Six

Joe

"Found a hot spot," Joe said. There was a growl to his voice, despite the anticipation growing inside him. "I wonder if she likes this kind of night out?"

"It's for the best that she isn't here," Kuro murmured. "You need to hunt tonight."

Joe scoffed. "Best time to feed is under cover of darkness, for either of us. It was broad daylight and barely even midday. She would have been safe with us in a public place, and we could've gotten to know her better."

He and Kuro would've kept her safe in a place like this. Between the two of them, they were more than enough for any solo danger that might hunt the streets of Seattle.

Kuro growled through the earbud, way up on his rooftop perch, watching Joe head to a popular nightclub. Joe decided to ignore it.

This was one of the bigger places in downtown Seattle, multilevel with both lounge and nightclub spaces that attracted a broad range of night-goers even during the workweek. He generally enjoyed the atmosphere, which helped him blend easily into the crowd who'd come to party. It was best for either him or Kuro to do their hunting among a population where their victim wouldn't be missed, regardless of whichever one of them was actively hunting on a particular night.

Humans didn't need to know the supernatural and the paranormal were real, and ready to feed on them. The human population far outnumbered the paranormal, especially in metropolitan areas. Sure, there were small towns and communities that were exclusively supernatural. But neither Kuro nor Joe had ever come across one that had a place for them. Without a community to rely on, they avoided altercations with human law enforcement as a matter of survival. Fear and larger numbers were what made humans dangerous, even to each other.

In any case, Kuro and Joe weren't hunting the innocents chasing joy under the strobing lights and thumping music. No. Such places attracted all sorts of predators, both supernatural and human. He and Kuro liked to choose humans who would prey on their own kind as targets. The two of them were just higher up on the food chain.

"She's a perceptive witch," Kuro pointed out. "She would have started to pick up on the sharp edge of your mood if we'd spent any real time with her."

"And that's a bad thing?" Damn it. A note of hurt slipped out, and Kuro was bound to have heard it.

"Of course not," Kuro responded quickly. Of the two of them, Kuro was not the best at expressing his feelings, so Joe gave him a chance to clarify what he'd intended.

"I'm saying that approaching anyone with the intent to get to know them requires care," Kuro explained. "And if we cut her with either of our tempers, she doesn't have a reason to forgive us. Maybe the best way to start is to present her with the best of each of us first."

"Fair," Joe responded. He wasn't going to argue when Kuro was right. Joe would've come to the same conclusion on his own if he'd been thinking more clearly. "And neither of us wants to be tempted by her life energy."

They both fell silent for a long moment. Marie had been full of life, bursting with energy and sweetness and warmth. As starved as Joe had allowed himself to become, he could've been a danger to her.

Kuro was right. If they'd found a moment to get close, to kiss…

Joe shook himself all over. The situation hadn't happened, and he had the motivation to keep himself properly fed now. He spoke again with an upbeat tone. "On that note, I'm going in to find myself a juicy hothead to deflate."

"I'll be here if you need me," Kuro assured him.

A pang of regret hit Joe in the chest. There were times when the two of them were in good enough condition that they could each go hunting and just meet up at the end of the night, sated and ready to greet the dawn. Lately, though, Joe hadn't been in the right headspace to go out. He'd been letting himself go longer and longer between hunts, which made it harder to control the bloodlust building inside him. Something Kuro didn't experience.

No matter how well Kuro complemented Joe as a partner, the two of them didn't have the same needs. Kuro was a kitsune and Joe was a gumiho—two different types of fox spirits and supernatural beings. If Joe went too long without sating his appetite, only sipping at his prey's life force and letting them stumble away alive wouldn't suffice. He craved the fresh taste of heart or liver.

A person didn't walk away from that kind of feeding.

As Joe approached the entrance to the club, he managed to charm a few ladies as they approached the line. It didn't take more than a bright smile and a witty joke or two. Not a drop of magical influence required.

