Night Shift

Chapter Ten

I knelt in a back pew at Mary of the Immaculate Conception, my forehead against the hard wood of the seat in front of me. Candles flickered dimly, and despite the simmering heat of midmorning outside it was cool and quiet in here. My pager had stopped buzzing.

Get it together, Jill.

There was only one thing to do, and I was putting it off. I swallowed dryly, heard my throat click.

"Thou Who," I began, and heard Mikhail's voice next to mine as he taught me the prayer. "Thou Who hast…"

I couldn't say them, so the words unreeled in my head as I forced my shaking hands together in tight fists.

Thou Who hast given me to fight evil, protect me; keep me from harm. Grant me strength in battle, honor in living, and a swift clean death when my time comes. Cover me with Thy shield, and with my sword may Thy righteousness be brought to earth, to keep Thy children safe.

A tall order, even for God. In a fight between God and hellbreed, I would rather have a good stock of ammunition on my side.

That's blasphemy, Jill, no matter how much it helps. But you're damned anyway, aren't you. What does it matter?

I lifted my face. The crucifix over the altar was a gentle one, not like the twisted screaming monstrosities I've seen in some churches. This Christ looked almost tranquil, as if there had been no pain at all, as if death was a balm and not something to fight tooth and nail against.

Maybe that's what Mikhail saw in me. Fighting tooth and nail. Like a Were, tooth and nail. So I stink of hellbreed, do I? Well, it keeps the innocent safe. Or safer, at least.

That was the trouble with the prayer, Mikhail told me. Even if you only mouthed it, you ended up doing it. Believing in it.

Stupid, he would snort after a few shots of vodka. They call us heroes. Idiots.

But I didn't want to think about that. If I started brooding about how much I missed Mikhail, I might inadvertently give Perry an opening. And nobody wanted that except Perry himself.

I started again. "Thou Who," I whispered, my lips numb. "Thou Who…"

I could not frame the middle part of the prayer. There was only one part that mattered, anyway. I whispered it into my sweating hands, clasped together in prayer. "O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell's legions."

I've had enough of being forsaken, God. You think you could cut me a little slack? Run, running, my brain like a rat in a cage.

You're not too tightly bolted right now, Jill. Maybe you should do something to take the edge off. But what?

I dropped my forehead down again and breathed in, smelling incense and wood and candle smoke, the particular mix that means Catholic. Get out your guilt and your rulers and your smell of wax and wine, and you had my childhood. Or at least the part of it that gave me the reflex of prayer.

As a hunter, I was barred from both Confession and Communion for the sin of murder repeated every night, not to mention trafficking with Hell's minions. But I could still pray, and I would, by special dispensation, be buried in hallowed ground if there was enough of me left to bury.

Unless I died contaminated. Or unless, like Mikhail, I wanted to go into Valhalla with flame licking my bones.

Mikhail. The anger rose again, tattered and threadbare, and I petted it, coaxed it, mulled over it to give myself strength. Rage was my best friend, for all I kept it a banked fire most of the time. You cannot fight effectively if your head's full of anger. You have to think past the rage, let it fill you and see the world in front of you as action and reaction, with your own path laid clear and shining in front of you, whether through a fight or to the door of a hellbreed nightclub.

Oh, fuck. Get going, Jill. You have shit to do and a rogue Were to catch. Get out there and kick some ass. You've done it every month since you made the bargain, sometimes twice, and you're still here. You smell of hellbreed and you're tired and your temper's a little frayed, but you're still here, goddammit. Now get up, and go twist Perry's arm until he gives up what you want.

And teach him to stop fucking with you. Be unpredictable.

I licked dry lips and pushed myself up. The hard wooden back of the pew slipped under my slick palms. My voice was a bare whisper, but it came. "O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell's legions. In Thy name and with Thy blessing, I go forth to cleanse the night."

Though it's more like midmorning. My bootheels clicked as I reached the end of the pew, genuflected, and turned my back on the altar. I dipped both hands in the holy water, lifted its coolness to my face, hissing out slightly as a thin tendril of it rolled over the scar with a tracer of acid fire. I wiped the holy water in my hair, smeared it over my shoulders, and took a deep breath.

Then I got going.

