Between the scene Rosenfeld and Paloma were still probably working and this, the betting pool was going to be a-chatter this morning. I hear they have a whole system for betting on when and where I’ll show up, how long before someone sees me, how many bodies at the last scene I visited. Macabre? Maybe.
But they know that when I disappear, it’s time to get nervous.
Gilberto had tried to insist on coming along. I’d ignored him, told Galina to keep him under wraps. I did not want my apprentice taken too. That would leave me with too many hellbreed to kill, and having to make a choice between my duty to him and the way my entire body burned at the thought of Saul in danger, in trouble, hurt…
I did not want to make that choice. I knew what I would choose, and it would damn me in the only place that mattered—my own conscience.
Tires screaming, I jagged around a lumbering streetsweeper, cut up 182nd the wrong way between the last block of Sarvedo and Tigalle, and floored the accelerator again. Now I was in the industrial section, bouncing over railroad tracks, approaching the Monde Nuit from the edges of the block of slaughterhouses that huddled near the railyards.
The drive from Galina’s to the Monde can take as long as forty-five minutes in bad traffic. Twenty at normal speeds. I made it in ten and slewed into the parking lot, tires smoking, bailing out almost before the Pontiac had come to a stop. Running, each stride taking far too long. My coat snapped and fluttered like a flag in a stiff wind.
The Monde is a long low building, crouching in a shallow depression of brackish etheric contamination. There was usually muscle at the door, Trader beefbags the size of small outhouses, with utterly illegal submachine guns. The edges of the parking lot were unpaved, and dust rose in odd swirls as the corruption creeping out in concentric circles met the tired sunlight and flinched back.
I’d probably arrived just at shift change, because there were no bouncers looming outside. I hit the wide oak double doors so hard they both flew open, the hydraulic arms atop them popping hard as they exploded. Little bits of metal and plastic rained down, but I was already through. Sparks crackled, a roaring in my ears.
“Perry!” I yelled, the scar turned into a live coal pressed in the flesh of my arm. Jolts of pain sawed up my nerves. “Goddamn you, Perry!”
The place was deserted. No Traders finishing up the night’s games, no hellbreed at the bar, crouched on stools and hiding from the sun. The dance floor was empty, just like the stage. Dust danced in the golden shafts struggling in through keyhole skylights.
It was just like Perry to allow the sun, that great cleanser, a few fingers inside his hideout.
The only motion was at the bar, where Riverson set the bottle of vodka down with a click. His gray-filmed eyes, a little like the caretaker out at the Hill, fixed on me. But while the caretaker’s gaze was mild and kind, Riverson’s is just plain blind. Still, he sees a lot more than most with sight or Sight.
Behind him, bottles glowed on glass shelves. Some of them even held liquor instead of the various substances nightsiders used to give themselves a kick or two.
The vodka bottle shattered, liquid steaming as it hit dyed-russet concrete flooring. I had Riverson by the throat, dragging him over the bar. He was amazingly light, his strength only human. I don’t know what he’d Traded to end up here, or how he survived night after night serving drinks to the scions of Hell.
I don’t care, either. He’s living on borrowed time just like the rest of them.
He flailed ineffectually. I batted one of his fists away and put the gun to his forehead. “Where?” I barked, and the word bounced back off the concrete, hurt my ears. “So help me, you helltrading blind man, I will kill you. Where?”
He choked, his face gone plummy and his filmed eyes rolling like a horse’s. I realized he couldn’t talk with me holding his throat like that and eased up a fraction, ready to clamp down again. I did not trust Riverson as far as I could throw him. Mikhail had come in here to pump the old man for information while I was still an apprentice. It was on one of those visits that Perry showed up at the end of the bar, dressed in pale linen and leering at me.
Misha had almost drawn down on him. Sometimes I thought it would have gone better if he had.
“—stop—” Riverson was still choking, and for a moment I struggled with the urge to close my fist and feel the little bones in his neck snap-crackle-pop. I could crush the larynx like a rotted fruit. It would take only a moment’s worth of work, and it would be so worth it.
