That was nothing new. And neither was the way her face changed. Even paranormal hookers learn how to calculate, and they learn how to try and hide that calculation. She wasn’t very good at it. Maybe she hadn’t had a lot of practice yet.
“About two weeks ago I had a client, a police officer. Normally run-of-the-mill detectives can’t afford us, you know. It’s mostly the brass we service, and the politicos. But this one was flush, I guess, and paid up front.” A gleam touched her eyes at the mention of money—a ratty little gleam I wasn’t sure I liked.
“How much?”
“Seven thousand to secure the appointment, another five for the standard consultation, and four for… extras.” Faint dislike tinted her voice, swirled away. She shifted her weight, licked her lips again.
Those heels must be murder. I waited for the rest of it.
“He wanted the usual, and my specialty. Most of all, though, he wanted to talk. His conscience was bothering him. That’s what I do, I provide… discipline.”
I got the feeling she wanted to call it something else. That gleam in her eye turned into a hard little diamond, assessing how much of her story I was buying. I still waited. Silence is the best weapon in conversations like this.
“Anyway,” she continued, “he was really upset. Kept repeating that he hadn’t signed on for murder. He’d just wanted to make some money, some of the money he was spending on me. It was getting too big. He wanted out, but couldn’t see any way out. I just gave him the usual and left. I didn’t tell Shen about it—it didn’t seem important, the man wasn’t Trade material. Too guilt-ridden.” Her shrug was soft poetry, like a Venus flytrap just waiting to close. “Anyway, tonight this detective shows up and asks for me. He stinks of human and doesn’t seem to notice the place isn’t safe for him. Turns out he had access to my client’s credit card statements and traced me from there. We’re independent contractors, you see, and—”
“Names. Your client, anyone else he mentioned.”
Her eyes flickered from side to side, and a pale tongue-tip crept out, touched her glossy lower lip. “I don’t know, the confidentiality—”
For fuck’s sake, what are you, a psychiatrist? “I don’t give a shit about confidentiality, I want names. That table in there can hold a Trader down, you know. You’ve been cooperative so far, I’d hate to have to convince you to give me what I need.”
She shrugged again, satiny flesh moving against the velvet of her gown, and I had one of those irrelevant flashes of memory that happen when you’ve been going for too long on not enough rest. I’d been idly trying to figure out who she was dressed to resemble, and I had it now. She looked just like Jessica Rabbit in real life, right down to the high wide forehead.
I hadn’t seen that movie in forever.
“It doesn’t make much difference. Shen will kill me anyway.” Her gloved hand flicked nervously and produced a long thin brown cigarette with a gold band. The pulse ran high and hard in her throat, despite her show of indifference. “The name on his credit card was Alfred Bernardino. Italian, greasy, built wide and hairy. Do you want to know what he wanted me to do?”
Bernardino? Why does that sound familiar? Most cops’ names do sound familiar, since I put every rookie through the obligatory orientation class. But this sounded more than familiar—it sounded like I’d heard it in the past couple days.
My memory’s normally like a steel trap; I only have to concentrate for a second or two to make a connection. The tip-of-my-brain feeling around the name hovered and, maddeningly, retreated. Shit. Goddammit. “I don’t much care. What did he tell you about the organ trade? Is Shen involved?”
“All I know is that they’re getting them somehow. There’s a buyer from out of state, they pack them up and send them in shipments from a private airfield out of town. There are lists, you know, people too rich to stand in line like the rest of us.” Another shrug. Her voice quivered, but I didn’t blame her. Facing down a hunter in a bad mood should give anyone the shakes. Especially a Trader with something to hide.
And she was most definitely hiding something.
Jesus. “What do the cops do?” I should have dug harder to find the clients that Sorrows bitch was shipping organs to. I should have kept an eye on Sullivan and the Badger and their case, too. Goddammit.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but no hunter likes that sort of vision.
“They find the donors and cover everything up. It’s just under the table, he said. Like hiring illegals for yard work.”
