Redemption Alley

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “He’s representing the 51s,” Theron didn’t twitch, but he was tense at my shoulder. “They… feel bad, that you were attacked.”

  And they don’t want to piss off a witch allied to the Weres. “It wasn’t their fault. I wasn’t on 51 territory. I’m worried about them catching flak from associating with me.”

  “They had you marked the minute you crossed off our turf, chiquita.” Gilberto paused, took a sip. He was sorely out of place, a human kid with bad skin and the smell of neglect hanging on him like mildew amid the crackling hum of perfection from the Weres. “Now how you suppose they did that?”

  I shrugged, my tattered coat flapping. “I’m a gringa?”

  It was the right thing to say, because he laughed, a reedy little sound. “Si, bruja. But nobody knew you come down to see us but el gato here. Right?”

  And Carper. “There was one other person—the cop that gave me the lead on Ay. Gil, your brother’s partner killed him.”

  Gil’s utter stillness might have fooled a human, but not a roomful of Weres. Theron sighed. I held the boy’s dark soulless gaze, watching the color bleed out from under his cheeks until he was sallow instead of Hispanic.

  “His partner’s dead too,” I continued. “His house was torn apart, but I’ve got a rough timeline. He had the widow’s ledgers, and—”

  “Hold up, bruja. Ay. His partner, you say? Bernie kill him?”

  Silver clinked and shifted in my hair as I nodded. “It appears that way. I’m going to keep digging, though. Until I find out everything about this, I’m still on the job.”

  “Then the 51s stay on the job too.” He darted a glance to Theron, sweat sheening his forehead and upper lip. He’d lost the hairnet, and his hair was surprisingly soft-looking, with a hint of childhood curl. “I go to Ramon. Es un traidor en nuestra casa, bruja, because there was no way they should know you visit us.” Another silence rose, uncomfortably, between us.

  I had to say it.

  “The traitor may not be among the 51s, Gil. Because if Ay’s partner was dead, my contact sent me into the barrio. But he’s not fat. The name el pendejo gordo mean anything to you?”

  The kid thought it over. “Lot of pendejos gordos in el barrio, bruja. Lot of them.”

  “Don’t declare war on the cops.” It came out harder and faster than I intended, and Gil stiffened slightly, his wiry shoulders coming up. “The last thing we need is a bloodbath in the barrio.” He shrugged, the kind of evocative shrug street kids learn early. I pressed a little harder. “Do not fire on the cops.” Why do I feel like a den mother?

  The kid seemed to feel comfortable enough in a room full of Weres, and had only given Leon the same passing glance he gave me—measuring, calculating, and not frightened at all. Curiouser and curiouser. “I take it to Ramon. He decide.”

  Good enough. Ramon’s smart enough to keep things quiet down there—I hope. “Can someone go with him?”

  Two of the Weres—a lean cub whose face looked very familiar and a bird Were with sleek black feathers knotted in her straight dark hair—volunteered for the job. Gilberto left without a backward glance.

  “Nice kid,” Leon said, sarcasm tinting his tone.

  He’d just as soon kill someone as look at them. Nice kid my ass. Still, Gilberto was smart enough to see my point about firing on cops. And if the 51s had sent him here, he couldn’t be entirely lacking in brains or discretion. Still.… “How much does he know about the nightside?”

  “Enough, Jill. They all know enough, down in the barrio.” Theron folded his arms, leaning against a table. “You want to tell me why there’s hellbreed swarming your house?”

  I suppose I should be grateful he held off grilling me for this long. “If I knew enough to fill you in, I’d be gunning for the ’breed behind all this. So far all I know is…” I ran up against the wall of incomprehensibility, glanced outside to gauge the fall of sunlight. There was a pattern, sure, but it wasn’t clear enough. “Any more scurf? Anything?”

  “Not a whisper. We cleaned them out.”

  Thank you, God. “Did we lose…”

  “Two more.” Theron’s jaw firmed, and a rumble swirled through the assembled Weres, drained away.

  Goddammit. Futility clawed acid at the back of my throat. Two more of my Weres dead, and I didn’t even know their names. “Were there hellbreed there? At the warehouse site?”

