Night Shift

Chapter Twelve

Mikhail's hand spread against my belly, calluses scraping. The carved chunk of ruby at his throat glimmered with its own secret life, and sweat dried on his forehead. "What is best way to kill utt'huruk, you think?" He hadn't smoked a cigarette yet, so the day's lessons weren't over.

I lay on my back, looking up at the skylight full of afternoon gold. A hard nugget of silver pressed into the back of my head; I shifted so the charm wasn't digging in. Mikhail had started giving me the charms one by one, mostly when I'd performed well, and I'd taken to tying them in my hair with red thread, just like he did.

Hey, anything helps.

"Holy water? After you've punctured the shell?" I thought about it some more as his fingers tapped my belly idly, obviously unsatisfied with my answer. Of course. I'd been caught assuming again; assuming Assyrian bird-demons had a shell, like hellbreed. You can't ever assume, so I asked the question I should have asked straight-up. "What's the weakness in their anatomy?"

He shifted a little under the covers. The air conditioning was on, but even so sweat cooled on my skin and my body sparked pleasantly. Four years ago I'd've called Mikhail an easy dime—street lingo for a John who wants vanilla, straight-up, and doesn't get nasty with you. They're also called milks—as in, you milk them and go home.

He was my teacher, not a John, and falling into bed with him felt more than natural. Here was no sparring and no hurt. Here, in this queen-sized, hip-high monstrosity covered in threadbare red velvet, with the iron lamps standing guard on either side, was the place where I became more and more thoroughly what Mikhail made me.

To hear Mikhail talk, it was normal for two reasonably heterosexual people so close in such extreme circumstances to end up in bed. It was even to be encouraged, the sex made the bond between teacher and student stronger and balanced out the harshness of training.

I didn't care. I just liked that… well…

Me. Of all people. He'd chosen me.

"There is seam that runs through their heads." His fingers left off my belly, touched my forehead and ran down my nose. "Like so. Hit them there, and head explodes. Very dramatic."

I laughed, pushed my hair back with my right hand. Mikhail caught my wrist and turned it, looking at the bracelet of pale skin. I'd taken to wearing a copper cuff over the mark.

The lip-print was a bruised purple now, the color slowly leaching away, but thankfully not into the surrounding flesh. I held very still, watching the skylight Golden sunshine filled my eyes, safe warm light.

"Does it hurt?"

"Burns sometimes." I settled my naked hips, my salt-touched shoulders. "But it's okay. It just looks funny." And I had to be careful, having a hellbreed-strong fist was… interesting, to say the least. I was still getting used to it.

"Eh." He let go of my wrist, one finger at a time, and settled down next to me. Then came my favorite part, his arm over me, and we cuddled together. The feeling of safety returned, palpable enough to set a lump in my throat. "Woman always has edge in bargain like this, little snake. You remember that when old Mischa is gone."

The lump got bigger. "You're not going anywhere, Mik. You're too nasty."

He pinched my arm, but gently, and I giggled. It was a little-girl sound, a laugh I only heard here in the bedroom with the silkscreened Japanese scrolls on the walls. Only in Mikhail's arms.

"Someday, milaya. It comes for us all. But we have a choice of how to meet it."

This one I knew. "Head high," I said.

"Guns out," he answered. "Good, little snake. Now rest. Night soon, time to work."

It came sooner than either of us thought, but after that day we never spoke of it again. I fell asleep easily in his arms, but I don't know if Mikhail slept. I rarely saw him relax, and he was always awake when I dropped off, and awake again when I surfaced.

Of all the men I ever knew, all the men whose bodies pressed over or into mine, he was the only one I ever felt safe with. He was also the only one who held me in the middle of the day when I woke crying from nightmares I remembered all too clearly.

More and more, the longer I go without him, the more I wish I could have seen him sleeping.

Of all the things I expected to smell, frying bacon was the very last.

My head boiled with pain. I groaned, turned over, and buried my face in my pillow, which smelled different. Like… fabric softener?

