LITMIR.BIZ

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second thought, there’s no reason to leave that kind of evidence behind, and there’s enough of his power in the death to make a certain mortician of his acquaintance ask awkward questions. He stoops down, picks up the “broken” gun, and unfreezes the hammer. “This is cleaner. Well. Not for you.”

      The shot is loud, as is the sound of the man shattering into a hundred thousand pieces, landing in frozen bits around the alley. Shane flicks a piece off his jacket, then pulls out his GPS, shaking it. “Gonna work now?”

      “Snearthen Asghar.”

      “If you say so.”

      He sets off at a trot, jogging left around a corner, only to see his target lying unconscious on top of a dumpster. “Dumbass. Wake up, Roy.” He accompanies his words with a flick of cold wind, and Roy yelps as he wakes, patting himself down.

      “Boss? What are you doing?”

      “Tracked you. Shit, how long did it take to wipe the floor with you?”

      Roy groans, sitting up and squirming around, grabbing at his own back. “I don’t know, boss. Ten seconds? It’s, uh, bigger than I thought. Tried to suck out my soul.”

      Shane laughs. “I hope that’s the only trick it has. Turn over.”

      “I—”

      “Turn the fuck over, I’m gonna track its signature.”

      It’s the work of a few annoying moments to feed the sensory magic he gets from the impression in Roy’s back into the GPS, and the thing stutters hesitantly to life. “Get that?” he asks the spell, pressing a few buttons for the hell of it.

      “Snearthen Heirge.”

      “Cool.” He tosses Roy his keys, already following the directions. “Get the fuck out of here. This is obviously too big for you.”

      Roy glares at him, but it’s more wounded pride than anger. “I could have caught you in the rankings.”

      “Sure. Out you get, I’ve got to Sneathen Heirge. Tell the King he’ll have its head by tonight.”

      “You’re a fucking bastard, boss.”

       And you wouldn’t have been anywhere near me in the rankings if I’d bothered hunting a single thing in the last two years. There’s something to fucking brag about.

      Sure, it’s nice being on top in the rankings, like it’s nice having the penthouse room, the bank account with nine figures, the cars and the amulets and the place of honor at all the feasts and orgies. Like everything else, it gets boring after a while.

      Doesn’t mean he wants to give all that to Roy, though.

      “Sneathen Vrache.”

      “Watch your language.” He turns obediently right (well, north-east, the Dark Fae have an oddly precise sense of direction-giving) and stops in his tracks.

      “Imschalle Trezimon.”

      “No shit,” Shane mutters, staring up at the creature. It looms over him, a towering thing of spindly legs (two injured, he files away) and shiny black body, wreathed in eerie silence, and all five of its eyes swivel down to stare at him.

      Unbidden, a smirk steals over his lips, because damned if this isn’t the first interesting thing he’s seen in years. Oh, this is gonna be fun.

      He starts to run, uncloaking his power as he does, the constant sensation of being tamped down vanishing at last from the back of his mind. It races through him, the magic making his veins sing, his hands tingle, his eyes flicker. He runs towards the creature and then up one of the alley walls, hardly noticing the way gravity warps itself for the turn, and unsheathes his sword as he goes.

      One of the Soul-Thief’s arms lashes out at him, and he dodges midair, a gust of icy wind catching him before he falls, bearing him up swiftly enough to wrap a hand around one of the Soul-Thief’s legs.

      That’s a mistake.

      The thing’s arms are coated in some kind of acid, some gelatinous gloop that starts burning as soon as he touches it, and he doesn’t even retain the presence of mind to swear in an interesting language as he drops it, collapsing to the ground. “Motherfucker, I’m going to kill you for that!”

      The acid isn’t just painful. Even as he watches his fingers burn, melt away, corroded by the sticky stuff. His hand withers as the flesh burns away in searing pain, skin falling to the ground, muscles and blood withering to bone.

      Wow. That actually hurts.

      For a second, it almost feels good, a flare of pain when he’s been cold, unfeeling for so long, but shit, he can’t let this go on, no matter how interesting the sensation.

      His eyes blaze, briefly lighting up the alley with blue-white light, and his hand covers itself in ice, hardening, dulling the pain to the point of the usual frozen ache he feels, well, everywhere. He flexes his hand, hearing the ice chip and crack, little pieces of acid-riddled ice flaking off to land on the alley floor. It’ll require a healing—fuck, with how much his hand hurts, it might require a re-making—but for now, he can make do with the ice hand, the decay halted by the quick freeze.

      Shane bares his teeth and lets loose with a blast of raw power that knocks the Soul-Thief off its many legs, bowling it over to land against a fire escape. It scrabbles madly at the iron to haul itself upright. “Sorry,” Shane snaps, patience waning drastically after the pain, “bet that stings like a bitch. Hell, if you’re not more polite, I’ll get a can of Raid.”

      The Soul-Thief flips over with speed that really isn’t fair, feet clawing at the asphalt with a screech that burns the ear.

      With the hand that’s mostly ice Shane draws his sword, transferring it to the still-living flesh of his right hand. “Should’ve stuck to wherever the fuck you came from. Can you even talk?”

      The thing screams at him, but it’s wordless, at least as far as he can tell. “Guess not. Maybe if you’d been less of a bitch I’d have just squashed you with a giant shoe, but you’re just asking for pain.”

      One of the arms flails at him, something that looks like a needle-sharp stinger extended, and Shane moves so fast the world blurs in front of him, spinning around and striking out with his sword arm, shaving a long slab of armor from the arm, enjoying the way the thing writhes and thrashes as the sword turns every part it touches to ice. “Yeah, well, I don’t like what you did to my arm either. Live with it, bitch. Or bastard.”

      Probably not a line of questioning he wants to pursue, really.

      Putting far, far to the side the question of whether the Soul-Thief has a dick or not, Shane twists his sword, wrenching it free, and the suddenly brittle arm of the thing shatters into two pieces. Not as effective as it is on humans, then, where a single nick is enough to turn the entire body to ice. That’s all right. It’s no fun without a challenge, and the Soul-Thief is down to three arms.

      “Still one up on me,” Shane grunts, narrowly avoiding another swat of the stinger. If it hadn’t been for the way it knocked Roy unconscious, he’d have been tempted to let it try and zap him, just to hear it freak out in surprise. Then again, the noises it’s making are overwhelming enough as it is.

      He flexes his newly constructed ice hand, wiggling it around until it more or less settles into the shape of his actual hand, or what his hand would be if it weren’t currently so much damaged bone and sinew.

      As a test, Shane tries to freeze the Soul-Thief with a sheer act of will. It’s more difficult than touching something, than letting the cold inside him spill out for a change, but it’s not exactly hard either.

      He takes a deep breath, easier said than done while he dodges three acidic limbs whipping around at the speed of sound. Mentally, he forms the power into a lance, a spreading, infectious thing impregnated with all the ice he can muster, and hurls it at the broad center of the great

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