Bonedust

that’s alright. We have time, right? You don’t have to leave anytime soon.” Not until they found Dante.
    Urban slowly nodded, a quizzical look on his face before it was replaced with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly, reaching out his hand. Gabriel twined their fingers together and Urban squeezed them. “Good. We’ll take our time then. Shall I take you back to the motel while I hunt? I can leave Pandora with you for protection.”
    His heart pitched. “No.” Call him a coward, but it would be dark soon. The idea of being alone, even with the psycho dirgehound at his beck and call, made his stomach feel like his intestines were tying themselves in knots. “Can’t I come with? Two heads are better than one, and all that?”
    “I don’t see why not. Let’s go pick up Pannie and see about bagging us a coyote.”
    Pandora barked and leapt several feet in the air, her tail wagging a mile a minute as they let her out of the motel room. She zoomed across the parking lot, into a patch of scrub bushes, then zipped right back. Urban knelt down to the ground and she showered his face with kisses.
    Gabriel stayed back as the man began to murmur in her ear. Her body became still, the calm before the storm, and Urban stroked the backs of her ears with both hands. “Ready?” This was for Pandora, but it held a double meaning as he looked up at Gabriel. “We have to stop by the station and pick up a few things first. Then we’re good to go.”
    The station. The Suits were New Ryot’s police force, but they’d never done jack shit with the slave rings. Gabriel remembered curling up in the corner of his cell as a kid of barely nine, praying that the Suits would save him before he was sold to someone worse. It never happened. Gabriel came to terms with the fact that they were probably paid off to overlook the rings and that was life. What did a handful of slaves matter to the Suits?
    Gabriel frowned and when he spoke, his voice felt tight. “I don’t want to be there when you talk to them. I’ll wait outside with Pandora.”
    Urban merely nodded and Gabe did just that. He sat on the curb, his legs sprawled out in front of him at awkward angles, the toes of his sneakers pointing in. Pandora paced behind him, the sound of her claws clicking on cement enough to drive a man mad. “Quit it, would you?” he snapped, but Pandora just looked at him, barked in his face, and continued to pace. A blatant ‘Fuck off’ in doggie terms. “Bitch…”
    Urban returned with a bag slung over his shoulder and a tiny glass gun in his hand. He held it carefully, as if one touch of the trigger could decimate the entire planet. Gabriel looked at it curiously and Urban grinned, tapping the cylinder.
    “A very powerful sedative. I guess this guy’s crazy as a coon. I figure we’ll let Pan hunt him down and catch him. Then one shot of this will put him out. We’ll carry him back and cash in, then go find some grub. I know of an all night diner that has amazing bisque.”
    Gabriel nodded, though he wasn’t exactly sure what bisque was. His stomach gave a gurgle at the thought of food and he tried to remember when he ate last. He gave a lingering glance to the darkness that was slowly settling around them and took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”
    “Last chance. You sure you don’t wanna stay at the motel?”
    “I don’t want to be alone, Urban,” he said softly, hunching his shoulders at the wisp of cold air that touched the back of his neck. “So no.”
    Urban looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Alright, babe. Pannie?” He pulled out a strip of torn fabric from the bag and held it down at nose level. The hound sniffed, snorted, and took off at a quick clip. Urban was on his feet in a moment, looking to Gabe, and Gabriel nodded. “Let’s do this.”
    For the longest while, the only sounds were the crickets’ minstrel, their breaths in the night, and their shoes crunching on the hard earth, chasing along after Pandora, who was nose to the ground with her tail ramrod straight. She snuffed for a moment, then paused, her entire body going still. Urban’s hand caught Gabriel in the chest and he nearly tripped over his own feet in an effort to stop. “Listen.”
    Gabriel held his breath, straining his ears for any sort of sound. He heard a scraping, like claws against wood. Pandora’s head jerked up, her nostrils flared, and she bolted left. Urban darted after her, his arms