I shifted, let the clutch off, and the Impala responded, leaping forward. Theron grabbed for the dash. Dried blood crackled in my hair, and I rammed the car into third gear like it was going out of style, goosed it, shifted up to fourth and put the pedal to the floor.
“Jesus!” Theron yelled over the rush of wind.
Men. They never like my driving. Of course, nobody likes my driving. I’ve never been in a single accident—basic precognition takes care of that—and the cops all know my car well enough to leave me alone when I’m bending the laws of physics and traffic to get somewhere.
They don’t like to think about why I hurry. Or what I might be hurrying to get to.
Rubber screamed as we took a corner like it was on rails, and I thought about who would want to kill me. A blue Buick and regular ammo—not even silver.
Not even silver. Anyone coming after a hellbreed-tainted hunter is going to have silver ammo. It wouldn’t kill me but it would at least mean someone knew what they were doing, knew it would take me longer to heal and hurt like a motherfuck. Or is that a red herring? I stood on the brake as the intersection ahead of me ran with traffic, the red light looming, juggled probability and precognition, felt the little tingle along my nerves that meant okay GO NOW and stamped on the accelerator again.
The Impala zoomed through the light just as it turned green, skidding around a red Caprice as I jerked the wheel and shot us through traffic like a greased pinball.
Who would try to kill me right on Galina’s doorstep, too? Someone who had a bone to pick with both the Sanc and me? Someone who wanted to make a statement, or who knew I’d still be alive afterward?
Or just someone who knew I could be found at her place every few days? Which was just about anyone on the nightside and quite a few regular folks.
We roared onto the east side a few minutes earlier than I’d thought. My traffic karma was still holding. Theron worked his fingers free of the dash while I unclipped my seatbelt. More blood crackled, drying on my skin, and I felt a little pale.
“You okay?” Theron’s knuckles cracked as he stretched.
“Never better,” I lied. “Getting shot just pisses me off, furboy. Now I’m aching to take it out on a whole nest of scurf.”
“You’d better calm down.” He confined himself to that mild statement, and the glance I shot at him splashed right off the concern on his lean dark face.
I didn’t dignify the obvious with a reply. Angry is the last thing you want to be in a nest. Anger is good fuel, yes—but it clouds judgment, and a hunter can’t afford that. Not thinking straight is one step away from getting your ass blown off.
And I’d already had that today, thank you very much.
Another thought occurred to me, terrible enough to make my hackles go up again.
I got shot in the heart. I felt it. Worst piece of lead I’ve ever caught—and the scar just sewed me up and zapped me, Galina zaps me, and I’m fine.
Well, maybe not fine. But still alive. That’s what counts.
But if I’d still been meeting Perry every month at the Monde to pay for using the scar, what would he have made me do? How could I have paid for that much power thundering through my still all-too-human flesh?
It doesn’t matter, Jill. It’s a non-issue. Worry about who’s trying to kill you now, for Christ’s sake.
Put that way, the question of Perry began to take on different dimensions. But he would have sent someone with silver, wouldn’t he?
Wouldn’t he? If hurting me more was the point, yeah. But not if just half-killing me is the point. Perry wouldn’t send a human, either—he’d send a Trader. Stop thinking about him, Jill.
Percoa Park lay under a motionless flood of hard bright light, the trees looking dusty and grass scuffed to yellow wherever the sprinklers didn’t reach. A baseball diamond simmered kitty-corner, and the streetlamps over the bus shelter Michael Spilham had spent his last human moments on earth standing in were just visible.
The park thrummed. I caught flickers of motion between the trees, and Theron’s face eased a bit. The Were’s stride lengthened, and I glimpsed the predator in him. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that they’re built for hunting. They do it, just like they do most things, far better than humans. He raised his head, his dark hair suddenly more alive, curling a bit longer, and sniffed the air.
My nose was sensitive even with the cuff on. Fur. Musk. The smell of healthy animals, sandy dust, and tinder-dry bark. An outside smell. A good smell, one that means safety. Weres have been allied with hunters ever since the beginning, working back-to-back. Even through the Middle Ages, and that was a right fuck of a time to be a Were or a hunter, between the Inquisition, the open mouths to Hell, and the general state of chaos.
