Trigger

 

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OCTOBER

My father only pulled me out of school for one reason: to hunt down the dead. So, when he showed up at the door of my firearms class, beckoning to me, I got up from my seat without a word.

Chairs scraped against the floor as the other students rose. Everyone stood at attention and thumped their right fists over their hearts, our teacher included. Saluting. Like all of the Helsing Corps' commanders in chief, Dad won the respect of his reapers and cadets through his killer instinct and the novel's worth of scar stories carved into his skin. As for me, my father gave me purpose, direction. Zeal.

Hunting the undead gave us Helsings reason to live.

“You too, McCoy,” Dad said to my best friend and training partner, Ryder. “As for the rest of you, at ease.” Students folded into their chairs, sitting straight and sharp as razors. Showing off for my father, of course. Not more than thirty seconds before, the slackers were dozing through a lecture on the Colt M1911 handgun.

Grabbing our backpacks, Ryder and I headed to the front of the classroom. I wondered if he sensed our classmates' gazes at his back as keenly as I did. Probably not—Ryder was better liked than me and had more tolerance for suck-ups. Which is to say, more than my zero.

The two of us were a study in extreme contrasts: At sixteen, Ryder stood six-foot-one, whereas I barely topped five-three. The other students called us Yin and Yang behind our backs, thanks to our coloring—he was dusky, like he'd slathered himself in his native Australian sun; I was pale, having inherited my mother's platinum-blond hair, bleached-bone skin, and her brilliant tetrachromatic blue eyes.

The things we shared? My father's favor. A passion for triggers and lead. ISTJ Myers-Briggs profiles. And George Romero zombie movies.

“Wahlberg,” Dad said to our instructor, “these two won't be returning to class tonight. Inform the attendance office.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dad hustled Ryder and me into the hallway. To my surprise, six of my father's black-jacketed Harker Elite guards waited outside—reapers trained to crew with and protect Helsing family members in the field. The men saluted me with murmurs of “Miss Helsing.” My self-consciousness over being pulled out of class slipped back; a large Harker presence meant Dad wasn't taking Ryder and me out for a practice hunt.

We're going after a reaper-killer.
The thought corseted my breath like a Kevlar vest and sliced my nerves to threads. “What's going on?” I asked, looking at Dad, forgetting to slap the obligatory “sir” on at the end. “There are too many Harkers here for a simple training mission.”

Dad's gaze slid away and tacked itself to a point beyond my shoulder. “This isn't a training mission, Micheline.” The Harkers shifted their weight and refused to meet my eyes, tombstone stoic.

I glanced at Ryder, who told me he shared my conclusion with nothing more than his clenched, tendon-corded fists. All cadets started hunting necrotic monsters in their fourth year, but never anything tough enough to shock our best reapers into silence. I'd taken down a handful of necros in the field—all of them slow, stupid, and none of them killers.

“Who's dead?” Ryder asked, his trap muscles bunching.

“We'll see.” Dad started down the hall, his people turning to accompany him. “Let's move out—Lieutenant Carroll will brief us once we reach the dead zone.”

“You know I'm supposed to hunt with Mom tonight, right?” I called to Dad's back. My voice skidded off the hallway's matte-black lockers, echoing. “She'll be pissed if I don't show up for the exorcism at the Orpheum.”

My words didn't even slow my father's stride.

“Dad?”

“Forget it.”

“But Mom—”

“Can wait.” He turned on his heel, staring me down. “You're the sharpest shot of our tetros, and we're not making another mistake with this monster.”

Another mistake?

“I need your eyes tonight, Micheline,” Dad said.

All necrotic creatures emitted a spectral glow—a phenomenon known as ghostlight in layman's terms. Thanks to a fourth color receptor in our retinas, women born with a genetic mutation called tetrachromacy saw the ghostlight radiating from the undead. I'd inherited tetrachromacy from my mother, and my eyes gave me an edge against the monsters in the darkness, as well as the ability to see and therefore exorcise ghosts.

Most tetros were exorcists, women who trapped the spectral dead in silver mirrors. Thanks to my dual training as a reaper and an exorcist, I preferred to play offense and did my exorcisms on film with an analog SLR camera. I was the most comfortable of our tetros with the concept of point-and-shoot, so whenever my father needed eyes to see through shadows—or
shoot
through them—he chose mine.

But ghosts could be just as dangerous as the monsters. Mom needed me, too.