The Monde Nuit is a long low building, and it sits in a brackish depression of etheric energy. The silver on me warmed, responding to the contamination of hellbreed in the air. The parking lot was mostly paved, but the for edges were gravel, and a spindly, thorny edge of greenbelt looked sucked-dry, clinging to the edge of contagion. I left my tmpala parked in the fire zone and headed for the door, eyeing the bouncer. This early in the day, there were only six cars in the lot, not counting mine. One was a low black limousine, its windows blind with privacy tinting, pristine despite the dust and haze of the day.

My coat flared on the edges of a hot afternoon wind. This close to the desert, up on the fringes of the valley the Luz River kept watered and kind-of-green, everything smelled of sand and heat. The whip tapped against my thigh and I kept my hands loose and easy. Touching a knife now would show nervousness. Weakness.

You never show a hellbreed any weakness. It's a cardinal law, not to be bent or broken like so many other laws.

The bouncer didn't stop me, though his was a face I hadn't seen before. He was a massive slab of muscle with a flat sheen to his eyes, and he didn't quite meet my gaze. His submachine gun, slung on a leather strap, was a flagrant violation.

Goddammit, Perry. You son of a bitch.

My heart stopped pounding by the time I palmed the doors open and saw the Monde's interior, vast and cavernous during the day, no shaft of sunlight piercing its gloom. Nightclubs always look saddest during the day, and even though the Monde pulsed with the glamour of Hell, it was still a broken sight at this particular hour, dappled bits of light sliding over the deserted dance floor, the tables all empty, and the electric lights on overhead. Two janitors—ancient, decrepit, broken things that might once have been Traders—shuffled aimlessly, pushing brooms.

The massive bar was off to the left, and as usual Riverson was there, his blind filmy eyes widening as he took me in. "Kismet." His tone was flat, and he reached behind himself for the bottle of vodka. "You're here."

Score one for you, blind man, stating the goddamn obvious. I kept the words behind my teeth.

Mikhail had brought me in here to meet Riverson, who for a human with no taint of Hell was extremely knowledgeable about Hell's citizens, not to mention still alive to be questioned—both incredible achievements. The blind man hadn't been blind back when Mikhail first met him, but by the time I saw him he was a scarecrow of a man with a shock of white hair and those filmed, useless orbs that seemed nevertheless to notice a good deal more than most of the sighted ever would.

And the first time I'd come here, Perry had shown up at the end of the bar, looking very interested. Mikhail had almost drawn on him, but Perry made an offer… and a few months later, I'd sat in a chair with Perry circling me, negotiating the bargain that made me able to do what I do so well.

Murder, chaos, and screaming, that is. Hey, when a girl's got talents…

I shoved the memories back down into their little black box, took the shot Riverson poured, tossed it back, and slammed the shot glass down on the bar. The sound was a rifle crack in the hush. "I'm early." My voice was flat, uninflected. "I'm here on business. Put it on the tab."

"You can wait up in his office. They're finishing the meeting—Kismet! For God's sake, don't!"

The old man actually sounded concerned. A meeting, eh? Wait in the office? I don't think so. Perry, your meeting's about to be adjourned.

And by making a statement here I could probably find out something useful. I bit back an iron-edged laugh and stalked through the open maw of the building, skirting the dance floor and aiming to the left of the stage. The painted-black door opened smoothly, and I found myself in a back hall lit with red neon tubes along the ceiling. The light tinted everything bloody, and I strode down the linoleum, my heels clicking even more sharply and the charms in my hair chiming sweet and soft.

Perry, you have been a very bad boy.

The scar prickled, a fiery loathsome tendril of pleasure twining up my arm. I'd had it uncovered for so long it almost felt normal.

Almost.

The door I wanted was at the end of the hall, and as I approached it I heard the mutter, like flies magnified by the space inside a stripped-out skull. It was Helletöng, the language of the damned, and my heart gave a smothered leap and settled back into its regular pace.

Do it quick, Jill. Just like ripping a Band-Aid off. Do it hard and quick.

The door—blank steel, no knob on my side—was maybe three yards away. I gathered myself and skipped forward two long strides, kicking it inward and adding a generous portion of etheric force pulled through the scar on my wrist turned hard and hurtful, a bruised swelling. The steel crumpled, smashing inward, and I rode the motion down as the door crashed into the floor.