It was fabric softener. I didn't use frocking fabric softener. I had a hard enough time running the damn washing machine without frou-frous like that.

What the hell? I lay very still, my awareness suddenly dilating. The last thing I remembered was falling headlong off the high drop into the crush of people struggling to find some way up the almost-vertical slope. I dimly remembered Montaigne yelling, and Harp's voice, thin but determined.

Sleep beckoned, warm and wide and full of welcome oblivion.

It was no use. I couldn't crawl back into unconsciousness. I had too much to do.

I rolled slowly, lethargically, onto my back. Blinked at the angle of sunlight. It was all wrong—low and gray, with the peculiar translucence that meant morning. How long had I been out?

What had happened out there on the streets while I'd been out? How was Harp?

I pushed myself painfully up to my elbows. My belly was tender, as if I'd taken one hell of a sucker-punch. My scalp itched and smarted too. But that wasn't what surprised me the most.

I was on my mattress in the middle of my bedroom, but the sheets were on the bed instead of tangled and wrecked, clean and smelling freshly washed. The messy pile of blankets had been washed too and the bed, despite my usual thrashing, had obviously been neatly made. The blinds had been dusted, and the hardwood floor looked suspiciously shiny. On top of that, the maddening smell of bacon in the air was joined by the smell of coffee brewing.

What the flying fuck?

I was in a battered extra-large Santa Luz Warriors T-shirt, again, not usual. There was no knife under my pillow, but one of my guns lay on the milk-crate next to my bed, which now sported a red bandanna as covering and a lamp I'd been meaning to fix.

I grabbed the gun, then touched the lamp. It flicked on, warm electric light flooding my suddenly strange bedroom.

It looked like the floor had been waxed or something, for God's sake.

Hello, Toto? Are we still in Kansas?

I slid my feet out of my warm nest. They met cold hardwood, I rocked up to my feet—and collapsed back down again, my head pounding and my muscles rebelling. I'd run myself into the ground. I'd need food to get back up, something to digest so I could fuel my body's now-unnatural ability to heal.

I heard footsteps, deliberately loud, and raised the gun. It pays to be cautious. The warehouse echoed, and my heart thudded in my ears. Copper lay against my palate, the taste of fear.

Saul Dustcircle appeared in my bedroom door. He was barefoot, in jeans and the same black T-shirt. His hair was pulled back from his face with two small braids on either side, the rest of it loose against his shoulders. His dark eyes passed over me once, not pausing at the gun.

He carried, of all things, a plastic tray I used for holding bullets while I refilled clips, so they didn't roll around. Steam rose from it, and I smelled coffee and maple syrup.

If that wasn't enough, the first thing he said was utterly confusing, too.

"Breakfast." His voice was neutral enough. "And an apology."

I'll admit it. I goggled at him, my jaw dropping but the gun remaining steady.

"I was rude to you. I shouldn't have been; my mother raised me better. I was just tired and frustrated. We've been chasing this bastard a long time, and he keeps slipping through my fingers." His mouth turned down at both corners, bitterly, but his eyes still held mine. "You're a hunter, and a good friend to Weres. I apologize."

I still stared, my jaw suspiciously loose. Of all the things I've heard in my life, a Were apology is high on the "real seldom" list. They don't often say the words out loud.

But when they do, they mean them.

He watched me for another few moments before one corner of his mouth quirked. His eyebrow raised.

"Truce?" He indicated the tray, lifting it slightly, and I set the gun down on the milk crate with a click, suddenly ashamed of myself.

"Jesus." My voice cracked. "How long have I been out? How's Harp?"

"Thirty-six hours or so. Harp's fine, she and Dominic just left to meet with some of the Norte Luz lionesses. Captain Montaigne called to make sure you were all right, and some guy named Avery called twice and left messages for you. Something about missing a beer date." He approached with the tray. "You need to eat first. You passed out from blood loss and exhaustion, and you look like you've been pushing yourself lately. If you go killcrazy it won't help us."

Only Weres go killcrazy. On us hunters it's called suicidal I swallowed the words. Harp was okay. Thank God.

