Angel Town

27

The worst part wasn’t going down the stairs with the charms tied in my hair. It wasn’t even opening the door and stepping out into the vast daytime cavern of the Monde, tiny golden shafts of sunlight struggling through the dust and thickening. It also wasn’t the sight of Riverson flung backward over the bar, his mouth slack in an upside-down scream and his hand still dripping blood. His filmed eyes were closed forever, and the terror frozen on his dead face was enough to give any reasonable person nightmares.

I barely glanced, storing it away for later, because the worst thing was the ripple that went through the assembled hellbreed packed into the Monde’s throat. They filled the dance floor, brushing against the bar and its bloody cargo. The Traders at the door were grotesque slabs of muscle with submachine guns and slack mouths. There were no other Traders; it was strictly a ’breed affair.

Hellbreed lips parted, the female mouths candyglossed and the males’ merely sculpted, and they smiled at me like a collection of dotty old aunts beaming at a favored family baby.

“There she is.” Perry stood on the stage, his hands in his pockets. It spoiled the lines of his suit, but he didn’t look like he cared. Since he was grinning ear to ear. “Our lovely one, our own Kiss.”

Oh, great. Every inch of silver on me ran with blue light, and the gem on my wrist muttered softly, buzzing in my bones. The hellbreed smiles didn’t cease, and under their hard, flexible skins little ripples churned. Their eyes burned, glowing with excitement.

I swept the door closed. The sound of it catching shut was loud in the sudden murmuring stillness. The crowd was utterly still. Here during the day. Perry must have called a meeting. Why? So he can impress me?

Only one of them didn’t look happy. He was a tall stocky ’breed with glare-yellow eyes, his skin dappled with inky stains. Frayed designer jeans, sharp bony claws, and the handsome face of a pimp who can afford to slide the knife in once a wrinkle or two shows up on a working girl’s face. He stared at me, his lip lifting, but before he could open his mouth there was a low, rumbling growl.

The dogsbody lumbered out of the darkness behind the bar, slinking along. It had matured, and its close blond pelt was wiry and glossy. Its eyes were crystalline, flicking over the assembled ’breed as it placed its paws just so. There was something wrong with those eyes, but I couldn’t think of just what.

The gun drew itself free, my finger on the trigger and my pulse dropping into the steady rhythm of impending action. It would be just like Perry to have a dog attack me in full view of his little throng.

But there was a whisper next to me, and Perry’s fevered fingers on my wrist. “Hush, darling one. Wait.”

I could still feel the thing’s throat against my whip as I choked it, my coat was still flapping from its claws, and he wanted me to wait?

The dogsbody padded forward, its claws snicking softly on the floor. Perry’s hand tightened. It was too close, if it bunched its hindquarters and sprang…

It was terrible, the way you could still see the shadow of human hands under its paws, and a weird roll to its humpbacked gait showed you it had been bipedal once. Its head dropped, snaking at the end of its adapted neck, and it slowed. It was close enough to spring, and I didn’t want to die here in the Monde. It would mean breaking Perry’s arm, or worse, but—

The dogsbody gave a sigh, settling down on its haunches. It lowered its front end, and it crawled belly-down on the floor, whining, until it reached my feet. Its tongue was black, too, and it lapped at my boots, still stained with hellhound ichor. The slimy trails it left behind glistened, and revulsion jolted up my legs to engulf the rest of me.

A huge retch filled my stomach, crawled up my throat. I swallowed so hard the effort left me blinking. A sigh went through the hellbreed, and a mutter of Helletöng like faraway thunder in the middle of a flint-cold night.

“See?” Perry, slowly releasing me, one finger at a time. “We’re all at your feet, my darling.” More loudly now, playing to the audience. “Do any of you worms doubt me? She’s hunter, she’s human, and she’s mine, here of her own will. With her to wield it—”

“It’s a long way from owning one of the monkeys to coaxing it to wield that,” the piebald hellbreed piped up. “And she stinks of the Other Side. What are you playing at, Hyperion?”

Perry turned, and there was a general drawing away. The ’breed were packed in here like sardines in a can, but they managed to find the space to leave the piebald standing alone.

Dominance, I realized. This kid’s looking to take a bite out of Perry. Interesting.

What was even more interesting was that he was a ’breed I hadn’t seen before. I knew all the players—or at least, I had a couple months ago.

“Oh, the Other Side.” Sarcasm dripped from Perry’s words, and the floor groaned sharply. “When have they ever taken an interest? Fear of them restrains us, is that it? I am no longer content to be restrained.”

“Your lord father—” Piebald hesitated, because the Monde had gone still, and hot air breathed along every surface.

Father? Oh, my God, you mean someone actually gave birth to that? Hellbreed reproduction is not my area of expertise—I just kill the motherfuckers—but I supposed it was possible. And the thought made my stomach turn over again, harder this time.

“Oh, yes, my dear Halis. Let’s mention him. Really, you’re a bad guest.” Perry’s smile was wide and utterly chilling. He bore down on the piebald, hands still in his pockets, his shoulders square. The dogsbody had finished licking my boots and whined, deep in its throat. The sound was a glassy squeal, diamond claws on a mirror.

The Other Side. Wield it. Betcha ten bucks he means la Lanza, according to Melendez, and I have to find out where he’s keeping it. I couldn’t look everywhere at once, and I didn’t want to. I watched Perry’s linen-clad back, and when the dogsbody hunched itself up to crouch against my leg I almost retched again.

The piebald ’breed seemed to shrink, hunching his shoulders as sallowness rose on his pale parts. Even his hair was patchwork. “Don’t be hasty.” He swallowed, visibly. “I know where it is, I’m the one who can get it for you—”

“Oh, but I think we’ll do quite well without you.” Perry’s sheer goodwill was terrifying. I still had the gun in my hand, loosely pointed at the floor. “I know where the Lance was, too, and even now I know where it is. Because it happens to be in my keeping, along with my darling Kiss.”

Stop him. Judas to a hellbreed. The caretaker’s eyes, bright blue now, and the dogsbody’s teeth at my throat. He’d been stroking the thing’s head, scratching behind its ears. Its eyes had been blue, Jughead Vanner’s eyes with hellfire dripping through them, but now they were colorless crystals.

Just like the gem in my wrist.

“Really, Halis. Did you think to challenge me? Here? Now?” Perry made a little clicking sound, tongue against teeth, and stepped mincingly past the piebald ’breed. “Kiss?”

It took two tries before my voice would work, because I knew what was coming. “What?” At least the word came out right, bored and flat.

But whatever it was Perry wanted, Halis decided it was better off unsaid. He was deadly silent about it too, blinking through space with the stuttering speed of a hellbreed who means business. I was already tracking him with my right-hand gun, whip loosened and chiming as it flicked forward, one hip cocked and ready to swing back.

28

I didn’t even see the dogsbody move. One moment it was right next to me. The next, it hit the flying ’breed with a boneshatter crunch, and several ’breed shrank back as ichor splattered. The dogsbody’s jaw crackled, and it made a sound like a hyena late at night.

I ignored a cramp of nausea, backed up a few more steps to get some room in case the piebald threw off the dog-thing and came for me.

I shouldn’t have worried. Because a dogsbody, like a hellhound or a ronguerdo, knows its work. The crunching of teeth settled into wet chewing slurps as it settled down to its feast, crouching, only the gleam of one colorless gemlike eye as it watched me. One flat ear was pricked, too, standing alert.

Like a good dog with a bone, waiting for his master’s call.

Oh, Jesus. The world paled, came back in a rush of color. I actually staggered back, regained my footing, and gave myself a sharp mental slap. Looking weak in the middle of a crowd of ’breed is not a good way to go.

“How nice,” Perry murmured. “Our Kiss has a pet. Well, would anyone else like to dispute our little plan? No? Good. Then you are all excused to work my will.”

They didn’t move. Some of them stared at me, avid, mouths slightly open and eyes burning. Another ripple ran through them, titters and half-heard whispers.

“Oh, yes. That reminds me.” Perry half-turned, looked at the stage. “I want that Were’s head. If the other beasts will not give him up, move into the barrio.” His grin turned wide and white, his tongue flickering once. “Kill them too.”

“It’ll be difficult.” This from a tall female, so skinny the alien bones rubbed against the inside of her parchment skin. “That’s their ground, they know it better than we—”

“Nevertheless.” Perry waved a hand. “Children, children, you are Hell’s scions. I trust you’ll find a way.”

I found my voice. “Perry—”

“You may leave us now,” he said quietly, and Helletöng filled the spaces between the words with misshapen drowning things bubbling in a cold vault. The hellbreed moved for the exits in a wave of seashell hips and painted eyes, chitterings and moanings and sighs behind them.

“Perry.” I am still a hunter. And this is my town. “Leave the Weres alone.”

