DUET

but it was a robust economy rotting from the inside out.

If Verity’s sins were knives, quick and vicious, then Prosperity’s were poison. Slow, insidious, but just as deadly. And when the violence began to coalesce into something tangible, something monstrous, it didn’t happen all at once, as in Verity, but in a drip, slow enough that most of the city was still pretending the monsters weren’t real.

The thing in the warehouse suggested otherwise.

The monster inhaled, as though trying to smell her, a chilling reminder of which of them was the predator and which, for the moment, was prey. Fear scraped along her spine as its head swung from side to side. And then it looked up. At her. Kate didn’t wait. She dropped down, catching herself on the steel rafter to ease the fall. She landed in a crouch between the monster and the warehouse door, spikes flashing in her hands, each the length of her forearm and filed to a vicious point. “Looking for me?” The creature turned, flashing two dozen blue-black teeth in a feral grimace.

“Kate?” pressed Teo. “You see it?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “I see it.”

Bea and Liam both started talking, but Kate tapped her ear and the voices dropped out, replaced a second later by a strong beat, a heavy bass. The music filled her head, drowning out her fear and her doubt and her pulse and every other useless thing.

The monster curled its long fingers, and Kate braced herself – the first one had tried to punch right through her chest (she’d have the bruises to prove it). But the attack didn’t come.

“What’s the matter?” she chided, her voice lost beneath the beat. “Is my heart not good enough?” She had wondered, briefly, in the beginning, if the crimes written on her soul would somehow make her less appetising. Apparently not. A second later, the monster lunged. Kate was always surprised to discover that monsters were fast. No matter how big. No matter how ugly. She dodged back, quick on her feet. Five years’ and six private schools’ worth of self-defense had given her a head start, but the last six months hunting down things that went bump in Prosperity – that had been the real education. She danced between blows, trying to avoid the monster’s claws and get under its guard. Nails raked the air above Kate’s head as she ducked and slashed the iron spike across the creature’s outstretched hand. It snarled and swung at her, recoiling only after its claws bit into her sleeve and hit copper mesh beneath. The armor absorbed most of the damage, but Kate still hissed as somewhere on her arm the skin parted and blood welled up. She let out a curse and drove her boot into the creature’s chest. It was twice her size, made of hunger and gore and God knew what else, but the sole of her shoe was plated with iron, and the creature went staggering backward, clawing at itself as the pure metal burned away a stretch of mottled flesh, exposing the thick membrane that shielded its heart. Bull’s-eye.

The creature turned, flashing two dozen blueblack teeth in a feral grimace

Pick up Our Dark Duet, out now from Titan Books (RRP £7.99). E-book also available. www.titanbooks.com