Danny was used to early mornings at this point, and all things considered a 2 AM call to run errands wasn’t the worst wake up she’d ever had. Getting some clothes out of the basement for the local freak show, coffee on the way to the warehouse, and a smoke in the car to try calming down enough to not blow up on anyone. Not until she was pulling into an industrial zone and found the thing stood against the hood of her car with a smoke of her own smiling like a kid skipping in the park.

  Gaudy colonial dress she seemed to think was good casual wear, impractically long red hair, a red leather jacket better suited for a runway than combat, and an eye patch. The thing not even looking up to Danny as she walked forward, seeming to whisper to the thin air until it finally felt ready to chirp, “hey, Danny, right? Don’t think we’ve gotten the chance to talk-”

  “Your clothes,” Danny interrupted, tossing the grocery bag at her feet and very quickly seeing why she was needed. Blood all across her dress front, barely hidden by the jacket, why the fuck wasn’t she inside?

  Couldn’t snap at The Lady’s new favorite pet though, had to wait at least a decade before she found one she liked better, and instead Danny asked, “this as bad as that guy we had to scrape up last month?”

  It glared at her for that one, she actually felt a little proud of forcing out a reaction that felt a little human, and all the same the freak show took a drag of her cigarette and tried to justify it, “that one was an accident, you know that. This was an urban legend, I didn’t even kill him — just cut him up a little.”

  “Yeah, the gallon of blood looks like just a little,” Danny scoffed with a roll of her eyes as she pushed past and went towards the warehouse.

  Might as well get it over with and see what the damage was. Urban legends were durable, but it was basically only the ones spawned from old fairy tails and the really popular horror ones that were actually pure immortal. Chances were the freak show at most ripped apart a scary clown or a wild man, and Danny was going to have to kindly explain no, actually, this thing probably isn’t famous enough it’ll resurrect on its own.

  Worst case scenario she’d run into a fairy tail or even boogeyman and underestimated how much it actually took to put one of those on their ass, but Danny wasn’t too scared there. She’d gotten beat unconscious as a werewolf by Little Red Riding Hood about fifteen years back, and while it’d taken about half that time to live it down she knew what to expect now. Don’t just assume a stab to the heart was going to keep them down too long, and don’t think the little girl in the red cloak didn’t know how to use a gun.

  Pistol drawn from her back pocket Danny braced against the door to the warehouse and raised the barrel cautiously in front of her. Ready to prepare for taking this professionally when she looked through the window and stopped cold. Staring down at the carnage for several seconds before slowly pushing through and following the trail the girl had left.

  Bloody footprints out the least of it, there were more arterial sprays and cracks in the drywall than Danny thought should have been possible for even a fight between werewolves. Various silhouettes and vaguely face shaped marks a few fine details away from looking like a cartoon, gouges she would have guessed were from an axe, and a door broken off its hinges.

  The blood trail thicker here, dragged out to the center of the warehouses main room where a body laid. The closest limb an arm ending in a barbed hook, and every other piece laying about in various spots while they slowly squirmed and crawled towards the body. Slow, lucky enough, though certainly something that wasn’t keeping something this powerful down permanently even as the figure let out a hissing grown and raised its head to stare Danny down. Axe still buried in its forehead and weighing it down from looking too far up or squirming forward.

  Not how she would have handled a hookman, but effective she’d give that.

  The sight working its way into her nightmares tonight for only a few seconds before the freak show spoke up behind her, “got up the first time I hit him in the head, figured this would work. He’ll live, right?”

  Danny stared her down with an honest sense of do you actually care? before confessing, “The Lady’s cleaners are going to be here soon, they’ll decide what to do with him from there.”

  Man was still probably ending up spending the rest of his night melting in some acid if he was killing humans, but that was besides the point. Urban Legends weren’t The Lady’s domain anymore than fey were, and she’d need to get some local permissions to do anything more than turn him over.

  Letting out a cloud of smoke with her sigh Danny stared down at the man’s body, the axe, mouth drying a little as she asked, “why didn’t you do this as a wolf?”

  The freak looked at her like it was the most random question in the world, tilting her head as she shrugged and answered, “just didn’t want him to die.”