Two of them, one on either side. I took the first with a quick upward strike, smashing him across the face with a hellbreed-strong fist braced by the handle of my whip. The gun was in my other hand, speaking for me, smashing the shell of the hellbreed on my left. The whip struck, its thundercrack lost under the noise of the gun, and I uncoiled in a flung-wide kick, both boots smashing hellbreed flesh, one on either side. They folded down, both of them stinking now that I'd shattered their shells and dosed them with silver, and the whip coiled itself as I landed, both feet striking the battered curve of the door again.

As entrances go, it wasn't bad.

There was a long table polished to a mirror-shine, and tasteful sconces along the wall with yet more red neon, dyeing the air with crimson. Candles hissed in branched iron candelabra, their warm glow somehow bleached.

At the end of the table, a pair of blue eyes met mine. Perry sat in a high-backed iron chair, the red velvet of its cushions contrasting with the pale linen of his suit. His face under the expensive sandy-blond haircut was bland and interested, but I thought I caught a steely glint far back in his pupils. His fingers were tented together, and he didn't look surprised to see me at all.

Then again, he never did.

Gathered on either side of the table were other hellbreed, none as bland or unsurprised as him. The damned are always beautiful, and these were no exception—black leather, exquisite silk, frayed lace, glittering liquid eyes and sculpted lips, four or five had leapt to their feet on seeing me. The table was full, except for the seat directly to Perry's left.

And there was another surprise, oh friends and neighbors. Most of the damned in the room were instantly recognizable. The movers and shakers of the entire hellbreed population of Santa Luz, the maggots every smaller hellbreed answered to in their network of feudal obligation. There was the tall, sloe-eyed female who owned the Kat Klub downtown; the broker who ran the influence net out in the financial district; the short tense male in the black cloth half-veil that did assassinations for one faction or another, according to who hired him first or paid him most.

A meeting, and the resident hunter wasn't invited. Why am I not surprised?

My boots grated against the door, I took another two steps and leapt, landing catlike at the foot of the table, the whip coiled neatly in my hand. The gun tracked onto the nearest 'breed—a slim dark male with a leather vest over his hard narrow chest. I suspected him behind a large chunk of the cocaine trade that had recently soaked the poorer quarters with a wave of overdoses from whatever the supplier had cut it with. The current bet over in Vice was twelve to eight in favor of simple Drano, but Forensics hadn't come up with a verdict yet.

Jesus, with a submachine gun and some heavy-duty sorcery I could make the world a much better place in about ten minutes.

The trouble was, there were always more. If I erased this batch others would move in, and I'd have to threaten them into behaving all over again. Talk about your futile efforts.

Still—My finger tightened on the trigger. "So many scumbags, and all in one room. Fish in a barrel." My lips peeled back from my teeth. "Feels just like Christmas."

The silence crackled, and leather made a slight sound in my right hand as my fingers bore down on the handle of the whip. The candleflames hissed. Jesus. I should have thought about this before I kicked the door in. Good one. Kismet. Get out of this alive.

But still, for what I wanted, this wasn't a bad situation. Odds were they knew about a hellbreed misbehaving in my town, and by getting a little nasty in here I might be able to avoid nastiness later.

The silver chain at my throat burned fiercely, and Mikhail's ring scorched. The charms in my hair shifted and jingled sweetly. I took another few steps down the table, bracing myself, as my eyes came up and met Perry's.

He finally spoke, his words a mere murmur. "So good of you to join us, Kismet."

It was like a slap of cold water across a dreamer's face. The other hellbreed blinked, shuffled, one of the females baring her teeth at me and hissing. I stilled, looking down at her. The Kat Klub figured in one or two cold cases I wanted to get to the bottom of as well, though its owner usually followed the rules.

Do we need another example here? Because I'm just aching to teach you motherfuckers the rules of operating in my goddamn town. The table resounded like a drum under my soles. I locked gazes with the hellbreed female. "You want to repeat yourself a little louder, bitch?"

"There's no need to be rude." Perry hadn't moved. His eyes had turned a little darker, that was all. Indigo spread through his irises, but his whites were still clear. My mouth had gone dry, and the scar on my wrist sent a jolt of heat up the bones of my arm to my shoulder socket. "You were, after all, invited to this meeting."

Invited? Fuck that "I must have missed the engraved invitation." My lip lifted, in an almost-snarl. Our eyes locked, two magnets pushing against each other with invisible force. Pure repulsion.

Or so I hoped.

