Let’s just hope I’m not her next target, eh?
I hit the ground, rolled, and kicked the knees of the last Trader, he went down in a heap and I fed him a few knives to keep him quiet.
I lay there for just a second and a half too long, my sides heaving and my body suddenly failing to obey me. Wait just a minute, bitch, my muscles informed me. We’re declaring mutiny. You’ve fucked with us for too long.
The body will do what the will dictates, yes. I learned that in my first year of training. But sometimes, even the will isn’t enough to get the body up off the floor, when you’ve forced flesh past the point of no return. Even a berserker will eventually get tired.
Shen landed on me, tentacles swarming, thick black gore slicking her right cheek. Probing, flexible hairy pseudo-fingers bit hard, helped along by tiny vicious suckers, each rimmed with sharp cartilaginous protrusions resembling teeth. Peeked up the skirt of destiny, did we? the merry voice of impending doom snarled inside my head. About to pay for it, Jill. And pay for it big. Slim strong human-shaped fingers tightened around my throat, and if my cervical spine hadn’t been hellbreed-reinforced, my neck would have snapped. I kicked, my knee sinking into fleshy pulsing warmth nesting under her kimono and finding precious little bone to bounce off. My abraded wrists swarmed with tentacles, and she exhaled sicksweet foulness in my face, squeezing harder now, black ichor dripping from her pointed chin and splashing my face.
I spat, defiant to the last, and heaved up. No dice. She had too much leverage. Judo doesn’t teach you how to fight off tentacles, goddammit.
The gun roared again.
The unwounded half of Shen’s head disintegrated. Silver grain loaded in hollowpoints will do that. Black ichor spattered my face, stinking as it rotted.
The tentacles spasmed. Her hands bit in once more, terribly, but I wriggled free. My own fingers tore hers away, and I took in a gasping, whooping breath.
Irene was sobbing. The Trader whose larynx I’d crushed was suffocating to death, thrashing on the floor, a knifehilt protruding from his chest. Someone else was dying in leaps and spasms. I scrabbled through the crowded space, noticing for the first time that I was bleeding. Someone had clawed me in the side, my wrists were wet and dripping, my legs ached savagely, and I was blinking away both crusted and fresh blood. Not to mention the hellbreed-stinking gore dumped all over me.
There was the click of a half-depressed trigger, and I looked up. Ohshit. But Irene stood, straddle-legged, over the Puerto Rican Trader. “Bobby,” she whispered, and pulled the trigger. I tried not to flinch. “You should have listened to me.” She let out a sound like a choked sob, and again the gun spoke.
Silence descended. There was a smear of thick crimson beginning near the ceiling, on the wall I’d been tied up behind. It looked about the size of an adult male, as if a man-sized canvas bag of blood had been flung at the wall and slid down, sopping-wet.
I gained my feet in a convulsive movement. The entire goddamn place was only about ten by ten, too small a space for the carnage it held. Pipes clustered at the far end. The naked, blood-spattered bulb swung in everdecreasing arcs. Irene hunched over something near the wall. The gun dangled limply in her hand. “Fax,” she whispered. I coughed, deep and racking. Fax wasn’t going to mix any more bioweapons for anyone. Pretty much every bone in his body was broken, and the odd shape of his head meant his skull was crushed. Thin red blood, only a little tainted with hellbreed black, slicked his face and spattered his now-grimy lab coat. I tried to feel something other than hot nasty satisfaction. Got what you deserved. Bile whipped the back of my throat as the thought of his “subjects” crawled under the surface of my consciousness, refusing to surface fully.
Thank God for small mercies. It wasn’t much, but I’d take it.
I found my other guns near the ruins of what looked like a wooden chair. It had been smashed to splinters, and it looked like the chair Winchell had been beaten in.
Shen must have thought I’d be easy to take out. My, isn’t this tying up nicely. Three guns, Irene had the fourth, and I had a bead on her even while my left hand picked up the two leftover Glocks and holstered them independently of me.
I coughed again, tasted blood and the bitterness of exhaustion. My neck was going to be bruised.
