Bloodbound Fugitives

The smell of wet dog hit me before the body did.

Not that I minded. In my line of work, you learn to sort the living from the dead by scent alone, and this one was still breathing. Barely. The alley behind the old cannery on Dupont Street wasn't the kind of place you went looking for trouble unless trouble was already paying your rent. Tonight, trouble had a name, and her name was Keelin. At least, that's what the guy bleeding out on the cobblestones had called her before he stopped making sense.

I crouched low, trench coat dragging through a puddle of something I didn't want to identify. The man's eyes were open, glassy, fixed on a point somewhere past my left shoulder. His throat had been opened with something sharp and deliberate. Not a robbery. Robberies leave pockets turned inside out, not neat little smiles carved under the jaw.

"Who did this to you?" I asked, even though I knew he couldn't answer. Habit. You talk to the dead because the living lie.

His lips moved. A bubble of blood swelled and popped. "Fourie," he whispered. My name. Which meant he knew me. Which meant this wasn't random.

I stood up slow, wiping my hands on my thighs. The alley stretched behind me, narrow and dark, the kind of dark that swallows sound. Somewhere above, a window rattled shut. A cat yowled. The city was doing its usual trick of pretending nothing bad ever happened inside its borders.

But I'd been doing this too long to buy that.

I'd come to Dupont Street looking for a girl. Two girls, actually. Twins, according to the client, though the photograph he'd given me showed only one face. Auburn hair, sharp eyes, a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. The kind of face that made you want to ask questions. The kind of face that made you regret asking them.

The dead man at my feet had been my only lead.

I pulled my collar up against the wind and walked. The cannery district was a graveyard of brick and rust, warehouses converted into lofts for people who couldn't afford the city proper. Between them ran a labyrinth of service alleys and forgotten loading docks, perfect for deals that didn't want witnesses. I'd spent three days mapping it, learning the rhythms. The night shift at the fish plant let out at eleven. The junkies who slept behind the boiler room stirred around two. And somewhere in the middle of all that, a girl with auburn hair had been seen trading tech scraps for food.

Keelin. The name tasted like copper on my tongue.

I found her an hour later, sitting on the edge of a loading dock with her boots dangling over the water. Not hiding. Waiting. That was the first thing I noticed. Most people in her position would've been tucked into a corner, back to the wall, eyes on the door. She sat in the open like she owned the night, like she'd already decided nothing out here could hurt her.

She was wrong, of course. But I admired the posture.

"You're Fanie Fourie," she said before I could speak. Her voice was low, rough at the edges, like she'd been yelling or crying or both. "The detective. I heard you were looking for me."

"Word travels fast."

"Word travels expensive." She turned her head, and the dock light caught her face. Hazel eyes, sharp as broken glass. A bruise blooming yellow-green along her jaw. "You paid Dennison for my location. He's dead now."

"I noticed."

"He was a good man."

"He was a snitch."

She laughed. It wasn't a nice sound. "Same thing, in my world."

I climbed onto the dock and sat down a few feet away. Close enough to talk. Far enough to run. Old habits. The water below us lapped against the pilings, black and patient. Somewhere across the bay, a foghorn sounded, mournful as a funeral bell.

"I'm not here to hurt you," I said.

"That's what the last guy said."

"The last guy carved a smile into Dennison's throat. I'm just asking questions."

She looked at me then, really looked, and I felt it like a hand on my chest. There was something in her eyes that didn't belong to a scavenger. Something older. Hungrier. I'd seen that look before, in rooms where people made deals they couldn't take back. In mirrors, mostly.

"My sister," she said. "You're looking for her too."

"I'm looking for both of you."

"Freya doesn't want to be found."

"Then she shouldn't have left a trail."

Keelin's jaw tightened. For a second, I thought she might bolt. Her whole body had gone tense, coiled like a spring, and I caught the glint of something metal in her hand. A knife, probably. Small. Quick. The kind you used when you didn't want to make noise.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said again. "But someone else is. Dennison was killed because he talked to me. That means someone doesn't want me finding you. Which means you're already in deeper than you think."

"I've been in deep my whole life."

"Then you know how to swim."

She was quiet for a long moment. The foghorn sounded again, closer now. The wind shifted, carrying the smell of salt and diesel and something else underneath. Something animal. I filed it away.

"There's a place," she said finally. "Under the old bridge. The one they stopped using after the flood. Freya's been staying there."

"Take me."

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both." She stood up, pocketing the knife with a movement so smooth I almost missed it. "I'll give you the address. But you have to promise me something first."

"Name it."

"When you find her, don't tell her I sent you. Don't tell her you saw me at all."

I frowned. "Why?"

"Because she thinks I'm dead."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy as stones. I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know what kind of life made a person fake their own death to their twin sister. But Keelin was already walking away, boots silent on the concrete, coat billowing behind her like a dark wing.

She stopped at the mouth of the alley and looked back.

"One more thing, Fourie. Whatever you do, don't go to the bridge at night. Not unless you want to meet the thing that killed Dennison."

Then she was gone, swallowed by the dark.

I sat there for a while, listening to the water and the wind and the distant hum of a city that didn't care whether I lived or died. My coat was wet. My boots were ruined. And somewhere under the old bridge, a girl who didn't exist was waiting for someone to find her.

I pulled out my notebook and wrote down everything I knew. It wasn't much. But it was a start.

The thing that killed Dennison. The thing that made Keelin fake her death. The thing that made Freya hide in the ruins of a drowned bridge.

I'd met monsters before. I'd killed a few. But something told me this one was different. Something told me this one had teeth.

And I was already in its mouth.