What a lovely way to look at it. “He told you all this?”
“He had a lot on his mind.” She waved the cigarette. “Can I get a light?”
“No. Galina doesn’t like people smoking in here, and you’re not going outside. At least, not until I know you’re telling me the whole truth.” This is a nice neat little story, but something’s off. It just doesn’t make enough sense.
“Come on. Shen’s going to kill me, this is the only chance I’ve got. I’m trading this for some kind of protection. They say you’re fair.”
Goddamn Traders. “Who says?”
“They. You know, them. Everyone.”
“They say I’m fair?” Now that’s news. Traders saying I’m fair?
“Mostly. I’ll tell you something else if you protect me.”
I eyed her in the gloom. The taint of Hell on her aura and that ratlike gleam in her pretty eyes told me not to trust her as far as I could throw her over my shoulder with a broken arm, but I was holding most of the cards here. She was right. Shen An Dua wouldn’t take this Trader back unless it was to make an example of her, both for consorting with me and for being party to Shen’s humiliation.
Which made Irene officially my problem. Except she was a Trader. And there was still a very significant unanswered question.
“Does it have anything to do with one of Shen’s people trying to kill me in my own house?”
For a moment, something hunted flashed in her dark, liquid eyes. She lowered the unlit cigarette. “To kill you?”
Bingo. She knew something about it. This was looking up. “Yeah, a blond scarecrow. I’d be insulted, except it’s easier when they send stupid-ass kids to kill me instead of people I’d have to work up a sweat over.” My fingertips tapped the whip’s handle, a solid comfort. “So, any light you can shed on this?”
“A blond… Fairfax? Why would she…” Now her hands were limp as boned fish at her sides. Her mouth loosened a little, and the shock made her seem more human. “He’s… dead?”
Fairfax? What a name. “I don’t play pattycake when murder comes calling, sweetheart.” It answered a question—Shen had wanted me dead, but not enough to send a ’breed with the balls to do it. Or maybe she just wanted me looking somewhere, and the blond ’breed was supposed to send me in another direction. I hadn’t given him enough time to lie to me.
Irene actually staggered, as if the heels had been too much for her. “He was…” It was a bare whisper. “He wasn’t there to kill you. If he managed to get out he was there to warn you. One of the higher-ups wants you dead for interfering with an experiment.”
Huh? Then why did he jump me? “What kind of experiment, and why would Shen warn me?”
“Maybe he escaped. But Shen might send him, if she didn’t need him anymore. And she’s got a grudge against the owner of the Monde.”
“Perry?” Well, who else? “He’s involved? What kind of experiment?”
The air swirled with darkness and the scar on my wrist tingled. Irene actually flinched when I said his name.
I didn’t blame her one bit.
“I don’t know. Fairfax is dead?” The green tone was back under her paleness, pronounced even in the dark. And the hard, calculating gleam had fled her face. “My God.”
Well, at least that solves one mystery. Why are there other hellbreed at my house, though? “Sorry.” I didn’t feel sorry, but she looked so lost for a moment I almost couldn’t help myself. “Look…” What are you about to do, Jill
? This is madness. She’s a Trader, goddammit!
But still, she’d made the right choice, taking Carp to the hospital. Sure, she’d done it because I told her she was next if he died—but still. It had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Do you have what you want?” Her shoulders sagged, she dropped into her heels. “If you do, I’ll be going back to the club.”
What? “What the hell for? You just said Shen’s going to kill you.”
Her shoulders hunched. “If Fax is dead, I don’t care.”
Say what? “Oh, please. We’re talking about a hellbreed, right?” I watched her flinch, dropping her gaze to the floor as her lips twitched. Can it, Jill. Stick to the matter at hand. “What kind of experiment, and who was running it?”
“Fax might have known. I don’t.” She glanced at me sidelong. A bleeding, shifting light had lit far behind her eyes. Did she actually look relieved? “Are you done?”
