A few of his weapons would do the trick of subduing the three weres he battled. Yet the moment he drew them, someone as tech-savvy as Tab or Clare, whoever, would know exactly where he’d come from. The jig would be up.

  Anselm had trained to handle furries in a grapple. Not three of them, but he’d been taught to fight multiple opponents. However, the two fighting disciplines wouldn’t come together seamlessly. Desperate times.

  When he yanked on its arm, the werewolf under him groaned in pain. He needed to pull a few more times to break the resistance and dislocate the shoulder. The were would heal if he immediately popped it back in, but he would be disabled for the fight.

  He pulled again and felt the pop. Not through his strength but because someone else grabbed his shoulder and added to his power. The werewolf roared and clutched his injured arm.

  The human in the middle had more problems to deal with. The third werewolf had dragged him off his friend and tried to punch him. The bar crowd peeled away from the fight, but they didn’t go far. They watched from a safe distance, not wanting to miss a thing. Of course, other werewolves’ idea of a safe distance was still in the splash zone.

  Anselm grunted when a fist hammered his ribs. Why hadn’t they broken their claws out yet? Maybe the rules didn’t permit killing people in the bar. New Houston bars doubled as social gathering centers, and being banned was the same as being ostracized from their families.

  He ducked to pry his shoulder loose from the were’s grip and snapped his body around. His elbow lashed out and crunched into his opponent’s ribcage. Not hard enough to break anything, but it knocked the breath out of him. Anselm avoided a wild swing and dropped to one knee as he turned to face his opponent.

  Moves that had been drilled into him over hundreds of hours as a candidate in training camp guided him to wrap his arms around the werewolf’s knees. He charged up and forward with his shoulder, cutting into the creature’s midsection.

  His momentum let him lift the larger werewolf off the ground for a second. Then he shifted his body to put himself on top as they crashed into a nearby table. He didn’t spike the were into it, but the force of both bodies destroyed the table and sent them to the floor.

  The werewolf looked like he’d been poleaxed. He struggled to breathe and only put in a token effort to stop Anselm from climbing on him.

  “That all you got?” The words emerged before he noticed what he said. With their inhuman strength and speed, the werewolves never bothered to train their abilities. They were easy to predict and counter. Yet one hard hit from them would level him, so there was a tradeoff. Only the surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins kept him in the fight. His jaw ached, and one rib was cracked.

  He needed to keep himself hot. The moment he cooled down, he would be out.

  Anselm managed two punches before someone caught his hands from behind. He snapped his head forward for one last hit. He was out for the moment, but no one knew for sure when dealing with furries. He remembered that from his training.

  The first werewolf had grabbed him this time. They tried to drag him off their fighting partners instead of piling on him. If all three had attacked at once, he would have been done for. Maybe they didn’t know why he was fighting so hard. They certainly hadn’t expected it from a seemingly drunk human. They were there to pick a fight with someone else and wanted him to stop.

  He hoped they thought he was on something. His technique would have raised red flags for people who understood how to fight.

  A quick twist of his midsection pulled his right arm free. Anselm rolled back up and crashed his knee into the face of the werewolf with a broken nose.

  “Fuck!” The were stumbled back until he hit the bar. “You’re fucking dead, you little shit!”

  “I’m right fucking here!” Anselm roared and staggered to his feet again. Until now, he’d relied on their tolerance. They thought he was drunk and would wind himself down soon, but he’d pissed this one off by re-breaking his nose.

  The werewolf stepped in his direction and stumbled. His right leg had stopped working. He looked down in time to watch his jaw crunch into the nearest table.

  Tab, Clare, or whatever her name was, retracted a small dart gun into her sleeve. Anyone else would have missed it. They thought the were was working off a concussion and hadn’t bounced back yet. She saw him spot it and tossed him a small grin and a wink.

  Anselm smiled and returned his attention to the last werewolf standing. His right arm hung from its socket, but the creature seemed willing to fight anyway.

  Truth was, Anselm didn’t know how to survive a fight against even a one-armed werewolf. He’d expended his tricks, and he felt the adrenaline bleeding from his system. Aches and pains surfaced from hits he hadn’t noticed in his state. Both fists hurt like hell from the bare-knuckle strikes, and it was difficult to breathe with his injured ribs.

  He stood his ground. The only way to lose a fight was to give up. Anselm had never been the largest candidate. He’d been recruited as a teenager when others were adults and hitting their prime.

  His fists came up in a classic ready stance. The werewolf didn’t seem bothered, roaring rabidly.

  It was cut short. A confused, pained look crossed his face before he collapsed to the ground like he’d been hit with a stun gun. Maybe he had. Tab stood behind the werewolf with her boot dug into the back of his knee. He suspected there was more to the boot than met the eye. He spotted a pair of copper studs jutting from the tip that had cut through the werewolf’s pants.

  To deliver a stunning dose of electricity, he assumed.

  She pressed the studs into the werewolf for a few more seconds to make sure he wouldn’t rise after she stopped.

  “That’s a handy trick.” Anselm leaned against a nearby table as the crowd cheered. He’d almost forgotten them, but it all rushed at him in a wave as he allowed himself to focus on something other than survival.

