Free Trigger by Courtney Alameda Page A

it.”
    â€œBut Mom—”
    â€œCan wait.” He turned on his heel, staring me down. “You’re the sharpest shot of our tetros, and we’re not making another mistake with this monster.”
    Another mistake?
    â€œI need your eyes tonight, Micheline,” Dad said.
    All necrotic creatures emitted a spectral glow—a phenomenon known as ghostlight in layman’s terms. Thanks to a fourth color receptor in our retinas, women born with a genetic mutation called tetrachromacy saw the ghostlight radiating from the undead. I’d inherited tetrachromacy from my mother, and my eyes gave me an edge against the monsters in the darkness, as well as the ability to see and therefore exorcise ghosts.
    Most tetros were exorcists, women who trapped the spectral dead in silver mirrors. Thanks to my dual training as a reaper and an exorcist, I preferred to play offense and did my exorcisms on film with an analog SLR camera. I was the most comfortable of our tetros with the concept of point-and-shoot, so whenever my father needed eyes to see through shadows—or shoot through them—he chose mine.
    But ghosts could be just as dangerous as the monsters. Mom needed me, too.
    â€œWould you prefer I find someone else?” Dad lifted a brow.
    My trigger finger twitched. Every breath was a test with my father—he wanted proof I deserved to inherit his place in the corps over my younger brothers.
    â€œNever,” I said. The corners of Dad’s eyes crinkled in an almost-smile, one that didn’t touch his lips. His smiles rarely did.
    Game on, Dad.
    *   *   *
    The storm water tunnels under San Francisco sprawled for miles, labyrinthine: a crypt for rats’ bones and strange, underworldly art. Paint rotted off the ceiling in fungal layers, reaching for us with twitching fingers. Broken boards, empty cans of spray paint, and cloudy bottles littered the ground. The place smelled of musty water and crumbling earth. Cobwebs netted my nose and mouth. The walls still sweated from the morning’s storm, and I tried not to think about how the water line had risen six freaking inches above the crown of my head.
    â€œThey’re in here, sir.” Lieutenant Carroll led us into a large retention room guarded by several silent reapers. Even the dogs sat subdued, their ears turning like miniature satellite dishes to catch sounds I couldn’t hear.
    The place looked like a battleground: cherry-black bloodstains marbled the concrete, sucking at my boots. Spent cartridges littered the ground like mercenary confetti. Worst of all, three bodies lay on the floor, scabbed over with plastic tarps.
    â€œWhich one?” Dad asked. Lieutenant Carroll pointed to the body on the right. Dad crouched, his boots squelching in the tarry, clotting puddle on the ground. Light from our crew’s flashlights brushed up against Dad’s broad shoulders, the guns at his sides, then scrambled away as if it found the very texture of Leonard Helsing frightening.
    Dad pulled the tarp away and clenched his jaw so hard, I thought the tendons in his temples might snap. I recognized the corpse’s strong features and silver-shot ebony curls, too; and there was no mistaking the Harker cross tattooed on his right arm, the one awarded to reapers for saving a Helsing’s life.
    It couldn’t be him , no—he was too good, too strong.
    â€œCaptain Delgado,” Ryder said. Anyone else would’ve missed the quaver in his voice; not me. It lay beneath layers of self-control and training, but I couldn’t mistake it: A tiny reverberation on that last exhaled o , slight but no less heartfelt for its size.
    â€œOh, no,” I said, those simple words holding all the grief I could express in front of my father and his crew. A Helsing’s heart was a dam—it didn’t matter that I’d grown up with Delgado around, or that he’d been captain of my father’s Harker