“Give me a second, Jill.” Quiet and courteous, not like the unpredictable smartass I knew. Still, everyone minds their manners at Galina’s.
Even Perry.
Stop thinking about that. “Fine.” I headed for the front of the shop, brushing past the Sanctuary. The scar throbbed wetly. I couldn’t resist one bad-tempered little goose. “Stay inside, Galina. We’d hate to lose you.”
I didn’t miss her muttered reply, which contained at least one term highly unsuitable for a lady’s use. We all mind our manners at Galina’s—but sometimes it’s fun hearing her cuss like the rest of us. Outside, it was a solid ninety in the shade. I stamped across the street toward my Impala and stopped, suddenly, right in the middle of the ribbon of concrete, heat waves shimmering up on either end of the block.
The sensation of being watched spilled gooseflesh down my back. You don’t live long as a hunter by ignoring that feeling. I turned a full three-sixty in the middle of the road, scanning the buildings, roofs, the sidewalks, contemplating all the angles.
Who would be watching me? And in the middle of the day, no less, when the sun’s power is at its highest. I concentrated, still as a cat watching a mousehole. Come on. Stick your nose out, whoever you are. Come and get me.
The wind quieted, ripples dying in the cauldron of the day. Inside the scurfhole, wherever it was, it would be hot too. They would be piled in on top of each other in a lump of contagious slime, dozing through the danger of daylight. Shedding heat while they breathed sickness on each other. I need more flash grenades. Three just isn’t going to do it. It was one of those random thoughts that floats across your mind right before all hell breaks loose.
Something punched me hard in the chest. I staggered, the wind knocked out of me, and folded down as the hammerblows continued. It didn’t hurt until I tried to roll over and pain crested in a fierce wave, driving iron spikes into muscle and bone. Little twisting jitters of sparkling agony slammed through me, each one so individual I could name it.
The world went dark, heaved, turned over, and rammed me back into myself with a shock like lightning striking. Only it wasn’t lightning. It was the scar on my wrist exploding with furious power as my punctured heart struggled to beat, bullets tearing through my body, shattering, spilling, blood steaming on the road and chips of concrete flicking up.
Someone was shooting me. Doing a handy job of it, too.
More pain, a river of it, a new brand of pain. By brand I mean shape and type, and burning hurting godpleasemakeitstop—
Half-choked screaming. The walls of Galina’s shop tolling deep notes of distress. The coughing roar of a Were having a fit, and it sounded like Saul—but he was somewhere else, wasn’t he?
Saul? My lips tried to shape the word, a bubble of something hot broke on them, ran down my chin. Alone and unprotected in the middle of acres of burning road, except I was being dragged by one arm, shoulder popping out of joint with a short thop! that would have been funny if it wasn’t mine. The scar burned, working inward toward the bone, burrowing in with sick delight. My heart exploded again, body convulsing as weightlessness swallowed me whole.
The scar had actually shocked me, just like a defibrillator. Sparks crackled from the charms lacing my hair.
“Don’t you dare, Jill!” Galina screamed. The sound was a bright ribbon through dark water closing over my head as I thrashed, moaning sounds spilling from my lips along with the bright red. “Don’t you dare die on me! ”
Scratching, scrabbling sounds. I opened my eyes and gasped as another lightning-shock, this one different from the first, slammed through me. The flayed, exploded meat of my heart was a live coal buried in my chest, systems struggling to deal with the sudden trauma and loss of blood pressure. WHAM! This time it was Galina, the power had her distinctive flavor of incense and growing green things. Slamming into my heart, making it beat through the damage as cells regrew, each one a scream of pain. I coughed, choked, and yelled, striking out, dislocated arm flopping uselessly. The blow was deflected, and my chest was an egg of red-hot pain. Tearing, horrible, agonizing heat coalesced, snapped into a lump in the upper left quadrant of my ribs; the scar chortled to itself as electricity popped, and I arched, mouth full of blood and eyes bulging, a scream locked behind the clotted stone in my throat. Heartbeat. I had a heartbeat again.
