Inked

to be ugly.”
    “Always is,” I said, and reached for the laptop to start searching for flights.

    THE problem with murderers was that they usually took you by surprise. Not just with the act itself (though few ever really expected to die suddenly, violently). It was the actual perpetrator who could be a shock: familiarity, motive, lack of motive, the very fact that this was a person no one would expect to kill.
    Murder was premeditated. Murder was planned. Murder required a commitment—not just to kill, but to live with the killing.
    I had taken lives, demonic and human, but always in self-defense, or in the defense of others. I had learned to sleep at night despite the death on my hands. I could look at myself in the mirror without flinching. Usually.
    In the case of Ernie’s murder, I assumed that someone had been hired to take him out; perhaps the kid found shot nearby, or someone else. The attack on Ernie had been deliberate and vicious. Knives were always vicious. Stabbing someone again and again took a level of resolve and intimacy that pulling a trigger didn’t quite reach. To kill someone like that meant you were used to murder—extremely desperate—or you really hated the guts of the person you were attacking. Sometimes all three.
    Ernie had covered his tracks, though. It would have taken resources to follow him. Or someone who knew him well. The mysterious Winnie had known where he would be. Chances were good someone else he trusted had been in the loop, too.
    I thought about that a lot during the flight. It was six hours from Seattle to New York City. I had never been on a plane. Never wanted to be on a plane. I hated the idea, even though I knew, intellectually, that a domestic flight would not be dangerous. It was international travel that caused trouble—moving from night to day, and back again. The boys might wake up.
    But by the time we landed at La Guardia, I was a mess. Air pressure, air sickness, bad air, no air. No zombies, though. I had been seeing less of them over the past few months. Most of the parasites had left Seattle—run from my presence—but ten minutes inside New York City, I wondered if something else was at work. No dark auras, anywhere. Not even a taste. Far cry from the last time I had been here.
    It was a little after seven in the evening when the cab dropped us off in front of Winnie’s apartment building. It was located on a quiet street filled with brownstone walkups, tilting trees, and the nearby glow of a small deli. Still daylight. I listened to the hum of air conditioners bolted outside windows, and the hush of quiet laughter from the couple at the intersection.
    Winifred’s apartment building, unlike its neighbors, was taller than five stories, a cream-colored concrete block of windows with a green awning over the double-wide glass doors, and an elevator visible at the far end of the small lobby. Red geraniums framed the entrance, overflowing from massive clay pots.
    I watched the street, listening to the rippling sensation on my skin as the boys shifted restlessly in their dreams. Not quite a warning, but close enough. I glanced at Grant, and found him also watching our surroundings; intense, a hint of gold in his brown eyes.
    “Anything?”
    “Nothing remarkable. But something doesn’t feel right.” He briefly nudged my shoulder. “Don’t.”
    I frowned. “Stop reading me.”
    “I can take care of myself.”
    “Who said I was worried about you?”
    Grant smiled grimly. I shook my head. Maybe I had been too hasty in agreeing that he should come along. I was getting soft. Something I had been telling myself for almost a year now.
    I dialed in the apartment number that Zee had given me and hit the buzzer. I let it ring until it choked off, and then tried again. No one answered. A deeply tanned, gorgeous young man—dressed like he was ready for a jog—exited the elevator, and pushed open the glass doors. He gave Grant a lusty smile, and with a lingering backward glance, strode down the sidewalk.
    I stuck my foot in the doorway before we could be locked out. “Dude. You were just totally undressed.”
    “Try not to be jealous,” Grant replied dryly, limping past me into the building. “I can’t help my unbridled sexual magnetism.”
    We rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Seemed like a nice enough place. Quiet, clean, modern. I was no expert on apartment buildings, though I had inherited a place uptown, along Central Park. No strong memories of