Heaven's Spite

28

The sky had cleared, bright diamond points of stars glaring through the bowl of night.

The warehouse was echoingly empty. The Weres had cleaned up and restocked the fridge. The food probably wouldn’t go bad—they’d gather here afterward for Saul, if I succeeded.

Not if, Jill. When. You’re just damned, not out. But then I would move, and the leather cuff on my right wrist would rub against the blackened scar. A jolt of sick pain would go through me, and I would almost flinch.

I walked from room to room, stashing ammo, touching things. I’d never noticed how bare and drafty the entire place had looked before Saul moved in. The weapons and the clothes were mine. Everything else… well.

The sheets were still tangled from the last time we’d rolled out of bed to catch Trevor Watling. Saul had slipcovered the old orange Naugahyde couch in pale linen, stocked the kitchen with cooking gadgets, arranged little things on shelves and even hung an ailing wandering Jew up in the living room, in a fantastically knotted macramé holder complete with orange beads and the faint smell of reefer—a thrift-store find he’d been so proud of. The laundry room was arranged the way he liked it, the detergent within easy reach and the eight different kinds of fabric softener sheets ranked neatly on top of the dryer.

Everywhere I looked, there was something he’d touched. I opened the kitchen cabinets, ran my knuckles over the fridge’s cool white glow. The dishwasher had finished running, and it was full. The drying rack was full of the last load of pots and pans from breakfast, not arranged the way he would have, but still.

I filled up on ammo. Loaded a couple more clips. Considering writing a note. Decided it was a cliché. Anya would piece it together, one way or another.

Before I left, I stood for a long time in our bedroom door, looking at the peaks and valleys of the sheets and thin blankets. He ran warm, and I never needed much in the way of covers. We slept during the day, the bed set out in the middle of the floor so I could see anything creeping up on me.

The low hurt sound I was making shocked me back into myself. There were still other things to do. I’d just meant to come here to get some ammo, and…

The Eye twitched on my chest, a tiny dissatisfied movement. I wiped my cheeks and touched it with a tentative, tear-wet finger. No crackle of electricity. It wasn’t going to get rid of me just yet.

But under the cuff, the blue veining was spreading from the blackened lip print. Up my arm, in tiny increments.

“God,” I whispered. “You bastard.”

I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Mikhail? Perry? God Himself?

I didn’t have nearly enough time with him.

But I couldn’t bitch about it. There was nobody else to blame. I’d damned myself.

The clock next to the bed showed the time in pitiless little red numbers. My car was dead, and I had to get to Via Dolorosa. I ached all over, healing sorcery crackling through me in little blue threads. It didn’t burn like banefire, but it was probably only a matter of time.

Only human strength and healing.

It would have to be enough.

I made sure I had enough ammo. Stalked into the weapons room, stared at the long slim shape under its fall of amber silk. I couldn’t take the spear—it was just asking for trouble. The sunsword might help, but one look at me and Galina would know there was something wrong. Plus, why drag more trouble to her door? She and Hutch were safe, and that was where I wanted them.

After all, I’d sucked at protecting Gil and Saul. Now every innocent in my city was going to be at risk. Perry had to have more of a plan, and without me to keep him in check…

Goddammit. There isn’t any way out. There hasn’t ever been.

I couldn’t even blame God. I’d done it.

I came back to myself with a jolt. The clock read five minutes later. I’d just checked out, like a CD skip.

Can’t afford to do that. Something left to do, Jill. Then you know what’s going to happen.

I turned on one steel-shod heel. My coat flared out. I realized I was running my fingers over gun butts, checking each knife hilt, my hands roaming over my body like I was in a music video or something. I dropped them with an effort just as my pager went off.

I fished it out, gingerly. It was Badger again.

She could wait. Dawn was coming soon.

The cab let me off at the end of the Wailer Bridge, made a neat three-point, and drove away maybe a little faster than was necessary. The driver wasn’t Paloulian—it was a big, thick good ol’ boy in a flannel shirt and greasy jeans, with a ponytail under his bald spot and the radio tuned to AM talk.

It just goes to show you can get a cab to anywhere, even Hell. If you know how.