But it would not lead me to Saul.
I kept the gun to his forehead. Checked the interior of the Monde again. If Perry was upstairs in his white office, watching this on closed-circuit… but no. There was no betraying stain of a hellbreed’s plucking at the fabric of reality in the whole building. Nothing but the syrupy well of etheric contamination, dark and swirling drowning-deep in some places. And Riverson’s frail humanness, his pulse struggling as his face turned an even deeper plum-brick shade.
I eased up the rest of the way, though my entire body shook with the effort. “Talk fast, old man.” Chill and sharp, I didn’t sound like myself. I didn’t sound like Mikhail, either. There was no edge of hurtful glee to my tone, either, which meant I didn’t sound like Perry. Which was a blessing.
I might have shot someone, otherwise.
No, I sounded like a woman utterly prepared to kill whoever got in her way. Truth in advertising was making a comeback.
Riverson coughed, deep hacking sounds as his color eased. The colorless, nose-stinging fume of spilled vodka rose. “—mercy—” he managed to get out, and that was almost the last straw.
I pressed the gun to his forehead so hard I felt his skull under the thin skin, and the concrete under his head. “I am not in the business of mercy today, old man. Where is my Were?”
Shock softened his features. He coughed again, and even with the thick gray webbing covering his eyeballs he looked surprised and puzzled. “Huh?” Another deep racking sound, his entire body curling up like a worm on a fishhook. “What? The fuck?”
My temper almost snapped. The gun clicked, and he flinched.
“Did you miss the part where I am not fucking around?” The words hit a crescendo. “Where is my Were, God damn you!”
“I don’t know!” Riverson yelled. “I was left here with a message! Days ago! Jesus Christ Kismet don’t shoot me, it’s not my fault!”
My fingers cramped with the need to squeeze the trigger. I lifted the gun, and it roared. The bullet smashed into a pile of electronic equipment on the stage. Sparks flew. Riverson screamed, the sound of a rabbit in a trap, and I pressed the smoking barrel to his forehead again. It sizzled. The scream ended on a whimper.
“Start talking.” There was something in my throat. It made it hard to get the words out without a guttural growl.
The cold voice of calculation and percentage spoke up. Don’t kill him, Jill. Don’t do it. Not yet.
“It’s not my fault! Perry left me here. He thought you’d be here before now, way before now. He’s in trouble. Bad trouble.”
“How exactly is that my problem?” But I had a sinking sensation in the middle of my belly, right next to the ball of unsteady rage.
“His problem is your problem, Kismet. They’re bringing through another hellbreed. A bigger one. According to the higher-ups Perry hasn’t been pulling his weight for years now. He’s been fobbing them off with one excuse after another—”
I bounced his head off the concrete once. It felt good, but I didn’t want to do it again. Might make it harder to question him if he got all dizzy and concussed. “Cry me a river and tell me another lie.”
“No lie! No lie! Perry’s in hiding! He needs your help! He even pulled in that Sorrows bitch—”
“Belisa.” My breath hissed through the name. “Oh, I know. Where? Where is the son of a bitch? And that little whore too.”
“I don’t know where he is!” Screaming. Blood slicked the left side of his face, bright red. It st
ank of copper, only the faintest trace of black showing he’d Traded for something. “He’s got some kind of hold on her, some collar, I don’t know what! He left me here—bait, and with the message for you.”
“What message?” I was regretting not killing him outright. Now I was going to have to let him live, at least until I found out everything he knew. And separated the fiction from the truth.
Something was nagging at me. A gift. His gift to you. I shelved it. More immediate things to worry about.
Riverson coughed, his throat rasping. “The back room. That room. He left you a present. She’s in there.”
For a moment the words refused to make sense. Oh, my fucking God. The world snapped into a different configuration behind my eyeballs. “Alive, or dead?”
“I don’t know. Jesus Christ, Kismet—”
“There’s an awful lot you don’t know.” Cold and considering. “You’re going to have to know something pretty soon, Riverson, to keep your head on your shoulders.”