“If they would hand over the one that shared your bed, my dearest, I would. But no, they’re intransigent.”

I almost choked. “What do you—”

“I had him once before, and I would have kept him after you were mine. Now I don’t need him, so I won’t keep him, but I want him for just a few moments, Kiss. Can’t you guess why?”

“So you can take lessons on how to be a decent human being?” I probably shouldn’t have said it. Judas to a hellbreed, sure, but he wasn’t going to touch my Weres.

Especially Saul.

The hellbreed were slipping away, and I still had my gun out.

But Perry had simply hopped up on the stage. ’Töng grumbled and swirled through the sun-pierced dimness, and all the hellbreed were scurrying to their cars under the assault of the cleansing light of day. “Too late now.”

Salvage this, Jill. Assert some control. “Perry. Go after the Weres, and the deal’s off.”

“You should have said that earlier.” He spread his arms, a paleness against the dark cavern of the stage. “All they have to do is hand over your kitten, my dove. Wouldn’t it be nice to see him again? They move him from place to place, but sooner or later they’ll see reason.”

“Fine.” I turned, and the dogsbody lifted its snuffling head from its snack. The piebald ’breed was rotting quickly, and my gorge rose again. The smell was something else, and to have your nose buried in it…“You send ’breed into the barrio, Perry, and you’ll never see them ag—”

“Do you honestly think you can threaten me now?” He had my arm, suddenly, fingers biting in, and the dogsbody growled. “And you’d better leash that thing, before you lose it. There is a limit to what I allow you, Kismet.”

I hit him hard, a good solid crack to the face. His chin snapped back and the gun was level, pointed into his chest. The whip jingled a little, and the dogsbody growled again.

“Shut up,” I said, and the thing that used to be Jughead Vanner did.

The silence was immense. The hellbreed had drained away, and the dripping from Riverson’s outflung hand had stopped. Why kill Riverson? This isn’t like you, Perry.

None of this made sense. Had I just made a huge mistake, or was I doing what I was supposed to? Had I thrown away any advantage over Perry by letting him think I was here willingly? Did any of this fucking matter?

Of course it matters. Melendez’s loa wants the debt repaid, but I can’t do that until I know where and when Perry’s planning his party.

“Sweet nothings,” Perry hissed. He wiped at his mouth with the back of one narrow hand. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

“You won’t miss me if you declare open season on Weres. I’ll be right up close, once I finish with the hellbreed you send into the barrio.” The shaking had me again, but the gun was solid. Fuck this, fuck everything. I’ll kill them, then I’ll take Saul and—

And what? Ride off into the sunset while Chango got a hard-on for me and Anya braced herself for the next wave of hellbreed to come in? Because there were always more.

Or even, here’s a thought, what if Perry had a little plan for Anya too? Or if something fatal happened to her? Hunters were tough, but also as mortal as everyone else.

And what would happen to my city, all the oblivious who liked signing deals with hellbreed and the others who had no idea they even existed? What then?

Stop, little snake, Mikhail whispered inside my memory. Anger is no good. It makes things distort, yes? It makes you stupid.

Hearing him used to be a comfort. Now it had teeth. I’d signed myself up for the scar because Misha had said it was a good idea.

He hadn’t told me he needed someone to take his place in the deal with Perry. Would he ever have told me? Couldn’t he find the fucking words?

I would have done it anyway, for him. If he just would have asked. Add that to the list of my sins.

I swallowed. Be clear and cold for this, Jill. You have to be. “Besides, what does it matter? I left him, Perry. I’m here.”

“Here, yes. Now.” His mouth was flushed, a bruised scarlet line. “But I want you more than here, Kismet. I will take everything you love, everything that has ever loved you, and I will break it until there is only me. Only me.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Great. He’s gone insane. “Well, that’s a great Christmas list, Perry. Too bad it’s summer. Why don’t you tell me about the Lance instead?”

It wasn’t very elegant, but at least it got his attention. He was still for a full ten seconds, Helletöng groaning and rumbling under the surface of the visible, and I knew I had his complete attention.

“Oh, that.” He waved a hand. “It’s not important. Yet.”

“If you’re wanting me to do something with it, it is.” The gun was level, but he seemed to take no notice of it. My fingers tightened on the whip’s handle.

“Oh, Kiss. Never bored while you’re near me.” The grin was back, and wider than ever. “You may go now, my lovely. Tell your friends I am coming for them. And tell whoever sank that stinking thing in your arm that they are welcome to try and stop me.” He spread his arms. “It is my time, now.”

I backed up a step. Two. My heart beat thinly in my chest, echoing in my wrists and temples. “You seriously want me to leave?”

“Take your dog. That’s a nice trick, too, I’ll ask how you did it sometime. Later, when I’m not so busy.” He watched me as I took another step. “Yes, I want you to go. It’s Wednesday now. Come back tomorrow, we’ll dance and dine. The world will end, and you will help me end it.”

Fuck it all. I can’t do it. “I should kill you now.” My finger tightened on the trigger. I knew exactly how much pull would send a bullet through him.

But one bullet wouldn’t do it. I’d have to start shooting, then I’d have to hack him in pieces, and call the banefire. And hope to hell it put him down.

Don’t. You can’t kill him yet, there’s something even worse waiting in the wings. Play along, Jill. “I should,” I repeated. “I should ventilate you right fucking now.”

His grin turned savage, and the shadow of handsomeness was back, burning away the screen of blandness. “Likewise, I’m sure. But my primrose path, my darling, you can’t afford to. You don’t know nearly enough about what I want, or how I’m going to get it. So run along and ask some questions, and meet me tomorrow. About dusk, I should think.”

This is not going well at all. “Perry—”

A thin tremor passed through him. A draft of spoiled honey brushed along the tense air between us. “For the love of your pale little God, my darling, go. I find myself growing murderous.” Perry headed for the second door, the one leading to the red-neon hall. He left a scar behind him, viscous darkness peaking and eddying. The Monde grumbled, settling lower into itself, like an animal in a dark cave.

You’ve only got one more, Jill. Make it good. “Why Riverson? Perry, why Riverson?”

He snarled, a deep throbbing noise. “Go. Away.”

“Why Riverson?” I yelled. “God damn you, answer me!”

“Because he robbed me of you! ” Perry screamed, and the whole place shook. Dust pattered from the ceiling. His head dropped forward and his shoulders heaved, linen stretching and rippling as it fought to contain him.

For a second I was sure he was going to turn around and leap on me, and that would have made it all right to kill him according to the abacus inside my head. The conscience. The thing that kept poking me no matter which way I turned, the stranger who had made me a hunter in the first place. And then I would go tell Melendez that Chango should be satisfied, collect Gil, and go find Henderson Hill’s caretaker, with his blue eyes and his vanishing scars.

And I would get some answers. All the answers he would give me willingly, and any others I felt like beating out of him.

“He robbed me of you,” Perry said again, but very softly, like a killing frost creeping down from the desert. “There is my first warning, Kiss. All your friends. All. Even those who are not quite your friends. Everyone you have cast your eye upon, they are marked for death. You will have only me.” His tone dropped, confidential and musing. “And I will have everything.”

He stood there for another moment, while everything around him shook, spiderlines of reaction etching themselves on the Monde’s floor—concrete covered in hardwood, the dance floor something else entirely, glimmering black.

I waited, hoping. And I was right. Perry had to throw one more bone in the pot to make it boil.

It was a good one, too. “And when you see my brother Michael, ask him about your resurrection. Ask him about the game you’re so blindly stumbling through.”

Call me Mike. The hornets buzzed, speaking to me with their pinprick feet, a tattoo of warning.

I got out of there. The dogsbody padded after me, and the sunlight didn’t smoke on its wiry blond hide.

“Oh, thank God,” Galina breathed. “He’s gone mad, Jill. I can barely—”

“Shut it.” It was rude, but I was beyond caring. “Where’s Devi?”

Sound of movement. “Here,” Anya Devi said, carefully. “Jill?”

“Perry’s got something big planned for tomorrow night.” I braced my hand against the phone booth’s scratched, clear plastic. Sarvedo Street was deserted even this far up, and the sunlight was too thin. I kept seeing odd shadows, my blue eye hot and dry.

“Hutch is running on coffee and nerves. He says he’s found an old etching or something, prior to any knowns. Saul’s tearing up whatever room Galina locks him in—”

“Devi.” My throat was dry. “Tell Hutch to drop everything. Instead, get him on the horn and call every hunter we know of. Everyone, do you hear me? Every single one of us. This thing Perry’s planning has something to do with a portal to Hell, possibly huge, and have him cross-check with a ’breed called Halis, spelling unknown. And something else. La Lanza de Destino, Spear of Destiny. Lance of Destiny. Whatever.”