The eastern horizon was paling, scudding clouds over the mountains breaking up in cottony streamers. A faint glow of pink showed where the sun would crown and push itself up.

A long, long night was ending.

The bridge is a concrete monstrosity with high gothic pillars, built during the big public works binge of the thirties to try and keep Santa Luz from bleeding to death. Every once in a while someone would make noise about renovation, and about whose job it was anyway to pay for said renovation, and on and on. Then there would be a big public outcry about the homeless who lived under the bridge’s glower on the river’s banks, especially the ones you could see trudging over every morning, heading for downtown. They shuffled like the hopeless, and sometimes one of them would go over the side and into the water’s uncaring embrace.

They were mine just like everyone else in Santa Luz. There were predators even here, and I’d chased cases over on this side of the river before.

Today, though, the Wailer stood empty. There wasn’t even a stream of traffic for the industrial park and docks on the other side. I kept thinking that someday they were going to zone in some residential and spread up into the canyons like Los Angeles. But no, why do that and worry about landslides during spring downpours when you had the rest of the desert stretching away from the river’s artery to fill up? There were a couple retreat mansions up there, mostly people with more money than sense, but nothing else.

Four lanes. A yellow line down the middle. The city really needed some dividers out here, but they were engaged with a running fight with county over who was going to pay for that. It’s the oldest story of bureaucracy—who’s going to foot the bill?

Except I knew who was going to be paying on this bridge today. It was yours truly.

I went slowly, looking for traps. Nothing on this side of the bridge, but it made an odd sound—humming a little, as if it was cables instead of concrete. The water underneath, and the rebar inside, would make it an excellent psychic conductor.

I stopped halfway, scanning with every sense I owned. Having the scar gone was like being blind; I hadn’t realized how much I depended on hyperacute senses and jacked-up healing. I was back to being an ordinary hunter—about as far away from a normal person as possible, but still. I was used to so much more.

Nothing. Even my blue eye was oddly clouded.

The wind came off the river, ruffling my hair. I wondered what would happen when the silver started to burn my skin.

You’ve got a while, Jill. Use it.

This could have been just another ploy. But I didn’t think it was. The glyph on the letter, tucked safely in one of my pockets, had to be Perry’s name in their language. Or another lie—maybe Julius’s. Perry had neatly double-crossed Julius as well. That’s the thing about ’breed—they can’t even trust each other.

What, after all, do you think Hell is?

The image of Belisa’s body, slumped in front of the altar under a pall of bruise-dark Chaldean, rose up in front of me in vivid detail. I could have counted each of her tangled dark hairs and named every bruise and cut. Memory is a curse.

I’d known as soon as I fired that I’d done something wrong.

What the—

I whirled. Footsteps. Lots of them, and the sky was darker than it had any right to be. Dawn wasn’t far off—but the closer to dawn, the harder the fight. And if what I was hearing wasn’t just a trick of sound bouncing off the waters, I was in even deeper shit.

They massed at either end of the bridge. Hellbreed and Traders, a crowd of them. Bright eyes, painted lips, curve of hips and glimmer of dewy skin, the beauty of the damned on display. On the city side of the river, shapes appeared. I had to blink a couple times before they resolved into a coherent picture behind my eyes.

Crosses. They were carrying two twelve-foot crosses. A slight figure on one, a heavier male figure with silver in his hair in the other. My blue eye turned hot and dry, and I did not let out the breath I was holding until I could focus… and saw the glow of living creatures around both of them.

Gilberto slumped against whatever was holding him to the rough wood. Saul’s head was down, his hair hanging. I saw lashings, instead of nails. They were only tied to the things.

The mockery made my stomach turn over hard. I swallowed hard, and almost wished I hadn’t.

The Talisman made a low angry noise against my chest. A curl of smoke drifted up, tickled my nose. I eased my right-hand gun out. My hand might cramp up again if Perry wanted to play a little game, but I still had my left. Which closed around the bullwhip’s handle, and I set my feet against the bridge’s surface.

If a semi comes along, it’s going to ruin this lovely picture. All of them coming out to see the hunter get hers. They’re going to enjoy this.

