Sci Fi SoundTrack

Killing was easy if you had the stomach for it. Killing quickly and efficiently, with only minor cleanup required, took effort and training. Judging by the sixteen countable pieces of goblin strewn around the row home's dilapidated living room, as well as the congealing puddle of fuchsia blood and effluvia, the effort had not been made and training had gone sorely to waste. The Rookie was trouble, she thought. Trouble, plain and simple. Ash Bedford surveyed the gruesome scene, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she contemplated the mess. Goblins were small, never taller than five feet and always gangly-thin, making their bodies somewhat simple to dispose of--as long as they remained intact. But if Ash hadn't been certain of their destroyer, she'd have thought several wild dogs had done the damage. Triad Rookie. Wild dog. She was beginning to lose sight of the difference between the two. Evangeline Stone had been assigned to their Triad almost two months ago, and she had yet to earn any title other than Rookie. She continued to fight with her heart and her anger instead of her brain, and it was going to get her killed. In the four years she'd Hunted, Ash had seen it happen time and again in other Triads--hot-headed Rookies who succumbed to their own stupidity and lack of self-control. Ash had just lost a friend of many years. He'd been reliable and steadfast and impossible to replace. She had no interest in attaching herself to a tempestuous blond waif who had yet to master the finer points of Dreg execution. The trio of goblins had been Stone's first solo assignment. She'd killed them, yes, but Ash still considered it a botched job.