“There’s so many—” she began. She was about to say there were plenty of things masquerading as Spears of Destiny, and some of them were even Talismans. Every long piece of wood around in the Middle Ages with some etheric force in it was a goddamn “Spear of Destiny,” it was a needle in a historical haystack.

“I know there’s a million of them knocking around, but have him dig. And there’s…” I almost choked. How could I even begin to explain? “Never mind. Get everyone we can for tomorrow before dusk.”

She swore, but under her breath. “What else?”

Of course, you knew there had to be more. “The hellbreed are moving to take the barrio. Get everyone under cover. The Weres on Mayfair, too.”

She cursed again. “Of course. Perry’s been trying to get his hands on Saul for months, and now that you’re back…Jill, what is it with you and that hellbreed? Mikhail had a deal with him and you took it over, sure, but he never played for Mikhail this way—”

“I don’t know.” The words stung my chapped lips as they slid free, and I didn’t sound truthful even to myself. Oh, you know all right. It’s because deep down, you’re the same thing. Twins. You proved it yourself, didn’t you? “Did the Badger come up with anything?”

“Vanner’s cars? Let’s see. A red Dodge pickup, two motorcycles—he was a Honda dude, fucking poser—a blue Buick four-door, a—”

“Blue Buick. Four-door. License plate?”

She reeled off a string of numbers and letters.

It matched up. One more question, then, to keep me warm. “When did he get rid of it?”

“A couple months before you disappeared. You need the date and the buyer?”

“No.” I shut my eyes briefly, leaning against the phone booth’s shell. My memory was cruel now, showing connections in a pitiless white glare, like the sun beating down or the wide white carpet in Perry’s bedroom. “Jesus,” I whispered. That tied up that loose end. Vanner hadn’t been nervous around me all the time because he had a habit of walking in on the weird.

He’d been nervous because he’d tried to kill me once, during the case that lost me one of my cops and almost, almost turned my city into a wasteland. Only the ’breed pulling the strings hadn’t warned him to use silverjacket ammo on a helltainted hunter. And doubly nervous afterward because he hadn’t killed me, and he was in deep to that same hellbreed. I hadn’t smelled any corruption on him, but it wasn’t out of the question. Most likely he’d been full human and angling for a Trade…

…and that was a question mark, too, wasn’t it? Perry’s enemies were likely dead by now, if his treatment of Halis was any indication. Shen An Dua—the ’breed who I would’ve pointed the finger at—was dead, and so were Rutger and that pajama-masked psycho who’d been trying to kill me last time. There was nobody left to send a poisonous hellhound after one crooked cop.

Except Perry. Who would have wanted me down but not out, since my agreement with him kept him at the top of the hellbreed food chain in Santa Luz. He very well might not have warned a stupid human slave to use silverjacket. And Perry could always use a pair of eyes on the police force, couldn’t he.

Or maybe Vanner had just been a crooked cop, tried to kill me, found out he couldn’t, and went looking for something on the nightside that would keep him safe in the event that I kept digging and found out who’d been driving that blue Buick. Especially since Harvill, the DA who had been the prime node of corruption on that case, had ended up dead, too. Just how Vanner connected to Harvill I didn’t know, but someone could probably tell me if I cared to find out. Now that I knew where to look.

I glanced out into the street, where the dogsbody padded back and forth, sunlight drenching its blond hide, its colorless jewel-eyes glittering. I tasted bile, and the gem on my wrist twinged sharply.

Why was a hellhound chasing him? Unless Perry wanted him back. Or maybe…

Devi’s tone crackled with thinly controlled impatience. “Jill? Throw me a bone here. Give me something, anything, come on.”

I’m having hallucinations about Henderson Hill’s blue-eyed caretaker. Only they’re not hallucinations, because he bought me breakfast and gave me a gun. “If I could, I would. Just get everyone you can, Devi, and watch your ass. Put Saul on the line.”

“I’m not your fucking secretary.” But she laid the phone down, and I heard Galina’s murmured questions, Devi’s sharp reply. “She wants to talk to him. If it’ll stop him doing this crazy shit, I’m all for it.” Bootheels coming down hard as Devi stamped away. “Hutch! Get your skinny ass up here!”

I waited, breathing deep. Fed another eight quarters into the phone. Devi had probably tucked a phone card into my coat, but it didn’t matter. The coins dropped in, pieces of silver to pay the ferryman.

Cells are expensive and finicky, and the more advanced they get the more sorcery messes them up; once pay phones were a thing of the past I was going to have to figure something else out. Right now, breaking and entering to use someone’s phone sounded like the most satisfying option. As well as the most educational and entertaining.

Always assuming I survived long enough.

Static burst over the phone line. Then a listening silence. I could hear him breathing, deep even swells, a sound of effort temporarily checked.

“Saul?” I always sounded breathy and silly over the phone with him. “Saul, please. You’ve got to calm down.”

“Where. Are. You?” The words vibrated over the lines and carried all the fury in the world into my ear, and gooseflesh spilled down my back.

“Galina’s going to keep you there, Saul. I can’t afford to lose you.”

“I told you—” he began, and it wasn’t like every other fight we’d ever had. Usually I was the one losing my shit while he tried to stay rational. This time it was him losing his shit, and if he lost it enough, it wasn’t going to be easy to slow him down.

I had to get it all out at once, before he got his head up. “Saul. Perry will kill you. If he does, I’m damned and he will have no trouble getting me to do anything he wants. You are the only goddamn thing that matters to me, all right? The only thing. I don’t even care about my fucking city, Saul.” I let that sink in, and wonder of wonders, he was quiet. I swallowed, expecting the world to rock out from underneath me from the blasphemy.

What did that say about me? Santa Luz could get wiped off the map, and as long as Saul was alive I’d count it chump change. That was wrong, because I was a hunter…but that was the way it was. And if it stopped him long enough for me to get a word of sanity in edgewise, I didn’t care. “Just stay put and when I’m done with this, you can yell at me all you want. But I need you to rest, I need you to eat, and I need you to be strong so that when this is done you can load me in a car and get me the hell out of this godforsaken town. Please.”

Silence. The rage crackling over the line didn’t abate.

“Please.” It was a little girl’s whisper. “Saul, please. I came back from Hell for you.”

And here I was, racking up the lies. I didn’t remember where I’d come back from. I had a suspicion that I didn’t want to, and another sneaking suspicion that it hadn’t been Poughkeepsie.

Hell was as good a guess as any.

Besides, I know Hell exists. The evidence is all around, every day, rubbed in your face. And the descent into hellbreed territory is the final step that makes a hunter—no, wait. The final step is the return, with your teacher holding the line and the souls of the damned screaming in your ears.

Heaven? Never been there. Unless being in Saul’s arms on a sunny afternoon counts. Which it probably does, if I’m lucky.

If I deserved it. If I pulled this off and saved the weary world for him one more time.

A clatter. Footsteps stamping away. A low, rumbling growl dying out.

“Jill?” Galina, softly. “He’s calmer. Theron and I are taking turns cooking; now he might even eat. I won’t let him out. Are you all right? Is Gilberto okay?”

She was such a gentle soul. My stomach turned over hard. The dogsbody lifted its head, crystalline eyes fixed on the middle distance down Sarvedo Street.

“Gil was fine when I gave him his marching orders. Galina, keep Saul there. I don’t care what you have to do, just keep him safe.”

“I already promised.” Solemn now. “What’s going on? It’s Perry, isn’t it. What’s he doing?”

Taking me apart one piece at a time. And repeating the worst part of modern history, thank you very much. “Something big. Look, I need you to do something for me.”

“Of course.”

The dogsbody slunk closer, still staring down the street. Under the golden wires of its hair, sharply defined muscles moved under black skin. “Start making silverjacket bullets. Get the Sanctuary ready for all the hunters who can reach Santa Luz in the next twenty-four hours. And Galina?”

“What?”

“Do you pray?”

She sounded surprised. “Well, the Order’s quite catholic, in the old sense—”

“Good. Start praying. Maybe it will help.”

29

The warehouse was full of ghosts.

It stood on the wrong side of the tracks, and from the outside it was just another dusty, decaying bit of urban infrastructure. Inside, though, it was space and light and the stamp of Saul’s presence everywhere. It looked just the same as it had the last time I’d been here.

When I’d been preparing to go die.

I’d left the bed tangled and some cupboards open; the huge orange Naugahyde couch with the pretty slipcover Saul had made was dirty; I’d been covered in filth, as usual. Thin blue lines of etheric protection hummed in the walls, fading until I stepped inside, gathering strength from my presence. Dust lay thick over everything, and even though Gilberto or Anya had been out to lock up and keep everything tidy, it still smelled like an abandoned house. Places start to rot very quickly, etherically and physically, once they’re uninhabited. It smelled sour and stale, and that would just about drive Saul nuts. He’d start scrubbing everything he could reach.

