The stairs were slow; Andy experimented with leaping the last few steps to the landing, then again from slightly higher up. Veronica didn't say anything; she just matched him, gun out but hammer down at his back. Above them, the movements of the wight had grown frantic, then calm as it moved to a spot directly above them.
It had found the stairs.
"Shit," said Andy. "It's still up on whatever the hell floor that was, but it's in the stairwell now."
"We're almost to the ground," said Veronica. "I have a car in the parking lot. If we can get clear before it catches up, we'll be--"
The stairwell went dark.
Andy adjusted immediately, and Veronica didn't break her stride either, though she did curse as they made the next jump. "What is it with you and Steve?" he asked, finding that being dead meant that he was never out of breath.
Veronica didn't have quite the same advantage, but she had enough endurance to answer anyway: "Werewolves," she said. "Late shift is Rodney, a vampire. A lot of the licensed hunters are monsters."
"Ah," said Andy. He'd never considered that some of the monster-hunters might be monsters themselves, but it made a weird sort of sense. He'd never heard it discussed, but then that made sense, too. They rounded another landing, leapt again, this time taking the entire flight. Both of them landed easily, kicked off the concrete wall, and continued down.
"Fuck me," said Veronica, catching at Andy's arm and pulling him to a sudden stop. "Goddamn werewolf below us."
"Wolf?" asked Andy, remembering how the beast had looked as it came at him.
"Wolf is the default, these days," Veronica said. "With time and practice, we can be other things as well." She hesitated, then said, "Stay behind me, but if you can get past us safely, do it. How close is the wight?"
He paused, looking up, and said, "Three-four landings down from where we started, and coming fast."
"Fuck." Veronica. "I do not want to be caught between them. This way--" She threw open a door labeled 3rd Floor and dragged Andy through after her, half-shifting as she did.
Okay, that's pretty impressive, he thought.
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