Hunter's Prayer Read Online Free

help that my blue eye can see what he does, how he pulls on the ambient energy around him to break a few laws of thermodynamics and turn into a big-ass cougar.
    Where Saul had stood, the cougar now sat back on its haunches. It blinked again, deliberately, and muscle rippled under its pelt.
    Someone let out a thin breathy scream. The first vomiting spell began, in the back of the classroom. The blond jarhead’s mouth worked like a fish’s.
    Saul shifted back, spreading his arms and shaking himself. Looked at me again. I nodded, he drifted over to the door, his step completely silent … and he proceeded to disappear from their sight again, the little camouflage trick Weres are so fond of.
    The vomiting began in earnest, and I picked up my coffee, took a long drink and wrinkled my nose. When they were finished and the janitor had taken away all the pukebuckets, we’d get down to work.

3
    L unch was pizza, but none of them were in the mood to eat much. I had three pieces, Saul stopped at five; we didn’t bother with dinner. I finally let them go at about six, mostly shell-shocked and bone-tired. The psych staff was on hand to give them each tranquilizers and a good talking-to. I was packing up the slide projector while Saul picked up all the leftover folders, when Montaigne breezed in the door again, this time accompanied by Carper from Homicide.
    “Hey, Kiss.” Carp could barely contain himself. “Another long day of bile?”
    I wasn’t in the mood. “How hard did you throw up when I trained you, Carp? I seem to remember you passing out and moaning near the end of the slide show.”
    Saul straightened. He didn’t like Carp, and the feeling was mutual. His dark eyes fastened, unblinkingly, on the tall, broad-shouldered detective. My scar itched, under the leather cuff, prickling in the presence of antagonism.
    Montaigne sighed. “Mellow out, both of you. How’s it going, Saul?”
    Saul shrugged. He went back to picking up the folders, each movement economical. “Good enough. Dragged one in last night.”
    “I heard; Avery was delighted.” Monty finally dropped it. “There’s something I need you to take a look at, Jill.”
    The script never varies. Something I need you to take a look at, Jill. Each time delivered wearily, as if Montaigne himself doesn’t believe he’s asking a woman just a little over half his age and half his size for help.
    I gave my line. “Sure.” I put the slide wheel back in its box. “Animal, vegetable, mineral?”
    “Homicide. Carp examined the scene.”
    “Male or female?”
    “Hooker.”
    Oh, for God’s sake. “Male or female?”
    “Female. The autopsy says so, at least.”
    “How fresh is the body?”
    “Last seen last night. Out on Lucado.”
    Lucado, the flesh gallery. A cold finger touched my back. “Where was she found?”
    “82nd and Varkell. On the side of the road, just on the margin of Idle Park.” Carp finally spoke up. He might enjoy baiting Saul and giving me a hard time, but he was a good homicide deet and knew what to look for in a scene. If it had triggered his fine-tuned sense of the weird, I should definitely take a look.
    I stretched, my lower back protesting as it often did after one of these things. “All right. Lead the way; send someone to box this up and put it back in the vault. Saul?”
    “I’m with you.” He fell into step behind me, and we left the file folders and the slide projector behind. “From Lucado to 82nd is a fair way.”
    “‘Tis.” I followed Monty’s broad back and Carp’s thinner, younger one. And a body in what kind of shape that they can’t tell male or female without an autopsy? That doesn’t sound good. Saul bumped into me, crowding me just like a Were. He liked physical contact, and herding me around was his way of showing it; it was also meant to make the point that I spent my off-duty time with him.
    Weres get a little territorial like that.
    I pushed him away, the leather cuff on my wrist brushing his arm. He