Redemption Alley

Chapter Four

Gray predawn was breaking, again, when the phone rang and my pager went off simultaneously. I left my trench dripping on the rack in the utility room and hobbled through the hall, through the cavern of the sparring space and living room, every muscle I’d pulled singing its own separate note in the orchestra of pain. I’d broken my left arm this time, the arkeus I’d run across on the east side of town had put up a hell of a fight.

Get it, Jill? A Hell of a fight? Arf arf.

But I’d found out, to my lasting satisfaction, which pile of hell-soaked waste had given the mad accountant his power. It was unmistakable, especially when an arkeus pulls a flame-jet six feet long out of its mouth and tries to feed it to you.

The scar provides me with faster healing and damage regeneration, but when it’s busy splinting bones and replacing a few quarts of blood, pulled muscles heal more slowly. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if it started spreading, or if Perry decided it wasn’t such a hot idea to have me drawing on a hellbreed’s tainted power if he wasn’t getting anything in return—even if it was his own damn fault.

Don’t think like that. The phone brayed, the pager buzzed against my hip, and I stopped short of picking up as the answering machine clicked. There were a few moments of silence, then a beep.

“Hey, kitten.” A voice I knew as well as my own slid from the speaker, only slightly distorted. “Guess you’re out—”

My pager quit buzzing. I was already scrambling for the phone. I scooped it up and pressed the talk button, and the machine clicked over with a feedback squeal. “Sorry about that.” Breathless, now, I folded down on the bed. “God, it’s good to hear you.”

“Hey.” Saul sounded tired. “Glad I caught you too, kitten. What’s happening in the big bad city?”

A sharp ache welled up in my chest. I miss you, and Perry called. “Not much. A couple things Monty wants me to look into. A Trader.”

“Bad?” He had a nice voice, to go with all the rest of him.

I shut my eyes, imagining him right next to me. Tall dark-haired Were, looking like a romance-novel Native American except for the gold-green sheen off his eyes in certain light, the rods and cones reflecting differently. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I even got a civilian out alive.”

“That’s my girl.” A warm rumble of approval, carried through a phone line and suddenly threatening to ease every muscle.

“How’s your mom?” I swallowed sudden dryness in my throat. Saul’s mother hadn’t been too happy to meet the hellbreed-tainted hunter he’d given up his place in the tribe for, but with faultless Were courtesy she’d accepted me into her home as a guest and cooked for me. She’d even introduced me to the extended family and officiated at the firelit ceremony that formalized everything. As far as Saul was concerned, we were formally mated.

As far as his tribe was concerned, we were as good as married, even if I was… well, disappointing. But they hadn’t said a word, just welcomed me with Were politeness.

I wondered if they regretted it now.

“There’s morphine.” Saul’s tone changed now. Deeper, and just a bit rougher. “It’s not bad. My aunts are here. They’re singing to her.”

Oh, Christ. She must be close to passing. No more needed to be said.

I listened to him breathing for a few moments, knowing he was doing the same thing. “I love you,” I whispered. I can’t make it better. If I could I would. I’d hunt down the cancer and put a gun to its head. Slit its throat. Kill it for you.

“I know that, kitten.” A thin vibration came through the phone—he was rumbling, deep down in his chest, a werecougar’s response to a mate’s distress. “You sure you’re okay?”

His mother was dying and he was out there alone, because I couldn’t leave the city—nobody was around to take some of the load; the apprentices who had come out last time to handle the overflow while we were honeymooning had gone home and were needed desperately there.

And he was asking if I was okay.

I don’t deserve you, Saul. The charms in my hair jingled as I played with my pager, unclipping it from my belt. It was habit to take the damn thing with me everywhere, in a padded pocket except when I was hosing blood and stink out of my coat. “Right as rain. Wish I could be there.”

“I wish so too. You be careful for me, you hear?” He was already worrying about the next thing, or he wouldn’t have told me to be careful. He almost never did that, because it implied I couldn’t take care of myself.

Weres are touchy about things like that. “Always am. Do you need me?” Say the word, Saul. I can’t leave now, but I will if you ask me to.

Should I feel grateful, or more guilty, that he understood and hadn’t asked? That he had insisted I stay in Santa Luz, because he knew my responsibility weighed as heavily as his?

“I do, but I’m okay. They need you more.” A long pause, neither of us willing to hang up just yet. He broke it first, this time. “I’d better go back in.”

“Okay.” Don’t hang up. Perry called me, and I’m scared. Come home. I swallowed the words. “You take care of yourself, furboy.”

“You too. Tell everyone hello for me.”

“I will.” I waited another few moments, then straightened my arm to put the phone down. He hated saying goodbye.

So did I.

I laid the phone in its cradle and watched as the light winked off. Let out a long breath, muscles twitching and sore under my torn, blood-stiff T-shirt. My pants were shredded—the arkeus had just missed my femoral artery in its dying desperation, brought to bay and made physical enough to fight at last.

I lifted my pager. The number on it was familiar, and I scooped up the phone and dialed again without giving myself time to think. It rang twice.

“Montaigne,” he barked.

“You bellowed?” I even sounded normal, sharp and Johnny-on-the-spot. All hail Jill Kismet, the great pretender.

“We got another disappearance on the east side. And there’s something else. Can you come in?”

My entire body ached. I hauled myself up from the bed, looked longingly at the rumpled pillow and tossed blankets. Saul was the domestic half of our partnership, I’ve never been good at that sort of shit.

The hurt in my heart hadn’t gone away. It was still a sharp piercing, like a broken bone in my chest. I made it over to the dresser, wincing as my leg healed fully and the scar flushed under the damp leather cuff. The urge to tear the cuff off and make sure it wasn’t spreading suddenly ignited, I pushed it away.

“Jill?” Monty sounded halfway to frantic.

I snapped back into myself and jerked a dresser drawer open, scooping up a black Frodo Lives! T-shirt. “I’m on my way.”

The message light on the machine was blinking. I ignored it and bolted for the bathroom, another pair of leather pants, and quite possibly a sleepless day.