Redemption Alley

  The edged reek of spilled gasoline burst in my sensitive nose. I blinked something wet and warm out of my eyes.

  At least I’m right-side-up. Or am I?

  It took me a second to figure out which way gravity was dragging, the blood in my eyes streaking in fat globules down my cheeks. Must be a head wound, they’re messy. Bleed a lot.

  More pinging and popping sounds, my body moving instinctively, seeking what cover it could, that’s gas I smell, move, Jill, get the fuck out of here, Theron, where’s Theron?

  Broken glass littered the seats. The Were was gone. I tore myself free of the seat belt and squirmed around the gearshift, its head ripped free of the shaft. The red fuzzy dice Galina had given me had disappeared and the car had rolled, coming to rest right-side-up. Goddamn. I’m still alive. Again. Go figure.

  I braced my shoulders against the seat and kicked. The jolt slammed my shoulders deeper into glass-strewn upholstery. No dice—the entire car was crumpled, I couldn’t bust the door open.

  The passenger-side window had been rolled down and was now an irregular hole. Stink of flammable fluid rose gagging-thick. Get out of here, Jill. All it takes is a spark.

  I wormed my way toward the window. The pings and whines of bullets still smacked the side of the car. More glass broke. It was a regular fusillade. Jesus wept. What NOW?

  The choice was to stay where I was and possibly roast if the car went up, or get shot as I wriggled out the window. I froze, half a precious second trickling away through molasses as the body, idiot meat that it is, expressed in the strongest possible terms that it didn’t want to get shot again, thank you.

  MOVE!

  My arms shot out, fingers closing around the edges of the hole, jagged metal slicing deep. I didn’t care, hauling myself free, a high keening sound I realized was my own voice, yelling filthy obscenities I probably would have blushed at a few years ago—before I was a hunter.

  Now I know how toothpaste feels when it’s pushed free of the tube. It’s a good thing I’m skinny. I worked my way free while the crackling sounds receded from the forefront of my consciousness. Black smoke belched and the unholy reek of vinyl burning scoured hot water from my eyes. My coat got stuck, was sliced, I wriggled free and fell on concrete, fetching my head a stunning blow. Rolling, trained reflex bringing me up to my feet just as my baby, my beautiful Impala I’d bought from a junkyard and nursed to apple-pie order, exploded.

  The shockwave flung me flat, leather scraping the pitted surface of the road and my head snapping back, bouncing as I hit again. I scrambled away from the car, already going in the direction the blast had pushed me.

  I picked myself up. My ears were bleeding, thin trickles of evaporating coolness down my neck.

  Goddamn. My car.

  The rest of the world returned in a rush of diluted noise. A woman was screaming in Spanish, high-pitched babble. Kids were yelling. Oh God did I hit someone? Hope not. Cover, find cover—I rolled, heading for the far side of the street, my back wrenching in a quick burst of red pain.

  They were still shooting at me, but the bulk of the burning car shielded me from view. It was a small mercy, and as soon as the smoke thinned a little they would have a clear field of fire.

  There were acres of cracked sunstruck pavement and no cover. Then Theron landed gracefully, his fingers tented on the concrete as bullets spattered. He grabbed me, shifting his weight, and I pushed with the long muscles in my legs, uncoiling in a leap as awkward as it was effective. My back wrenched again, and the scar woke, prickling and roiling as I pulled blindly on etheric force, a completely nonphysical movement that nevertheless echoed in the physical world, adding lift.

  The alley opened up like a gift, swallowed us whole, shadows sharp in the flood of sunshine. “Car!” I gasped, and Theron’s hand closed on the collar of my coat. He hauled me back as I tried to reverse direction and take off.

  “Goddammit they’re still shooting!” he yelled as I lunged again for the mouth of the alley. More bullets pinged against adobe and brick, puffs of dust turning gold. Black smoke belched up—my car was absolutely totaled, a twisted wreck at the end of three loops of black rubber smeared on patched, cracked pavement.

  My baby. Gone in a heartbeat.

  Theron yanked at me again, so hard my head bobbled. “Jesus Christ!”

