Following suit, Kadra brought a slice to her lips. She bit through pepperoni, through pepper, through onion into cheese and spicy sauce, down to the thin, yeasty crust.

The sound she made, Harper thought, was very like one she'd made during sex.

"I like this pie called pizza," she stated, and bit in again. "It is good food," she added, her mouth full.

"Baby, this is the perfect food."

"It goes well with the beer. It's like a celebration to have kissing and joining, then pizza and beer."

He knew it was ridiculous, but his heart simply melted. "I'm crazy about you, Kadra. I'm a goddamn mental patient."

"This is an expression?"

"It means I'm in love with you. I go thirty years without a scratch, and in less than a day I'm fatally wounded."

"Don't speak of death, even as an expression. Not before battle." She reached out, closed her hand tight over his. "It is bad luck. When it is done… When it is done, Harper, we will talk more of feelings."

"All right, we'll table it—if I have your word that when it's done you let me make my pitch."

Baffled, she frowned at him over what was left of her first slice. "Like in the battle of baseball?"

"Not exactly. That you'll let me tell you the way it could be for us."

"When it is done, you will make your pitch. Now tell me more of the subway."

"Hold on." He switched his attention to the televised news bulletin.

The reporter spoke of the attack at the zoo, the murder of the guard and the mutilation of several animals. Witness reports were confused and conflicting, ranging from the claim of an attack by a dozen armed men to one by a pack of wild animals.

"They don't know what they're up against," Harper said quietly as the newscaster reported that the police were investigating the incident and that the zoo would remain closed until further notice. "They don't have a clue. I call them with the truth, I'm just another loony."

"It is for us," Kadra told him. "Rhee has said that we would fight this battle together. He must be destroyed here or driven back where he belongs. There must be balance again."

"Here." Harper rolled his shoulder where a demon had dug its claws. "We finish it here. New York style."

Kadra pondered the images on the television, the moving paintings of the zoo. "This subway. Does it go near the place where they keep the animals? Where we battled today?"

"There are possibilities."

"Sorak would like a lair near prey. It will be dark soon," she said with a long look at the sky through the window. "Then we hunt."

Chapter 7

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She balked at changing her hunting gear for jeans a second time, claiming they restricted her. He let it pass, figuring the long coat would cloak most of her… attributes.

The thing about New York, Harper thought, as they passed a guy with shoulder-length white hair, two nose rings, and a black leather jumpsuit, was there was always someone dressed weirder than you were.