“— fucking dare die on me, Jill Kismet, I’ve seen two hunters go in my time and I won’t lose you, now breathe! ” Galina’s voice was deep and irresistible, she leaned on my chest, thumping me a good one, then clamping my nose shut and blowing into my mouth, trying to inflate my lungs but doing a good job of drowning me in my own claret.
I spat blood, a good chunk of it geysering out through nose and lips both. Galina let out a yelp, choked midway by the volume, and I stopped myself from instinctively striking out again. The walls thundered, wavering like seaweed. If I hit a Sanc in her own house, it would get pretty damn uncomfortable pretty goddamn quickly, and I was uncomfy enough already.
The trouble with almost dying is that it makes you weak as shock sets in and the body struggles to function. I curled over on my side, spitting to clear my mouth of blood and lungfluid, the deep drilling ache in my chest intensifying with each labored pulse. My dislocated shoulder throbbed, a bass note drowned out by a whole orchestra of nasty sweating pain. I twitched, several times, nerves firing without any real reason except holy shit, we’re still here? Still working?
“Good girl,” Galina whispered. “That’s my good girl.” Patting my back as I retched, coughing and choking to clear passageways violated by lead and fluid.
The ridiculous little bell she had on the shop door tinkled. “Gone.” It was Theron’s voice. “Tell me she’s okay.”
“Just fine.” The Sanctuary, wonder of wonders, sounded nervous. “Or as fine as you can get when you’ve lost all your blood.”
I haven’t lost all of it, dammit. It still hurts, there must be some left. But I felt weaker and more unsteady than I liked. Agony receded, becoming just garden-variety pain.
That I could deal with.
Get up, milaya. Mikhail’s voice, memory sloshing inside my skull. Or I will hit you again. He never said anything he didn’t mean. I struggled to get up, to fight.
“Relax, killer. Take it easy.” Hands on my aching shoulders, so familiar. A deep rumbling sound—a Were, purring to ease another’s distress.
Saul? No, he’s miles away. What?
Lassitude poured over me, a sucking swamp of lethargy so huge it threatened to close my eyes and drag me down. “Whafuck?” I slurred, my tongue too thick, not working properly.
“Someone just tried to kill you, Kismet.” Theron, uncharacteristically serious. No wonder he sounded like Saul. “An assault rifle from a rooftop halfway down the street. You know anyone who drives a blue Buick?”
It was so ludicrous I could only repeat myself. “Wha fuck? ”
“Just lie still for a moment.” Galina’s skirt swished. The walls calmed down, settling into regular lath, plaster, and paint instead of shimmering curtains of energy ready to enforce a Sanctuary’s will on physical and psychic space. “I’m going to get the first-aid kit.”
Best of luck to you. I don’t think I need a Band-Aid. “Arm,” I whispered, through another mouthful of blood. Stop bleeding, Jill. Goddammit. “My arm.”
“Sorry about that.” The Were crouched over me, a bulk radiating safety. He didn’t smell exactly like Saul, but it was comforting nonetheless. “Had to get you out of the middle of the street, dragged you too hard.”
It’s not the first time that’s popped out of the socket. At least I’m still alive. “Thanks.” My voice was a thin thread. I passed out briefly, a stripe of warmth across my face reminding me that daylight was slipping away, and someone had just tried to kill me.
In the middle of the day, with an assault rifle, no sorcery or claws or teeth. Just like a human would kill. Why?
9
I shifted, let the clutch off, and the Impa
la responded, leaping forward. Theron grabbed for the dash. Dried blood crackled in my hair, and I rammed the car into third gear like it was going out of style, goosed it, shifted up to fourth and put the pedal to the floor.
“Jesus!” Theron yelled over the rush of wind.
Men. They never like my driving. Of course, nobody likes my driving. I’ve never been in a single accident—
basic precognition takes care of that—and the cops all know my car well enough to leave me alone when I’m bending the laws of physics and traffic to get somewhere.
They don’t like to think about why I hurry. Or what I might be hurrying to get to. Rubber screamed as we took a corner like it was on rails, and I thought about who would want to kill me. A blue Buick and regular ammo—not even silver.