  Danny spent the rest of their wait sitting on that, thinking it over for probably way too long until The Lady’s people showed up and the freak drove off on her own. The woman starting on her own way home before stopping halfway and sitting on the side of the road for several minutes. Cars passing by while she got probably a half dozen concerned glances back towards her and she tried thinking of what to do.

  After a bit deciding, no, she wasn’t ignoring this, and slamming on her gas as she spun the car around and started down a familiar road. Right to the hospital, finding the closest free parking she could and giving it a determined march until she slowed down to slip in the front door. The man at the front desk recognizing her immediately as he smiled and asked, “hey, Danny, Samuel forget his lunch again?”

  “Family emergency, just need to tell him some things happened and I know he left his phone home,” Danny admitted, only a partial lie in the point of Sammy always left his phone in the car for work, but she didn’t need to say that much.

  The man at the desk taking up his phone and punching in a few numbers before starting up some empty conversation. Continuing on for nearly a minute before he finally hung up and declared, “he’ll be down in a minute, they were apparently waiting for some pizza anyway.”

  “Tell him I’ll be on the bench outside,” Danny finished the conversation, forcing her nicest smile as she quickly left the lobby and found the uncomfortable metal seat she’d grown too used to for these sorts of things.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Couldn’t talk about this at the Covenant, too much chance of getting overheard, and Sammy was too much of a workaholic to reliably get him to agree to a lunch or dinner out. Had to show up and harass him here where people thought he was being the mean older brother if he didn’t come down to humor her for a few minutes when she stopped by during the slow hours. Offerings of donuts or coffee usually accompanying her to make it easier, but this was a last minute thing and she wasn’t getting paid until Friday.

  Sammy at least seemed to realize that as he didn’t make her wait long, and didn’t bother with pleasantries as he strolled to take a spot beside her and started them off with, “this is about Mary isn’t it.”

  “Your freak’s going off the rails,” Danny confirmed, staring the man down as she explained the night’s events quite plainly, “she took out a hookman herself. I found him with his limbs chopped off and tossed around the room with a fire axe, and your freak saying she didn’t turn into a wolf to leave him alive. That’s the fourth body I’ve been called to deal with in half as many months, and only the second The Lady was expecting for the night, you can’t-”

  “The man last month was an accident, we both know that, and the human was collateral unless you think she could have avoided that fight,” Sammy justified for the girl as always like a body count of two unexpected deaths wasn’t a problem, “she’s also been dealing with quite a bit if you haven’t been listening to me. I don’t think-”

  “Her one week girlfriend died months ago, Sammy, and this last month’s been better but she’s… she’s smiling on these jobs,” Danny interrupted, not caring for the death glare she was getting for it, “look, you weren’t much better when you left Eva, but you got better. I didn’t walk up to you covered in blood looking horrified half the time and like it was no big deal the other half. If she keeps this up we’re going to need to-”

  Sammy didn’t speak up, he didn’t need to, and Danny got the distinct feeling if she pushed it too hard she was going to end up causing more than a screaming fit. The man letting the silence rest for a while before he tried to comfort her, “she’s getting a vacation next week, her son’s coming down for it, I’m hoping it’ll help balance her out. I’m going to be too busy looking into those contacts of The Lady’s that got murdered to make sure she plays it safe, but give her a chance alright?”

  “It’s been two years, she’s still acting half-tamed, and you know what the problem with half-tamed is?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “If she was full Purist, I wouldn’t worry too much,” Danny confessed as she fell back against the back of the bench, “sure, fucking horrible, but Purists are predictable, they’re bitches in a fight but they don’t plan or perform anything too complicated. Her though? She’s one step above a human serial killer, and I don’t know what that’s going to look like if she does go another step down.”

  He remained still, rubbing his temple with two fingers and seeming ready to speak a half dozen times before muttering, “she’s not Eva, I know that. She just… I don’t fucking know, but I’m still holding out for her. You understand that right?”

  Danny nodded, realizing she was getting nowhere with him as they returned to that long silence and she tried figuring out what it was he was trying to accomplish. Whatever problem and point she could think of echoing through her head until a single thought finally hit her and she said more than asked, “she’s not your daughter is she?”

