Trigger by Alameda Courtney

Author:Alameda, Courtney [Alameda, Courtney]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781466888487
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MARCH

“Guard duty,” Jude huffed, leaning against the wall and scowling. “We’re the most important cadets in the academy and they’re making us play rent-a-cop out here.”

“Your position doesn’t exclude you from the rotations, lazy,” I said. The academy cadets took turns guarding the piers along The Embarcadero during the day. Good practice, Dad said. And you kids don’t need so much sleep. Our reaping crew had been assigned to Pier 39 today. Jude and I took positions near the entrance while Ryder and Oliver Stoker—the fourth and final member of our crew—secured the place for the umpteenth time today.

I adjusted the M16 strap on my shoulder, scanning the pier. The day started to die; in another hour or so, the pros would show up to relieve us for the night. Fog billowed between the vacant shops, so thick it dropped visibility to less than fifty feet and emptied the city of sound. Fog in San Francisco could swallow the city in minutes, even on a low breeze. The stuff turned to dewy scales on my cheeks, and the wind tumbled in Jude’s loose curls.

“The necro’s still killing people,” I said. “It’s possible the monster moves during the day, under the cover of fog like this.”

“More possible this thing’s a pain in the ass,” Jude muttered. I let the comment slide—sarcasm was Jude’s native language, though he spoke derision and contempt fluently, too. Still, you wouldn’t find a more loyal cadet in the corps, so long as you weren’t dating him. We’d become friends by default, being heirs and all—Jude was the nephew of Damian Drake, leader of Helsing’s Special Ops.

We stayed friends because I tolerated most of Jude’s bullshit. But he shoveled a hell of a lot of it, sometimes.

“It’s out there,” I said. “Somewhere.”

“Well, of course it’s out there,” Jude said, motioning to the city with his hand. “It’s just not anywhere near here, Princess.”

I wrinkled my nose at the nickname, but his words got the cogs in my head turning. She failed to kill the monster in the tunnels, Dad had said. Well, I wouldn’t fail a second time, given the chance … even if I had to make that chance.

Shouldering my M16’s strap, I started toward the other end of the pier. “Then we should lure it here.”

“What? How?” Jude asked, his voice chasing me down the fog-bound pier.

I touched my comm and asked, “You guys got any rope?”

“Back in the truck, yeah,” Ryder responded, his voice raspy through the comms. “Why?”

I grinned. “Because I have a stupid idea.”

Ten minutes later, I climbed up on the pier’s wooden balustrade with Ryder’s rope tied around my ankle, a Colt secured at my hip, and a hunting knife strapped to the small of my back. The gray-green bay water sloshed against the pier’s big concrete pillars—choppy, white-tipped, and frosted with fog. My plan hinged on our scissorclaw’s relative intelligence … and its insatiable hunger.

“Don’t do this, Micheline,” Ryder said as Oliver checked the knots in my rope. “The brass doesn’t like us baiting targets.

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