Not even silver. Anyone coming after a hellbreed-tainted hunter is going to have silver ammo. It wouldn’t kill me but it would at least mean someone knew what they were doing, knew it would take me longer to heal and hurt like a motherfuck. Or is that a red herring? I stood on the brake as the intersection ahead of me ran with traffic, the red light looming, juggled probability and precognition, felt the little tingle along my nerves that meant okay GO NOW and stamped on the accelerator again. The Impala zoomed through the light just as it turned green, skidding around a red Caprice as I jerked the wheel and shot us through traffic like a greased pinball.
Who would try to kill me right on Galina’s doorstep, too? Someone who had a bone to pick with both the Sanc and me? Someone who wanted to make a statement, or who knew I’d still be alive afterward?
Or just someone who knew I could be found at her place every few days? Which was just about anyone on the nightside and quite a few regular folks.
We roared onto the east side a few minutes earlier than I’d thought. My traffic karma was still holding. Theron worked his fingers free of the dash while I unclipped my seatbelt. More blood crackled, drying on my skin, and I felt a little pale.
“You okay?” Theron’s knuckles cracked as he stretched.
“Never better,” I lied. “Getting shot just pisses me off, furboy. Now I’m aching to take it out on a whole nest of scurf.”
“You’d better calm down.” He confined himself to that mild statement, and the glance I shot at him splashed right off the concern on his lean dark face.
I didn’t dignify the obvious with a reply. Angry is the last thing you want to be in a nest. Anger is good fuel, yes—but it clouds judgment, and a hunter can’t afford that. Not thinking straight is one step away from getting your ass blown off.
And I’d already had that today, thank you very much.
Another thought occurred to me, terrible enough to make my hackles go up again. I got shot in the heart. I felt it. Worst piece of lead I’ve ever caught—and the scar just sewed me up and zapped me, Galina zaps me, and I’m fine.
Well, maybe not fine. But still alive. That’s what counts.
But if I’d still been meeting Perry every month at the Monde to pay for using the scar, what would he have made me do? How could I have paid for that much power thundering through my still all-too-human flesh?
It doesn’t matter, Jill. It’s a non-issue. Worry about who’s trying to kill you now, for Christ’s sake. Put that way, the question of Perry began to take on different dimensions. But he would have sent someone with silver, wouldn’t he?
Wouldn’t he? If hurting me more was the point, yeah. But not if just half-killing me is the point. Perry wouldn’t send a human, either—he’d send a Trader. Stop thinking about him, Jill. Percoa Park lay under a motionless flood of hard bright light, the trees looking dusty and grass scuffed to yellow wherever the sprinklers didn’t reach. A baseball diamond simmered kitty-corner, and the streetlamps over the bus shelter Michael Spilham had spent his last human moments on earth standing in were just visible.
The park thrummed. I caught flickers of motion between the trees, and Theron’s face eased a bit. The Were’s stride lengthened, and I glimpsed the predator in him. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that they’re built for hunting. They do it, just like they do most things, far better than humans. He raised his head, his dark hair suddenly more alive, curling a bit longer, and sniffed the air.
My nose was sensitive even with the cuff on. Fur. Musk. The smell of healthy animals, sandy dust, and tinder-dry bark. An outside smell. A good smell, one that means safety. Weres have been allied with hunters ever since the beginning, working back-to-back. Even through the Middle Ages, and that was a right fuck of a time to be a Were or a hunter, between the Inquisition, the open mouths to Hell, and the general state of chaos.
Weres provide muscle and speed when it comes to hunting rogue Weres, backup when facing down Traders, and general support, since human hunters are spread so thin. Hunters keep things smoothed over with the police, function as leaders who don’t have to work by consensus during crisis times, and take on hellbreed—
one of the few things Weres can’t do as well as a human.
It takes a hunter to kill a hellbreed. Or a Sorrow.
The thought of the Sorrows tasted like bitter ash before I turned it aside.
“Good turnout,” was all Theron said, before loping down a slight hill toward a stand of cottonwoods. I followed, my coat flapping, suddenly aware I was covered in dried blood again, my shirt shredded and my leather pants two steps away from the rag bag.
