Night Shift

Chapter Nine

Avery clasped the bag of ice to his face. "Don't say a word," he groaned, leaning back in his chair. "Not one single fucking word, Kiss. I'm warning you."

I hunched my aching shoulders, bracing my elbows on my knees as I inhaled, exhaled, dangling the bottle of beer in my right hand. "I'm not saying anything, Avery." My wrist burned, I'd pulled a hell of a lot of etheric force through the scar. "I'm not even thinking it."

"Liar." His leg was tightly bandaged, his throat bruised, and the tiled hall echoed as he let out a gusty sigh. Here at the downtown jail, below the five stories that held the normal criminals overnight or during trials, this corridor terminated in three rooms, each with a circle scribed on the floor. Sometimes they were empty for two or three days at a time.

Then there were nights like tonight. Two exorcisms referred in by the two Catholic parishes, one by the local Methodist church, and another three dragged in by Eva and Benito, two-thirds of the regular exorcists in town responsible for doing straight rip-and-stuffs. Wallace was visiting his mother in Idaho, and on a busy night like this I could have strangled him, though he needed the vacation.

Regular exorcists shouldn't do more than two a night. It's draining psychic and physical work, and for anything out of the ordinary they were supposed to call me in. Avery had tried to take on his third exorcism of the night by himself, and I'd arrived just as the possessed—a meek little morbidly religious shut-in on Benton Avenue who was even now unconscious inside one of the holding cells for the night—did her level best to tear his eyes out after chewing his leg open and throttling him. She was lucky to still be alive, as I'd had to tear the Possessor out of her in a hell of a hurry and drag both her and Avery downtown for some medical attention.

Possessors are nasty little things, and once an exorcism gets referred it's almost a given that they've wormed their way into someone with weeks of effort, driving them crazy a little bit at a time. Most of the possessed have no memory of the whole time—big chunks of their life gone—maybe an unconscious reflex, the psyche shutting away the trauma of having a parasitical psychic rider. It's one of the biggest violations imaginable, your mind and soul not your own—and the fact that Possessors, the little worms, tend to prey on the religious and naive, not to mention the middle to upper-middle class, isn't much of a comfort. For once the poor aren't targeted by a species of hellbreed, but that was small reassurance at best.

Plus, Possessors find it easier to slide in while the ambient psychic temperature is fermenting-hot. Like right after one hunter passes away and a new one takes his place. All in all, big fun.

I took a long drag off the beer. It was ice-cold, filched from the small fridge under Avery's desk, the same desk I leaned my knee against as I eyed him. Technically you're not supposed to have alcohol anywhere near you on duty, but exceptions were sometimes made for exorcists.

You don't last long without a drink or two—or six—in this line of work.

Wrestling on the floor with a woman who was no doubt very nice and sweet when she didn't have a Possessor inside her just made a cold beer go down that much better. My shoulders ached, and she'd gotten her teeth in my throat, worrying at the band of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. If she'd been true hellbreed or even Trader, that might have given me a problem. But Possessors are the low end of the hell pool, I could handle five or six of them on a given night without getting tired like a regular exorcist. Still, more than one or two a night wasn't good for anyone involved.

"How you doing?" Avery's good eye blinked furiously, tears running down his scraped cheek from the stinging of ice against swelling tissue. "You look pissed."

No, what I am is tired. Though I just had a snotty-ass Were country boy run his mouth off about hellbreed at me. "New case."

"Heard about that." Avery shifted a little in his chair. The entire jail above us seemed to hold its breath, I cocked my head and took another long draft of cold beer.

"News travels fast."

"Five cops."

"Yeah." I sighed. I don't even know if that rookie survived the night. No matter, if he wakes up and he's coherent Montaigne will buzz me. "Christ, Avery. Jesus Christ."

"You'll get whoever it is." He lowered the ice, the plastic chair creaking as he shifted. "If something ever happened to me, you'd kill the bastard that did it."

You're right, Ave. I am the avenger, it's my job. But Jesus. "Let's hope that never happens. I'd hate to have to train your replacement just when I've gotten used to your silly punk ass."

He shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting painfully. He would be bruised all up that side of his face tomorrow. "Hand me a beer, willya? And tell me what's really bothering you." A flash of his pale chest showed through his torn shirt, and the St. Anthony's medal glittered briefly on its silver chain. I opened the small fridge and passed over a fresh cold bottle, his skin briefly touching mine. The scar on my wrist throbbed. I heard moans and shuffles overhead in the holding cells, and a subliminal thrill ran under my skin.

Dawn. A hunter always feels it, the sun rising and the city settling into daytime geography.

Yet another night spent on the run. I opened my mouth, but my pager buzzed again. "Jesus Christ." I sighed, knocked back the rest of the bottle in a few long swallows. Avery let out a sharp little adrenaline-jag laugh, his dark hair sticking sweat-damp to his forehead. He smelled like a good hard workout on a clean human male, no taint of hell. No exotic corrupt smell of hellbreed.

Not like me.

"Why don't you get a cell phone?" He clasped the ice to his eye again, hissing out between his teeth. His other hand was occupied with the beer.

"As many times as I get dumped in water? Or shot? Or hit with levinbolts?" I shook my head. "Can't afford it. Pager works fine, and the buzz won't give me away when I'm playing snake-under-the-rock." I undipped the pager, setting the empty bottle down. Avery's desk always looked about to disappear under a mound of paper, and he'd stuck slim candles into the bottle mouths, some burned down and others pristine.

Well, an exorcist usually ends up eccentric. It's the nature of the job. Eva paints and gilds hollowed-out chicken eggs. Benito likes hanging upside-down in a gravity rack, says it helps him sleep. And Wallace likes going out into the desert for jaunts with only a loincloth and a canteen for company.

The number on the pager blurred as I blinked at it. Then I let out a soft breath, my ribs squeezing down, and the sound caught in my throat became a low reedy whistle, as if I'd been punched hard and had to suck the air back in.

When I could talk again, I said, "Fuck."

"What's up?" Avery didn't sound very interested. He leaned back, his good eye closed, the ice clasped to his face.

"Got to go. It's past dawn, you should be all right for a while. Call if you need me." Shut up, Jill. You had to go see him anyway.

But he shouldn't be calling me, dammit. Christ. Why am I so upset?

It wasn't just the prospect of going into the Monde Nuit. I did that every month.

She stinks of hellbreed.

That was it. I smelled like hellbreed. Like the very things I fought. Usually I ignored the point successfully enough to function.

Thanks to a stinking country-boy Were, I now had to think about it.

I stood up. Avery waved his beer bottle, languidly. "Another parade of heart-stopping excitement, brought to you by the Santa Luz Exorcist Squad." The ice crackled as he shifted it against his face. "I'm going to go see Galina, have her fix this eye. Don't forget about Saturday."

"I'll see if I can squeeze it in," I tossed over my shoulder, settling my coat with a quick shrug. The whip brushed my thigh as I strode away, and the ruby warmed in the hollow of my throat.

I was grateful for that warmth. It crawled down inside me, and as I hit the stairs at the end of the hall—one exit and entry for any exorcist's lair, it works out better that way—I looked down at my left hand. The ring was there, silver still bound tight around my third finger. Mikhail's promise, Mikhail's mark, given to me before I even knew Perry existed.

I blew out between my lips as I swung up the stairs, my shoulders coming up and a welcome heat beginning behind my breastbone. It was anger, and I fed it with every last scrap of energy as I blew down another long hall and out the back door of the administrative section of the jail, into the cold, clear light of dawn.