“All right. Quick now. Put your thumb there to open the collector—no, the black button…that’s good. Now that’s the thing you want, but you want it in one piece. Put the flaps over…good, just like that. Push the green button to close it up and it should start working on its own. That’s it. You just wait…and push the black button again to spit the meat out. Good job. You’ve harvested your first human.”

Sue-Eye stepped out into the office again and watched as Kane gave Raven’s shoulder a slap. He plucked his tool from her hand and turned around. He still looked pissed, but at least now he only looked just pissed. “Are we ready?” he asked.

She nodded, holding up the room card for proof.

“Go on, then. Let’s get to work. Raven.”

The pony didn’t move. She only stood there, staring down at the dead guy. She was still holding a chunk of bone and hair in her hand. Something was dripping out of it.

“Raven,” Kane said again, his fangs baring. “Human, you are really scratching me tonight.”

The pony remained motionless, silent.

And oh, praise the baby Jesus, this was it. Kane’s hand—the one with blood capping the claws—curled and began to rise. Sue-Eye’s breath caught and held.

Slowly, Raven looked around. Her eyes drifted to a point somewhere over Kane’s shoulder. “I killed him,” she said dully.

Sue-Eye bit her lip, watching Kane’s killing hand intently. It flexed once and then uncurled. She frowned.

“I killed him,” Raven said again. She looked at the mass of tissue and bone in her grip and let it drop. It hit something wet. Raven stared at the floor. “I killed somebody.”

“You’ve seen plenty of that since I came along,” Kane said darkly. His claws flexed again.

“That was you.” The pony’s chest started heaving. She hadn’t blinked yet. “This was me.”

Kane dropped his juice-collector in his pack. He glared at the back of her for a while longer, and then sighed and held out one arm. “All right, come here.”

The pony came in unsteady movie-mummy jerks and practically fell into Kane’s chest. She put her arms around him, the fingers of her bloody hand awkwardly crooked out so they touched nothing. She sucked in a breath and let it out in a ragged rush. “I killed him!” she howled and burst into tears.

“You sure did.” Kane patted the shaking shoulders. His gaze went to Sue-Eye and he shrugged slightly, his mouth set in a bitterly tolerant twist. “You did just fine.”

“It was awful!”

“It’ll get easier.”

Raven drew back, her eyes frantic. “Are you going to make me do it again?”

“That depends.” Kane gave her a severe frown. “Are you going to behave yourself now?”

She nodded wildly, still searching his face.

He wasn’t going to kill her. God damn it.

“All right then. Stay close and you don’t have to help any more tonight.” Kane gave her a final consoling rub and turned to Sue-Eye. “What about you?” he asked. “Feel like killing anyone?”

Sue-Eye stared at him, almost shaking with the effort of holding so still, of not looking past him to the pony swiping at her leaky eyes and sniffling behind him. Her senses were still clogged with the smell of death and the rolling thunder of Kane’s fury, and she could feel how near that purple-haired bitch had come to dying. She could almost taste the blood in her own mouth it had been so close. “Oh, you bet I do,” she said.

Kane looked at her for what felt like hours as the neon lights hummed and the pissant town slept and blood soaked into the cheap linoleum inside the hotel office. At last, he reached into his pack, brought out his device, and held it out to her.

She snatched at it and gripped it, her hand aching and her breath burning.

Kane had a hand for her shoulder then, a light slap to put her feet in motion as he moved for the door. “All right then, ichuta’a. Let’s hunt.”

*

Little fingers on his arm brought Tagen out of a dream of stars and back into his bed. He groped behind him, his eyes still shut, to find Daria. Once that was done, he tugged her down over his hip to tumble into bed beside him. He ignored her protestations and pulled her against him, nipping at her jaw to silence her, and prepared to go back to sleep.

“Tagen, you have to get up,” she said. “At least, I think you do.”

“Mm. Unless the house is a’fire, I think not.”

“There were more murders.”

He opened his eyes. The room was dark. Daria’s face was only a pale suggestion of itself in the surrounding shadows. She was an early riser, his human host, but never this early. “What is the hour?” he asked.

“Almost four.”

He frowned, and then rolled over and switched on a light so that Daria could see his disapproval. “Why were you awake to hear of these murders?” he asked.

She went shame-faced at once. “I was…sweeping,” she confessed and immediately became defensive. “Well, the door was open all that time! All this stuff got in! Besides, I was just constructively killing a little time while I made myself a snack. It’s not like I was re-enameling the kitchen sink. I was mostly watching tee-vee.”

Tagen pushed himself into a sitting posture so that he could glare at her more effectively. “And if I were to go downstairs right now, the mopping bucket would not be wet,” he said narrowly. “I would not smell cleaners or see moisture drying on your floors.”

She was silent.

“Or your cupboards?” he pressed.

“All this stuff got in!”

He sighed and flung back the sheets, reaching for his clothing. It was not worth the argument. He would very much like to observe that no reasonable person would be sterilizing her home in the middle of the night, but she knew it already and did not need to keep hearing it from him. He stepped into his breeches and stood up to fasten them. “Tell me of these murders,” he said instead.

“The floor was filthy,” she said. Her voice was a morose shadow of itself. She would not look at him.

He sighed again and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Yes,” he said simply. He touched a claw to the stray locks of hair that fell over her brow, tucking them back behind her ear. “But mostly you were watching tee-vee. What was it that made you think to wake me?”

“I—” Daria cast a sidelong look at the open bedroom door, and then dropped her gaze to her own knees. “There was a motel in a place called Pinesborough, near the Washington border. Someone from the graveyard shift found the No Vacancy sign on and the office closed and called the cops. The cops found practically everyone in the building dead. Do you know what a motel is, Tagen?”

“A bedding station where humans mate extramaritally,” he replied.

She looked at him, opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again and seriously said, “You watch too much cable television.”

“What then?”

“I didn’t say you were wrong.” She rubbed at her knees restlessly. “I just wanted to make sure you knew what one looked like, so when I say that practically everyone in the building was dead, you know that means someone had to go to a bunch of different rooms.”

“I do.” He regarded her closely. “When you say ‘practically’…do you mean to imply that there are survivors?”

“I’m just repeating what the news guy said. No one’s confirmed yet how many bodies there were or if there really were survivors or even how the people were killed, so…” She trailed off, looking increasingly uncomfortable, and raised a hand to rub at her scars. “So this is probably a huge waste of your time, come to think of it. Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

She stood up and Tagen moved swiftly to intercept her before she could reach the door. “Tell me,” he said intently.

“It’s probably nothing,” she insisted and tried to go around him.

He caught her arm.

She looked at his hand and when he did not release her, she sighed and said, “I was looking at the map and…and it’s not a dead match or anything, but…I think I see—”