“I told you to stay away from him! I warned you not to come back! I did everything I could!” He didn’t dare squirm. “I did what Mikhail asked!”
Another electric jolt through me. This was getting me nowhere. “You do not,” I said, as quietly and evenly as I could, “speak my teacher’s name, Riverson. The bitch is in the back room? That room?”
He almost nodded, caught himself when I jammed the gun against his skull again. “Y-yes. That room. Kismet, you should know something. That scar—the mark—”
“Did I ask you a question, Riverson?” I took the gun away but still held myself ready. He had only human strength, true.
But that could have just meant that he’d Traded for something else.
“You need to know.” A whisper, like he was a kid scared of the dark. The blood slicking his face was too vivid, too bright. “If I don’t tell you now, I’ll never get a chance. He was always listening. Through my ears. Through my head.”
He. One single syllable, carrying a weight of loathing and fear. No question who he was talking about, either. I dug for handcuffs, still keeping an eye on him. “Make it quick, then. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Did you ever wonder why he made you the bargain?”
I almost shrugged, decided not to. It might disturb my balance. The cuffs jangled, their silver coating running with sluggish blue light. “He thinks he can get something.” It was a moment’s work to roll Riverson over, he offered no resistance. I had him cuffed in a few seconds, tested them. Good. “You can tell him he’s wrong.”
“You’re wrong.” The words were muffled against the floor. Head wounds are messy; he didn’t look pretty. Still, it wouldn’t kill him. It would be foolish to feel any sympathy.
“Do yourself a favor and don’t piss me off right now, old man.” I levered myself up, restrained the urge to kick him. It would serve no purpose. “And stay there.”
Riverson actually laughed. The jagged edges of that sound rubbed every inch of me the wrong way. I took a deep breath. The first priority was finding Saul, but now I had to check that back room. I set off with long swinging strides.
If Melisande Belisa was back there, I would have a few words with her. And if it was a trap, I would spring it and find out what the fuck was happening. Either way, I won.
“He never let you do it with the lights on, did he?” Riverson yelled into the floor. His blood, slicking his face and dripping on the concrete, made the words bubble weirdly. “You never saw his mark, did you? Inside of the right thigh, high up, because Perry’s not shy. A scar like a star.”
I turned on my heel. My boot heels clicked. Three steps. Four. I reached Riverson again. Crouched, my hellbreed-strong right hand flashing out and curling in his graying hair. I dragged his face up, ignoring how the rest of his body torqued uncomfortably.
“What are you playing at?”
“Never with the lights on.” His lips stretched, rubbery, around the words. “That’s what he told me. Why no woman would ever see that scar. And he never wanted you to go down on—”
Cold went through me, and sick heat. The scar was a hot, hard knot on my wrist, tasting the corruption and misery filling this place. Did he just say to me what I think he said to me?
He was saying what I thought he was saying, I realized. He was intimating that my teacher had traded with Perry too.
My left hand flashed. The slap was a crack, and I dropped him. “Spread your filth elsewhere,” I said softly, and Riverson sagged against the floor. A faint blubbery sound reached me.
The old man was crying. In messy gulps, like a child. My lip curled. If it was a mindfuck, it wasn’t even worthy of the name. Mikhail and I had been closer than close, in bed and out of it…
… but here I was, with his Talisman again, heading back to see if his killer was waiting for me.
His murderer. The woman he had hidden from me. The Sorrows bitch who had killed him and stolen his treasure. He had lied to me about where he’d gone and what he’d done each time he went to hook up with her. In alleys, shitty hotel rooms, maybe even in his Mercedes. The same car I’d torched after the Weres built him a pyre to light him on his way to Valhalla.
And no, Mikhail never wanted me to go down on him. I’d been too grateful for his tact, too starry-eyed with the thought that he wanted me, to ever do it. It isn’t the sort of thing I like, especially given where I came from.
What he rescued me from when he pulled me from that snowbank and told me not tonight.