Not for the first time, Joe thanked the increased popularity of K-pop in the States. He had the visuals to pull off the look, with a face longer than it was wide, gently curved along the jawline. His forehead was wider than his tapered chin and his complexion was smooth, so long as he shaved daily. He kept his hair medium long on top and cut somewhat close around the sides, allowing him to play with any number of trendy hairstyles.

Tonight, he'd worn his hair in tousled waves, allowing a lock or two to fall across his eyes when he tilted his head just so. He'd worn a no-makeup sort of makeup look, subtle enough that someone unfamiliar with makeup wouldn't realize he was wearing any at all, but what he was wearing gave him a flawless complexion and accentuated his best features. He wasn't particularly tall, but was tall and fit enough to be attractive to most people.

When the bouncer surveyed the group Joe had formed around himself in line, Joe was able to project just enough magical energy to encourage the bouncer to let them all in. Staff at the door liked to control the flow of people in and out, favoring good looks and a decent ratio of gender representation. If the bouncer was asked later to remember any single person, Joe wouldn't stand out in the other man's memory. Joe and Kuro had learned to take such precautions to prevent discovery if either of them ever slipped up on a hunt.

The interior of the club had a futuristic spaceship sort of feel to it, with rounded walls and a wavy collection of pillars in a space designed to feel cavernous. A mix of strobe lights and projections lit the darkness with huge video displays on the upper walls. At one end, a DJ was spinning popular dance music, and the floor was filled with people happy to burn off the nervous energy of a workday.

It was a fun vibe. Mixed in with people who'd obviously come directly from office high-rises were drag queens and goths, a couple of furries, and maybe a cosplayer or two. Joe smiled and let his canines lengthen a bit. If there were a few more furries present tonight, he'd let his fox ears manifest. As it was, he'd stand out a little more than he'd prefer if he risked it. Instead, he let the ladies he'd entered with melt into the crowd on the dance floor so he could continue deeper into the club solo.

Music pulsed through him and the lights flashed, lifting his mood as he made his way to the upper level. He didn't stand directly at the edge, but hung back a layer or two from the people whose faces were lit by the sweeping spotlights. He could still see down into the main dance floor as he danced with a sexy lady, a hot guy, a gloriously androgynous person with the cutest freckles rocking pink-and-yellow-streaked hair, then got sandwiched between two other people. Really, he enjoyed them all as he kept watch.

It didn't take long to find what he was looking for.

No matter how great a venue was—welcoming and inclusive, with a positive regular crowd—there were always the worst elements of the human race present too, being terrible to the people around them. Joe watched a man go from person to person on the dance floor, grabbing their hips roughly from behind and grinding into them with no warning or request for consent. Just pawing and scowling when the other person turned and rebuffed them. A few times, the man even shoved the person for rejecting his advances. One woman let him dance with her, and he immediately groped her, going for a breast and reaching between her legs with his other hand. Obnoxiously lewd and just gross. She yelped loud enough to be heard over the music and struggled out of his grasp.

Yeah, the man was exactly what Joe was looking for.

It took a few minutes for Joe to work his way down to the dance floor. A bouncer was already on his way to grab the man and escort him out of the club. Perfect. Joe slipped to the back of a small group of people heading out, making sure to get his hand stamped so he could reenter the club later if he chose.

He trailed along behind the group, wrapping his magic around himself in a very subtle notice-me-not sort of way. As a gumiho, his magic had a broad range of applications, mostly having to do with his appearance or the way he was perceived by others. Through experimentation over the years, he'd found that it was most effective when used with subtlety.

Even his influence over other things was most effective when he was just giving it a nudge, like changing traffic signals. Trying to make something do what it wasn't designed to do in the first place or trying to change something's state to something it wouldn't naturally take on was outside of his range. At the current moment, no one was paying attention to him anyway, so it was very easy for his magic to ensure he remained unnoticed.

The door of the club opened and music blared out into the night along with the sound of shouting and a scuffle as one of the bouncers forcibly ejected the man Joe had been observing earlier. Yeah, Joe hadn't thought it would take long. This particular club was pretty good about booting out anyone obviously problematic. The man was brushing off his pants and straightening the fabric of his shirt across his shoulders, muttering about his right to be in the club anytime he wanted and suing them for assault.