  “Courtesy of the Clairvoyant.” She winked and gestured at the door. “Time for us to get out of here. More are on the way.”

  “Right.” He nodded.

  Fransua, the bartender, added chalk marks to the massive blackboard that covered the wall behind the bar. Seemed like he was keeping tabs on how many fights had occurred that day. The tally was impressive, considering the early hour. Then again, probably not surprising.

  Tab grabbed his arm and guided him from the fight while werewolves collected their fallen and carried or dragged them out back. They locked the door when they came back in. Some had been betting on the fight and insisted those who bet on the werewolves pay up. Those who’d bet against him insisted the win didn’t count since he had help.

  They called her Clare a few times, which solidified it as her name in his mind.

  “Come on. You need something for those cuts,” Clare announced after they were out the door.

  Anselm spotted a young man standing at the corner. He tossed a half-smoked cigarette away and pulled out a comm device to send a message when he spotted them. A lookout, although it was hard to determine which one of them he was looking out for. Hard to distinguish anything in his state.

  “Cuts?” He inspected his knuckles and touched the blood dripping from his face. “’Tis but a scratch.”

  “Right. ’Tis you can still get your ass to a medic before they get infected.”

  Something to keep in mind. With all the dirt and filth in New Houston’s air, infection was a certainty.

  Bringing a stranger back to her place wasn’t appealing, but she didn’t know of another option. He would probably prefer a real medic office in the city, but those assholes were the worst con artists.

  Criminals plied their trade on the desperate all over New Houston. It took a special kind of asshole to openly cheat and steal from dying people and their families.

  “This is the medic?” Shak asked. He’d taken a beating, but he gave more than he took. Since he’d engaged in that fight for her, Clare couldn’t help but feel she owed him.

  “Nope. It’s where I live.” She keyed into the first layer of alarms. Standard klaxons to alert her and the pack if someone tried to get in, triggered by motion sensors. That scared most curious burglars away, especially those who knew they were in werewolf territory.

  “You live in an abandoned firehouse?”

  “Yup. Plenty of space and infrastructure most people wouldn’t know how to use.” She reached the second level of alarms. Stun mines, also triggered by the motion sensors. People who weren’t deterred by the klaxons or somehow found a way around them would be in for a shock.

  She always liked making that joke.

  “I don’t understand why there are abandoned fire stations.”

  Clare shrugged and motioned him through. “The whole system’s automated, so they shut the buildings down. Then the automated systems were sold to private companies, who sold the old buildings off or let them hit the public domain because they refused to keep them in a decent state. Look out for that wire.”

  A few more wires were triggered the old-fashioned way in case someone walked in with an EMP and disabled her electronics. A few other redundancies waited, too. She liked to be prepared.

  The third and final level was the lethal defense. Anyone who got through the first two levels was determined and skilled, and she didn’t want to deal with them herself. Turrets were hard to find in the dump since people always looked for weapons and security systems first. She’d put in the money to buy them from a vendor.

  She beefed them up with armor and more tricks than most other turrets had. Old mines that were easy to find in the fields fortified the area and funneled any intruders into the turrets’ kill zones.

  Overkill, since the only people she caught trying to break in were curious werewolves in her pack, but Clare had no intention of under-securing her space. New Houston was a dangerous place for the unprepared. She refused to be one of those statistics.

  “Do you have any medical training?” he asked after they passed the last line of defense.

  Clare snorted. “Of course not. I got my hands on a med-bot when nobody was looking. I keep her well-stocked with stuff she might need, but without it, she can still clean and care for wounds like a medic. I call her Florence.”

  “Florence?”

  “Yeah. There was this famous nurse back before the Curtain. I read about her and how many people she inspired to be nurses. Thought it was appropriate.”

  “I know who Florence Nightingale was.” He was about to add something and decided not to. She assumed he had warranted prejudices toward the people of New Houston.

  At least he had the good sense not to insult the person helping him, something many werewolves lacked. Self-control wasn’t a requirement for pack life.

  Florence rolled over. The pleasant silicone mask her model should have worn was long gone, but Clare had replaced it with marker drawings across the open sections of the face. Two eyes, a smile, and gray scrubs were supposed to make it look more like the clothes Florence would have worn back in those old days.

  “Good afternoon. How can I be of service?”

  “Evening,” Clare corrected and shook her head. She needed to fix that internal clock. “Got you a patient over there.”

  The p-word switched the nurse on. She turned to Shak, or whatever his real name was, as her scanners lit up.

  “Multiple contusions.” The scanner picked up on the obvious first. “Topical anti-inflammatory cream recommended. Multiple bone bruises on the knuckles and wrists. Cut over right cheekbone. Rib fracture.”

  She would go for a while. If he was new to the city, he could have picked up plenty of potential infections by walking down the streets. Most residents had developed the necessary antibodies, and savvy travelers would know to immunize themselves before they entered the city. However, the process took a few days, so people in a hurry tended to skip them.

  Florence finished listing the injuries and printed the required medications, as well as their prices. He took the paperwork and studied it carefully.

  “Topical anti-inflammatory, okay. Painkillers…wow, eighty credits.”