My eyes blurred, hot water brimming. I blinked it away. The dogsbody padded behind me, whining softly to itself, and ignoring it wasn’t making it vanish.

Not that I thought it would, but I didn’t have the heart to shoot the damn thing.

Yet.

I strode through the empty rooms of our life together and stepped into the wide, wood-floored sparring room. Mirrored tiles along one side, a ballet barre firmly bolted to them; weapons hanging on the other three. There was one empty spot—a fall of amber silk crushed on the floor, and I don’t know why I was surprised. Of course someone had taken the hunk of pre-Atlantean meteorite iron, with its dragon heads and scythelike blades.

I had a moment’s worth of unease, wondering…but no, the weapon Mikhail had handed down to me couldn’t possibly be called la Lanza de Destino. For one thing, it was too old, and it wasn’t wooden. Anya would have taken it to store in Galina’s vaults.

No windows, but skylights drenching everything with late-afternoon honey, dust motes dancing as the gem gave a hard piercing note, like a crystal wineglass right before it shatters.

My guns leapt free, trained on a column of sunlight. Dust coalesced, a single spark flared white, and he was suddenly there.

I didn’t shoot him. But it was close.

Call-Me-Mike the caretaker regarded me mildly, his blue eyes glowing. The sun picked out fine threads of gold in his no-longer-dishwater hair, and instead of the jumpsuit he wore jeans and a plain white T-shirt. All he needed was a duck’s-ass pompadour and a pack of Lucky Strikes rolled up in his sleeve.

The dogsbody whined and slumped next to me, shivering.

“What the fuck are you?” I’ll admit it, I yelled. The words cracked, bounced back from the mirrors, set the dust swirling in tiny tornados.

Mike shrugged, a loose easy movement. “It’s not important.”

“It is to me.” I didn’t lower the guns. The idea that I could just start shooting every nonhuman or non-Were involved in this whole scenario was wonderfully comforting. I wondered if I had enough ammo. “Perry says hello, brother Michael. He’s planning something for tomorrow night to send the world down the drain. But you know that, don’t you. What was the point of sending me there?”

Mike shrugged, spreading his hands. The light made him insubstantial, just another ghost here with all the dust and the memories. “It was…necessary.”

You son of a bitch. “Was shooting myself in the head necessary too? You’re the Other Side, Perry says. We’re bleeding and dying down here, where the fuck are you? Why are you just showing up now?” My ribs heaved. I didn’t realize I was shouting until the echoes came back, the entire warehouse creaking like a tree in a high breeze. The triggers eased down a millimeter, another. Squeezing off a few rounds would just about start this conversation off right.

Sorrow, then, darkening those blue, blue eyes. Not sterile like Perry’s, a warm summer color. But so terribly sad. “It’s not that simple. I’m bending the rules enough as it is. So much depends on you, and of course…” Another slight movement, hands spread. “Of course I wish I could do more. It…it’s painful, to see such suffering.”

Well, isn’t that big of you. “Wind me up and set me loose, right? Just throw me at the enemy. I’ve been fighting this war for years, and it never gets any better. I’ve been down in the streets trying to hold back the tide. There’s no goddamn hope at all. And you’ve been sitting up at Henderson Hill the entire fucking time, doing fucking nothing, just waiting for…for what? For Perry? Is that it? You’re in cahoots?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He’s part of the Pattern, as you are. As I am. But…there are disturbing signs. He’s…” Another helpless shrug. “Even if I had the words, you wouldn’t understand. I can’t even offer you a dispensation. If you do this—stop Hyperion, save your fellows, and recover the Lance—you will not be rewarded. There is no glory, no recompense.”

A harsh cawing laugh shook its way free of my chest. Well, shit, that’s par for the course. “So why should I bother, huh? Because you brought me back? Is that it?”

“It’s part of the Pattern, but I can’t explain that either. Kismet. Did you really expect to name yourself that and not be called upon?”

It was like talking to Mikhail in one of his vodka-soaked philosophical moods. Baffling, opaque, and frustratingly-familiar enough to drive me to the heavy bag. I searched for something that would wring an answer out of him. I’m used to dealing with hellbreed, where you question them, then you hurt them, then you question them some more.

Something told me that would be a bad idea with this guy, whatever he was. “Perry called you his brother. You’re related?”

Another gentle, rueful smile. “Is a mirror related to the image it holds?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Disgusted, I lowered the guns. I was shaking again, and all I wanted was to lie down and sleep. Next to Saul, if possible. Let the world end, it had been lurching along before I came along to be a hunter just fine.

Focus, Jill! I blinked. A puzzle piece snapped down inside my head. “He needs me for something. La Lanza de Destino, Melendez called it; the only trouble is, there’s several of those floating around. I at least know it’s not the chunk of meteorite Mikhail left me. The important thing is, Perry can’t use it. What does he want it used on?”

Mike nodded, the patient teacher beaming at a recalcitrant but gifted student. “Very good. But your task is simply to strike him down when he has achieved the first half of his purpose. It’s very important, Kismet.”

“So he wants me to do something for him, and you want me to murder him but you won’t tell me exactly why.” The guns lowered slightly. “I’d do it for free, you know. That bastard has gone too far.” And so have you.

The caretaker crouched, suddenly, a fluid movement. I twitched, stopped myself at the last moment.

The dogsbody whined and leaned forward. It glanced up at me, colorless eyes suddenly pleading, and the sickness revolving behind my breastbone rose another notch. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered, suddenly very sure. “The hellhound was chasing him to shut him up. Perry was just cleaning up a loose end.”

“This one has paid for what he’s done.” Michael held out a hand, just touching the edge of the sunlight. Stroking it, the finely drawn border where light met air. “And it’s fitting that he should protect you now, isn’t it?”

God, there’s not much difference between you and a hellbreed, is there. Maybe I should start killing you both. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. What the fuck are you, and why are you here?”

“I came to give you comfort, Kismet.” He cocked his head, glancing up at me. The dogsbody didn’t move, but its shaking slid up my leg. The gem groaned, etheric force thrumming up my arm. “And to explain, as far as I am able, what Hyperion wishes to do.”

“It’s about fucking time.” I lowered the guns, nice and slow. “I’m waiting.”

So he told me, in plain words. And I listened. By the end of it his voice was a brass bell, stroked softly in a forgotten chapel, and I was cold all over. The dogsbody whined even louder, crouching next to me and shivering. The sunlight dimmed, and by the time he finished I was on my knees too, hugging myself, staring at him.

“Saul,” I whispered.

The caretaker was glowing now, his skin burnished and his eyes burning feverishly. My own blue eye ached, piercing the veil of the visible—his outline rippled, eddies and currents passing through the snarled fabric of reality. “Do it for him. Do it for love. Please, Kismet. You are the only one who can.”

“I…” But Saul. I promised him. “I promised.”

“If you will not do this, we are lost.” He shrugged. “The Pattern will right itself in some other way, I suppose. But there will be terrible suffering, not just among those you love. I can only ask, Kismet, Jill, whatever you want to name yourself. You are free to refuse.”

Oh, fuck. “You know I can’t.” Hopeless, pale little words. “You have to know I can’t. That’s not a way out, you know I was made this way. So I can’t turn you down. God made me this way, and don’t you dare fucking tell me He didn’t.”

“Do you believe in such a cruelty?” Michael sighed. “You’re so willing to hurt yourself.” The rippling through him was more pronounced now, bits of him wavering as if under clear, heavy water. Sunlight dimmed further, a cloud drifting between us and heaven’s eye. “Goodbye, beloved.”

Metal clattered somewhere, but my eyes were full of light. Just like that, he was gone. The dogsbody shuddered, pressing against me, and unhealthy heat boiled from its hide. I swallowed several times, and the world spun. When I came back to myself I was hunched over, my forehead against cool hardwood and awful knowledge beating inside my brain.

I was probably going insane. Coming back from the dead will do that to you, I guess. Or maybe this was a different version of Hell, one I’d been extra-special nominated to.

One that felt just like my life.

Get up, little snake. Mikhail, in my memory. Why hadn’t he ever told me about his bargain with Perry? Could he just not find the words? Did he not care enough to…but no.

No.

Mikhail was my teacher. He’d held the line when I made my first trip to the hellbreeds’ home, the one that turned me into a full-fledged hunter and gave me my smart eye. He’d loved me the way only a hunter can love another hunter, right down to the bones and back.

He must have had a reason.

I had my marching orders. Ol’ Blue Eyes had been a busy, busy boy. He was just so helpful, feeding me and giving me weapons, showing up to push me in another direction, poking and prodding.