"I don't even understand what her problem was." The man's grumbling was getting louder as he started to walk down the street. "She liked it, she just wanted it behind closed doors in the dark so nobody would realize how dirty she was."

This guy had an ugly soul, the kind that ruined everything for everyone around him.

Joe followed on quiet feet, keeping his posture relaxed and casual as if he was just headed in the same direction. There were a couple of smaller lounges and bars a few blocks away, but they were just a little frustrating to get to on foot. Unless, of course, an impatient person decided to cut through one or two dimly lit alleys.

The alleys in question were reasonably clean and clear of vagrants. But the people who took those kind of shortcuts tended to be people who thought of themselves as impervious to disaster. When bad things happened, they never saw it coming and were absolutely sure they hadn't done anything to deserve that kind of karma.

It was like going through life convinced you were the center of the story, gifted with protagonist armor. But the reality was that this man had already exhibited deplorable behavior, and was now making the choice to cut through a questionable alley, with a predator like Joe already on his trail.

"Why can't women just be honest about what they want?" the man asked out loud, smirking as the words bounced off the buildings framing the alleyway. The guy liked the sound of his own voice. "Why do they gotta pretend they want the nice guy, when they don't want the nice guy because he can't give them what they actually want? What's a guy gotta do?"

"Do you really want to know?" Joe asked, stepping up right next to him.

The man flinched hard. "Oh shit!"

"Did I scare you?" Joe widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

Of course the man was scared. His heart was pounding so hard Joe could hear it. Joe's heightened senses weren't as acute as a vampire or a werewolf's, but they were better than a human's and the earbuds he wore were set to allow ambient noise to filter through. He'd had them on sound-canceling while he'd been in the club to protect his sensitive hearing.

The man looked Joe over and must have decided Joe wasn't a threat. Tugging at his sweater, the man fussed over his appearance again before throwing back his shoulders and puffing out his chest with false bravado. "‘Course not. I just don't appreciate people listening in on what I'm thinking."

As if the man hadn't been saying every thought out loud just to smirk at the sound of his own voice.

"Ah." Joe nodded slowly. "Sure. But you seemed to be having an interesting conversation with yourself, and I was just wondering, do you really want to know?"

Because Joe could give him the answer. It was a part of the exchange his magic as a gumiho could provide. Knowledge in return for sustenance. Joe didn't think it was a fair trade, to be honest, but there were people in the world who felt it was worth it.

This guy scoffed as his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth twisted with what was probably confusion. "What would I need to know? You're going to tell me why women are bitches?"

Joe made a clicking noise with his tongue. "Such language. That's part of it."

The guy shrugged. "Like I give a fuck. I don't trust anyone who refuses to curse."

"Nothing wrong with cursing when it's called for." Joe shrugged and leaned in a little closer, letting his voice drop deeper. "Sometimes there isn't a better word to express exactly what I mean when the word fuck comes out of my mouth."

There it was. The man's gaze dropped just the slightest bit, looking at Joe's mouth as he formed the word fuck . Excellent.

"Some people need a little warm-up before they get that raw, that real." Joe had his attention now, and the man didn't even notice he was being backed up against the wall of a building. "They want to know their wants, their needs, are being taken into consideration. They appreciate going at their own speed, unless it was their decision to let someone else set the pace. Does that make sense?"

"Huh?" The man was still staring at Joe's mouth, and his own was hanging open slightly. "No. That's a bunch of bullshit. It's like there's this complicated playbook, and guys like me didn't get the info. There's gotta be insider intel, or a cheat code to the game. Something."

Obviously not listening, even when Joe was giving him insight for free.

"Let me give you the knowledge you seek." Joe was practically whispering now and the man's eyelids were half closed as his gaze remained fixed on Joe's mouth. If the choice of phrasing was odd to the man, it wasn't enough to break his focus.