  “They’re hard to find around here.” Clare shrugged. “Most people go to the black-market pharmacies for the opiates they need. High prices keep the addicts from getting their fixes from the above-board places. Saves them from lawsuits when assholes inevitably OD.”

  He nodded and handed her the paperwork. “What about this? Wolfsbane? Blood hits? I didn’t lose any blood.”

  Clare scowled. “Sorry, she must think you’re a fang. Wolfsbane isn’t a bad idea, though. Doesn’t look like you got bit or scratched, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. It’ll protect you.”

  “For four credits?”

  “I guarantee Florence will be a hell of a lot cheaper than any other medics in the city. Here, you only pay for the cost of the medication. As a thank you.”

  He scowled and scanned his card for her to deduct the credits from his account. Or his client’s account, if she had to guess.

  “Where the hell did you come up with a Skenning Med-Bot, anyway?” He watched with suspicion as Florence worked. “I thought they were only available in the sky cities.”

  “That’s a model F-400.” Clare watched the bot close the cut on his cheek and blast a quick antiseptic and painkiller over the area before moving to his injured hands. “They were subject to a massive recall about two years ago, I think? Hundreds of them hit the dumps. Seemed like they could be easily hacked to dispense any medication. As you saw, they tend to assume they’re dealing with werewolves, fangs, and humans at the same time. I was able to fix the firewall but not the software issues. Better than nothing, though.”

  “I see that.” His expression went slack again. The way it had when he decided to join the fight. It was unsettling, like he was intentionally covering up what he thought. People didn’t usually do that. “A lot of sophisticated stuff around here. I’m not talking about your security system, which is better than what banks have around their vaults. I don’t think I even recognize some of these.”

  “It’s rougher than I’d like, but you don’t get much new or top-of-the-line down here.” Clare watched as the bot finished his knuckles and moved to his wrist. “We’re less than three hours away from the Saint Monique disposal yard. Get a lot of stuff from the upper cities there. Most everything’s broken or worn down. It’s first-come, first-serve, and you have assholes waiting to take the premium shit off people who go there without enough muscle. If you know what to look for, you can find good stuff.”

  “And you know—ow!”

  “Please remain still,” Florence admonished in her annoyingly calm voice.

  “Do what she says.” Clare cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not in the mood to clean up any more blood today. Sit there until she’s done with you.”

  “If you didn’t want me bleeding all over your stuff, why did you invite me in?” He winced as a spray was applied to his ribs.

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not only talking about the scratches. You haven’t spotted the other defense mechanisms in place, and I have touchy equipment that might blow up in your face if you nudge it wrong. Most of this place is restricted for your protection.”

  “Restricted?” He looked around. “What’s restricted?”

  “Every room except the ones you’ve been in.”

  “I’ve only been in the entrance and this small meeting room.”

  She smiled. “Exactly. If you get your fingers blown up touching something you shouldn’t, I’ll let you try your luck with a city medic.”

  Shak nodded slowly. “Right. Like your privacy, do you?”

  “Of course. Unlike whatever goes on up there…” She paused and nodded skyward. “These neutral cities are dog-eat-dog, dog-eat-fang, and dog-eat-human. There’s fang-eat-dog, too, and surprisingly, human-eat-dog. Although in that case, we’re talking actual dogs.”

  “I get the idea.” He cringed as Florence sprayed his knuckles again. “The strong survive.”

  “And the well-connected, which is its own brand of strong. Pays to have a solid family behind you.”

  He tilted his head and took the pills Florence offered him.

  “Please alert me if you feel an allergic reaction to the medication,” the bot proclaimed as her processes shut down. “I do hope you have a pleasant day, and remember to tip your nurse.”

  He smirked as he popped the pain meds and antibacterials. “So, is your name Tab or Clare?”

  She’d known that was coming. She was surprised he hadn’t brought it up sooner. Did he think that was polite?

  “Clare.” She smiled. “I guess that puts me at a disadvantage. Clare Voyhent.”

  He paused and blinked a few times. “Clare Voy… Fuck, you have to be kidding me.”

  “Yeah.” Clare couldn’t help the grin that crossed her face.

  “I was talking about you like you were a guy.”

  Clare smirked. “It was hilarious that you fought those guys to make sure I was in shape to give you an in with my client, though.”

  He sighed and rubbed his cheeks. She observed him rearranging his thoughts with that vital context in mind. Hopefully, he understood whatever tales he’d been fed about her skills were a vast underestimation of her abilities, if anything.

  “Once you finish that thinking you have to do, it’s time you tell me what your real name is and exactly what the fuck you’re doing out here looking for me.” Clare crossed her arms. As interesting a travel companion as he was, she would have no compunctions over stoving in his ribcage as she kicked him out a window. There was no telling how dangerous he might be with the knowledge of her identity.

  She’d planned on sharing it with him. It was the reason she preferred to have this conversation on her home turf.

  “Right.” He drew a deep breath and surveyed his surroundings again like he wasn’t sure if she had guns pointed at his head. “Anselm Horst.”

  She hadn’t meant to laugh, but it came out before she could stop herself. “Wait, really?”