He nodded, weaving back and forth and limbering up for a fight. “They bred some local type of dog to bludwolves, long ago. The gendarmes keep them for tracking and chasing down daimons. And they trim them like that so they won’t get too much blood in their fur while feeding but will still run hot.”
“How the hell do you trim one of those things?”
One feinted experimentally at Vale’s leg, and he swiped at it with his claw-knife.
“Very, very carefully.” He cracked his neck. “Lots of chains. Put your back against mine, bébé. They’re behind us, too. Get ready to fight, and don’t hesitate to kill.”
I spun around and found three more monster dogs quietly hunting us, materializing from behind counters and trunks on the floor, silent but for their clicking toenails. I couldn’t think of them as anything but bludpoodles, which made them only a fraction less terrifying.
And then I remembered, or my body remembered for me: I was a monster, too.
I hunched over and ripped off my gloves, fingers curling into claws, glad I hadn’t let Blue trim my talons all the way down just to placate the clients of Paradis. An answering growl buzzed up from my belly, my teeth bared and my vision going over red. One of the bludpoodles facing me hunched down as if it was going to leap, and I pounced on its back before it could spring.
I forgot everything but the kill. My claws latched into shaved skin, piercing the hide and veering off ribs. On instinct, I slammed a foot on the ground and fell onto my back, pulling the thing over in a bear hug. With its legs pawing overhead, it whimpered and raked the air with useless toenails, and I bit deeply into its neck to drink. The thing went limp in my arms, and I’d sucked down one deep draught of blood before the next one slammed into me.
As I rolled to the floor, howling in fury, I caught a quick glance at Vale. He moved like a dancer, the giant claw-knife in one hand and a wicked dagger in the other. One bludpoodle lay near the counter, its head at an unnatural angle. Four-inch saber teeth snapped inches away from my nose, red-tinged slobber flecking my face. With an irritable grunt, I punched it in the face and felt the crunch of bone.
I counted six wolfhounds: three dead on the ground, two circling Vale, one trying to sneak up on me. But I could smell it, and I pounced before it could and sank teeth into its throat. I’d never used my teeth and talons like this, not since becoming a Bludman six years ago. I’d never been reduced to a fighting machine, a predator, a monster that lusted for the enemy’s blood, no matter what species it was. I sat on the floor, my legs and fluffy skirts poofing around my legs as I dragged the dying wolf-monster into my lap to take what was rightfully mine. Hot blood spiced with fury and madness slid down my throat as I watched Vale dispatch the last hound and straighten, wiping blood off his face and rubbing it on his black trousers, where it disappeared as smoothly as the thumbprint he’d pressed to the door.
“Demi?”
I grunted, and he spun around to stare at me.
“Mon dieu, bébé. You look like a child with an ice cream cone.”
I shrugged but didn’t stop drinking. He looked half disgusted and half proud. When footsteps sounded on the stairs, I dropped the fuzzy carcass and got back into fighting stance, but Vale merely straightened and held the blood-spattered claw at his side.
“Quite a welcome, Charmant.”
The daimon who rose from the floor like a devil born from hell looked as if he belonged in a barbershop quartet, but evil rolled off him in waves. He tipped a straw boater at us, mouth twitching under a spectacular mustache and skin the color of Mountain Dew.
“Oh, customers? Tut. I was just letting my pets out for a little walky.” He glanced around, noting the carnage of pony-sized vampire poodles with one raised eyebrow. “They don’t breed bludhounds like they used to, you know.” He turned back to the hole in the floor and shouted, “Coco! Bring the broom and dustpan. Again.”
After the bludhounds, I wouldn’t trust anything spit forth from that dark rectangle. A heavy clanking from deep below got louder until a copper orangutan emerged, hobbling on long arms like crutches. It clambered over to me with red eyes blinking impatiently and held out fingers that clicked open and shut in annoyance. With a last pull at the sluggish blud, I placed the drained body in its grasp, and it swung down the stairs, enveloped in the darkness. A series of meaty rips and grinding noises made me glance away.
“I should charge you for that, you know,” Charmant said with a fussy and exaggerated sigh, and Vale laughed.
“For what? Destroying illegally bred bludhounds? The gendarmes would pay us in gold for that.”