All my chimes rang at once. Not even close. Not until I’m sure you’re not hiding anything. And not until I’m sure you’re telling the truth. “You’re staying here for the time being. How far is Perry involved in this? Is he the one who wants me dead?”
“No, it’s one of the other higher-ups.” Irene shivered. Now tears glimmered in the corners of her wide eyes. One had even tracked down her cheek, and I couldn’t tell if it was grief or relief, her face was changing so fast. “But if you, say, owed Shen a favor, she could use it to her advantage against the owner of the Monde. She’d like that.”
I eyed her. The idea that she might know a few things about how Perry interacted with the other hellbreed in Santa Luz was… intriguing, to say the least. Not to mention the “higher-ups.” That was worth a good hour or two of hard questioning.
An hour or two I didn’t have. But Galina would keep her here for me, all safe and warm.
“Jill.” Leon stepped out into the shop’s main room. “Everythin’ even, darlin’?”
I don’t know if you could call it that. “Even-steven. Want to go kill some scurf and find out why someone’s shipping them?”
“Can’t wait.” His eyes narrowed as he took in the Trader, who slumped, splay-footed, on her high heels. “What are you gonna do with that?”
“She may be useful.” I hated the words. It was the sort of thing a hellbreed would say. “How’s Carper?”
“If he can pull through, Galina will pull him through. He seems okay.” My fellow hunter shrugged. “We going?”
“Certainly.” I weighed every priority I had, found each one jostling with the others, and wished wringing my hands was an option. “Let’s roll.”
21
The aftermath of a scurf fight isn’t pretty. There’s slime all over everything; most of it breaks down into powder but it will steam on any night under seventy degrees. The footing is treacherous, and everything that can be broken probably is. Weres are very rarely messy, but scurf are not the neatest kills in the world.
They just won’t stop wiggling.
We arrived too late for any of the fun, and the Weres were gone. Instead, the warehouses were a shambles, the rail doors dented as if stroked a good one from inside by a huge hammer. There was a smell of fur and clean fury lying over the choking terrible candied sweetness of scurf, and Leon was pale as we started checking, covering each other.
Nothing living remained. The Weres had done a good job, and I could see where the battle had been particularly fierce. I hoped nobody else had died.
“Huh.” Leon lowered Rosita. “Would you look at that.”
The slime was merely a thin scattering near the rail doors—a spur here joined a yard about a hundred feet away. One of the doors was half-open; we ducked out into the cold and examined the tracks.
They weren’t brand spanking new, but they weren’t disused either. Our eyes met, and Leon’s mouth firmed. We slid into the warehouses and he held Rosita pointing straight to the ceiling, gapping his mouth a little bit as he breathed to try and relieve some of the stink. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, darlin’?”
I pointed. “Pens, to hold them? You could herd them out through here.… If you were stupid enough to do so, I guess. But why? And where the fuck are the Weres? There should have been one or two here hanging around, waiting for stragglers—or for me.”
He nodded, curling dark hair flopping into his face. “Yeah. And look here.”
Part of the wreckage was metal gates, chain link knocked down in sheets—and a row of pegs holding slim black cattle prods. Some of them had been knocked down.
“Oh Jesus,” I whispered, nausea biting under my ribs.
“Yeah. This definitely qualifies as big fuckin’ problem.” Leon shuddered like a horse scenting a snake. “What the fuck?”
I touched one of the cattle prods, lifted it down. The end crackled slightly when I depressed the trigger. One hell of a magic wand. “This is getting weird. Where are the Weres? One or two should be here.”
He shrugged. “Suppose we look around after we give the rest of this the eye. Maybe…” But there was no way to make the situation any less odd. Neither of us said what we were thinking.
This has got to be a trap.
Nothing happened as we checked the rest of the building. Three interconnected warehouses, an L-shaped nightmare; we’d check the bottom of the L next. Even the roof was spattered with powder-slime.
Why weren’t there more disappearances? This much scurf, there had to have been something, someone else missing! Unless they were shipping them in quantity—but how were they feeding them? Scurf need the hemoglobin or they go into brainrot.