  He shook his dark sleek head. “Not a one. We would have held back and waited for you awhile if there had been.”

  So the smell of ’breed up in the office had been after the fight? I chewed at my lower lip, considering. The cold dread had turned into a hard rubber ball in my stomach, and the smell of food taunted me. No Were strategy session is without munchies, but if they were closing down Micky’s and feeding people for free the situation was dire indeed.

  Weres can eat a lot.

  I stared at the stack of paper on the table as if it might tell me something I didn’t know instead of just taunting me with half-seen connections. “I want two or three Weres on Montaigne. Watch him, don’t let anything get to him. He’s a target now too. I also want some of you watching Galina’s house. They tried to kill me onsite before and I’ve got a wounded human and a Trader in there. Hutch will be there too, for the duration.”

  Which meant only one thing. I expected serious trouble and didn’t want anyone else to get burned. In other words, war. A fresh tension spilled through the Weres, a tautening of attention.

  Good allies to have, Weres. But if something bigger than a talyn was coming down the turnpike, it might be time to evacuate them.

  Deal with that when the time comes, Jill. For right now, get going on what you know you have to deal with. I glanced up to gauge Theron’s reaction. He nodded. Then I dropped the bomb. “Tell the 51s we want a meet with the gang that opened fire on me. If we can find out who el pendejo gordo is I’ll feel a lot better about this.”

  Of course he didn’t think much of the idea. “Oh, for Chrissake, Jill, the barrio—”

  Shut up, Theron. “You’ll be standing in for me, I’m not going into the barrio again. Leon and I are going to make a run on this airfield where they transport the organs out. There’s bound to be something out there.”

  “We’ll go—” the Were began, but I shook my head, silver chiming. Rested my fingers on the butt of a gun.

  “No, you won’t. No Were will get within ten miles of that place. It’s hunter business, Theron, the kind that doesn’t mix with Weres. There’s rumor of a hellbreed involved with this.” More than a rumor. This has sticky little hell-fingers all over it.

  Theron digested this, looked up at the other Weres. “Maybe that bastard that runs the Monde?”

  They were quiet, watching us. Apparently Theron had been elected to talk to me about that. “Not him.” Of that much, at least, I was reasonably certain. “Another hellbreed. Seriously bad news, if the sources are right.”

  Which was the understatement of the year. My brain returned to the problem, probing at it like a sore tooth. There is a strict hierarchy in Hell, and we usually only saw the lower orders, it being too goddamn hard for the biggies to come through into the physical plane. The biggest we usually see is a talyn, and they’re mostly insubstantial anyway.

  Except Perry, who might or might not be one. Which I didn’t want to think about right now. He couldn’t be a talyn, he was all-too-substantial on a daily basis.

  I didn’t want to think about that either.

  If half, or even a quarter, of what Hutch had in moldy books about this Argoth was true…

  “Leon and I will take care of it.” I even said it with a straight face. “But I need every Were watching the city. Keep the barrio from boiling over, and see what you can do about finding out exactly which cop gave the kill order on me. Got it?”

  “I don’t like this,” Theron said. “You should have backup.”

  Shut up. “I have backup, Theron. He’s standing right here. What I don’t need is you second-guessing m
e.”

  Another rumble rippled through the Weres. Theron tried again. “This is Lone Ranger shit, Jill. You know how—”

  I interrupted him, rude by any standard but especially by Were etiquette. “Shut up, Theron!” I rounded on him, both hands loose, and felt the tension in the room tip and shift. “Leon and I will handle it. You have no idea what’s about to go down, goddammit, and I need my city kept safe while we avert a goddamn apocalypse or two!”

  The Were studied me for a long moment, orange light shifting in his eyes. Dressing down a cat Were in public isn’t a safe thing to do.

  But goddammit, this wasn’t a democracy. Weres function by cooperation and consensus—they have to. But when the city’s under fire, with scurf and ’breed and God knows what going on, it’s the hunter’s call.

  Still, Theron was my friend. And good backup. I shouldn’t be taking out my frustrations on him.

  The Were slumped, his shoulders going down. “All right.” It was a submission, a virtual baring of the throat. “You got it, Jill. We’ll keep the city together.”