“Fax,” Irene whispered again. “Oh, God.”
I checked all the other bodies. They were twitch-rotting, fast, contagion spreading through tissues and loosing a powerful stench into the air. I kept the gun trained on Irene. Dead and rotting meant they were no threat. But God, it smelled. If there’s anything I hate about my job, it’s the varied odors of rot and corruption.
Not to mention almost getting killed on a regular basis. Or getting lied to so frequently I barely even trust myself anymore.
Or how even a job that ties itself up can feel almost like a failure. I’d been caught assuming too often on this one, and how many people could have died if I hadn’t been lucky? Or if I’d been just, simply, too late and a high-class hellbreed had stepped through to sit down and have himself a feast?
I took two steps forward, over the tangled ruin of a body. Fury worked its way up inside me, I blinked more blood out of my eyes.
Irene didn’t move, crouched on her high heels, her knees splayed. The green tint to her skin was pronounced under the bloodspattered light.
“What did you do to Galina?” I husked.
“I threatened to shoot the detective unless she let me go.” Her slim fingers opened. The gun clattered, came to rest right next to Fairfax’s dead, crushed hand. “Goddammit.”
“You’re playing out of your league.” The gun barrel met the back of her head, through that blood-colored hair. She didn’t move. “Who else is in on this? Harvill, Shen, who else?”
“They’re mostly dead.” The words were colored with a sob, but I didn’t miss her shifting her weight slightly, very slightly. She froze when I shoved the gun against her skull again, harder. “Fax and I, we were trying to fix it, once we realized what they were planning. Bernardino killed the widow and I took care of Winchell, but we didn’t find the ledgers. We couldn’t pressure Harvill without them. Shen sold me to Bernardino to keep him quiet, he was a pile of filth. I enjoyed killing him, but he didn’t have the ledgers and it all went…
Fax. He was…”
Yeah, you were trying to fix it, and blackmail a few people in the process. A nice little nest egg, there for the taking, but Bernie had plans of his own. Enough double-crosses to make everyone dizzy, all of you little fucking rats scurrying once the lights turned on.
It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so pathetic. Or if so many people hadn’t died, used like Kleenex and discarded without a thought. And now she was sniveling over her dead bioweapon-making boyfriend. I’ll bet it never even occurred to you to look in the garage, either. Even with the car you arrived in sitting in there. “What other higher-ups were involved? Who, goddammit?”
She kept talking. Maybe she thought that if she kept going, she’d find a way out of the hole. Or maybe it didn’t matter to her now. “Just Shen. She wanted to ingratiate herself with the big guy, he wanted a way through, into this city. She thought the owner of the Monde knew and sent you to blackmail her so he could get in first.”
Perry? Evoking Argoth? I don’t know, he likes being the biggest fish in town too much. I cleared my aching throat. “Was there a backup for the evocation?”
“I don’t think so. Shen was always going out to the airfield, every dark moon for six months. It was the only time I was allowed to see Fax.” Her voice broke again. But the calculation was back in it, the slightest hesitation masquerading as sorrow.
When you’ve spent a lifetime listening for that hesitation, it blares like a bullhorn.
“You realize I have to kill you.” It didn’t hurt to say it. Cold clarity had settled over me again, the part of me that didn’t count the cost or hesitate when something had to be done.
It wasn’t the same as the cold calc
ulation or the ratty little gleam. It wasn’t. At least, I hoped it wasn’t. What else was I doing this for, if it was?
“Just do it,” she whispered. “Do it fast.”
My hand tensed. I struggled to think clearly. This wasn’t like taking a life in combat. This was something else.
“Did you hurt Galina? Or Carp?” I pushed against her skull with the gun, just a little. Her head bowed, pliant. “Tell me the truth, Irene.”
“What the fuck does it matter?” Cold weariness, now.
“Oh, it matters.” It’s the difference between me killing you mercifully… or otherwise. The scar plucked at my arm, humming to itself. It wanted me to kick the Glock near her hand away and beat the living shit out of her personally. It’s a small step from knowing how to fight to knowing how to stretch out hurting someone. It’s an even smaller step between knowing how to do it and finding a reason to do it. She sighed. “I dumped the detective at the end of the block and ran. He was okay enough to squeeze off a few shots at me.”
