by Hannah Jayne
“Are they dead?” Will whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“Hello! May I help you?”
The woman behind the counter had waist-length black hair pinched into a glossy ponytail. Her straight-angle bangs met thin eyebrows over eyes that were a dazzling, unnatural lavender; bits of brown swirled behind the colored lenses.
Her smile was wide and welcoming, and she was dressed like a 1950s diner waitress—if ’50s diner waitresses doubled as schoolgirl-style sex kittens. Will was staring and I gave him a shove.
“Um, right, then. We’re looking for ...” Will’s eyes cut to me, and I gave him a small nod—the universal sign for “don’t just gape at the manga cover girl, talk!”
“It was suggested that we, uh ...”
“We are looking for Xian Lee.”
The girl behind the counter stiffened, causing her ponytail to sway with the sharp movement. “Why?”
“Do you know him?”
“Why do you want to know?”
I leaned forward so that I was a hairsbreadth from the anime girl. “I’m from the Underworld.”
Anime girl blinked at me, and it was hard to discern which one of us was crazier.
“Do you know Dixon Andrade? Vlad LaShay?”
Her eyes widened and she stiffened almost imperceptibly, but just enough to make her long, thick ponytail bob again.
“What do you want?”
I licked my lips. “I work at the Underworld Detection Agency. Right now, my friends are dying, and it’s only going to get worse for them—and maybe for you—if you don’t help us.”
The girl stepped back. Her shoulders slumped a bit with the movement. She held my eye and studied me for a full minute before calling out something in Chinese that I vaguely feared was “Anime friends, eviscerate the nonbelievers.” But, to my relief, an older man came from the hallway. His slippered feet shuffled against the industrial tile. He waved us in and we followed through the kitchen, toward a ratty screen door. The wood was tarry with decades of cooking fat; the rusty hinges barely keeping the door on.
The old man pushed through and so did I; Will hung back in the dank kitchen, letting the screen door work its slow snap shut.
“Come on,” I hissed to Will.
Will shook his head slowly, silently mouthing the word “Mogwai.”
I opened the door again and yanked him by his shirtsleeve. We caught up to the old man, who gestured toward a door, then turned around and walked away.
“What are we supposed to do here?” I asked.
“There’s a door, I’m guessing we open it.”
Will looked at me, rubbing his jaw with his palm. “Vlad just handed you this information, didn’t he?”
I looked around the dim alley, heard the plink! of water dripping off one of the fire escapes into a greasy pool on the ground. “Yes.”
“How do you know he’s not leading us into a trap?”
I stopped, cement filling my body. “I don’t.”
Will’s eyes were wide, focused. “So what should we do?”
I swallowed hard. “We trust him.”
I sucked in a slightly nervous breath—not due to Mogwai fear, by the way—and pushed open the door. The room was large and empty, with hardwood floors. When I blinked, a woman was standing in front of me. She looked nearly identical to the anime girl, save the sexy-waitress costume and the surrounding of big-eyed followers. Even though the room was dim, I could see that her hair was black, waist length and stick straight. Her eyes narrowed and menacing.
I was about to offer a hand—a shiny, friendly “I’m Sophie Lawson, here to save the Underworld” hand—when I felt hands around my throat. Suddenly I was vaulting backward, crushed against Will, who was crushed against the wall. I kicked out and landed a blow to the woman’s gut; she doubled over and let me go. I gasped, drinking in as much air as I could while Will rushed her. He struck and she blocked; he rushed and she ducked. There was a spinning, dizzying sequence of Will-then-her and her-then-Will; and suddenly Will was pinned to the floor. The only sound in the room was the ominous cock of a gun—its barrel lined up with Will’s nose.
“What do you want?” the woman asked. She had one knee on Will’s chest, a half inch from his windpipe. Her other foot was planted firmly on the ground. In her hand she held a heavy black gun, which she wielded as though it were a tube of lipstick.