I made my legs straighten by the simple expedient of cursing at them, levered myself up from the floor.

“They want a sacrificial lamb.” My voice sounded odd. The dogsbody stopped whining and made an inquisitive rrowr sound that might have been funny if it hadn’t been so pathetic. “Boy, are they going to get a surprise.”

30

Dawn found me in a cemetery.

The northern side of Beacon Hill’s lush greenness looked out over the valley, the mountains rising in the distance and the river a bright colorless ribbon as the sky lightened. I sat on the wet grass, sprinklers going overtime in the dark to compensate for the desiccation that would hit later in the day. The water had stopped, thank God, but everything squelched underneath me.

I put my chin on my knees.

The dogsbody slunk closer. It settled down with a sigh, its unhealthy heat steaming in the predawn chill. Around sunrise Santa Luz always smells like metallic sand as the city inhales, filling its lungs from the wasted desert all around, mixing it with exhaust and the effluvia of thousands of people going about their lives.

The gravestone shimmered, polished white rock. I’d dug up Mikhail’s ashes a while ago and had Galina put them in one of her vaults. Still, it was here that I felt his presence most strongly, and it was here I sometimes came to talk to him. Galina’s perfectly polite, but I don’t like having conversations with my dead teacher where other people can hear.

Call me secretive.

I held myself absolutely still. The sky slowly turned gray, stars winking out and a few birds warming up for their morning chorus. What a waste it was to water the ground here. In the first place, water’s a great psychic conductor, and the grief soaking this place echoed in every molecule. And in the second, why not spend some of that water on the living? They needed it more.

The only need of the dead is to sleep unmolested.

You’re kind of sucking at that, aren’t you, Jill. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them. The gravestone was just the same.

Mikhail Illich Tolstoi. Nothing else, not even the years of his tenure on earth. Why bother, when I would remember it and it was in the files? It wouldn’t matter to anyone else. Except maybe Gilberto, when he finished his training.

I wouldn’t be around to see that, would I.

I stirred a little, shifting to relieve muscles threatening to cramp. The dogsbody was still, its weird eyes closed and its breath softly chuffing in and out. Just like a hound, really.

I’d never had a pet.

Are you crazy? This thing’s dangerous. Plus, it’s basically hellbreed, even if Call-Me-Mike did…whatever he did to it. A shiver went through me.

I was stalling.

“Misha.” The word rode a breathy scree of air. “Mish, Misha-Mik, if you’re there, I could use a friendly ear.”

Well, strictly speaking, listening was all he could do, right? He was fucking dead. Passed on. Joined the choir eternal. Had I met him, wherever I’d been after I pulled the trigger and broke my skull open like a pumpkin dropped off an overpass?

If I rubbed under my hair, I only felt the bumps and ridges anyone’s head acquires after a few hard knocks. No shrapnel. Just a tenderness in places, like old bruising. A faint twinge.

“Why?” I whispered, staring at his grave. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a deal with Perry and you needed me to take your place? Why didn’t you tell me about Belisa? Why didn’t you take me with you? Why did you pull me out of that snowbank in the first place? Why me? And Jesus Christ, Misha, why could I come back if you couldn’t? Or is it just that you didn’t want to?”

I go to Valhalla, he’d told me more than once, where fight is like play. Like movie.

I guess that was his idea of a good time.

“Why, Misha? I would’ve done anything you asked. Hell, I would’ve given Perry a lot more to buy you free. I would…” I ran up against the wall of what I would have done, what I’d’ve given if he’d just asked me.

Why hadn’t he?

A while ago, I’d visited Melendez and Chango had deigned to speak to me. It had been a different case—the circus had come to town, and someone was looking for vengeance. Voodoo and hellbreed don’t mix, and I’d been looking to get the whole thing tied up and safely stowed before open warfare broke out and the Cirque was given free rein in my town.

You meatpuppets, Chango had snorted with magnificent disdain. You always got to know why.

“It would sure fucking help,” I muttered, and wiped at my cheeks with callused palms. Why the fuck was I crying? Another why question.

Shit.

“Was it worth it?” That was a new question. I sounded ridiculously young, and I stared at the white blur of the headstone. “Melisande. Belisa. Did you love her? Or were you just looking to get free? Was she worth it? You had me, Misha. Was I not enough?”

Of course I wasn’t enough, never had been. I’d been born without some essential thing everyone else seemed to have. There was an emptiness in me, way down deep, and even if it had been the reason everyone who should have loved me couldn’t, it was what kept me alive long enough to escape. Long enough to survive and meet Mikhail. And even then, I hadn’t been enough.

The only person who shouldn’t have loved me was Saul. And go figure, he did.

At least he’s safe. But if you end up dead again, Jill, what’s that going to do? He’ll starve. He’ll get matesick, he’ll go down. Weres don’t go to Hell, and you know that’s where you’re bound. If there was a heaven you’d’ve seen it by now. Hot water flooded my eyes, trickled down my cheeks. My nose was full. I’d given up wiping my cheeks.

“It’s not fair.” Lo and hallelujah, I was five years old again. “It’s just not fair, God damn you.”

The eastern sky was rosy. The birds burst into song, a great swell of twittering music. It stopped, started again. The hush returned, this time threaded with liquid birdsong. It was funny how noise could be a component of early-morning silence.

I was on my feet before I knew it, steel-shod heels sinking into wet grass and mud. “I should leave it here to rot. All of it. Everything. Including you, Misha. You lied to me.”

By omission, yes. But still a lie. Hunters aren’t supposed to lie to each other. When you’ve been loved so hard that the love turns into a rope that pulls you free of Hell’s cold shifting borders, you can see it in another hunter’s eyes. It’s raw and bloody and it aches, but you can’t lie to someone who’s been loved like that.

Mikhail had loved me. He’d pulled me out of Hell. What if his lie had been a mercy, instead of deceit? Why would he have done that?

Fuck. We’re back to the whys.

I held up one finger. “You loved me.” Another. “So you lied to save me. You couldn’t hold Perry off much longer. But you thought I could.”

A third finger. “Mike. The caretaker. Judas to a hellbreed. He can’t interfere much more than he already has.”

A fourth. “A Lance. And Perry planning a repeat of ’29.”

1929, the Black Year. The year when the hellbreed had opened up multiple doors, and escaped en masse from Hell’s embrace.

Unwilling, I glanced up.

The eastern horizon was a furnace. Caught in the valley, Santa Luz turned over, sighed, and began waking up. The skyscrapers glittered, and for a moment the whole city was open inside my head, the streets that made its arteries and the buildings its bones. The people moving through it, the city’s dream made flesh, but so vulnerable. They had no idea what abyss was yawning under their feet, and every night, even since before Mikhail’s death, I’d been fighting to keep them safe. There was no reward, no prize; few of them even knew my name.

So why did I do it? Why hadn’t I taken Mikhail’s other offer—therapy, education, a way off the streets, my past wiped clear and a fresh chance at life as a civilian? I’d never even considered it.

Because I’d wanted so badly to be worthy of what he’d done when he pulled me out of that snowdrift. Funny, that year it had snowed; I couldn’t remember a single white winter in the time since.

My thumb popped out. “My city.”

My city.

Now I looked at my callused palm and fingers, the lines running across flesh, the bones of my knuckles. My hand curled into a fist, and the gem muttered sleepily against my wrist. When you got right down to it, was it any different from the scar of Perry’s lips on me?

Do it for Saul. Do it for love.

“I can’t.” There it was. “There isn’t enough left in me. You made sure of that. All of you fighting for a piece of me, pushing me around like a rat in a maze. Jesus.”

What did that make me? If I couldn’t do this for love, what did it make me?

Who the fuck cares? I’m going to do it anyway. None of it matters. Except Saul.

Even if he was going to go down after I threw myself into this losing game, at least he’d be going down in a world where he had a chance. Where the hellbreed were checked. Not permanently, that would take a goddamn miracle. But I could keep the world spinning a little longer, and make it a little safer.

It didn’t matter if I was doing it for them, or for myself. At least, I wasn’t going to let it matter.

“I love you,” I told Mikhail’s headstone. For a moment I had a crazed hallucination of my right fist punching, the shock grinding the white stone to powder. I could do it, I was suddenly sure of that. Before, it had been hellbreed-jacked strength. Now the power came from somewhere else, and I didn’t have a clue what I would do if it deserted me. “Mikhail,” I whispered. “I hate you, too.”

I didn’t recognize my own voice. Irrational, sudden fear drilled through me. I hunched my shoulders and waited. One breath. Two.

Nothing happened.

I looked up again at my city. The sun’s limb lifted sleepily from the horizon, swords of gold piercing the sky, and I felt dawn in my bones like the ocean must feel its tides.