Weres provide muscle and speed when it comes to hunting rogue Weres, backup when facing down Traders, and general support, since human hunters are spread so thin. Hunters keep things smoothed over with the police, function as leaders who don’t have to work by consensus during crisis times, and take on hellbreed—one of the few things Weres can’t do as well as a human.
It takes a hunter to kill a hellbreed. Or a Sorrow.
The thought of the Sorrows tasted like bitter ash before I turned it aside.
“Good turnout,” was all Theron said, before loping down a slight hill toward a stand of cottonwoods. I followed, my coat flapping, suddenly aware I was covered in dried blood again, my shirt shredded and my leather pants two steps away from the rag bag.
At least my weapons were still okay, and my rosary. Shoot me all you want, but if you shoot one of my knives, my blessed charms, or God forbid my guns, I’m going to get pissed.
The scar brought me back, or I’d’ve bought it. Not even Galina could get me back after that much lead poisoning. The sudden certainty was chilling.
Had Perry felt it, etheric force thundering through the scar to keep my body alive? Was he up during the day, sitting in the quiet of the Monde Nuit, staring at the television screens in his office? Maybe fondling the flechettes, stained with black hellbreed ichor, though they were always pristine each time he told me to open up the flat rosewood case.
I shivered. My coat flapped and I touched my guns, the knifehilts, the other little surprises strapped to leather and taped down to cut the clanking. Silver chimed in my hair since I didn’t have to be quiet, and the rosary bumped against my belly.
Quit thinking about it, Jill. You almost-die every week. Just get over it.
Maddeningly, it didn’t seem quite right. I was too busy to tease out why just yet.
The small clearing was full of Weres, and lambent eyes turned to me as soon as I brushed past an anonymous trashwood bush and into full view. They were too polite to ask what the hell had happened, and sadly it’s more common than not to see me when I’ve just been through the wringer.
Hunting is a messy business.
“Trackers are on it,” a lean tall woman said. Lioness from the look of her, she had the characteristic broad face and sleek arms, muscle moving supple under honey skin. “Not too far from here, zeroing in on a couple blocks.”
“We’re burning daylight.” A slim young male, barely past puberty if you could believe his skinny build, with the prominent nose of a bird Were. Brown feathers were tied into his shag of a haircut, and he made a graceful, contained movement expressing impatience and controlled enthusiasm all in one.
“Patience, Rubio.” Theron’s entire face wrinkled into a snarl of a grin, smoothed out.
“It’s not a virtue,” the lioness added. “It’s a survival tactic.”
That caused a ripple of laughter, and the kid laughed too. It wasn’t the type of nervous laughter you get in an autopsy room, but its intent was the same. To bleed off a little steam, make the waiting palatable.
I set my back against the bole of a cottonwood and closed my eyes. My heart was thumping a little harder than I liked. A rebuilt heart, shattered by a bullet less than half an hour ago. Good thing I was a domestic model, maybe they had a hard time getting import parts for a ticker.
Get it, Jill? Arf arf. You’re a regular comic. Should go on the circuit.
Now think about something useful. What the hell is going on here? A blue Buick, Theron had said, speeding away down Macano Street. Nothing but shell casings left on the roof, some of them jingling in my coat pocket. And a smell. Male, Theron had said, human, and sweating. But a professional, to pump me full of lead and get the hell out of there.
Or very lucky.
Why? If I knew the why I’d know the who, wouldn’t I.
Pure lead bullets and a professional hit. My life was certainly never boring.
The air pressure changed and my eyes snapped open. Every Were in the clearing was standing poised and looking in the same direction, the same way a flock of birds will wheel with tremendous in-flight precision. As if by prearranged signal they broke, some running, others merely loping, Theron glancing over his shoulder at me.
No muss, no fuss. The trackers had found something, and communicated in that way Weres sometimes have, through instinct, pheromones, or just sheer air.
No more time for thinking. The hunt was underway.