Thank you, God. I don’t have to hurt her. “You’re going to Hell.” I couldn’t sound comforting.
“Fine.” She shrugged, pale greenish shoulders smeared with blood and other matter. An exhausted rat in a cage. “Like it’s so different from here. Just get it over with, Kismet.”
I wanted to tell her Hell was different. That’s why they call it Hell, for Christ’s sake. But in the end, I didn’t.
Let her find out for herself.
30
When I surfaced on the street, I knew exactly where I was. Irene and Fairfax’s little hidey-hole turned out to be the half-basement of a shabby little deserted office building on Rosales, less than two blocks from Winchell’s murder site. Everything tying together into a neat little package. Bumbling incompetents getting themselves killed. Avarice, arrogance, and envy are the hunter’s friends; if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have found so many loose ends to tie up. And if not for monumental fucking arrogance, Shen would have brought hellbreed.
And that would have been a goddamn clusterfuck.
I stood in the shadows in the lee of the building, night wind rising off the desert brushing the street and curling down the alcove. Did it smell like burning, or did I? I swayed, my fingers catching at the wall and leaving smeared prints behind. Blood and stinking hellbreed ichor, and more blood. Forensics would have a field day with that little room, if anything was left after a night’s worth of decay. I hadn’t been able to muster up the strength to force banefire off my fingers.
Think, Jill. Think.
What was my next move?
The Charger was easy enough to find, tucked into an alley across the street. One of them had topped off the tank with gas and done a passable hotwire job on it. Irene’s work, I was betting—Fax hadn’t seemed like he could tie his shoelaces, much less hotwire a car.
But he’d been enough of a genius to engineer a weapon likely to completely bash my city out of recognition, loosing a tide of darkness and corruption that would feed a huge hellbreed. And turn people into bloodhungry fiends or… those things. And he’d done it all without asking where his “subjects” came from. Probably talked himself into thinking it was real bang-up science he was doing, too. I shouldn’t have felt sorry for either of them. But a few more minutes of questioning Irene before I sent her on her way meant I’d found the link between Shen and Fairfax. An intent-to-distribute conviction for mixing up designer drugs to make some cash, and the concurrent threat to a promising career, had brought Fax into Harvill’s—and Shen’s—reach. And with him, Irene, who had taken to being a Trader like a duck to water. But then, when you’re dating a mad chemist, I suppose you can get used to bargaining with Hell one slice of flesh at a time.
Just like I was mortgaging myself an inch at a time. I didn’t have the energy to argue with myself over whether or not I was different.
The only loose end was the district attorney, the nodepoint of corruption. How had he gotten involved with Shen? Had she gone looking for someone amenable or had he committed some indiscretion that brought him to her attention? Did it matter?
It was probably the latter. The happy little organ-theft ring that had intersected with Melisande Belisa’s plans last time had intersected with Shen’s this time, and I had a chance to pull it up by the roots. I rested my head on the steering wheel and breathed in, breathed out. The crusted blood in my eyes irritated me, I blinked it away.
It wasn’t just the crusties. It was hot water filling up my eyes and trickling down my cheeks. Jesus. I’m in bad shape.
The wind rattled and rolled down the street, deserted because it was after dark. So much of a hunter’s life is played out on an empty street, or in places where no light shines. Places nobody can share with you, or wants to share. Not if they’re right in the head at all.
Saul. He would be worried. I wondered if his mother was sliding over the dark edge into finality. Theron would be climbing the walls too. Leon, if he knew Irene had slipped the leash, would have gotten the situation at Galina’s under control and would be coordinating the Weres in my absence. Faithfully keeping the city under wraps. I wondered how long I’d been unconscious. My bet was on not very long, since Shen would have been anxious to get the formula and her pet chemist back.
And kill me, of course, both for interfering and for making her look bad while I did it. And probably to make points with this Argoth guy.