"We called this meeting today to address… extraordinary circumstances." He pressed his fingers together, his mouth making a little moue of distaste at my obtuseness.

I beat him to the punch. Keep it business, Jill. You might just get out of here without having to spend more time with him than necessary. "Five cops, out on the Drag. Dead. The scene stank of the damned. Hand over the 'breed responsible, and we'll all get along just fine."

The wet, icy silence that fell warned me. One corner of Perry's mouth lifted, and a chill worked its way all the way down to my bones. Except for the scar. The mark of his lips on my skin warmed obscenely, burrowing in toward the bone.

I suddenly wished I'd been able to get out to Galina's and get another copper cuff. Without the bar of blessed copper between the scar and the outside air, I was wide-open to him fiddling with it.

"You are all dismissed." His voice made the candle flames twist. "Spread out through the city. Find the one we seek."

Wait just a goddamn minute. I thumbed the hammer back, the small click loud in the dim-lit silence. "I didn't give any of you permission to move, Pericles." My soft killing tone couldn't rival his, but it was pretty good anyway. Too bad my lips were numb. My heart began to pound, and that was very bad. They could all hear my pulse, just as I could hear the subliminal rumble of Helletöng warping the walls and the strings of energy below the surface of the world.

The other corner of Perry's mouth lifted, a small smile ran steel ice along my skin. "We are already apprised of a hellbreed causing trouble with the police. We are seeking her even now."

"Her?" My right eyebrow raised. I noticed with a thin thread of gratification that none of them had moved a muscle. The dusty, exotic, corrupt smell of them filled my nose, coated the back of my dry throat.

Perry's smile was full-fledged now. He wasn't hurtfully beautiful like the other hellbreed, which made him—once you thought about it—even scarier. Much scarier. "Her name is Cenci." His tented fingers relaxed a fraction. "I will tell you all we know, my dear Kiss. After you have paid me my due." He now looked extraordinarily happy, and my heart sank, turning to heavy steel inside my chest.

Oh, fuck. I suddenly, frantically wished I'd thought to stop by the warehouse and pick up the FBI files. They would make an excellent excuse for keeping this meeting all business.

Like he's going to be fobbed off. You just cost him some face in front of his little lieutenants.

Then, wonder of wonders, my pager buzzed. I swallowed bile as other hellbreed rose to their feet from the small iron chairs; the ones already standing merely waited. They shuffled out, avoiding the dead bodies at the door, the masked one watching me with eyes blank from lid to lid, black as the devouring darkness between stars. I ignored it.

If one of them moved on me now, it would give me cause to get the hell out of here without spending quality time with Perry.

I wasn't as comforted as I could be by the thought.

As soon as the last one had left the room, I lowered my whip. The gun swung around, fixed on Perry while I dug in the padded pocket. The number displayed on the pager's display couldn't have been more welcome.

Montaigne. Which meant there was another body. Or three.

Which also meant Perry would have to wait. Guilt curled hot and acid under a bald edge of relief. What did that say about me, that I was glad about someone's murder because it would get me the hell out of here?

I looked up from the pager, trying not to let the relief show. It was useless, he saw it anyway and his smile broadened, cold sweat bathing my back.

"It's the police." I had to work for an even tone. "I'm on the job, Perry. You're going to tell me what you know now, and I'll come in to pay you when this is over."

He didn't move, but his eyes darkened slightly. "I have waited an entire month for the pleasure of your company, and I don't intend to deny myself that pleasure any longer."

Oh, Christ. God help me now. "Tough." The gun settled, pointed right between his eyes. He wasn't a low-level grunt like the 'breed at the door. If I popped him in the head, it might just make him angry. "Bodies in the street take precedence over our bargain, Pericles. You know that. Start talking."

"I could talk to you for hours, dear one." His tone had turned silky, and the scar throbbed. The heat in my lower belly dipped down, and I had to choke back a sharp inhaled breath. He was doing it again, using the scar to fiddle with my internal thermostat and mimicking the physical aspects of desire.

It had to be a mimicry. Whore, the voice in my head snarled. Just like a goddamn whore.

God help me, but it felt familiar. Did he guess that was where I was weak? How much did he know about me? About my past?

Stop it. Mikhail made you stronger than this. Don't let Perry get to you.

