Night Shift

Chapter Thirty-one

Harp's jaw jutted tensely, and the feathers rebraided in her hair fluttered. She wasn't speaking to me.

The platform was a chaos of noise and activity. Bright sunlight glittered on the ranked cars—Weres very rarely fly. They don't like it, so it was the train for all three of them. Harp and Dominic would drop Saul off near the Rez and use the rest of the trip to eat up a few days of recuperation time. They deserved it.

Harp and Dom had finished the small mountain of paperwork to report an interstate major paranormal event, and I would get a lump sum from the FBI's backstairs funding. With a little bit of fudging, the official story held up; a rogue Were was put down and a meddling hellbreed toasted. Cenci wasn't mentioned except in passing. All in all, it was a neatly tied package.

Perry still hadn't called me.

Dominic glanced at Harp, who had drawn away down the platform. "She'll get over it," he murmured to me. "Thank you, Jill. I mean it."

Same old Dominic, still smoothing things over for her. I nodded, silver shifting in my hair and my dagger earrings swinging. The bright sun was an excuse to wear wraparound shades, and I'd left the sunsword, blackened and still icy, at Galina's. If it ever recharged enough I might use it.

Or I might not. I shuddered at the thought. My replacement black leather trench creaked slightly with the movement, and I had my next pair of boots on. I hoped I could get through a week without bleeding on them.

Then again, the town had quieted down enormously. Maybe my reputation was finally scary enough to keep it that way. "Don't mention it, Dom. Why don't you come out some time when there's not an impending apocalypse? It'd be nice to just have a barbecue or something." My tone was far too falsely bright. I coughed into my hand, as if my throat was still troubling me.

"Sometime." Dom grinned. "I'd better go get Harp on the train. She'll call you in a few weeks."

I doubted it. She wasn't the forgiving type, and my putting a hellbreed on a Were pyre must have rubbed her hard the wrong way. Probably some other Weres, too.

I don't care. It was the right thing to do.

At least Dom agreed with me, in his own quiet way. Saul… he didn't say much one way or the other. It could have been that I was avoiding him.

If could have been meant definitely, that is. "See you, Dom."

He gave me a salute, sketching the motion with two fingers, and turned away. Harp had moved farther down the platform, and I saw him slide an arm over her shoulders as he hustled her onto the train. They were a beautiful couple, I saw a few admiring glances tossed their way.

Saul stood with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. His eyes were on my face.

I studied him behind the sunglasses. My heart hurt. My head hurt. The pain ran through me.

"I guess this is goodbye," I said brightly. Blinked furiously behind the shades.

He shook his head a little, glancing across the platform behind me. The silver wheel and the twisted unrecognizable bracelet threw back sharp darts of reflected light. I tried to memorize everything about his face, storing it up like a thief.

"Take care of yourself," I added. I babbled. Like a complete idiot.

His jaw set, his mouth thinning. He nodded, privately, as if wrapping up a long internal conversation.

Saul's right hand came out of his pocket, and he held up something I had to squint at to make sense of. The shades didn't help, and neither did the water in my eyes.

It was a leather cuff, with buckles. Just wide enough for a wrist; for my wrist. He held it out, and I took it. I was helpless not to, my hand just flew up and grabbed it.

"That should last you longer than the copper." He stuffed his hand back in his pocket and cocked his head, regarding me. The departure announcement began blaring in the background, as last goodbyes were said all around us and people hurried to file onto the train. "When it gets worn or the buckles snap, I'll make you a new one." His voice dropped, as if he had something in his throat too. I have to go home. My mother deserves to hear from me about… everything."

"I know," I jumped in. "Don't make it worse. Just go. Get the hell out of here." Don't go. Stay. Please, stay.

But I couldn't say it. I closed my teeth against the words. There were so many reasons why he shouldn't stay. He was Were, and I was human—tainted with hellbreed.

Corrupted, even if I retained my soul. No matter how hard I fought it, I was going to Hell eventually. And I'd just had an object lesson on what could happen to Weres once they tangled with anything hellbreed.

It wasn't fair. It was monstrously, hideously, absolutely unfair.

It doesn't matter, I told myself. God, just make him go. Keep him safe.

His eyebrows drew together, stubbornly. It just made him handsomer, the richness of his skin almost too real under the sunlight. "I have to say something."

Oh, Christ. Don't draw this out. "Just go, will you?"

"I'm going." His shoulders hunched. "But I'm coming back. You can't cook worth a damn."

With that he was gone, flowing away with the peculiar Were economy of motion. I stayed nailed in place, buffeted by a stream of people who were heading for the exits now that everyone was safely stashed on the train. When his feet left the platform and he hopped up into the carriage Dom and Harp were already in, the snap of his feet leaving the ground of my city echoed in my chest like a broken guitar string.

I turned blindly away. It was a miracle I was able to make it to the parking lot and my Impala with the cuff clenched in my sweating fist. The tears blurring my eyes and sliding down my cheeks didn't stop even when I dropped into the driver's seat. I put my head down on the steering wheel and heard the lonely sound of a train whistle blaring as the five o'clock special pulled out of the station and chugged out of town.