Another idea hit me. I actually rocked back on my heels, my brain jolting inside its heavy bonecase. The dogsbody lifted itself up, the imprint of its scorch on wet grass steaming, and shook itself. The flat ears pricked forward, and it stared adoringly up at me. It actually did look like a hound, and even my blue eye could find no trace of Jughead Vanner left in its long lean body.

“Shit,” I breathed. “Shit shit shit. Come on.”

The absurdity of talking to myself on Beacon Hill was enough to make me grin as I spun on my heel and left Mikhail’s glowing headstone behind. The dogsbody loped next to me as my stride lengthened, my coat flapping, and I broke into a run as the day came up like thunder.

31

HUTCHINSON’S BOOKS, USED & RARE, glowed in faded gold leaf on the wide dusty front window. I remembered how proud he’d been when we’d changed the name over from Chatham’s, and how soon the gold leaf had started to look dry and dusty, like it had never been anything else.

He’d left the desktop, and while it booted up I grabbed a couple references from the other part of the store—the climate-controlled bit where he kept a hunter’s library. That library earned him some nice tax breaks and justified me saving his bacon when he was caught hacking something he shouldn’t be. Weedy little Hutch thought he was ten feet tall and bulletproof in cyberspace, and it didn’t help that he was usually right.

I stacked the D’Aventine and Miguel de la Foya on the desk, sweeping aside a clutter of paper and setting a cup of moldering coffee higher up on the file cabinet behind his antique cubbyholed desk. The place was beginning to smell of sharpish rot and neglect, the dust and paper covering the peppery tang of a refugee emergency. I hadn’t given him much time to pack.

I was grateful I’d sent him off, however.

Everyone you love. Every one you cast your eye upon.

Was Perry really that jealous? Or was it just a way to distract me? To keep me running until—

The monitor blinked. I flipped open the D’Aventine, checking the binder that had been right next to it—a laboriously cross-checked index, and an old one. Hutch had bitched endlessly about the old dot-matrix even after he’d gone through two new laser printers by now, the same way old ladies complain about beaus who jilted them in youth. I’d learned to just make another pot of coffee when he started in on that.

I wrote down page numbers and checked the de la Foya and the Scribus Aeternum, tapping a pencil while I scanned. I checked Kelley’s Habits of the Damned and Carré’s The Outbreak of 1929: Its Causes and Effects. Also, Hartmann’s Catholic Myths and Artur Fountaine’s La guerre d’Inferne.

I knew what I was looking for. Confirmation and explication instead of a needle in a haystack. Still, I came up empty. Nothing about a particular Spear of Destiny that would fit the bill, and nothing about Perry even in Carré, who was generally held to be the authority on ’29. Even if he was a terrible writer, he was pretty much always dead-on.

The constellation of intangibles that made the Outbreak possible—astronomical and astrological energies aligned to weaken the walls between the Visible and the other worlds, the Infernals collecting Talismans used to power the Portals in different locations, the carefully nurtured scurf infestations and overheated economy—were monstrous enough. Some Infernals have admitted there was a Leader who forced an alliance long enough for the portals to be achieved synchronously on different continents; there are even whispers of a full-blown hellmouth that stood for hours, admitting a flood of Infernals to our helpless world—

He goes on for pages, refusing to speculate further but giving tantalizing hints, reporting rumors and in the next breath reminding the reader to rely only on the things that can be verified. The trouble is, ’breed don’t like appearing in the historical record. Carré had been a researcher much like Hutch; he’d disappeared in 1942. The hunter he’d been attached to—Simon Saint-Just—had also gone missing.

It had not been a good time to be a hunter in Europe. Hell, things had been bad all over, and it wasn’t until the mid-sixties that we got some sort of handle on things.

A hellmouth. A full-blown hellmouth, instead of the barriers between here and the hellbreed home gapping for just an instant to let a single monster through. Perry certainly didn’t dream small, and if it had happened once before, it could be done again.

A Leader who forced an alliance…What had Perry said to me, more than once?

I cannot hold back the tide forever. I’d stopped one of his bosses from coming through twice now. Or more precisely, Belisa had stopped him last time, before I’d shot her.

And damned myself.

Each time, the big bad boss had been struggling to step through a fractional gap, sliding into the fleshly world. That was bad enough. A full-blown hellmouth—a passageway to Hell held open for God knows how long—was going to be exponentially worse.

How’s he going to power it? Ten to one says this Lanza del Destino. Major Talismans of a certain type can power a hellmouth for a while, but I can’t think of a Spear that applies. I sighed, rolled my head back on my sore, aching neck. The dogsbody dozed near the front door, seeming content just to lay there.

Was I going to have to feed it soon? Did they stock hellbreed dog chow at the supermarket? I wondered briefly if that was tax-deductible and closed Carré with a snap. Hutch was going to have a fit if I didn’t reshelve everything.

Well, if he has one, it’ll mean I’m around to see it. That’d be nice. I considered the screensaver for a moment—pictures of cats with weird captions, shuffling by in random order. It vanished as soon as I tapped the space key.

“Okay,” I said to the dusty silence. The air conditioner kicked on, cool air soughing through the store and Hutch’s silent, dark apartment upstairs. “Let’s hope digital is better than analog for this, huh?”

It took me two hours of hunt-and-pecking and cross-referencing, broken only by a trip upstairs to make some coffee. Hutch’s fridge was unhappy in the extreme, so I left it closed after grabbing the canister of espresso-ground. I considered taking the garbage out, but one peek under the sink convinced me it was best left to itself. I was trying to stop a catastrophe here, not playing Molly Maid.

Halfway through that pot of java, I leaned toward the computer screen. I’d finally signed into Hutch’s remote worktop, seeing what he’d pulled up recently. It was eerie that I could see what he’d last been looking at and when—he’d been up late last night, not going to bed until near dawn. I would’ve been on Beacon Hill by then.

All excited about a woodcut, Devi had said. There were plenty of files in the image folder, I started going through them methodically. They bloomed over the expensive flatscreen monitor, and most of them were Perry.

Bingo.

Here Perry was caught by a telephoto lens, a black-and-white of him getting out of a car on a city street. The back of the photo, part of the same image file, held Mikhail’s spiky backward-leaning script: 1969, Buenos Aires. Another, this one in glaring color, clipped from a newspaper archive, all about new management at the Monde Nuit, decades later.

I stared at the date.

It was right after Mikhail had pulled me out of the snow. I shook my head, silver chiming in my hair. Huh.

Another black-and-white, Perry leaning against a bar and smiling, white fedora pushed back on his head, his shark smile showing up in the mirror between gleaming bottles. Berlin, 1934. Back when the first Jack Karma was working Germany. That was pretty much the first mention of him I’d ever been able to dig up.

I found the woodcut just as another scalding cup of coffee was going down. Mid-sixteenth century, originally from Bremen, now part of a museum collection. Thick black inked lines; the carver had been a genius. It was small as such things went, but exquisitely detailed—two cavorting figures under a full moon, facing a tall thin man in a long dark coat, his broadsword slanting up and flames running along its edge. He was unquestionably a hunter, and a long thin casket lay on the ground behind him. The title was Der Schutz der ersten Spear, and an electric bolt shot through me.

The two attackers leered. One of them was unquestionably the late and unlamented piebald Halis, floppy hair and all, claws and teeth bared.

The other was Perry, a spot of white in the woodcut’s florid lines, a slim orchid.

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” I whispered. “I’ve got you now.”

Only I didn’t. It took most of the afternoon before I had him, and when I did I was sweating, my teeth were chattering, and Hutch had run out of coffee.

32

I dialed Galina, but she didn’t pick up. Which was odd.

I paged Anya from Hutch’s shop too, but there was no answer. Of course, she was probably in the barrio, trying to get the Weres to safety. I dialed my own answering service, but it just rang endlessly. I even tried ringing Monty, but after getting his voice mail for the fifth time I just hung up.

From not remembering a single damn thing, I’d gone to being able to pull phone numbers out like I was shuffling through a card file. It was a goddamn pity nobody was listening, and the sun was past its apogee. The shadows were lengthening, and the dogsbody was nervous. At least, he looked nervous, pacing back and forth in front of the shop door, muscles rippling under blond hair. Whining while I dialed and dialed, getting no response.

“Galina should be picking up,” I muttered. “What the fuck?”

He couldn’t give me any reply, black-skinned ears fuzzed with blond fur laid flat against his ungainly head. Just that grumble, deep in his throat, spiraling up to an inquisitive at the end. I was still sweating, every nerve in me jumping and frayed raw.

“Fuck! ” I finally snarled, and slammed the phone down. Just then, someone tapped on the glass, and the dogsbody growled, deep and low.

I stalked between bookcases, my hand on a gun, peered at the dusty window.

