger creature shrieked as it fled. It quickly disappeared, only followed by the smaller for a couple of strides. The remaining animal made a snorting sound then turned back, revealing a sharp horn on its snout.

"Sparky!" Gemma screamed and ran around Val to reach the smaller creature.

Val instinctively moved, too, and as the child flung her arms around the creature's neck, the thing growled at Val, and her hound relaxed. It was protecting Gemma. It belonged to the child. And then Val's mind caught up. She shuddered, released from the spell, and looked back at Peter who was looking as confused as she felt.

"That's Sparky?" he asked.

The mother looked horrified, but Gemma giggled. "You did it! You brought Sparky back. See, Mammy, I told you Sparky scares the monsters away."

And then the mother fainted.

***

Peter carried the woman inside her house, hoping nobody else in the family would arrive and think the worst. Sparky and Gemma were already sitting on an armchair, where the girl was feeding the animal chocolate biscuits.

Peter stared at the creature as it willingly ate from the girl's hands. The other thing had been creepy as hell, but he supposed, as far as these things went, Sparky was kind of sweet. Except for its overly large teeth, and that horn on its head, which was way too big for its body. And its large paws made its legs look like sticks. And it didn't have a tail of any kind. And it had ears like a gremlin. Maybe sweet wasn't really the word for it.

But it had soft golden eyes that couldn't hide its intelligence, and he wondered what the hell the thing even was.

"You know it's not actually a dog, don't you, Gemma?"

"Sparky's the best dog!"

"I don't think your mam is going to want to keep him."

"Her," she said, sounding frustrated. "And why wouldn't she? Sparky always saves me."

Peter looked at Val pleadingly, but she shrugged. "Gemma, does Sparky have a lead? Would he, I mean, she bite me if I tried to touch her?"

"You can't take Sparky away," Gemma wailed.

Her mother woke up then, and when she saw Sparky in her living room, she almost fainted dead away again.

"It's okay," Peter said. "It doesn't look like it's a predator. It was just protecting her before." I think, he added inwardly.

"She's been playing with that? And I didn't even know." The colour had drained from the woman's face. "This can't be happening. You have to get it out of my house. Oh, my God, Gemma. What were you thinking?"

"Sparky's mine," Gemma said with a scowl.

Peter had an idea. "Okay," he said. "Sparky is your pet, but Sparky can help us find the monster. That was the monster, wasn't it?"

She nodded, still sullen.

"If Sparky helps us, we can get rid of the monster forever. Wouldn't you like that?"

"I suppose."

"We're going to Gran's house," the mother said. "Get your things, Gemma. We're going to pay Gran a nice long visit, and when we come back, the monster will be gone." She gave Peter a firm look. "All of the monsters, right?"

"We'll do what we can," Peter murmured while the woman lifted Gemma away from Sparky with a shudder.

When they left, Sparky observed them both.

"Think it'll bite?" he asked.

The creature's ears twitched.

"Let her sniff you. So she knows you're not like the other creature," Val said.

He gave her a quick glance, wondering if she was setting him up to be bitten.

"Okay, Sparky," Peter said in a voice reserved for small things. "I'm not your enemy. We want to get rid of that other monster, too, okay?"

He held out his palm to Sparky, but the creature sniffed with disdain then turned to look at Val. As Peter watched, she half-shifted. The creature looked on edge, but soon relaxed as something weird passed unspoken between them.

"Is it a demon?" Peter asked.

"I think they both are," Val said. "But this one isn't like the other. It's not... a problem the way the other one is."

"Then why was it trapped in the book?"

"Maybe it's like the werewolves. All of the demons were trapped, just in case."

"So what do we do with it?"

"Hand it over to Phoenix." She frowned. "But the government will take the credit if they use it to find the other demon. We should do it."

He laughed. "You sound like me. You want to hold off until we bring down the bigger demon?"

"This one won't cause problems. The other can't be allowed to roam unchecked. But studying both of these beings might help us figure out more information about demons and other worlds."

"You would let them test it?"

