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my shoulder, shoving the gloves in my pocket. People were coming.
I heard laughter, the slap of shoes in puddles. Rain on umbrellas. Nice.
Normal.
    “We’re
hunting,” I told Zee. “Big trouble.”
    “In
Little China,” he crooned. Such a
goof. He loved movies. Missed the eighties. And the Crusades, though I had yet
to figure out that one. Might have been the armor. He had a thing for crunchy
meals.
    Zee
flashed white teeth, a tongue long and black, and melted into the shadows
beneath his feet. Gone in a wink. No idea what lay on the other side of a
shadow but had a feeling I was better off not knowing. I did not worry about
whether Raw and Aaz would follow. The boys had a system.
    I
stood. Got some looks from passersby. Nothing serious. No one ran or screamed.
No one ever had. I gave a good face, dressed nice, stayed clean—kept the demons
and tattoos out of sight. It took so little to hide the big secrets. Not that
anyone would ever imagine an army of demons living on one woman’s skin. If they
even believed demons existed.
    I
thought of Badelt. Got a bad feeling in my gut.
    I
walked back to the alley. Dek and Mal remained sleek and heavy on my shoulders,
the turtleneck collar hiding their bodies while their sleek, tufted heads
stayed tucked out of sight within my hair. A sharp observer might see some
glint of a red eye, but only as a figment of light and fancy. Not demon. Not
animal.
    I
looked for zombies. Checked auras for dark spots. This was a good part of town
for parasites. The human crush, seeping with heartache. All the pain a dark
spirit required to stay alive.
    Emotions
made energy. Energy was food. That violence could beget violence was no joke.
It took a particular breed of demon to create zombies, but the cracks in the
veil had grown over the last century, making it easier for them to slip free
from their prison in the first ring of the veil. Once here, they infected
humans who were emotionally vulnerable. Turned them into puppets, living tools.
Mindless shells. Good for trouble, abuse—self-inflicted or dished out.
Charmers, all of them. Subtle.
    A
zombie would kill you with a smile. Smiles made everything sweeter.
    Dek
and Mal hissed in my ear. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a man and woman
some distance behind me, strolling down the sidewalk. Despite the apparent
differences in gender, they both wore dark slacks and slick wind blazers that
strained against their broad shoulders. Intense eyes stared from thick faces
with ruddy cheeks. Identical bulges distorted the sides of their jackets.
    Really
big cell phones, maybe. Urban missionaries, roving the night to aid the
helpless. Innocent. Utterly harmless. Wonder Twins.
    I
reached the alley. Stopped, staring. I had been away less than five minutes.
    The
children were gone. All of them. Bodies had huddled against the brick and
concrete, and now those same spaces were empty. Plastic bags fluttered like
ghosts; cardboard boxes stood battered and crushed like stormed castles. An
eerie absence, cutting. I wanted to hold my stomach.
    A man
stood in front of me. He was young and blond, like the others, and smelled of
cigars. Built like a bull. Would have looked more at home in furs, with a club
in one hand. Modern times were not for everyone.
    He
told me not to move. He had a Russian accent. I did not say a word. I could not
have cared less about conversation. I was thinking about those kids, especially
the boy. I had gotten him, maybe all of them, in trouble. I had brought shit
down on their heads.
    The man
pulled out a cell phone. He spoke into it. I did not understand Russian, but I
got the drift. I felt movement behind me and found the Wonder Twins. They held
guns. Nearby, Zee and the others watched from the shadows, red eyes glinting
like rubies. Dek and Mal rumbled in my ears.
    I
took a step. Trigger fingers tightened. If they tightened any more, the Wonder
Twins would be dead. I looked back at the fellow with the cell phone. “The
children. Where