CHAPTER 2

Her feet slipped on the cement as she turned off into the smaller side tunnel, her momentum carrying her over a waist-high barrier. The "No Entry, Closed Track" sign was a taunt, one she answered with a fluid leap, her high school track training still a part of her muscle memory. She didn't break pace, not with the quarry just ahead. It was idiotic of him to run from the platform, a mistake she couldn't believe he'd made. But she had no idea how he’d gotten the better of her, how the wolf had slipped away. Did he smell the silver? It didn't matter. This tunnel was a dead end for him—no branches, no escape—just a straight line to the end.

Her pumping legs, each stride a drumbeat, carried her forward. The rhythm of the hunt pulled her back, not to the present, but to the past, to the first full moon. She had realized then that the nuns' frowns and sidelong glances weren't just about her parents' death. Sister Sophia had led her from the dining hall that evening, not to her room, but to a temporary cell beside hers. A single cell, for one person, with a heavy lock.

The unmistakable smell of pizza hit her, putting to rest any lingering questions she might have had. The other nuns ate bland meals of rice and beans with vegetables from their own garden. Sister Sophia, out of earshot, had always agreed with her complaints. But this was a feast. They devoured the pizza she'd ordered, lamenting the convent's miserable food. Then, she'd produced an enormous piece of cheesecake, floating in cherries and wet with a thin red glaze. Stuffed herself, Ava didn’t even realize the unshed tears in her eyes as Sister Sophia took her to bed and turned the lock on the heavy door.

She woke at midnight to the hushed voices of Sister Sophia and Father Augustine near the door. Their tones were low, but the frown on the nun’s dark face told her it was an argument. They were scared. Ava folded her arms around her back, a strange object sparkling in the moonlight from the tiny window. She didn't realize what she was holding at night, but she saw Father Augustine hide his hands, a forced smile plastered on his face.

"How are you doing, Ava?" His voice shook.

"A little puffy from all that pizza." She sat up in the tiny bed. "Other than that, okay."

Father Augustine had called on her several times a week after that, always asking how she was, always smiling, but he never came at night. She was a curiosity, a potential project for the church. The nuns would wake her early, but the cell was hers alone after dark.

"That's good to know," he'd said, his smile stretching wider. "We'll let you sleep."

Later that evening, Sister Sophia had told her the truth, tearing the blinders from her eyes. The church had tracked the monsters that murdered her parents, and they had expected her to shift into one because of the bite. The pizza and cheesecake were a final meal of mercy before they killed her. But she hadn't shifted, and they hid their weapons. Ava hadn't become a monster; she had become a weapon of her own.

"Father Augustine will not be pleased with me saying so, dear," Sister Sophia said after their next distasteful breakfast. "But the church hunts them. Those cursed people who prey on others, like the man who killed your father and mother. They don't often take girls on off-duty secondary assignments like mine, but your skill is the making of it. You could do so much good and save so many."

"Like my parents?" Her fingernails sank into her palms, drawing blood.

"Yes. But if we are going to convince Father Augustine you can be useful, you'll have to try hard," her face pinched. "I won't coddle you."

They relocated to St. Francis Catholic Academy, and Ava fulfilled her promise. Sister Sophia never gave her a break until she graduated. Father Augustine reluctantly assigned her to his team of hunters. He knew she would have done it on her own if he hadn't.

The tunnel ended abruptly at the Old City Hall Station. The room curved with the track, and despite the dust and rubble, the chandelier lights twinkling along the arched ceiling gave the space a surreal glow. The architecture stunned her, and she stumbled. Hunters avoided witches and warlocks, sharing an uneasy peace for centuries. But for a moment, she wondered if she had chased the wolf through a portal to the past. The station appeared stuck in Old New York of the early twentieth century.

She had been in the city almost a decade, stalking shifters in the darkest alleys of all five boroughs. An abandoned subway station, even one with gold-trimmed brick and wrought-iron skylights, wasn't out of the ordinary. The city held more secrets than most knew.

Her quarry had vanished.

No. Ava, think wolf. He wouldn't run, not in his state. Wolves were opportunistic, like bears, but sometimes they were like cats, patient and waiting for the right moment. A station this isolated was full of possibilities, ambush chief among them.

"Do I turn you on, bitch?" the monster's gravelly voice echoed, but she couldn't pinpoint the source. "You smell excited, and not just for the hunt."

"Not for you." Damn shifters and their noses. "But I would lie if I said I won't have fun killing you. There's nothing like a good hunt to take my mind off things."

His sniff echoed, a deep inhale that filled the space. “I love your scent,” he growled. She spun, scanning the room as he continued, “By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll forget all about him.”

That was enough. Her eyelids closed, and she inhaled deeply. Not to find him, she didn't have a shifter's sense of smell. She didn't need one. Her own heartbeat pounded in the quiet, the only sound besides her breath. She had a gift, either from the bite or from birth, she could sense shifters, especially when they meant her ill. It was a situational awareness that even the most seasoned priests in Father Augustine's order struggled to master. It was her immunity, her gift.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and a chill ran down her spine. He was near. She tucked in a deep breath and spun to the side, the gun jerking in her hand as the shot ripped through the air. She watched the shifter fall to his knees, his hands clutching a greasy shirt pulled over his belly. Dark blood ran through his fingers, staining the dusty rails. He snarled, his eyes full of hate, before the pain hit him. He gasped, his breath stopping, and fell onto his side.

"Not quick enough," she said, patting her pistol with a wild grin. "Silver core hollow point."

His jaws snapped, but another wave of agony had him writhing. His eyes flared with a renewed killing fury when she spit in his face. The silver poisoning bled underneath him, darkening his blood.

He rolled onto his back, his hand whipping out at her.

"A little too late." She didn't budge, letting his hand sweep harmlessly past.

"Fucking Huntress!" he swore. His head fell back against the rails, eyes shut tight as the poison coursed through his veins.

"You're the second to call me that," she scowled. "Do you lot hold gatherings where you sit around and tell ghost stories about us? The last bloke didn't get to answer. My fault, incidentally. I did shoot him in the chest. You still have time to let your secrets out."

The bastard's eyelids shuddered open, and he sneered.

"I'd sooner watch the poison take effect slowly," she cackled, a sound more like a laugh. "You'll die anyway and suffer more than you have to. But if you tell me where you heard that name, I'll make it quick."

His blood-stained hand slipped into his bruised jean jacket. She raised her pistol, and he didn't move. Slowly, his hand reappeared, fingers wrapped around a playing card. He threw it away from him, his eyes locked on hers.

"That's it. Do it," he said, his face contorted in pain. Veins pulsed on his neck with the poisoned black blood.

She slowly raised her gun, centering it on his chest. After a dramatic pause, she turned her wrist and fired. The bullet ripped through his coat sleeve, tearing the fabric. He writhed and cried out, his arm waving uselessly at an awful angle. She had aimed to strike bone but not break it.

"Oh, yeah, I must practice more at the range," phony sincerity dripping from her tone.

He cursed and thrashed about, spewing every curse word in the lexicon and a few she didn't know as she stood waiting for death to take hold. As his head fell against the pavement, his chest no longer rising and falling, she drove her silver dagger into his neck. She could never be too sure.

Then, after cleaning her knife, she picked up the card. Swords along the edges with blazing red tens at every corner framed a headshot of her own face. In large letters at the bottom, it read, "The Huntress."

"Great. Just on time," she grumbled, scanning the Old City Hall Station. "Now, how the blazes do I get out of here?"