"What else do we do?" she asked. "If we let it go, someone will try to kill it, and probably die themselves if they aren't careful."

"Are we going to kill the other one?"

"It's better if we trap it," she said. "Then Phoenix and the others can do as they like with it. We'll make sure we get a photo of us with it first though." She smiled, and it was devious. "This might give us some publicity, Peter. We might actually have a chance at running this business."

"I'm kind of liking the way you think," he said with a grin of his own.

Sparky snapped at the air, making Peter jump. A bluebottle flew overhead. Sparky's neck elongated, and the bluebottle was gone in one more quick snap.

"Yeah," Peter said. "I'm not touching it."

"I would imagine we don't have to," Val said. She leaned down and stared Sparky into its eyes. "Come with us. We'll hunt together."

As if it understood, Sparky leapt to the ground and scurried to the door. It looked back over its shoulder as if to say, "Come on, then."

Peter shrugged and followed, only pausing to shout up to Gemma's mother that they were leaving. Gemma came rushing down the stairs.

Sparky took one look at her and ran over. They met in an awkward embrace, and Peter succumbed to the aww moment with the creepy unicorn dog demon and the precocious child. He was about to make some comment about how it spoke of the lack of judgement in children, how they were taught bias later on, but Gemma's mother ruined the moment by shuddering theatrically.

"Ugh," she said, unable to disguise her disgust. Somebody please get that vile thing out of here."

With a sigh, Peter looked at Val and gestured toward the door. As they left with Sparky, they heard Gemma's sobs all the way to the front gate. Peter didn't envy her mother when she had to explain that Sparky wasn't coming back. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure how he was going to explain the situation to Emmett either.

Chapter Ten

Peter frowned. Walking alongside Sparky wasn't going to work. Buying a lead seemed a little bit like tempting fate. "What exactly are we supposed to do with it?" he asked as he and Val watched the creature lick its paw.

"We could put her in the car and take her home until dark. Then we could bring her to the park."

"Or we could just hand this off to the Senate and relax for the rest of the weekend."

In answer, Val picked up the possible demon and carried it to the car. Peter thought about complaining but decided it wasn't quite worth it.

"Whose home?" he asked when they were all in the car. "I'm not taking this thing anywhere near Emmett."

Val's forehead creased. "Perhaps it would be best to hide her in the car then."

"What do you think it eats?"

They both looked at the demon dog in the backseat. It stared at the window with those strangely oval golden eyes, its ears folding in on itself.

"Meat," Val said after a moment. "The little girl's picture was pretty good, all things considered."

"How did she not realise it wasn't a dog?"

"She saw what she needed to see. The creature protected the child as if she owned her." She tapped her chin. "Perhaps she thinks she does."

"The kid said it was injured when she found it. Think that was from a fight with the walking nightmare back there?"

"Perhaps it was a fight over territory." She looked sad. "Will they kill her? The government, I mean."

"We can't let demons run around unchecked."

"Someone once said that about werewolves."

And now the werewolves had the run of a large estate in Kildare. Maybe death wasn't always the answer.

"Let's get it something to eat," Peter said. "I'm half-starved myself."

They drove out of Gemma's street toward the closest shop.

Peter wrinkled his nose. "What the fuck is that smell?" He opened the windows, trying not to breathe as an acrid stench filled the car.

"Oh," Val said. "Oh."

"Oh, what?" His heart began to race. The demon had done something to his car, hadn't it?

"I think she sort of marked her territory in your car."

"You little fucking..." His words died away as he saw the creature through the rear-view mirror, climbing out of the window and launching herself onto the middle of the road.

"Sparky!" Val shouted. She was out of the car before Peter could pull over.

He dumped his car at the side of the road and chased after Val. They had lost sight of Sparky, but by the way Val kept sniffing the air, the demon had left its smell in its wake.

"This is bloody ridiculous!" Peter shouted as they ran.

"This way," Val said.

"We have to kill it!"

"No! She's hunting the other demon. I can... I can..." And then she stopped running, her hands trembling, and her wide eyes a strange mix of bloody honey.

