“How’s this?” Finn stopped jogging and the others stopped with him as I huffed to a graceless halt several feet past them, my full satchel bouncing on my back. I wondered if I was missing some kind of silent signal. Or maybe my transitional brain wasn’t yet tuned to the exorcist mental frequency.

Reese and Devi glanced around the broad alley we’d stopped in, assessing its usefulness. The path was wide enough for a garbage truck to drive through, and it was scattered with industrial trash bins. The wall on my left was brick, and the one on my right was chipped concrete. There were no windows, and the only light was what shone in from streetlights on either end and what moonlight filtered through the shifting clouds overhead.

If we had to make a stand in town, this was the place.

“Looks good,” Devi said, and while her whisper still hung on the air, Reese tensed and turned to face the way we’d come.

“Three, closing in.”

I could feel them. They were hungry. Ravenous. Their muscles burned from the chase, but they didn’t seem to notice. Their blood pumped, and I could feel the synchronized throb of their pulses inside me, like a second heartbeat. And as I set down my satchel and mimicked Finn’s fighting stance—feet spread for balance, arms bent, hands empty and ready—I realized that the degenerates’ heartbeats weren’t just in sync with one another’s. They were in sync with mine.

They could feel me, just like I could feel them.

“They’re close,” I whispered, and Reese nodded in confirmation. “What’s the plan?” Three degenerates. Four exorcists. I might not get a chance to kill one.

I wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated or relieved by that thought.

Devi laughed, and the sound bounced off the walls around us. The degenerates heard her, and their pulses tripped faster, triggering an increase in my own heart rate. “The plan is to send the bastards back to hell, then dance on their corpses.”

“She’s kidding about the dance.” Reese’s gaze was focused on the end of the alley, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he listened.

Finn stepped up to my side. “No, she’s not.”

Before I could decide which of them to believe, another screeching roar speared my brain. Claws scraped concrete at the end of the alley. My pulse jumped, and a degenerate leapt out of the shadows. He landed in a squat on all fours, bony knees bent, long, wiry muscles standing out under the pale skin exposed beneath his filthy, shredded pants.

His shirt hung in tatters, one sleeve completely missing, and his shoes were long gone.