I pressed myself against the wall, feeling my shoulder blades against the cold, hard steel of the door. I wanted to do something, to rush her, to take her down in a move that would make Angelina Jolie or Jackie Chan proud. Instead, all I could do was think how badly I needed to pee, and that if I were to make a sound, that lady would squeeze the trigger and Will would be dead.
“What do you want?”
“We come in peace!” I blurted it out before I thought about it. Both Will and the woman about to blow his brains out turned and stared at me.
“She’s got a gun, love, not an alien life-form,” Will said, sounding way too calm for imminent doom.
I dug in my pocket and the woman swung the gun on me. “Hands up!”
I threw my hands straight up—and to be honest, a little bit of my lunch—while Will knocked the stunned gun girl off him, did some sort of barrel roll, and pinned her. He yanked the gun out of her hand and shoved it in his back waistband.
“Let’s none of us try to kill each other for about thirty seconds, okay?”
The woman writhed underneath Will, but she slowly stilled.
“What do you want?” she spat.
I pulled the ziplock bag of bullets out of my pocket and rushed over, shaking it in front of her. “We’re looking for the person who made these.”
Her eyes sliced down to the bag and then held mine. “You’ll have to let me up. I can’t get a look at them.”
Will looked at me and then at her. “How do I know you’re not going to try to kill us again?”
“You have the gun. How do I know you’re not going to try to kill me?”
Will handed me the gun. “Go put this up.” And then, to her, “I’m going to let you up now. We just want some answers. No trouble.”
“Are you Xian?” I asked.
“No.” The woman rose up on her elbows. “You already met Xian, out there. I’m her sister, Feng. Why do you want to know about these bullets?”
“Do you recognize them?” I pushed the bag into Feng’s hand.
“Maybe.”
I sighed. “Look, we’re not cops. We’re not after you or looking to cause any trouble. Someone shot at me with these bullets. They shot at me and my friends.”
“So?”
I took the bag back and pushed one of the bullets out. “So these are silver bullets. Silver bullets are only used to kill very specific things.”
Feng said nothing, but everything was held in her stare.
“They kill werewolves,” I said.
Feng’s eyebrows rose. “Who did you say you were, again?”
Will helped Feng up.
“I’m Sophie, and this is Will. We’ve ... we’ve been having some problems, and we need to know where someone would get bullets like these.”
Feng cocked her head, seemingly not understanding. “Why did you come here? To me?”
I glanced around the dismal cave of a workshop and determined that the likelihood of Feng placing an ad in the Guardian or on public-access television was probably a long shot.
“Dixon Andrade.” It wasn’t a complete lie.
Feng shook her head. “Dixon, huh?” But she seemed pacified and almost smiled. “Okay. So what do you want?”
“Do you know where to get the bullets?”
Feng sat down, kicked her booted feet up, and popped a handful of nuts into her mouth. “I know who makes them.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. “You do?”
Feng smiled. “Yeah. Me.” She opened the toolbox on the table and plucked out a silver bullet and set it on the table next to the one I brought in. She examined
mine from all sides; then sat back, satisfied. “I made this one in the spring.”
“How do you know?”
“Is it some sort of Underworldy voodoo thing?” Will wanted to know.
Feng looked confused, then spun the bullet. A tiny Chinese symbol was carved on the blunt end. “All of our bullets are marked with a seasonal sign.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment for an instrument of death,” Will said, smiling nervously.
“Our bullets?” I asked.
“It’s kind of a family business.”
I felt like someone had let all the air out of the room.
Feng’s cheery smile swirled in front of my eyes. Will slid a chair underneath me, just as my legs went wobbly.
“You’re werewolf hunters?” I asked breathlessly.
Feng beamed with something that looked shockingly like pride.
“There’s barely a dog left in the city, thanks to my family.” Feng gestured to the large, painted family crest behind her. The surname Du was intertwined with the American spelling, a stylized painting of a wounded werewolf dying behind the heavy black print.