“Behold!” someone screamed from above. I snapped a glance up—hellbreed, crawling on the bridge. Like maggots in a wound, seething. Except maggots actually did something useful by cleaning up dead flesh. “The sacrifice!”

Oh, honey, if you’re talking about me, you’d best be warned. I’m not a good sacrifice. I tend to stick in the craw when you try to eat me. I bit back a murderous, contemptuous little laugh. The world narrowed down, became basic.

The only thing that mattered was getting Gilberto and Saul off those crosses. Saul might still be able to run, Gilberto was a chancier proposition, but either of them would stand a better chance if I could somehow get them free.

Where are you, you son of a bitch?

The scar crunched with sick pain, all the way down my cramping fingers. I blew out between my teeth.

There was Perry in a pale linen suit, capering in front of the mob of hellbreed on the city side. His legs moving in ways no biped’s should, he cracked his heels together and danced. The throng of ’breed and Traders were humming, a weird subsonic note with the squealing groan of Helletöng underneath it, rubbing against the fabric of the physical until it frayed.

They were about to bring the crosses onto the bridge. Some of them were dancing too, little jig steps. Behind Perry, to his left, Rutger minced. I could even hear the tip-tapping of his ridiculous shoes against the road.

So, Rutger had been playing according to Perry’s dictates all along. Color me unsurprised.

“Thou Who has given me to fight evil,” I whispered, my lips barely shaping the words, “keep me from harm.”

It was useless, just like everything else.

Now, Jill. Do some good.

I launched myself toward death. Without the scar’s eerie stuttering speed, but still—I was hunter enough to move pretty damn fast. My heels struck sparks as my stride lengthened, and a cry went up from the hellbreed on the mountain side of the bridge. The entire structure reverberated, and the Talisman warmed against my skin. Like a lover’s hand, fingers trailing down between my breasts.

I needed my breath for running, but I heard a cry of rising effort anyway. It was too high to be male, and it echoed oddly. The crowd broke, streaming past Perry and leaping for me. The crosses dipped crazily, and I suddenly understood they were going to throw my Were and apprentice over the side just to be assholes.

Well, it wasn’t surprising. It even had a kind of mad hellish poetry to it, just what you’d expect from Perry.

The scar was dead, but I pulled on it anyway. A thin trickle of etheric force slid through it, a wire of nasty heat up my arm. Perry stopped in mid-caper, his eyes blazing infernos. The thing that wore his human shell rippled through pale skin, and his grin was a shark’s.

Gunfire. But I hadn’t shot anyone yet. I was still just out of optimal range, and—

There was a commotion behind the screen of ’breed and Traders. Then the screaming started, and I was within range. I leapt as I reached the first of them, my own gun speaking. Howls and screams lifted—that’s one thing about facing a crowd of Hell’s citizens.

You don’t have to watch where you shoot as much. And with the only two people who mattered to me up on the crosses, I didn’t have to worry about hitting them.

My right hand seized up, the scar fighting for control. I could feel it, thin little tendrils of corruption yanking on muscles and nerves. But nightly murder will make shooting more than a habit. It will burn it so deep into your hands you don’t have to think—if you’re breathing you’re fighting, and the scar wasn’t deep enough yet to reach that yet.

It was a losing fight. But then, it always was. The tide of Hell is so broad, so deep, we can’t hope to do more than hold it a little while.

I cannot hold back the tide forever. Another misdirection, a good one because it held the seed of truth. Perry hadn’t wanted Argoth to come through and come gunning for me. He just wanted me to damn myself, and he’d worked it so I could. It had taken him years, but he’d done it.

The entire bridge shuddered, and I heard something familiar. Very familiar. When Anya fights, she cusses almost as much as I do. I saw her, breaking through the hellbreed like an avenging angel, firing with both hands and moving inhumanly fast. Hunter-fast, as fast as I was moving now.

Behind her, there was a roil of struggling figures. Weres, more than I’d ever seen in one place before. They were swarming the Traders and trying like hell to stay out of the way of the ’breed. The ’breed were concentrating on Anya, but she was giving them so much trouble it was going to take a while.

And up on the top of one of the crosses, Saul raised his silver-starred head.