  “No, by the wolf gods, no,” Sammy flinched at the question, and Danny raised a brow before deciding she didn’t want to ask why he sounded disgusted by the insinuation. Instead letting him gather himself before he explained, “look, I couldn’t get her mother out of the Purists, but her? I can help her, alright? It’s not too late for her, and even if it was you know The Lady’s not approving the sort of thing you’re talking about, she’s not even on parole anymore.”

  Danny nodded, “so we’re going to let her keep killing innocents until she gets someone we care about killed or reveals supernaturals to the world?”

  Silence, and Danny knew the answer even as Sammy tried to comfort her, “she kills another innocent, I’ll be the one who slits her throat.”

  “You told me the same thing about Eva,” Danny said, Samuel getting up to walk away before she tried fixing that slip up, “I’m not blaming you for what happened there, I shouldn’t have done that, but this? Your mentor dragged you into the Purists, and your buddy… what was his fucking name, the one with the beard?”

  “Don’t know who you’re talking about,” Samuel shrugged, actually looking a little confused at the woman.

  “It doesn’t matter, the point is The Lady wanted to keep you two apart as soon as things fell through there, and she’s not doing that here,” Danny said even as she realized she wasn’t explaining it well at all. She had one good chance at actually getting him on her side here, and she closed her eyes as she started again, “you’re working with this girl, you’re training her, and I’m worried you’re going to justify it if she does slip hard. I need your promise you have lines, not just some vague point in time, not just some term like innocent victim you can change the definition of if you can justify it. I need to know there’s a line that you won’t let this girl cross.”

  A long pause, too long for Danny to feel any real confidence in the man even as he told her, “I have my lines.”

  Not good enough, but what was there left to argue? Make him lay it out, sign a contract, watch him obfuscate whatever line he did give until it was too late?

  Danny was on her own, and far as she cared she needed to start figuring out at what point she needed to cut the girls throat and make it look like an accident. Werewolves lived long enough, but actively killing the bitch was going to be a line crossed herself if she didn’t hide it.

  A line she didn’t think she’d get the same sort of grace if she did cross.

  Danny sighed, rising to her feet on her own as she looked up at the night sky and complained, “I’m going to go back to sleep, bring me home a grand slam after your shift.”

  “I’m not buying you breakfast, get it yourself.”

  “I brought your creature clothes,” Danny countered, and Sammy was quick to point out, “The Lady asked you to, because I didn’t know you were doing that until you showed up here.”

  A short pause for her to formulate a plan, and Danny offered, “I won’t tell mom and dad you lied about The Lady making you work Christmas next week.”

  “So you’re blackmailing me?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  Sammy sighed, closing his eyes as he looked to the ground and tried to finish their negotiations off, “and you tell her I have to go to Virginia Beach with you New Years, and can’t make it to Tennessee for that either.”

  “I get to borrow the Trans Am for my date next week.”

  “Fill the tank, nothing happens between you two in the car.”

  “Deal.”

  And at least one good thing came out of the night, Danny figured, as she started back to her own car. Eyes glued forward as she tried thinking of what line she was giving this girl to cross, and how she would deal with it if the time came. Too much to worry about, too much to figure out, and only made worse by her phone ringing before she was even back to her car.

  Hesitating to answer for a long time before she took it up and the Lady’s agent told her, “Another one of the boss’ contacts got hit a few hours ago, low ranking fey so the courts are going to handle it soon as they reach a decision, but-”

  “Looks bad it happened on our territory, The Lady doesn’t care enough about a fey to send her dog but you want me to be there so they know we’re not ignoring it?” Danny guessed, the silence on the other end telling her she was pretty spot on. Sighing as she climbed in the passenger seat and confirmed, “send me the address, I was still out anyway.”

  More murders, yet another one of their contacts getting fucking killed that Sammy was only spared investigating because of their handler. Danny wondering very briefly if the freak show knew it was happening, high up in The Lady’s personal court she was, or if her vacation and busy week meant no one told her.

  Well, it wasn’t her problem. If she was lucky maybe not warning her about it would mean their problem would get dealt with without her needing to lift a finger.