I set my jaw. He liked playing with the scar while I was near him. Each time I visited it was the same—him messing with my pulse and my nerves, trying to make me respond.

At least I wouldn't have to use the flechettes this time. Or my whip.

Most of the time, he liked to be strapped down, and he liked to be cut while he bled the blackish ichor of hellbreed. Sometimes he would even talk while he made me cut him, and that was the worst. The closest he came to worming inside my head was while I was frantic with loathing at what he told me to do, cursing myself for ever making the goddamn bargain despite anything Mikhail ever said.

Oh, God. Come on. Get me out of here. "Stick to the point, Perry, or I'll track it down from the other end. That'll mean I won't come in when it's done, since you've refused to help."

"When have I ever refused you anything, Kiss? I could give you so much more than you've ever dreamed." His voice dropped, and the lights dimmed, candle flames twisting and hissing, sputtering as darkness spilled through the air. Silver shifted and chimed in my hair. The chain holding the ruby was a thin thread of fire, the ruby's setting hot against the hollow of my throat. It had never singed me yet, but each time I wondered.

My legs were shaking. I braced my knees. "Cut the crap. Give me what you have on this hellbreed. That's my final word, Pericles."

"You're no fun." He sounded genuinely regretful, but that smile was like sharp rocks under icy water, just waiting for naked feet. "All we have is her name and her general description. Fair, but with dark eyes, and for some reason, allied with a Were. Surprising, no? She is far from her master and should be returned. Which we have undertaken to do. We cannot, after all, have our vassals going about with animals. It destroys the general sense of order so necessary for a smoothly running society."

"Why is she hanging around with a Were?" And a rogue one, to boot. My mouth was parched, the fumes of the Jack Daniels I'd taken down reaching my head. I hadn't eaten; my body was starting to get that funny shaky feeling it usually did just before Perry ordered me to strap him into the frame and start.

I knew that shaky feeling. It's the same thing as when your body rebels and tries to collapse on you, but your mind won't let it.

Sometimes he wanted the knives. Most of the time it was the flechettes, razor-sharp and silver-plated. On a few very bad nights he made me use my fists until his preternatural skin broke and bled, and the only sounds would be my sharp exhales of effort and his low, bubbling breath right before he gurgled More.

Just the single word. Each and every time.

I'd given up wondering why he wanted me to hurt him. Maybe it was just another move in the game he played, trying to get inside my head. Maybe he couldn't get it anywhere else. Still, my mouth tasted sour and my hand felt like it was shaking, though the gun was steady.

"If we knew, Kismet, I would not be allowing this show of defiance from you, however charming I find your homicidal little displays." He finally moved, waving one elegant finger at me. "When I receive more information, I shall bring it to you." A meaningful pause. "Personally."

That's mighty nice of you, Perry, Not like you to be so accommodating. "Who's her master, then?"

"A certain gentleman in New York. One who is most displeased with her disobedience, and intends to teach her a lesson as soon as she is returned to him." Perry's smile broadened. "See what a very good boy I am being, my dear? And all for your sake." Two of the candle-flames died under the weight of his voice, and his hands came down, curled over the ends of the chair arms. He pushed himself up to his feet, very slowly, his eyes on mine the entire while.

New York? Jesus. The master of the Big Apple's hellbreed was so old and frightening I'd heard even the city's contingent of hunters steered clear of him. I hoped the one looking for this hellbreed was just a smaller fry from that pool. "Fine. Thanks for the information." Slowly, so slowly, my thumb came up and uncocked the gun. It took all my fading courage to holster it. "If this pans out I'll have the mayor give you a medal."

"Stay with me for ten minutes, Kismet." His tone had turned soft as velvet, cajoling, and the stretched-wide smile was gone, replaced by a look of utter seriousness that might have been almost human except for the indigo staining the whites of his eyes. "Only ten minutes. I will forgive your visit this month and wait until the next if you stay with me for that short while."

Shock threatened to nail me in place. This was something new, and my busy little brain started worrying at it, trying to decipher his angle. "You'd give up this month's visit for ten minutes now?"

He stood at the end of the table, looking up at me. Two more candles snuffed, then another two. The light darkened, even more bloody now. I should have felt a little better, having the physical high ground here.

I didn't.

"Ten minutes now, and I will forgive your payment on our bargain this month. My word on it, Kiss."