"Val," Peter said firmly. "You can do this. I need you to do this. You saw that thing. A kid could die."

She nodded, held his gaze for a moment, and then broke into a run again.

His heart thudding against his ribs, Peter chased after her, unsure of what would happen when they actually found the creature.

A scream sounded close by, followed by the slamming of a door, and some strange sound that Peter felt through the soles of his feet.

"Hurry," he shouted at Val, trying to pin down where the sounds were coming from.

Val leapt over a garden wall. Peter followed. They ran around the side of the house and into the back garden, where they leapt over the back wall and into the next garden. It was there they saw both demons face off. Sparky looked larger, the hair on the scruff of her neck raising. The other demon was still injured, but its wound was filled with a kind of pus. And when the pus dripped, the grass beneath it burned.

When it heard them approach, the slinky demon faced them, its needle-like teeth reminding Peter of some kind of prehistoric fish or something. Val was shifting, and the demon inched back with wary movements.

Peter moved behind it, completing the circle around the demon. It spun and apparently viewed Peter as the weakest link because it threw itself at him. He dodged out of the way of its teeth, then rolled away from the dripping pus, but some fell on his jacket and burned straight through. He shrugged off the jacket and managed to swipe at the demon, earning a burn on his knuckles. Val kicked the demon away from Peter, her eyes blazing with red. Sparky used its unicorn horn to stab the demon in the hind leg.

The demon howled and lashed out, slicing all three with those knife-like claws. Ignoring the pain stinging his forearm, Peter swung his foot and caught the demon's good back leg as soon as the creature turned to face Val. The demon lost balance and collapsed, giving Val a chance to pin its throat with her boot. With a strangely happy sound, Sparky ran its horn right through the spine of the demon, ripping flesh and skin apart. The demon shuddered and wriggled and made an awful noise, but finally, it was still, and the pus seeped out of its body in a steady river, forcing all three of them back.

"Poor fucker's lawn," Peter gasped, holding his burned hand that felt like nothing else.

"This is going to take quite a bit of clean-up," Val added.

Sparky looked smaller again, and she sniffed Peter's hand. He tried not to jerk away when he felt a dry tongue lick across his skin. The pain of the acid remained, but it was no longer as agonising.

"Thanks, demon dog," Peter said. He collapsed against the house and reached out to pet Sparky. He looked up at Val. "I suppose you should probably call Phoenix now."

***

Phoenix stared at Sparky with narrowed eyes. "What is it?"

"We think it's a demon," Peter said. "But it's not... bad. It helped us beat the creepier demon, the one Val needed to get rid of." He cocked his head at Val. "You did good back there, by the way."

She shrugged, secretly pleased. She had choked, then got it together, and she hadn't lost control in the presence of the creepier demon, as Peter put it. Before Phoenix arrived, she and Peter had taken plenty of photos of themselves with their kill. She was pretty sure he was going to have demon-hunters added to their business card. Not that she minded.

Phoenix got down on his hunkers to study the demon more closely. "It protected a child," he said. "Are you sure about this?"

"Positive," Val said. "She helped the creature recover from an injury. It's been living here since the darkness came."

"That's interesting," Phoenix said. "I think... I think we should keep this particular demon under wraps."

"What do you mean?" Peter demanded, looking suspicious.

"If the wrong people know about it, they could order its death," Phoenix said, still staring at the demon. "Someone in the country right now has the power to do this. But if we hide it, it could help us later."

"If other demons show up," Val said. "Sparky could help us hunt."

"If it's tameable, then yes." Phoenix reached out a hand. Sparky sniffed then allowed the fae to pet him.

"Where are you going to hide it?" Peter asked.

"I've been exchanging information with a demon expert in Italy. I think it might be time for a visit."

"How are you going to get this thing on a plane?"

Phoenix smiled. "I have my ways. We need more information on demons. I may bring the creature back with me, but I think it's time my contact and I met face to face." He glanced at Val. "I'll appreciate the chance to take my children travelling."