There was a foreman’s office up a rickety, smashed staircase neither of us could trust our weight to. Leon scabbarded Rosita and gave me ten fingers, lifting with a grunt, and I caught the edge of a window that might have sliced my fingers down to bone if glass had ever been put in it. For once, cheap shoddy work was to someone’s advantage.
It was a moment’s work to muscle myself through into the office. The light was uncertain, the few unbroken fluorescent fixtures buzzing like Helletöng through broken teeth.
The office was torn to shreds too, claw marks dragged into the cheap rotting drywall. Were claws—and others. Once you’ve seen them a few times, it’s easier to differentiate claw marks than normal people would ever believe.
“Shit,” I breathed, and started casting around. The candy-reek of scurf covered up the rotten smell of hellbreed, but once I scented it the aroma of Hell moved front and center.
And I hadn’t been here to protect my Weres, goddammit.
Drifts of slime-spattered paper covered the floor. A metal desk sat in one corner under a refrigerated cabinet; I looked it over and gingerly swung the powdered door open. Bottles of a rusty-dark liquid stood neatly on the shelves.
My gorge rose, pointlessly. Blood. But not nearly enough for the number of scurf formerly housed here.
Not to mention the obvious question—who were the donors, and were they willing? “Leon? Any refrigerators down there?”
“I’ll look. What’s up there?”
“Blood canisters stacked like Bud Lights. And a desk. There was at least one hellbreed here.”
“Sheeeeee-yit.” Maybe it was the Texas in him, but he could put an incredible amount of disgust in two stretched-out syllables.
The desk drawer was locked, but a simple yank took care of that. It was almost frightening, how casually I tore the reinforced metal apart.
The scar skittered with unhealthy heat, flushed and full. It was getting disturbingly easy to rip things up. I yanked a handful of folders up out of the drawer and flipped one open.
Nothing but shipping manifests. I eyed them, a sick feeling beginning under my breastbone. The information in them started to click over into the coldly rational part of my brain, and intuition kicked in. I scattered more papers, found pictures—eight-by-tens of an airfield. The picture started revolving inside my head, and I began to feel sick.
Oh, God. I spent at least
ten minutes moving around, digging through paper. Bureaucracy is a bitch. You can’t run an operation without it, but it leaves slimy little pawprints all over everything.
“Jill?” Leon, moving downstairs. “You should come take a look at this.” Sound of movement. “Jill?”
My throat was dry and my hand actually trembled. “Jesus,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ.”
“Jill, get the fuck down here, darlin’.” Leon’s voice didn’t tremble, but it was firm. “Come on.”
“One second,” I said around the rust in my throat. The pattern was clear. Infrequent shipments from down south and slightly to the west, Viejarosas way. Mostly regular shipments from due south, with notations attached to the irregularities that I could well imagine. Smaller, more frequent notations in another column for shipments to ARA, wherever that was. I had a sinking, chilling feeling that I knew.
Oh, Jesus. Jesus God. No wonder there haven’t been disappearances I could track.
“Goddammit, Jill! What the fuck’s going on?” Leon looked relieved when I appeared at the window. He looked a little less relieved when I landed right next to him, boots thudding and the force of the landing almost driving me to my knees. The jolt was a bitch—three-quarters of a story isn’t enough for me to brace myself, there just isn’t time.
“I’ve got an idea. What are you bellowing about?”
He pointed. “This way.”
As we worked our way down into the bottom of the L-shape, the pens got more and more reinforced—and more terribly shattered. How many scurf had been here, rattling against the chain link, tearing at the metal that held them?
Jesus. I had a good idea what we’d find around the corner.
Leon had already checked it, but we still covered each other as we slid around into the bottom of the L-shape. The light was a little better here, not so many fixtures damaged, but it wasn’t the sterile white glare it would have been before the fight tore through.
More pens on one side, not torn apart, but with each cage door open. These weren’t reinforced like the other ones. At the end was another rail door, with a line of tasers hanging along the side.