On a daily basis the Underworld Detection Agency processed at least a dozen vampires coming or going, a good handful of zombies (more, lately), plus a smattering of all other matter of demon. But werewolves were rare.
Now I knew why.
“My family has been here for over a hundred years. We were sent to America—San Francisco, particularly—to deal with hordes of dogs out here.”
“Werewolves,” I said, meaning to correct her; but Feng just nodded, as if I was asking just to make sure.
“We’ve been tracking and hunting for thousands of years.”
“And the bullets?”
“They’re specific to what we do.” Feng tapped the bullet. “The silver cuts through the fur and pierces the flesh—the only thing that will. Our bullets explode inside and launch an elephant-sized amount of tranquilizing poison. The dog just lies there until they bleed out.”
I was horrified, completely forgetting to hide it, until Will came up behind me and began massaging my clenched shoulders. He nuzzled my hair; his lips brushing my ear.
“Stay calm,” he whispered. And then, to Feng, “She’s just a bit jumpy, this one. Doesn’t like anything with fur. Had to toss her UGG boots in the rubbish bin. That was a terrible Christmas, wasn’t it, love?”
“So, do you have a werewolf problem?” Feng wanted to know.
“No, actually it was just a curiosity.”
I swallowed down the bile that lodged in the back of my throat. “Do you sell the bullets?”
“Yeah. Not too often, though. Occasionally people get worked up and start buying if there are dog sightings. Or we get an onslaught of buyers anytime a werewolf movie or Twilight comes out. Man”—Feng shook her head—“those Team Edward girls are ruthless.”
“Can you tell us who bought this bullet?”
Feng’s lips turned down. “Look, I’m really not in the business of advertising my client list.”
“There’s a whole list?” My voice was a hoarse whisper, betraying my discomfort.
“So, do you want to buy or what?”
“Yes. Yes, of course we do.” Will’s voice sounded a million miles away as my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
I squinted in the sunlight when we left Feng’s lair. Will clutched a paper bag full of werewolf-killing bullets; I stumbled with a numbness which started in my feet and went up to every follicle on my head.
“They’re werewolf hunters, Will.”
He took my hand and pulled me across the street. “I know that, love.”
“Do you think they had something to do with Sampson?” I asked.
“One crisis at a time.” Will hailed a cab and stuffed me in it, sliding in behind me.
I let out something halfway between a chuckle and a gasp. “One crisis at a time.”
“And we aren’t even a step closer to solving this one.”
“Well, actually ...” I unbuttoned my sweater and slid out the rubber-banded, handwritten wad of receipts that I filched from Feng’s countertop while she showed Will her selection of bullets.
Will stiffened; surprise registering all over his body. “You stole them?”
“I don’t suppose I could get away with saying I’m borrowing them, huh? Besides, the woman choked me. She owed us something.”
Will sat back, clearly looking pleased. “Looks like you’ve got a little bit of street cred, after all, love.”
I felt myself grin. Sophie Lawson, True-Life Badass.
“I just can’t believe you stole something from a woman who decorates with deadly weapons and tracks demons for a living.
My knees shook a little bit. Sophie Lawson: Badass, as Long as She Doesn’t Think About It.
Chapter Seventeen
I let myself into my apartment and was pleasantly surprised to find the only inhabitant was ChaCha, who did berserk circles around my ankles. She finally settled into a bowl of Alpo and I shrugged out of my clothes, took a hot shower, and oozed into some comfortable clothes. I popped a Lean Cuisine into the microwave and watched it spin, trying to keep my mind off Bettina, Kale, who had just been let out of the hospital, and what was going on in the Underworld.
I must have fallen asleep somewhere between my knockoff spicy chicken enchiladas and an Extreme Couponing marathon, because suddenly I was being shaken awake. I scrunched my eyes shut, and from far away I heard Nina’s assertive voice.
“Fine. If you’re going to play sleep, things are going to get rough.”