  I seconded that emotion. “They blew up my car!”

  “Woman, you’re lucky they didn’t fill you full of lead again. This is getting ridiculous.” His hair was wildly mussed, two spots of high color standing out on his cheeks.

  “They blew up my car!” I sounded like they’d pissed in my Cheerios. Blood dripped salt-warm and stinging in my eyes. “Goddammit, you fucking Were, do something useful!”

  “What am I supposed to do?” He dragged me further into the alley, swearing under his breath. “Jesus Christ. Who wants you dead this bad, Jill?”

  “How the hell should I know? It’s someone different every fucking week.” I had to suck in breath, burning muscles starved for oxygen and complaining.

  Shadows moved at the mouth of the alley. Theron pulled me behind a dumpster and shoved me down. We both crouched there, my ribs flickering with deep hard breaths and the hot explosive reek of garbage climbing down my throat. “Where are we?”

  “Shush.” He waved a hand and cocked his head, a cat’s inquiring movement. His eyes glowed orange, swords of sunlight piercing the high blank wall of a ratty old tenement across the alley. There were still screams and spatters of gunfire and a low harsh tearing sound—my car, burning.

  Oh, my God, I swear I am going to kill whoever is responsible for this. I softened my breathing, drawing silence over myself. More movement at the mouth of the alley. A fire-escape jagged up on our side further back, but it looked rickety and rusted; both of us were probably too heavy for it. It’s the price you pay for heavier muscle and bone—less vulnerability, but more mass in the ass.

  Still, if they come through we’ll either have to kill or flee. There’s no third option, we can’t vanish here. And it’s the middle of the goddamn day.

  Quick liquid streams of Spanish, tossed back and forth. I listened hard. “Acqui?” someone asked.

  “Nada, ese. Caray.”

  More voices. Men’s voices, and the piping of boys. Their heartbeats were so high and fast I heard them even though the cuff half-blinded the scar. I smelled them—sweat, cordite, beer, and grease, along with the deep brunet scent of dark-haired men.

  Theron’s hand tightened on my shoulder. My hand had curled around a gun butt.

  My car. Goddammit.

  Then it came, at the tail end of a string of expletives. “You better tell el pendejo gordo. He said you had to see the body.”

  My skin chilled. Think, Jill. Think.

  Someone asking for kill verification was someone serious about murdering me. And el pendejo has two meanings.

  One is fool, or stupid idiot. A looser translation is son-ofabitch.

  Not very PC, you know. Because the other meaning, in Santa Luz, is cop.

  16

  The blue Chevy Caprice smelled of sourness. It was clean enough, despite the bottle of bourbon shoved under the passenger’s seat and the funk of burned and mashed cigars. It was hot, but the heat was bleeding away as the sun retreated and shade fell over the parking lot.

  He parks out here because it’s the only time he gets alone. The insight was unwelcome. I lay in the back seat, still and quiet as a stone. Of course I was pretty much in plain sight, except for the thin thread of sorcery running through my aura. Complete invisibility is expensive, energetically speaking. It’s much easier, and cheaper, to simply avert the gaze. To hook onto that quality of the repeatable in the physical world that lulls most people into sleepwalking.

  It makes them good prey. Even cops, who notice more than most.

  Dappled shade from a tall anemic pine tree clinging to life at the edge of the lot fell over the car, yet another reason for him to park here.

  I wai
ted.

  Shift change swirled through the lot, snatches of conversation, car doors slamming, engines rousing. My quarry opened the driver’s door and dropped in, pushing his battered briefcase carefully over into the passenger’s side. I waited until he buckled his seatbelt and sighed, reaching over for the bottle tucked under the folded newspaper in the passenger-side footwell.

  I curled up into a sitting position, glad for the liquid shadows. I clapped a hand over Montaigne’s mouth and poked the gun into his ribs. “Drive. Take your usual route home.”

  I was sorry about the gun. But I had to make sure. Completely sure.