I lifted my head, peered blearily out the windshield. The old moon hung, a nail-paring, low in the sky. It was approaching midnight.
I knew Harvill lived in Riverhurst, the tony part of town, north and a few minutes out of the downtown sector. Keeping tabs on high-level law-enforcement personnel in your town saves a lot of trouble when you’re a hunter, whether you need heavier bureaucratic guns to take care of a case—or the case itself involves them.
What are you going to do, Jill? You’re in no shape to take anyone on. It didn’t matter. This was mine to finish off, and by God, I was going to. I stroked the Charger into starting. It was an automatic, so I didn’t need to worry about shifting the way I would have in my Impala. Which was good—my legs were still weak and my fingers painfully swollen. The headlights came on without any demur, cutting a swath through the night. You’re not even in any shape to drive. Find somewhere to rest, get to Harvill tomorrow. Fat fucking chance. I slid the car into drive. Eased my foot off the brake and the car slid forward, the engine sounding overworked and underpaid.
Just like the rest of us, honey. Never mind about that. We’ll fix that right up. I always wanted a Dodge. A roaring sheet of darkness beat at the edges of my vision. I blinked. The tears slicking my cheeks came faster, dripping off my jaw and wetting the ruins of my shirt.
It’s about a twenty-minute drive, Jill. Do it in ten.
The Charger nosed at the street, I turned, and reached for the little tingle of precognition along my nerves. It didn’t happen for a long thirty seconds, so I cruised along the dark street, my fingers still swollen and aching. The wheel slid smoothly under my hands, and I turned left on Twelfth. I could zig crosstown and avoid the major cop activity, which at this hour would be around the bars and nightclubs as they hit their stride. Drunks would be getting rowdy just about now, and domestic disturbances reaching their peak for the night too.
The Kat Klub won’t be reopening anytime soon, folks. I done put that bitch out of business, as Leon would say.
And I would be lying if I’d told myself it didn’t feel good to know Shen An Dua was dead. The only trouble was, her replacement was likely to be an even bigger bitch. Cogs in a wheel—one corruptor rolls out, another clicks in. Way of the world.
When the tingle came, I shook myself. I was weaving, and one tire kissed the curb before I snapped into my own skin, each new ache in my overstressed muscles not just a weight against the nerves but a balm, keeping me awake.
Come on, Jill. Just one more thing. Then you can rest.
I was lying to myself and I knew it. But I tigh
tened my dirty hands on the wheel, shook my hair back, and jammed the pedal to the floor. The Charger had some life left in him yet, and he lurched forward like someone had just stuck a pin in him. Speckles of streetlight ran up the hood, and the buildings on Twelfth all yawned at me, sliding past as if greased. I let out a painful, half-hitched laugh; it sounded rusty under the wind from the rolled-down window rustling all the fast-food wrappers. First thing I had to do, when I had time, was clean this goddamn car out. It was a dirty crying shame for a good piece of American metal to be so filthy inside.
Complain about my driving now, goddammit. I dare you.
He had the wrong house for a DA. It was a nice ranch-style pseudo-adobe, all done up with red tile roof and everything. The garden, what little there was of it, was immaculate, and he had a lawn that probably guzzled a winter’s worth of water every week.
The Charger looked sorely out of place in Riverhurst. It’s the rich section of town, well insulated both from pesky downtowners and from the stink of the industrial section. The rule here is wide sidewalks, lovely expanses of thirsty grass, and more often than not a wall and an iron gate. And trees. This is the only place in the city, other than the parks, where you find honest-to-God trees, mostly left over from the quiet neighborhoods of the twenties and early forties.
Harvill’s house was easily the shabbiest, but still worth a nice chunk of change in property tax alone. The windows were all dark and deserted, only the porch light burning.
What are you going to do? Go up and ring the doorbell? Is he married, does he have kids?
I couldn’t remember right now.
What are you going to get into if you walk up the path and knock on that door?
I was still considering this when another car approached, nosing down the street. It was a little red import number, and the engine sounded like an overworked sewing machine. Even more out-of-place than the Charger. I slouched down, keeping it in view. What’s this?