He tapped again. I almost fell over myself unlocking the door, grabbed his collar, and dragged him in. “What the hell are you—”

Gilberto’s sides heaved. His face was painted with bright blood, and he was shaking. For all that, his dark eyes were alight, no longer flat and dead, and he looked completely, fully alive.

“Mala suerte,” he gasped. “Mala fuckin’ suerte, chingada. Melendez, he prolly dead.”

I locked the door and dragged him further into the shop. The air-conditioning soughed on again, and I smelled burned coffee and the flat copper tang of human fear and blood over the dust and paper.

I propped him against a bookcase in the Classics section and took a deep breath. “Why aren’t you at Galina’s, then? That’s where you were supposed to—”

“Been there.” He closed his eyes, gulping down air. “Chingada, mi profesora, the whole place burning.”

“Burning? A Sanctuary?” I stared at him like he’d gone mad.

“Barrio too. City’s rollin’ like Saturday night. Estamos corriendo en la chingada, mi profesora, we are fucked for sure. Was el Rubio at Melendez’s. Old man tole me run, tole me you’d be here. Almost din’t make it out.” He was gaining his breath rapidly, eyelids fluttering. “Ran for Lina’s, but it was on fire. Crawling with ’breed. Hopped away. Had to steal a horse.”

Considering what he was telling me, I didn’t even want to take him to task for minor auto theft. “Galina’s shop was burning? The whole thing?”

“Blue flames, profesora. Screamin’.” He’d regained his breath by now. “Whole goddamn thing. Looked bad.”

Saul. Everything inside me turned over hard. Oh, God. Saul.

But Galina had the vaults. It would be simple for her to just get everyone downstairs and rebuild. Blue flames, though. And whoever heard of someone burning down a Sanctuary? It would take the equivalent of a sorcerous nuke to do it. Not worth the trouble when they could just rebuild like a tree growing in fast-forward…

“The fire. Blue. Hellfire, Gil?”

“Looked like. Listen, I ain’t sure I’m clear—”

Meaning he wasn’t sure if hellbreed had followed him. “It’s nice of you to be worried. Don’t be.” The machine inside my head clicked on, calculating, assessing, weighing. “It’ll take more than that to keep Galina down.” He wants her incommunicado. It was the only explanation. And without Galina to hold messages and ammo, Anya and I were looking at some difficulty. “Go upstairs. Bathroom’s second door on the left, grab the first-aid kit and wash the blood off. Then come down here, be ready to roll.”

“Si.” He took off down the hall with enviable speed. Guess the young bounce back quick. And it was probably a relief to have someone giving him orders so he could just put his head down and do.

I remembered that feeling from my own apprentice days.

I peered out the front window, surveying the street. The shadows were clustering, the sky hot blue and cloudless. All the same, static electricity prickled under my skin.

“Fuck,” I said, stupidly, under my breath. Like it was a secret. “Der ersten Spear.” The Prime Spear. The first spear-shaped Talisman. “Perry, you son of a bitch.”

Well, Jill, what did you expect? He’s been planning this for decades.

Another thought hit me, so suddenly I actually jerked and a half-amazed laugh burst out of me. “Of course. It’s Black Thursday, all over again.”

The dogsbody made a short barking sound, like it was echoing my laughter. Outside, the shadows sizzled, and several of them lengthened. I didn’t like the way they were creeping toward the store, the world behind them warping into a colorless fuming wasteland. The blue of the sky was lensed with smoke now, and I snapped my fingers at the dogsbody. Its ears perked again.

“Come on, you. Guess we’re not letting Gil come back down after all.”

“Where we goin’?” Gil yelled, clutching the bandage to his upper arm. His torn sleeve flapped in the wind roaring through the broken windows, I slewed the wheel to the right and shot us through a red light with half a foot to spare, ignoring the blare of a horn from a semi and nudging us over into the left lane. Oncoming traffic was a bitch, but the tingle of intuition running along my nerves told me left was the way to play this part of our run.

I’ve never been in an accident. Basic precognition is good for something. Besides, the rush of traffic might slow down pursuit.

It was nice to be behind the wheel again. Sort of.

“Sacred Grace!” I yelled back. The blue Nissan didn’t have much pickup, but it was maneuverable, and that counts for a lot. Still, it was making a knocking noise I didn’t much like, and if I sent it over another few railroad tracks at high speed the tires weren’t going to be happy. “Where’d you get this car from, anyway?”

“My cousin!” Thin blue lines of healing sorcery crawled under the bandage on his arm, knitting flesh together. He was armed, too, and grinning so widely I could see his fillings. “Discount por la familia! Got it cheap!”

“Next time tell him to sell you American, for Christ’s sake!” I twisted the wheel again, we skidded around a corner, I feathered the brake and stamped the accelerator and we were off again. Gunfire erupted behind us, perilously close to our tires. They probably don’t know I’m driving. Perry needs me to make his little plan work. Or was he lying about that, too?

“Why we goin to church, eh?” Gilberto had a 9mm out, sunlight sparking viciously off its edges. “Father Gui owe you money?”

He owes me a lot more than that. “He’s got something Perry wants!” I yelled. “Now shut up and put that thing away!”

He whooped as we smoked into a turn at the north end of Salvador Avenue, near Jordan’s headshop. I hoped to hell she was under cover. Gil’s pulse was jackhammering, but I didn’t have the breath or time to get on him to calm it. The dogsbody was flattened in the backseat, and if it was making any noise I couldn’t tell. A thundering pop and the car slewed wildly, of course we’d lost a tire, it was the way these things went. I hit another corner, floored it, ignored the grinding, wished it was a stick instead of automatic for the fiftieth time, and realized I was cursing steadily, a song of obscenities as familiar as breath. Tendons stood out on the backs of my hands as I fought the steering, forcing the car to do what I wanted as it bucked and shuddered.

We cleared the curb with a bump and soared, hit the steps and the car teetered for a long moment. “No no no no no—,” I chanted, willing it to stay upright, and we thudded back down, listing terribly. I’d bought us a few seconds. “Inside! ” I barked. “Move your ass!”

Gil was already bailing. The dogsbody wriggled out through the back window and I covered them, skipping backward up the stairs as the shadows down the street warped. Bullets chipped and plowed up the steps behind me, Gil hit the doors like a bomb and the dogsbody leapt, its claws scratching on stone. I flung myself back and Gil kicked the door again, neatest trick of the week, slamming it shut. The lock was broken, deadbolt wrenched free, I bounced up and swept the church’s interior with both guns.

Sacred space, won’t hold them for long though. Not when they’re this motivated. “Gui! ” I yelled, a harsh cawing in the sudden gloom. “Guillermo! Rosas? Ignacio?”

“Dios,” Gilberto breathed, and crossed himself. My eyes finished adjusting, and I let out a short frustrated sound. The dogsbody shivered, hunching next to me, steam drifting from its blondness.

The priests had taken refuge here, instead of the chapel attached to the school. This late in the day, maybe they’d sent the kids home. I hoped they had. Their rooms—they still called them cells, a sort of monastic joke—in the parsonage building would be empty too. Here was safest.

Only it hadn’t turned out to be safe after all. Not when the forces of Hell were this goddamn enthusiastic.

Old thin Ignacio was in the middle of a jumble of broken pews, his body contorted into an enthusiastic backbend. The new redheaded one, Father Blake, had died near the confessional, and the arterial spray had even reached the racks of candles lit for sinners and prayers. Every inch of stained glass was covered with a thick layer of soot, and the pews—all terribly jumbled and splintered—were scorched.

Fat jolly Rosas, who had never liked me, was on the steps to the altar. He’d been flung over the crucifix, his guts spread in a tangle of gray loops and whorls. The crucifix itself had been torn down and mutilated, and in its place was nailed…

Bile burned my throat.

Gilberto was whispering. “Aunque pase por el valle de sombra de muerte, no temeré mal alguno. Porque Tú estás conmigo.” He took two steps to the side, leaned over, and heaved.

“La primera Lanza was here all the time.” I sounded like I’d been punched. “For years.”

A long time ago, there had been a case involving a firestrike spear. Guillermo had lied to me then, but he’d been protecting an even bigger secret. I can’t let you break your oath, Rosas had told him, and relations between me and the boys of Sacred Grace had been decidedly chilly ever since. I never played basketball with sleek dark Guillermo anymore, and we kept the exorcisms strictly business.

The altar had been torn to bits, something wrenched from its depths. Of course, hide one of the most powerful Talismans on earth in plain sight. That had probably been Rosas’s idea. My boots slipped in the blood and foulness on the steps. The stench of a battlefield was overpowering. No matter how many times you smell death, it never gets usual. It never becomes routine.

Rosas’s face was twisted in horror. He’d died in a bad way. Not so jolly now, fat man. From the way he’d been flung, he’d probably been trying to protect Gui, buy him enough time to reach the altar and the artifact inside.