  His eyes got really, really wide. But he didn’t question me—just twisted the key to grind the starter, got the Caprice running, and pulled forward through an empty spot, taking a right and sliding through pools of orange as the lamps in the lot tried ineffectually to light the gathering dusk. Once I was sure he wasn’t going to yell, I eased my hand away from his stubble.

  Monty kept quiet, but sweat dewed the back of his neck. His tie was loosened and his jacket rumpled. He was still chewing a mouthful of Tums, a chalky undernote to his tang of heavy maleness, not at all clean and musky like a Were’s smell.

  We hit Balanciaga Avenue from the lot, and he began to work his way toward the residential section. He still didn’t ask any questions.

  I decided it was time. “Someone’s been trying to kill me, Monty. Someone not on the nightside, someone who doesn’t know you need special bullets and a lot of luck to take me down. A real execution-style hit uptown, and then just today a whole bunch of gangbangers took exception to me and started talking about cops wanting kill verification on my sweet little behind.” I kept the gun steady. “You want to tell me why you wanted me to look into Marv’s death so much?”

  “Jesus.” He was still sweating, and it smelled sour. “Put that thing away, Jill.”

  I wish I could, Monty. “Not a chance, not yet.” I paused as his eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, then cut longingly over at the passenger side. “Bourbon in the car, Montaigne? What the hell is going on with you?” Leather creaked now as I shifted my weight, he was keeping nicely to the speed limit.

  Drinking in the front seat on the way home from work is a Very Bad Sign.

  Score one for him, he sounded dry and academic. “It’s the stress of putting up with you, goddammit. Your car was reported firebombed in the fucking barrio. They’re whispering you’re dead. Everyone’s nervous.”

  “Well, as far as the Santa Luz PD is concerned, I’m going to stay dead. You’re not going to tell anyone you saw me. But before I go deep and silent to flush this one out, Monty, you’re going to level with me.” I took a deep breath. “You knew Kutchner was dirty.”

  More sweat beaded up on Monty’s neck. He leaned forward—slowly, slowly—and flipped a switch. Hot wind blasted into the interior—the engine hadn’t been on long enough for the air conditioning to do much. “It didn’t feel right. I just suspected something, I didn’t know what. Goddammit, he was my partner.”

  You must have done a lot more than suspected, Montaigne. What, you think I’m stupid? “His widow’s dead and so is Winchell. And so is Pedro Ayala. How many other cops are dead, Monty? Was I supposed to end up one of them?”

  “Ayala? What the fuck?” Monty sounded baffled. But he was sweating.

  But it was hot as hell in the car. What precisely did I suspect?

  Not much. Except who else would know where I was likely to be, if not my primary contact on the force?

  And the whole betting pool, who would be tracking hunter sightings. I didn’t bother hiding from the police; they were my allies.

  Or at least, most of them were. It looked like not all of them felt the same way. “Ayala over in Vice. Got himself taken down a bit ago, shot on gang territory—but it wasn’t a gang hit, it was because he uncovered something.” I slid the gun into its holster, he wasn’t going to do anything silly now. “Listen to me, Monty. You need to keep your head down and stay away from all of this. I don’t want you catching any flak. Who did you tell?”

  “Tell?”

  “That you’d called me in on the Kutchner case. Who did you tell? Anyone?”

  He took a hard right on Seventeenth, still driving like a prissy old maid. “Not a fucking soul, Kismet. Jesus, you think I’m stupid?” His eyes flicked up to mine in the rearview, returned to the road. Traffic was light. “How big is this?”

  “You’ve got some suspicions, don’t you. You did from the start. Goddammit, Monty, you should have told me. I don’t like to go into something like this with my ass hanging out.”

  He looked just the same—an aging fat man, with haunted eyes and a stained tie. “So Marv was dirty? How dirty?”

  When I didn’t answer, he stared at the road. After a few tense seconds he slammed his palm on the steering wheel and let out a string of curses, finishing with, “And I didn’t have a fucking clue, Jill. I woulda told you, for fuck’s sweet fucking sake!”

  Christ. Monty had never held back on me before, I didn’t think he had it in him. Still, I had to be sure. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s someone supposedly on my side sitting on the information I need to pursue a case. I still hadn’t forgiven Father Gui over at Sacred Grace for that episode with the wendigo and the firestrike spear, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.