He’d been a mass of scars. How could you tell one from another? Only a lover could. I could. But I’d never taken a look at that particular portion of his body. It just…
Oh, shit. Maybe it was a good mindfuck after all.
But I’d be damned if I would listen to it.
Doors in the Monde. One leads to a long corridor, rooms rented by the hour opening up on either side. Trades go down in here, meetings between the ’breed that carve up Santa Luz and occasionally test to see if I’m still on the job, various acts best hidden from daylight and even moonlight. Another leads behind the stage, to a long gallery where performers get ready before their “shows.” There’s one behind the bar that leads to the cellar, where the liquor and other liquids are stored.
The truly frightening one, behind a red velvet rope, opens up on narrow stairs that lead to Perry’s white-carpeted, pristine apartment. I hadn’t been up there in a good long while, and the last time—
Don’t think about that, Jill. Focus on the job at hand.
I took the first door. Kicked it twice, the scar pumping etheric energy through me. The iron sounded like huge gong strikes, shock jolting all the way through me. Showy, but I wanted no surprises.
On the third kick, the door crumpled like paper. If Perry wanted to find me, he probably could through the etheric force I kept recklessly drawing through the scar. I’d keep using it freely, as long as I could. It gave me an edge.
And every time I pulled on it, I hope Perry felt it like a slap to the face. Especially now.
The corridor stretched off to the side. Any place hellbreed spend a lot of time in warps a little bit. The geometry starts looking weird, angles not fitting together right. It’s enough to give you a headache if you’re not a hunter. If you can’t see below the twisting and untangle the tricks of perception and illusion. My smart eye turned hot and dry, working overtime.
Nothing behind the door. But it smelled. Rot, both animal and vegetable, with the sharp copper tang of blood over it. The smell belched out over me with hot, sweaty meatbreath. My nose barely wrinkled. Of all the things about a hunter’s job, the varied and disgusting stenches are not even close to the worst. You just learn to put your head down and go through.
It could be a metaphor for life, I guess.
The thought I’d been trying not to think came back with a vengeance. His gift to you. Who would leave an open mass grave for me? Especially one with curses that triggered into flame while someone was kidnapping my Were?
Who else? If it wasn’t Perry, it was a hellbreed trying too hard.
I covered the hall with both guns. The room I was aiming for was at the very end. The door was ajar, too, a slice of ruddy light marrying with the low, ugly glow from the red bulbs marching down on either side of the hall.
“Kismet!” Riverson blubbered. “Don’t! Get out of town! Go as far as you can! He wants your soul!”
Like I hadn’t always known that. “Of course he does,” I muttered. “That’s nothing new.” And I plunged forward into the hot close dimness.
The doors weren’t staggered, and there was nothing waiting behind any of them. I went carefully, though impatience beat behind my heart, each thud of my pulse crying out for me to be doing something else. To start shooting and not stop until I’d untangled this whole mess and found my Were.
Moments ticked by. It was unbearably hot in here, but then it usually was. There’s no air-conditioning in Hell.
The rooms were empty of living things. Some had beds, from narrow iron bedsteads to ornate four-posters complete with straps. A few had hard benches, or frames to strap bodies into. A few were completely empty, either tiled or carpeted on walls, floor, ceiling. All had drains in the middle of the floor and a slight slope downward from each wall, to make hosing off the night’s effluvium easier.
The room at the end was normally a conference chamber, for meetings. I nudged the door open further, guns ready and nerves at the breaking point. Crimson light washed the room—the chandelier had been taken out, replaced with a festoon of cords holding bare red bulbs like poisoned fruit. The long mirror-polished table was still there, but with one long zigzag crack down the middle. The chairs, even the iron throne that sat at the head of the table, were demolished. There wasn’t anything left bigger than a pinkie-fingernail sliver.
It looked like a hell of a fight had gone down in here.
What the hell?
The wall at the end of the room, behind the ruin of the iron chair Perry settled in whenever there was a Big Meeting among the ’breed, dripped with slick metal worms. I blinked. After a moment I realized they were chains, and they moved slightly.