The very thing Perry was after.

It has been in my keeping all this time.

The case had also involved a wendigo and the Sorrows. Now I remembered that Perry had shown up during the hunt with the firestrike—the only weapon capable of killing the goddamn thing the Sorrows had been using to hunt me. I’d only had Perry’s word that he’d gotten the firestrike from Sacred Grace. He’d told Saul as much, and since Saul had told me I’d taken it as truth.

Perry could not have stepped on this consecrated ground, could he? No. But he had been up to his eyebrows in that case, with Melisande Belisa, and neatly misdirected me. Never assume is the rule when it came to hellbreed, and it had been only a small mistake on my part. A tiny link in the chain, but enough.

Not to mention Perry had planted distrust between me and Father Gui. Which must have warmed his cold, dead hellbreed heart all the way through. If I hadn’t assumed the firestrike was what the priests were hiding, I would have come back and torn the whole place apart until I found everything—and the Spear they had been hiding all along would have ended up in Galina’s vaults, where Perry couldn’t lay his hands on it ever, world without end, amen.

It was all so simple, now. Somehow Perry had gotten wind of the Spear, hidden out here in the middle of nowhere. The other thing he needed was a hunter to wield it. I’d assumed the firestrike had been what Sacred Grace had been hiding, and relations between me and the priests had been decidedly frosty ever since. It was a pity, because Gui probably would have eventually told me, vow of secrecy or not.

We were, after all, friends. Or we had been. Had he wanted to tell me, any of those times he tried to talk to me and I ignored him, keeping the conversation to the exorcism at hand? Had the secret been burning in him all this time?

It didn’t matter now. With the Spear right where Perry could keep an eye on it, all he had to do was wait for me to damn myself. He’d waited years.

And all that time I’d been oblivious.

Never assume, milaya. Is shortest way to get ass blown sideways.

“FUCK! ” I screamed, and the word hit the walls, richocheting back to sting me. Gilberto crossed himself again, reflexively.

Little creaks and cracklings ran through the church walls. The building groaned, etheric contamination spreading as the murder and hatred boiled. Wait. Wait just a second. Hellbreed can’t touch it, and the ground’s sanctified. So he sent Traders to open up the way and contaminate. What do you want to bet some of them are still here? “Gil. Behind me.”

He moved immediately, thank God. “You see something, bruja?”

“Listen.” I kept both guns loosely pointed down. “They’re still in the building, or at least, some of them are. Nine o’clock, there’s a door. Move toward it, nice and easy.”

The dogsbody growled and looked up, a quick inquiring movement. “Hey,” I said, and its ear flicked at me. “Go with Gil. Protect him.”

The hound shook its narrow head, then padded toward my apprentice. Well, there’s that, at least. “Gil. Get out of here, go—”

Now we hit the stubbornness, at the worst possible time. “Ain’t leavin you, profesora.”

I would have kicked his ass for it, but the choir loft exploded and the church was suddenly full of hellbreed, its walls shuddering at the violation. A century of blessing and sacred belief rose to push the intruders out, but it was damaged now. The Traders had broken it with murder and suffering, and theft.

The blessing, crackling fine lines of blue, beat ineffectually at the damned as they swarmed. They hissed, jaws distending, their beauty sliding aside, and every single one of them was ’breed instead of Trader. Fast, brutal, and harder to kill. There were at least a dozen of them. They didn’t look like they cared very much that Perry supposedly wanted me alive.

This is not going to end well.

33

Father Gui’s body hit the altar with a meaty thump. I followed, blood slicking my lips and the knife sinking in past a hard hellbreed shell, twisting through the suction of unholy muscle. We slid down the wall, the gem singing in my wrist as it pumped etheric force through me, every muscle cramping and my breath a harsh ratcheting as I swore, again, obscenities interweaving with a chanted prayer in bastard Latin. The ’breed exhaled foulness in my face, but he was already dying, thin cracks of dusty corruption racing through his skin as the silver’s poison spread.

Gilberto screamed, a high breaking note of rage, and fired again. The dogsbody made another one of those wrenching guttural noises, and my boots jolted down. I heaved the rotting body away, it fell on Gui’s wracked and lifeless frame with a wet splorch.

Sorry, padre. Wish we could shoot some hoops instead. The dogsbody hunched, snarling, and I crashed into the ’breed crouching in front of my whey-faced apprentice. He was giving a good account of himself, but it was only a matter of time. The ’breed went down in a heap; I cut its throat with one swift motion and the dogsbody was on it too, jaws crunching with sickening finality. The ’breed exploded in a shower of brackish fluid, dust spilling from its veins, and I rose from the tangle, spinning the knife. “Come on!” I yelled, the knife sliding back into its sheath, and we were out the door before more of our pursuers decided to chance the inside of the church. The murder would echo here for a long time, eating further at the blessing in the walls until someone could get out here to clean it up.

I might even be the one cleaning, if I survived this.

“Need transport!” Gil yelled.

Well, at least he was thinking. “Don’t worry!” We pounded down the hall, smell of chalk and incense, vestments hung on one side and the wine cabinet locked behind gilt-edged froufrou, my coat snapping and the silver in my hair buzzing and spitting blue sparks. It was dark in here, the lights flickering and buzzing. The sharp-edged charms Perry had given me were heavy, twitching as if alive. “Gonna have to steal a car!”

“Aw, chica.” Gilberto coughed rackingly. He was keeping up so far, but soon his strength would start to flag. There was only so much healing sorcery could do, and both I and the dogsbody were moving with eerie speed. “You a real role model.”

“Bite me, kiddo.” Our footsteps sounded like one runner, until I left the ground in a leap that blew the outside door clean off its hinges. I rode it down, guns out, and swept as a howl went up.

The sun was low in the west, not setting yet but damn close, and clouds were boiling over what had been a blue vault. Greenyellow stormlight filled the alley; there was a basketball hoop bolted above the one-car garage at the dead end. The garage door was open, and I didn’t have time to remember playing horse with Father Gui as an apprentice, both of us talking smack and the priest’s three-pointers marvels of accuracy. He crossed himself after each one. Misha would be drinking a beer and watching, occasionally catcalling a point of advice that was of no earthly use whatsoever as Father Rosas sat next to him in a sagging lawn chair and glowered disapprovingly.

No, no time to think about it and feel the rage or the grief, because there was a car backed into the garage, pointed out at the alley. It was the church’s only vehicle, the ancient Cadillac Ignacio had picked up for a song and I’d rebuilt and cherried out, long ago in the dim time after Mikhail’s death. No time to remember working on it, Ignacio handing me tools and Gui asking me soft questions about what this or that part of the engine did. “Get in! ” I yelled; there were lean shapes at the alley’s mouth.

The key was in the ignition, and it reeked of Ignacio’s cigars. Gil was coughing, gone cheesy-pale in a way I didn’t like at all, and the dogsbody growled as the tools hung on pegboards chattered, the entire garage rocking like a ship in a storm as the church tolled its distress.

The shapes at the end of the alley were hellhounds, their eyes full of venomous, greenish glow. I twisted the key and was rewarded with a throbbing purr. The old girl still remembered me. “This is a car!” I barked. “This is the kind of car you steal, Gil! Good old American heavy metal!”

He slumped in the seat, but his quick brown fingers were busy reloading. “They don’ look happy, bruja.” Another cough, but I’d snapped the parking brake and dropped it into gear. I floored it and the Caddy leapt forward like it had never intended to stay still.

“Fuck them!” I yelled, and we hit the massed bodies at the end of the alley with a crunch. The Caddy snarled, the dogsbody let out a yowl, and we were through as the sky muttered with thunder.

“Where we goin’?” Gilberto grabbed for his window, rolling it up, and I had a mad desire to flick on the air-conditioning.

Shit if I know, kid. But it hit me like lightning, Melendez’s mouth shaping a spirit’s words, and understanding broke through me like water through a bombed dam. It could have been intuition, or the gem in my wrist suddenly singing in a language I understood, or just the most insane option at this point. But as soon as it occurred to me, I knew it was right.

The speedometer’s needle popped up past sixty and I stood on the brake, twisting into a bootlegger’s turn, fishtailing as hellhounds boiled out of the shadows, their hides leprous with steam in the scabbed light. They closed around us like a wave, running, their obsidian-chip teeth champing between gobbets of poisonous foam, and Gilberto let out a short miserable cry as he realized they were herding us.

“Gonna play some baseball, Gil. It’s the World Series, and I’m on call.” My breath came in heaving gasps, and my cheeks were wet. The world was doing funny things seen through my left eye, jumping and twitching as the strings under the fleshly curtain were plucked and torn. “Listen carefully, and don’t argue.”