Val's expression turned sour. And she obviously wasn't invited.

Peter glared at Phoenix. "And we're supposed to pretend that we don't know about it?"

Phoenix held Peter's gaze. "Nobody can know about this. Nobody at all. You must swear you'll keep quiet about this demon."

"Sure," Peter said, too easily. "As long as we get full credit for the other demon kill."

"Yes," Val said. "Those are our terms. Full credit, full publicity, and we'll forget the other one ever existed."

Peter grinned at her as Phoenix frowned. "I can organise this, but are you really sure this is what you want?"

"We need the work," Val said. "This is our business, and we want to build ourselves a reputation."

Phoenix gave her another chilling look. She knew he only tolerated her presence because of Leah and Lucia, but she couldn't let him see how much he unsettled her. She had a feeling in her gut that the only real danger Lucia was in could come from Phoenix. There was something unstable in him, and she seemed to be the only one who saw it. She glanced at Peter. Perhaps she wasn't the only one.

***

"You're famous," Emmett declared with a grin. "You actually killed a demon! That's amazing! It's a pity you couldn't help that little girl though."

Peter cleared his throat. "Well, I hear her parents are looking for a puppy so Gemma no longer needs to turn to, er, imaginary pets."

Emmett hugged his father. "I'm proud of you, Dad."

Peter grinned, satisfied by how everything had gone. His phone had started ringing since the press conference, and he and Val had more jobs lined up. Life was looking up. "Come on," he said. "We're going over to Val's to celebrate. You can hang out with Leah for a bit."

At Val's, after distinctly ignoring the building that temporarily housed a demon dog with a mini-unicorn horn, Peter grinned at his partner. She looked surprised to see him.

"I have a job lined up for us next week," he explained. "But I kind of went and did something else."

She frowned. "What is it?"

"I rented us a real office. It's in one of Ava's buildings, so she gave us a great rate, but we have an office now."

"We haven't been paid yet, Peter."

"Don't worry about that," he said confidently. "The money will start rolling in after this."

She looked uncertain. "If you're sure."

"It's not like the landlady is going to kick us out. It's Ava. The rooms were empty anyway."

"We really have a job."

"Yup."

She gave him a small smile. "Then I suppose this is really happening."

"Valeria Brannigan Investigations," Peter said, raising his cup of tea to hers. "The lamest name in the country, but we're winners, baby." And he was starting to believe it himself.

Thanks for reading this introduction to Peter and Val's new ventures together. If you enjoyed this story then watch out for the next instalments—Bad Blood and Silent Self—in 2015.

For more information, check out Claire Farrell's blog or email the author.  Sign up to be notified of new releases or like the Facebook page for more regular updates.

Books by Claire Farrell:

Chaos Series:

One Night with the Fae (Free Companion Prequel)

Soul (Chaos #1)

Fade (Chaos #2)

Queen (Chaos #3)

Usurper (Chaos #4)

Ava Delaney Original Series:

Thirst (Ava Delaney #1) – Free

Taunt (Ava Delaney #2)

Tempt (Ava Delaney #3)

Taken (Ava Delaney #4)

Taste (Ava Delaney #5)

Traitor (Ava Delaney #6)

Awakening (Ava Delaney Volume I – Books 1-3)

Uprising (Ava Delaney Volume II – Books 4-6)

Ava Delaney: Lost Souls Series

Tainted (Ava Delaney: Lost Souls #1)

Cursed Series:

Verity (Cursed #1) – Free

Clarity (Cursed #2)

Adversity (Cursed #2.5 – Free

Purity (Cursed #3)

Cursed Omnibus (Entire Cursed Series)

Stake You Series:

Stake You (Stake You #1)

Make You (Make You #2)

Short Story Collections:

Sixty Seconds

A Little Girl in my Room

Other:

Death is a Gift (A banshee novel)

Zombie Moon Rising (A Peter Brannigan Novella)

Ghost Moon Rising (A Peter Brannigan Novella)

Upcoming Releases:

Break You (Stake You #3)

Blight (Chaos #5)