I wish he'd stop calling me that. I licked my lips, wished I hadn't when his eyes fastened on my mouth. "I don't suppose you'd forgive next month's too."

That earned me a sardonic look. He said nothing, merely stood there, and just that much was enough to make a shallow trickle of sweat trace its way down the channel of my spine.

"Fine. Starting from when I came in the door." I backed up, hopped off the table without looking, and breathed out through my mouth. The two 'breed I'd killed stank.

He didn't even quibble. It was a bad sign. "Come here." He indicated the seat on his left, the one that had been empty. "Sit… there."

I walked slowly down the table, my coat rustling and creaking. Here in the meeting room the floor was mellow hardwood, not linoleum. More candles snuffed, and my breath came short and sharp. I looked at the chair, tested it with one finger, and sank down in it.

The iron was hard, and cold. Velvet and horsehair pillows did nothing to stop the chill from biting immediately through the layers of my coat and leather pants. The ruby at my throat sparked, a single bloody point of light in the charged silence.

"Good," Perry murmured. He lowered himself down in the tall chair. "Put your hands flat on the table."

I swallowed. Did it, the mirrorshine surface cold and slick under my sweating palms. The last of the candles died. I was alone in the neon-lit dark with Perry and two rotting hellbreed corpses by the door.

God, do not forsake me now. Then I quit praying. God was fine, but He was often busy. It was up to a hunter to pick up the slack.

Perry exhaled, a soft sound of satisfaction like a sheet drawn up over a cold dead face.

What is he going to do? Best not to guess. Best just to wait and see.

It was, after all, bound to be unpleasant.

When his hand came down over my right wrist I started nervously. "Shhh." He made a low cold hissing noise, maybe meant to be soothing. "Be still."

His skin was warm, and felt human except for its supple invulnerability, like metal made flesh. The shell of a hellbreed, hard to breach without a lot of luck and firepower.

Silver. Lots of silver, and lots of luck. I swallowed again, pressed my hands into the table. If I killed him,

would his mark fade? Do I chance it? If Mikhail was here…

But Mikhail, like God, wasn't here. I was on my own.

"Have you visited your teacher's grave?" Perry's voice was so soft I almost didn't catch the words, my every nerve strung tight.

What the hell? Mikhail's grave, where his ashes were buried in consecrated ground, its headstone with curved Cyrillic script scored deep into granite, hoping to last a little longer than other, more perishable things. Like flesh. Or memory.

Bile rose in my throat again. I made no reply. It was all part of Perry's game, trying to worm his way into my head. Less than ten fucking minutes, and I'd be free for another month.

"Answer me, Kiss. Have you?"

My mouth was so dry I had trouble with the word. "Yes."

His thumb moved a little, a slight flexible movement. The mark jolted another wire of unhealthy heat through me, my ears suddenly picking up sounds from the rest of the building. Creaks. The rumble of Helletöng. Running water from the bar. If I looked down with my smart eye I would see the mark flushing with power, swelling with corruption.

"And?"

"And what?" Don't Perry, Keep your fucking mouth off Mikhail's name. But I wouldn't say it. That would be like blood in the water.

"Did his ghost rise to comfort you?"

"No." I poured out a bottle of vodka, though. Wherever he is, he's sleeping sound. I drew my breath in, shut my eyes. Exhaled.

"You need some small comfort." His thumb moved again. "You allow me so little. I could help you so much more."

If this is a sample of your help I'll go my own way, thank you. I bit back the words. He hadn't asked me a direct question, I could get away with silence. It was the safest course.

Perry made a small annoyed sound, his fingers suddenly biting down. Small bones in my wrist creaked and crackled. The pain was almost a balm.

"Why do you make this so hard?"

I found my voice. "Make what so hard?" I don't need to make this hard. You do that very well, thank you.

Besides, the harder Perry found this game, the better I liked it. It gave me an edge.

He tried again. "Think of what it could be like." His tone had dropped to a murmur. "If you sat here, with me at your right hand. Imagine what I could do with you to direct me. There's nothing I wouldn't do for your asking, my dear."

I had to swallow a braying, hysterical laugh. "You're hellbreed." It was all I needed to say. If I bit into the apple of that offer, the snake wouldn't be far behind. It was the same old song. Take a little, then a little more, and before you knew it you were up to your eyeballs in filth—your own, and a good deal more.

What makes you different, Jill?