At least my weapons were still okay, and my rosary. Shoot me all you want, but if you shoot one of my knives, my blessed charms, or God forbid my guns, I’m going to get pissed. The scar brought me back, or I’d’ve bought it. Not even Galina could get me back after that much lead poisoning. The sudden certainty was chilling.
Had Perry felt it, etheric force thundering through the scar to keep my body alive? Was he up during the day, sitting in the quiet of the Monde Nuit, staring at the television screens in his office? Maybe fondling the flechettes, stained with black hellbreed ichor, though they were always pristine each time he told me to open up the flat rosewood case.
I shivered. My coat flapped and I touched my guns, the knifehilts, the other little surprises strapped to leather and taped down to cut the clanking. Silver chimed in my hair since I didn’t have to be quiet, and the rosary bumped against my belly.
Quit thinking about it, Jill. You almost-die every week. Just get over it. Maddeningly, it didn’t seem quite right. I was too busy to tease out why just yet. The small clearing was full of Weres, and lambent eyes turned to me as soon as I brushed past an anonymous trashwood bush and into full view. They were too polite to ask what the hell had happened, and sadly it’s more common than not to see me when I’ve just been through the wringer. Hunting is a messy business.
“Trackers are on it,” a lean tall woman said. Lioness from the look of her, she had the characteristic broad face and sleek arms, muscle moving supple under honey skin. “Not too far from here, zeroing in on a couple blocks.”
“We’re burning daylight.” A slim young male, barely past puberty if you could believe his skinny build, with the prominent nose of a bird Were. Brown feathers were tied into his shag of a haircut, and he made a graceful, contained movement expressing impatience and controlled enthusiasm all in one.
“Patience, Rubio.” Theron’s entire face wrinkled into a snarl of a grin, smoothed out.
“It’s not a virtue,” the lioness added. “It’s a survival tactic.”
That caused a ripple of laughter, and the kid laughed too. It wasn’t the type of nervous laughter you get in an autopsy room, but its intent was the same. To bleed off a little steam, make the waiting palatable. I set my back against the bole of a cottonwood and closed my eyes. My heart was thumping a little harder than I liked. A rebuilt heart, shattered by a bullet less than half an hour ago. Good thing I was a domestic model, maybe they had a hard time getting import parts for a ticker.
Get it, Jill? Arf arf. You’re a regular comic. Should go on the circuit. Now think about something useful. What the hell is goin
g on here? A blue Buick, Theron had said, speeding away down Macano Street. Nothing but shell casings left on the roof, some of them jingling in my coat pocket. And a smell. Male, Theron had said, human, and sweating. But a professional, to pump me full of lead and get the hell out of there.
Or very lucky.
Why? If I knew the why I’d know the who, wouldn’t I.
Pure lead bullets and a professional hit. My life was certainly never boring. The air pressure changed and my eyes snapped open. Every Were in the clearing was standing poised and looking in the same direction, the same way a flock of birds will wheel with tremendous in-flight precision. As if by prearranged signal they broke, some running, others merely loping, Theron glancing over his shoulder at me.
No muss, no fuss. The trackers had found something, and communicated in that way Weres sometimes have, through instinct, pheromones, or just sheer air.
No more time for thinking. The hunt was underway.
10
Running with Weres is like hunting on full-moon nights, when everything goes just slightly sideways and it can either be dead quiet… or a sliptilting screamfest from beginning to end, not even stopping at dawn. There’s the same breathless expectation, the same pulse in the air, hitting the back of the throat like coppertinged wine. I know almost every hollow and corner of my city, and it’s that knowledge that lets me keep up. Even hellbreed speed has a hard time when it comes to Weres in full asshaul mode. They run like quicksilver, not like the hellbreed’s habit of blinking through space too fast for mortal eyes. Pounding feet, exhilaration, the heat of the day shimmering off pavement, alleys and fire escapes flashing past, we swept through the industrial district in a tide of half-seen shapes. Most hunts are run at night, when there’s less chance of normals out on the street.
When there’s a scurf infestation, the Weres run by day. They use that little don’t look here trick they’re so fond of, the same trick animals use for camouflage. It’s more of a blending-in, really, but it makes the eye slide right over them.