He barked a laugh. “Critters. Haven’t heard that in a long time. But yeah, kind of like a cop for critters, but without the rules. No rules for you, and no rules for the ones you’re being asked to hunt and keep in line. They won’t hesitate to hurt or even kill you.”

I wanted to ask him more questions, I really did. But we were interrupted by a loud banging on the door. I grimaced. “I think I’ve been found.”

Only it wasn’t Sarge. It wasn’t even Corb or Eammon.

It was my first taste of just how ugly the weird could be, and just how deep into it I already was.

11

Feish let out a squeak from her thin fish lips, and she scurried across the room that belonged to the Smith, out toward the front of the warehouse, her feet scuttling across the floor, clicking. Did she have crab feet? Damn, she was a strange one.

Crash stood and his sheet slipped lower over his hips, a slide that I watched with absolute fascination and possibly a bit of drool that I struggled to swallow down. “You need to go.”

“I didn’t sign anything for our deal. Here.” I flipped the money he’d requested onto the table. I didn’t really want to go—I wanted to just sit here and talk with this man. And have tea with him. And maybe touch that body and run my fingers through his hair. Maybe a few other things too.

He put a hand on my shoulder, the heat of his palm against my skin notable enough that I fleetingly wondered if he had a furnace burning inside of him, and steered me ahead of him. Not toward the entrance I’d used earlier, but in the opposite direction.

“I’ll know when your first bounty comes through,” he said. “And I’ll take my ten percent then. Verbal contract is fine. I know your gran. She wouldn’t let you get away with breaking it.” He spoke like he still talked to my gran.

“Okay, but—”

He pushed me through an open door. “In here, be quiet.”

I turned as he shut the door. He’d put me in his bedroom. Hot damn. All thoughts of Gran fled.

A few steps in and I found myself at the edge of his rather large and still rumpled bed. I put a hand on the mussed-up side, and it held some heat from his body. He really had to have a furnace going under his skin.

I had no doubt that he was deep in the shadow world, which indicated he probably wasn’t totally human.

But what was he?

Voices floated through the air—the low, calm rumble of Crash’s voice, plus an answering voice that fell in the mid-range. Male, I thought, and irritated.

I made my way back to the door and pressed my ear to the wood.