I knew what. Mikhail had made me different. And as long as I was true to him and what he taught me, I was on the side of the angels.

Figuratively, of course. God needs killers as much as Hell does, I guess.

Maybe more.

"What kind of hellbreed?" Perry sounded only mildly interested.

I had to admit it. "I don't know."

"Ah." Now there was amusement, the lazy grin of a shark evident in his voice. "All I ask is that you turn a very little, Kiss. Just a very, very little."

It was a jolt of cold water. He could fiddle with the scar and try to worm his way in all he wanted, but Perry was just too fucking impatient to crack me. And I wasn't a stupid teenager anymore, ready to believe anything a man told me.

Just a little bit. I've heard that line before. Just do something small for me, and I'll give you everything you ever wanted. How stupid do you think I am, Perry? I set my boots against the floor, tensing in every muscle. "We have our bargain. You won't get anything else from me."

As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. My wrist ached as Perry squeezed, a fraction of a hellbreed's strength enough to make sweat break out along the curve of my lower back.

"I have enough time. I've broken stronger Traders than you."

So I've heard. Since I'd already pissed him off, I might as well go with it. "I'm not a Trader." I'm a hunter, and one day I'm going to kill you too. When I do. Perry, I'm going to throw a party afterward. Hell, I'll have it catered and bring out the barbeque. If II be a red-letter day.

His fingers eased up on my wrist, caressed the back of my hand, and finally slid between mine. How could such a small touch feel like such a violation?

I flinched, yanking my hand back, but those gentle fingers turned to steel again and pain tore through the hard knot of the scar as he pulled my hand up, turning the palm toward the ceiling and baring the pale glimmer of my wrist under the pushed-back cuff of my coat.

"Naughty, naughty," he murmured, as if I was a puppy. An edge of delight coiled under the words. He'd made me react.

Good for him.

His mouth met the scar, something cat-rasping against my skin, a brief caress.

I set my jaw, my neck aching with tension. Perry chuckled, a low satisfied sound, his breath oven-hot and swamp-wet against my skin as I went rigid in the chair, an invisible knife twisting in the scar, tangling and ripping at nerve-strings. Great pearly drops of water stood out on my forehead, my neck, the curve of my lower back, the backs of my knees.

At least it was pain this time, and not the sick gasping-sweet heat of the first time his lips pressed into my flesh, his aura injecting a nugget of corruption into mine. Pain can be controlled, even if it's your skin being torn off one millimeter at a time. Even if it's the nerves themselves turning traitor and running with hot acid.

Even if it went on until I made a small betraying sound in the back of my throat, instantly swallowing it. It was a half-broken, hurt little cry, as if I'd been punched.

Immediately, he let go, his head coming up, his fingers sliding free of mine. My hand fell limply to the table and I slumped, the sudden relief almost enough to wring another sound out of me.

Perry let out a long breath, jagged, as if he had just finished spending himself. It was an intimate sound, and I cringed away from it. A filthy feeling circled my skin, as if I'd pressed my naked body against a cold grimy windowpane.

Silence returned, neon buzzing finally intruding on my ears like a bee caught on a dead dry windowsill.

I was shaking. I pressed my hands into the table's slick glassy surface and wished I could kill him. The need to get up, to empty a clip into his body, to flick the whip forward and listen to him scream like an arkeus—the temptation shook me. Like a dog shakes a toy in its sharp teeth.

"You may go." Dark amusement burbled under his light even tenor. "Unless you want to stay, my dear. I'd like that."

"Fuck you." It managed to come out steady. I pushed myself up to my feet, managed to stand. Sweat cooled icy on my forehead. The charms in my hair tinkled. "I won't be back until next month."

The urge to kill him shook me even harder. A physical need, like the need to eat or empty my bladder or even the need to breathe.

Kill him, one part of me whispered. You can do it. It might not be easy but you can do it.

The rest of me dug in heels and resisted. If I killed him now, I'd be violating the bargain. And I knew what that would make me in my own eyes.

Just as bad as the things I hunted, that's what.

The amusement intensified. Perry sounded almost goddamn gleeful. "You'll see me before that. Tell your friends from the government I'm hunting their little problem, too. We'll be quite a cozy little bunch, won't we. Like family."

I could have replied, but I didn't. I hit the broken door at a run, his laughter rising behind me, and got the hell out of there.