I felt fingers on the collar of my sweatshirt inching slowly toward the naked skin of my neck.
“Wake up, Sophie... .”
I thought that if I could just keep my eyes closed a little longer, then it would be a new day and this would all have been some terrible dream.
“I warned you... .”
Nina plunged both hands down the neck of my sweatshirt, pressing her palms and icy fingers against my once-warm skin. I jumped and howled and landed with a thud between the couch and the coffee table.
I glared at Nina, and she grinned at me, her fingers raised like six-shooters. She blew each pointed index finger and tucked them into imaginary holsters. “I warned you.”
I rolled my eyes and kicked the plastic enchilada tray onto the floor; ChaCha pounced on it with gusto. Nina beelined for her bedroom, a tiny tornado of slick black hair and flying couture. “We don’t have much time.”
“For what?” I helped myself to a marshmallow pinwheel. I had eaten a Lean Cuisine, so I deserved it. I took two.
Nina had done a marathon makeover in eight seconds. She had slipped into a body-hugging black dress and slid a lacy black skirt on over it. Glovelets, fishnet tights, and an Art Deco brooch weaved into her hair finished her look.
“You look amazing!” I complimented, slightly jealous that the same outfit would make me look like a ballerina hooker.
Nina blew out her “I can’t eat you, but I could smack you” sigh, and I jumped back a quarter inch. She rubbed her forehead. “Did you forget about tonight already?”
I fished in the marshmallow pinwheel bag. “Forget what?”
“Our date!”
I chewed, relishing the feel of oozing chocolate as it melted over my teeth. “We have a date?”
“We have dates. Plural. Didn’t you get my message?”
I crossed my arms and jutted out one hip. “Were you sending me telepathic messages again? I told you that doesn’t work.”
“I wrote it down here.” Nina picked up the notepad we kept by the phone and waved it at me. “And I left a message on your cell phone and I Facebooked you. I would have sent a carrier pigeon, but I ran out of time.”
“And you’re scared of birds.”
“I’m not scared. I just find them winged and disgusting. Apparently”—Nina snatched the last pinwheel out of my hand—“I should have written it in chocolate and marshmallow. Get ready. Harley
will be here in twenty minutes.”
I took the notepad and read: S, We’re going out tonight. Yes, you are. Look cute, six o’clock, Neens.
“I can’t go out tonight. I’m grieving.”
“Over your roots or the death of elastic?” Nina snapped my pajama bottoms for effect.
I crossed my arms, fighting off a growl, and I shook my head. “This whole Underworld violence thing. Aren’t you worried?”
Nina bared her fangs. “Not really. Besides, nothing more you can do but clear your head. Start with a tabula rasa tomorrow.”
I frowned. “It’s never good when you speak Latin.”
“Come out tonight. If you stay here, you’re just going to obsess and cry and mope, and your pity quota is totally up. Clear your head and get a free dinner. Wear that black dress from Wasteland.”
I groaned. “Why do I have to look cute for your date? I’m going to be like a third wheel. I don’t want to be a third wheel.”
Nina brushed past me, stomping into my bedroom. “You’re not going to be a third wheel.”
She was standing in front of my open closet, hands on hips, her fangs working her lower lip as she scrutinized my wardrobe. “Don’t you have anything that’s not from the Talbots ‘Administrative Assistant Collection’?”
I angled myself between Nina and my offensive wardrobe. “Why?”
“Because.”
I fought to hold Nina’s gaze, but her eyes flitted all around me.
“Do I have a date tonight, too?”
Nina nodded. “And you don’t even have to thank me.”
I smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Nina tossed me a silky green dress that lived at the back of my closet. “Put this on and wear your hair up.”
I paused. “Am I going out with one of Harley’s writer friends?”
Again Nina avoided my eyes. “Not exactly. But he’s seriously in the business. I’m borrowing your chandelier earrings, okay?”
“In the business?”