  I wasn’t sure I should, either.

  “I know. But something here stinks.” Who would guess you’d ask me to look into the Kutchner suicide? Or was it showing up at the widow’s house that did it, I wonder? Jesus, twenty people must have seen me there. I stared thoughtfully through the windshield as cold air spilled through the vents. The car rapidly became more comfortable, but didn’t smell any better. “You can go ahead and smoke if you want to.”

  “Gee, thanks.” But he pulled a Swisher Sweet from his breast pocket and champed, lighting it while he steered with one hand. I glanced away from the flash of the lighter, a star in the darkness. Orange streetlight bounced off the road’s hard paleness. He rolled his window down a little and exhaled oddly scented smoke.

  I suddenly, completely, missed Saul like there was a hole in my chest. Again. It was like missing a hand, or a leg. I’d grown so used to working with him, having his quiet presence clear up any mess in my head.

  “So you think I should leave this alone?” Monty sounded uncharacteristically uncertain.

  No shit, Batman. “Let me put it this way. I don’t want to avenge you too. I like you breathing.”

  “That bad?”

  I let the silence answer him.

  “How dirty was he?” He braked, we were fast approaching a stop sign at Tewberry and Twenty-Eighth. I coiled myself for action.

  “Don’t worry about that, Monty. Worry about keeping out of this. Don’t go anywhere alone. Be careful. And for God’s sake don’t tell anyone I’m still alive.”

  “That’s going to be rough. What if someone else shows up missing on the east side?”

  That’s more likely than you can possibly know. I wish we knew we’d gotten all the scurf. “Don’t worry about me doing my job. You just keep yourself out of trouble.” The car rolled to a stop, I hit the door, and was gone before he could even curse at me. I watched his taillights vanish from the roof of a convenient apartment building and hoped like hell he wouldn’t do anything silly.

  Theron was waiting in the darkened doorway of a bakery, doing the little Were camouflage trick. If my blue eye hadn’t been able to look under the surface of the world, I would have had to depend on the thin thread of wrong touching my nerves, and really looked to see him. I also would have had a gun out while I did it.

  Theron’s eyes fired orange in the gloom, like and unlike the streetlamps. “Is he clean?”

  “Squeaky.” Or if he isn’t, I haven’t given him anything to go on other than I’m alive—and if word gets out I’m still breathing, I’ll know where it came from. “He suspected something was wrong, that’s all. Intuition still happens.”


  The Were shrugged. My back prickled—other Weres were still out running sweeps, but they hadn’t found any trace of scurf.

  Yet.

  And I’d lost a full day.

  It was enough to turn anyone into a pessimist.

  “What next?” He moved restlessly.

  “You stop by Galina’s and pick up some ammo for me, drop by the barrio and squeeze your gang friends for the word on why a cop would want me dead, and I’m going home to change clothes.”

  Predictably, he decided to argue. “Like I’m going to let you out of my sight.”

  This isn’t negotiable. I need a few minutes to myself and some hard thinking. “Everyone thinks I’m dead, Theron. There aren’t many cops who know the amount of damage I can really take, or what it would take to kill me. Nobody is going to be looking for me just yet. Besides, the longer you wait to go talk to your friends in the barrio, the more chance they’ll ‘forget’ something.” If you were Saul we wouldn’t be having this conversation; you’d be doing what I told you. Goddammit. I rolled my shoulders in their sockets, a habitual movement easing muscle strain.

  “I don’t like it. I promised Saul I’d look out for you.”

  “I’m just going home, Theron. I promise not to talk to strangers and to look both ways before crossing the street.” I stepped out of the doorway, smoke taunting my nose. It drifted up from my coat, the smell of burning vinyl, cooked leather, and gasoline.

  What a reek. I’m never going to be able to wash it out.

  The Were shrugged. “You’d better,” he muttered darkly, before easing out of the shadows himself and taking a few steps in the opposite direction. Then he gathered himself and blurred, running with fluid finicky feline grace.