Night Shift

Chapter Twenty-six

I splashed cold water on my face again, flung my head back. A charm chimed against the mirror, whipping at the end of a long strand of hair. The phone shrilled, and I reached it just as Saul appeared in my bedroom door. My guns lay on the nightstand, each with a full clip and one in the chamber.

It was Harp. "We've got him, Jill. His name's Billy Ironwater, and he hails from Connecticut. He went to visit kin in upstate New York—the Alleghany pack—and disappeared about half a year before murders started popping up, murders that until now have been 'lost' in a stack of paperwork. The Alleghany canines have been looking for him and running up against blank walls. Most of those walls lead back to hellbreed, and in that state it only means one thing."

I felt the click of a pattern slide under my skin, resounding in my bones. "Arkady," I breathed. I couldn't call him anything else, now. Not when I had brushed him between and seen his true face.

"Yeah. We're in the barrio, at the Criz in the Plaza. Can you bring Saul? We've found a trail, and we need him. The entire Were population except for cubs is on this." She was straining and eager, now that she had her prey in sight. Now it was time for the hunt, and all uncertainty was over.

It was a relief. My brain slid into overdrive, the plan crystallizing in a moment. It was a good plan, and might even get me out of this alive. "I'll give him my car keys." Shocked silence rang on the line. I slid one gun into its holster, then the other. "What? I can't go into the barrio, I'm a gringa. Besides, I've got shit of my own to do."

"You're giving him your car keys?" She sounded, for once, taken aback. The hard note of glee was gone.

I felt sorry for raining on her parade. "How else is he going to get down there in time? This is worse than you think, Harp. Get moving; he'll catch up." I slammed the phone down and turned to Saul. "Harp needs you, down in the barrio. They've found a trail, and just found out who our mystery boy is. Name's Billy Ironwater and he's a canine Were from Connecticut." My hand shot out, and I tossed the jingling clatter of my spare set of car keys at him. I picked up my next spare leather trenchcoat from the bed, shook it experimentally, and shrugged into it. I'd put in my tiger's eye earrings, and they tapped my cheeks as I shook my head, freeing my silver-laden hair from the collar of the coat. The blessing in the stones flashed blue for a moment, subsided.

"I thought nobody drove your baby but you." He said it mildly, slipping the keys in the pocket of his jeans.

"If I can trust you to hold the line while I go between I can trust you not to scratch my goddamn paint job," I snapped. Get him out of here, Jill. Hurry up.

Do it quick.

"What are you planning?" His dark eyes had narrowed, and I allowed myself a few moments of looking at his cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, the loose grace of his hands. He was beautiful in the way only a Were can be, each line arranged for maximum effect.

Like something human, only better, stripped of imperfections. All the flaws burned out, instead of scored in with a hellbreed's kiss. The distance between us yawned wide as the chasm between ordinary waking life and the screaming winds of between.

"I'm going to finish my end of this, and you and the Weres will finish yours." After that maybe it's time for a vacation. I wonder what Tahiti looks like this time of year. Ugh, maybe not. I've had all I can stand of heat and rain.

He took two steps into the room. "I wonder…" The sentence stopped itself, and his eyes met mine. The stinging communication returned, deeper than ever, the line between us wide open now and humming with force. It felt too good, too familiar.

"Don't wonder. Get going. You can find the barrio from here, and once you get there you can follow your nose." My hands had turned into fists. The scar pulsed, my agitation plucking at it.

Another two steps toward me. God in Heaven, can't you just go? I wanted to scream it, folded my mouth against the cry. Clenched my hands even tighter. Silver clinked and jangled in my hair.

He approached me cautiously. When he was within arm's length I made a restless movement and he stopped, his feet poised. "What's wrong?"

What the fuck do you think is wrong? "This isn't going to work," I told him flatly. "You have to go. You have to. Right now."

His mouth compressed into a thin line. He reached up, and I thought he meant to touch my cheek. I flinched away, but his hand flicked, and one of my charms dropped into his palm, neatest trick of the week.

"Hey—"

Saul retreated swiftly, paused in the door. He held up the charm—a silver wagon wheel, tied to a long lock of my dark hair. His claws had sliced through as effectively as a razor.

I stared at him. That close, and that quick, it could have been my jugular opened instead of a lock of hair sliced. The worst part was that I didn't care. If he was close enough to kill me, he was close enough that I could breathe in that smell of safety, the breath of something too good for someone like me.

"You're not hellbreed," he said softly. "And I'm not rogue. It might work."

There. It was out in the open, it was said. I opened my mouth, let my half of the flawed equation slip out. "I'm contaminated. I'm not willing to take the chance." Now will you please get the hell out of here?

"You've been wrong before." He stepped back, his fist closing over the silver charm. His boots made no sound, and it hurt to see his fluid grace, and the way his eyes moved over my face, as if he saw something precious there.

"So have you. Get going, Were." Go and find yourself a nice pretty Were girl on the Rez and raise nice cublets. Forget about all of this.

"I've only been wrong once, hunter." Then he was gone, the space in the air where he'd stood crying out to me.

I stood wooden next to my bed, my eyes shut, listening. When the garage door opened and my car's engine roused my shoulders sagged. When I heard the purr of the Impala receding along the street, I finally opened my eyes.

My cheeks were wet. I swiped at them angrily and slid the replacement pager into its padded pocket a moment before the phone shrilled again. I was starting to hate that goddamn noise, and had a brief satisfying vision of emptying a clip into the fucking thing.

I couldn't waste the ammo. I hooked the headset up out of the cradle. "Talk." I sounded a little less than welcoming, even to myself.

"So glad to find you at home, my dear." Perry's voice had turned from bland to venomously gleeful. "I am calling to inform you the meeting you requested is scheduled for dusk, here at the Monde. It is the only place I can be assured of your safety."

You sound so happy I'm going to bet my safety isn't on the agenda tonight My mouth had gone desert-dry and sandy inside. Cool sweat rose up on my forehead and prickled at the small of my back. I was about to use my own body as the lure in a trap, for the five hundredth time in my life.

As usual, I took refuge in sarcasm. "Gee, Pericles. That's awful swell of you. Do I get a pony for Christmas too?"

"Do not bait me today." The words rattled around my ears, each spilling their load of cool poison. "There is a limit to what I allow you, Kismet."

My temper broke with a brittle snap. "Get one thing straight, hellbreed. Your end of this stinks, and if you want to keep your nice cushy little existence in my city you will keep in line. You fuck with me, and there won't be any profit in this for you. It'll be all loss, and I'll personally take pleasure in filling you with silverjacket lead right before I burn your web to the goddamn ground with you in it. Is that clear enough for even your thick little head?"

Amazingly, he chuckled. The sound was so warm and rich my hands began to shake. "You're coming along quite nicely. See you at dusk, my dear." A sound that might have been a kiss breathed into the telephone, and the line went dead.

I checked the clock, picking up my knives and sliding them into their sheaths. Dusk gave me roughly six hours to nerve myself up for what I had to do.

Get going, Jill. Come on.

I got going.