“Would you prefer I find someone else?” Dad lifted a brow.

My trigger finger twitched. Every breath was a test with my father—he wanted proof I deserved to inherit his place in the corps over my younger brothers.

“Never,” I said. The corners of Dad's eyes crinkled in an almost-smile, one that didn't touch his lips. His smiles rarely did.

Game on, Dad.

*   *   *

The storm water tunnels under San Francisco sprawled for miles, labyrinthine: a crypt for rats' bones and strange, underworldly art. Paint rotted off the ceiling in fungal layers, reaching for us with twitching fingers. Broken boards, empty cans of spray paint, and cloudy bottles littered the ground. The place smelled of musty water and crumbling earth. Cobwebs netted my nose and mouth. The walls still sweated from the morning's storm, and I tried not to think about how the water line had risen six freaking inches above the crown of my head.

“They're in here, sir.” Lieutenant Carroll led us into a large retention room guarded by several silent reapers. Even the dogs sat subdued, their ears turning like miniature satellite dishes to catch sounds I couldn't hear.

The place looked like a battleground: cherry-black bloodstains marbled the concrete, sucking at my boots. Spent cartridges littered the ground like mercenary confetti. Worst of all, three bodies lay on the floor, scabbed over with plastic tarps.

“Which one?” Dad asked. Lieutenant Carroll pointed to the body on the right. Dad crouched, his boots squelching in the tarry, clotting puddle on the ground. Light from our crew's flashlights brushed up against Dad's broad shoulders, the guns at his sides, then scrambled away as if it found the very texture of Leonard Helsing frightening.

Dad pulled the tarp away and clenched his jaw so hard, I thought the tendons in his temples might snap. I recognized the corpse's strong features and silver-shot ebony curls, too; and there was no mistaking the Harker cross tattooed on his right arm, the one awarded to reapers for saving a Helsing's life.

It couldn't be
him
, no—he was too good, too strong.

“Captain Delgado,” Ryder said. Anyone else would've missed the quaver in his voice; not me. It lay beneath layers of self-control and training, but I couldn't mistake it: A tiny reverberation on that last exhaled
o
, slight but no less heartfelt for its size.

“Oh, no,” I said, those simple words holding all the grief I could express in front of my father and his crew. A Helsing's heart was a dam—it didn't matter that I'd grown up with Delgado around, or that he'd been captain of my father's Harker Elite for a decade. It didn't matter that Delgado's two kids were sophomores in the academy, like me. Luis and Gabriela were still in class, thinking nothing was wrong with their world. Someday, I might be in their shoes, listening to a lecture on corps history while Dad lay dead on a tunnel floor somewhere. A tremor wormed up from the soles of my feet and bit into my heart. Almost every commander in chief of the Helsing Corps died in the field. Someday, Dad's number would come up.

Not today.

“How did this happen?” I walked forward, my gaze stuck to the triangle-shaped wounds in Delgado's chest.

“Three scissorclaws took advantage of a tunnel intersection and surprised us,” Carroll said. A finger of cold air slid under my collar and traced my spine—
scissorclaw
. “Smarter than any I've seen before. We killed two”—he motioned to a pair of body-bagged lumps in the corner, ones too big to be human anymore. Red biohazard symbols were stamped on the bags beside the Helsing
H
insignia
.
“The last one—the
big
one—is responsible for the captain. Never seen one so smart. The goddamn thing set traps for us.”

I glanced at Ryder: One corner of his lips twitched, his nostrils flared, and his breath hitched, all products of the same morbid adrenaline rush that swept my own veins. Fight or flight. We reapers preferred
fight.

Dad rose and cleared his throat, as if emptying out any emotion. “Johnson, Nunes, get the bodies back to Dr. Stoker at HQ and keep this quiet. I will inform the families personally. As for the rest of you, I want this monster dead by dawn.”

“Sir.” Our voices echoed in the tunnels.

“Micheline and I will take point—she'll spot the necro before any of you.” Dad rose and turned to the canine handlers. “Give her one of the dogs.”

The men exchanged glances. “They won't obey a different handler, sir; these dogs are—”

“Do it,” Dad said, his tone sharp. One handler handed me the leash to a black German Shepherd named Brutus. The dog wore a stab-proof vest over his sides and chest; his withers were marked with the same insignia tattooed on everything belonging to Helsing, including its reapers. Brutus even had a lamp strapped to his head.