Joe struck, sealing his mouth over his prey's and reaching deep with his tongue. His magic flowed, diving into his victim, and began drawing on the human's life essence. The man stiffened in surprise and even started to melt into Joe for a second before starting to struggle. But Joe had him pinned against the wall and even if the man was stockier, Joe was stronger.

He drank in his victim's vitality, savoring the high level of bitterness that came with it, like a really strong pale ale. The accompanying sour flavor of the man's soul was an acquired taste, but Joe had learned to like it. It was confirmation Joe had judged his target correctly and this wasn't just an off night for the man.

He was a long-term, full-time, terrible representative of humankind. And the flavor of him was getting weaker and weaker on Joe's tongue. Joe pressed his mouth harder against his victim's, reaching deeper down his prey's throat, chuckling as the metallic taste of blood seeped across his tongue. Oops. Joe's teeth were a little sharp. The man was going to have a bloody lip.

"Enough." Kuro's voice was sharp through Joe's earbuds.

Joe growled deep in his throat, not easing off his prey.

"Stop." There was a harder push behind Kuro's voice now, a command in his tone. "Let this one go and you can hunt another."

Joe lifted his lips in a snarl, breaking the seal he had over the other man's mouth, and drew back his magic. In the space between the man's mouth and Joe's, a tiny bead floated, pulsing with swirling red light. Joe inhaled quickly, drawing his yeowoo guseul, his fox bead, back into himself.

"Shit," Joe muttered. If he'd been in a proper state, he would never have allowed his bead to be exposed that way, instead extending it into his victim and drawing it back while he still had a physical connection with him.

His victim slumped down the wall, staring up at Joe with a horrified look in his gaze. Tears welled up in the man's eyes.

Joe stared down at him. "Now you know."

When a human had his yeowoo guseul, they gained knowledge. Time flowed differently, and the human would experience visions. As they looked out over the land in their vision, they would gain the history of whatever place they found in their mind's eye. Then there were the people. As the experience continued—and more life energy was drained away—the human would gain insight into more and more people in their life, extending in ever expanding association until they might have an understanding of the existence of humankind in its entirety. If they had the stamina and the gumiho allowed them to keep the fox bead for long enough, a human might look skyward and gain otherworldly wisdom from the heavens.

Theoretically.

Joe crouched down so he was at eye level with his victim. The man tried to scramble back in fear, but only managed to slide to one side. There was knowledge in the man's eyes, but not wisdom. He hadn't looked up to the heavens during his experience. Joe always checked, curious about what a person would experience if they had the presence of mind to have done so.

Ah well. Joe sighed. "I'm a little curious as to what you'll do with your newfound knowledge, but not enough to find out. Be glad you have a rest of your life to live. Maybe try to be better to your fellow human beings."

Joe stood and walked on through to the other side of the alley. If anyone had been watching, they'd only have witnessed two people engaged in an intense kiss in the alleyway. The experience was probably already fading from his victim's memory. Too much information flooding a mortal mind tended to wash away like water over a sandy beach. The mind could only absorb so much before it was gone again. That was the way Joe's "gift" of knowledge worked.

Joe swiped at his lower lip with his thumb. There was a bit of blood. He sucked it clean, wishing it would take the edge off his craving for a more satisfying, bloodier feed. The man's heart or liver would've tasted even better, richer.

"You good?" Kuro's voice asked through the earbuds.

Yes. Joe was a good person. By choice. He could resist the urge to rip and tear and feed.

Joe turned onto the main street and nodded to nothing in particular, knowing Kuro could see him. "Yeah. Thanks."

"I've got you."

It was reassuring, knowing Kuro was there to hold Joe back from taking his hunt too far. As much as Joe craved the blood and organs of his victims, he didn't want to be a serial killer. He'd prefer to give his victims the kind of harsh experience and epiphany that just might nudge them into changing themselves for the better. A change in perspective and worldview, really. Even if his victims forgot the paranormal element of their life-changing moment, they'd still learn more than they'd ever bargained for. If they'd really bargained at all.

Joe smiled into the night, already scanning the street and the bars for his next target.

People always thought they wanted the answers to life, the universe, to everything. He could give those, but only for a price no person should want to pay.