Their stupid little rhyme put all the woe on Wednesday, but she figured that was a matter of opinion. Lupe had been born on a Tuesday the 13th, bad luck in her mother's home country. Worse luck for her father, who died on the border crossing strung up by barbed wire and coyotes for lack of payment on the crossing.

No matter. Lupe's mother raised her to know her bloodline, and to think well of her father even if he was dirt poor and never met his little girl.

Lupe's mother, she thought, would die of shame to find out what that little girl had become.

The contract specified which five were to die, but not in what order. She saved Tuesday for last, because it was a bad luck day and, after killing her father, had deeply offended her for which she'd never forgiven it. Him. Sometimes she forgot these in particular were more than faceless targets. The client paid for anonymity of all involved, on this job. Odd. But still not her place to question, not when she was being paid in good gold bullion instead of bullets.

He was taking a smoke break on the fire escape. Probably thought he was safe; with the room watched by his bodyguards, no one could approach from the street below without rattling the rusty ladder. Someone had put out wards all over the window to alert the room if anyone tried to breach the glass, but they forgot the rest of the building. She didn't know if the wards would work anyway. They were made for and directed against European fae, and she was only fae by human classification. Her people had other words for it.

Nails dug into the crumbling mortar between the bricks, her tail stiff behind her for balance. It took some practice to climb straight down one and a half stories, but she managed. She'd been practicing, rented out the room above his just for that purpose. One leap later and her war-teeth closed down on Mr. Tuesday's throat before he knew what had landed behind him. The bodyguards heard the rattling, the sound of two bodies hitting the grate in rapid succession. By the time they got the window open, though, she was two units over and one up, again. Scrabbling up the drainpipe to the roof with only the tip of her twitching tail visible in the night mist.