The tray held a plate of buckwheat pancakes, buttered and drenched in syrup, toast with strawberry jam, a mound of scrambled eggs, and six strips of bacon. There was a huge glass of orange juice, and a coffee cup that smelled absurdly good. Not to mention the mint sprig to garnish everything, and the decoratively cut strawberry fanned out in thin slices.

"Holy Christ." I managed to sound horrified. "Where did you—"

"Harp and I went shopping. You had nothing but ketchup and some green lump I think was achieving sentience in your fridge. I figured the least I could do was clean up a bit around here and make you something to eat—I don't know how you like your eggs, so I scrambled them. Come on, it won't stay hot forever. Scoot back."

He even fluffed the goddamn pillows and settled the tray across my knees. Then he turned around, without so much as another word, and left the room with a long loping stride.

I stared down at the food. Wow. Most Weres, especially the males, are pretty domestic. It was a peace offering instead of a violation for him to clean up my house, since he wouldn't understand much about personal property—again, being Were. And the food… if I didn't trust the verbal apology, the food would have convinced me.

It looked ridiculously good, and I started in. It tasted even better than it looked, and I was munching on nice crispy bacon and feeling my blood sugar level rise slowly but surely when he came back, carrying a coffee cup and something that looked suspiciously like a stack of files. "When you're done." He laid them at the end of the bed just past my toes and settled down, cross-legged, on the floor a respectable distance away. His dark eyes half-lidded, and he relaxed abruptly into the peculiar lazy alertness of a Were.

I took a gulp of the coffee and almost closed my eyes. Goddamn. Finished swallowing, and examined his face. "I'm sorry." The tray balanced itself on my knees, I cut myself another bite of pancake. "I wasn't very polite either. Guess I'm strung a little tight. It's been a bad year out here."

He nodded. "Harp told me. About your teacher."

The sharp pain in my chest was expected and natural now. I swallowed hard against it and took another bite.

I chewed, and decided he had a nice face. Most Weres are handsome, at least, but he actually looked approachable. Like Theron at Micky's, who's a goddamn headache to have on a hunt but who manages to be good backup anyway. "Yeah? What else did she tell you?"

"Not much." He grinned, acknowledging the uselessness of the words. "Just to keep your skin whole. Can't stand to lose another good hunter."

So you've decided I 'm worthy of being called «hunter» instead of "hellbreed trash." My eyebrows rose. "Harp told you that?"

He nodded, took another sip of coffee. His hair had reddish highlights, and his aura—plainly visible to my blue eye—swirled a little, different from a hellbreed's brackish stain. He was most likely a cat Were, he had that grace.

I decided it was time to ask a few questions, or hopefully just get the conversation off the subject of me. "So where are you from?"

"South Dakota way, 'round the Black Hills. I'm 'cougar."

I would have guessed it anyway, from the tawny immobility of him. His face was a little broader than a panther Were's, but not as broad as a lion's, and his dark eyes held a gold tint that made me think of dappled shade along a muscular cat's side. He smelled healthy, a little like Dominic but muskier, with the edge of dry maleness boy Weres give off. Human testosterone smells slightly oilier than theirs, especially to my sensitive nose.

"You're a ways from home."

"Promised myself I'd get the rogue that did for my sister." His face changed a little. "She and Jean-François were friends, too."

"I'm sorry." If it makes you feel any better, we'll get him. Nobody kills cops in my town and gets away with it.

He shrugged, a fluid movement. "How are the eggs?"

In other words, time for a subject change. "Good. I don't cook much." At all. "Don't have time."

"I guessed as much." Silence fell, his eyes hooding and the staticky sound of a not-quite purr rumbling out from him. I finished most of everything, took a long draft of orange juice, and found my hands had stopped shaking.

He got up to take the tray, and when he loped out of the room I scrambled from under the covers to get to the bathroom. I had to pee like nobody's business, and I wanted to get some clothes on. Just wearing a T-shirt was bad for my image, even if he was a Were.