  Leon was downing his third beer. I considered telling him to take it easy, decided not to. If the quick, strung-out jerkiness of his movements was any indication, he felt exactly how I did about this whole thing.

  “Good deal.” I pointed at the ledgers and the file. “Keep that for me, will you? I don’t know where else to put it.”

  “Anything else?” He was suddenly all business. I didn’t blame him.

  “Just keep Santa Luz on the map and spinning like a top, Leon and I will take care of the rest.” I nodded sharply, turned on my heel, and headed for the front door. Leon grabbed another Pabst from Amalia and fell into step behind me, the sound of him popping the ringtab loud in the stillness.

  We got almost to the door before Theron spoke again. “Jill.”

  I didn’t turn, but I did stop. Don’t hassle me now, furboy. Just don’t do it.

  “We can’t afford to lose a hunter.” Which is as close as he would ever come to telling me to take care of myself. And Leon, for good measure.

  Goddamn touchy Weres. You can’t even get mad at them when they’re so concerned about you. The thought of Saul rose like choking smoke in my chest, I shut it away.

  “We won’t,” I tossed over my shoulder, and made it out the door. Leon followed, guzzling for all he was worth.

  The green Charger sat across the street, in a rare bit of shade and free parking in front of a whole-foods store and a video rental place. I got behind the wheel, Leon slammed his door, and I looked at my fingers on the steering wheel. Bernie’s keychain, a heavy brass Playboy bunny head, swung through the hot stillness of the interior.

  “You just lied to a roomful of Weres.” Leon took another hit off the can. “Jesus, Jill.”

  “The shipments should stop now that we’ve hit their distribution center.” My fingers moved restlessly, Mikhail’s apprentice-ring glinting on my third left finger. In other words, Leon, you can go home. You don’t have to see this through.

  Yeah. Right. Like he was going to go for that. I shouldn’t even have thought it.

  “I been curious all my life.” He shrugged, finished off the can with a long slurp and a massive belch that threatened to fog the windows. “Ain’t gonna stop now.”

  The unspoken lingered just under the day’s heat. And if this Argoth is closer than we think, I’ll need all the help I can get. Since neither of us is Jack Karma. Not even close.

  I twisted the key. The Charger roused, nowhere near my Impala’s sweet purr. Bernie hadn’t taken care of this car. I could fix that, if I hang onto this hunk of metal after the case ends. Have to clean it out, too. “We need ammo, but I don’t want to draw any more attention to Galina’s. I’ve got a cache in the suburbs. We should get to the airfield in about two hours.”

  The sun would be past its highest mark, the day hot and still in its long afternoon; blessed, safe sunlight everywhere. With a bit of luck, we could disrupt anything going on at the airfield and be home in time for dinner.

  I was hoping I’d finally be feeling hungry by then, too.

  “More ammo.” Leon nodded sagely. “And I’ll be praying my ass off, Jill. This is suicide.”

  You don’t think I know that? “It beats sitting in front of the TV.” I checked traffic and pulled out, sedately for once. I didn’t know how far I could abuse this engine, and I didn’t want cops marking this car. Not for a while, anyway. With Bernie’s partner dead and me driving like Granny Weatherall, there shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to run the plate number either.

  If we were lucky.

  “Amen.” Leon belched again, dropping the can on the floorboard, and I rolled my window down.

  26

  The Anabela Rosenkrantz Memorial Airfield sits about twenty miles outside the city limits. It’s a dusty, claptrap place, hangars set on one side of a long strip of pounded-down desert, leveled by a wheezing bulldozer after every gullywasher. Hutch had done his digging well, and now I knew all about it.

  ARA was where prop-plane enthusiasts stored their machines and the Santa Luz Police Department trained their two or three helicopter pilots. The county fire department trained out here too, sometimes, rather than at the bigger airport situated halfway between Santa Luz and the state capital.

  All in all, the dusty little place saw a lot of activity. That is, until last year.

  Hutch had discovered ARA had been “closed for repair” last winter, and never reopened. The amateur enthusiasts had moved closer to the county seat, and the cops hadn’t been out here at all this year.

  At least, not the honest ones.

  Which is why I wasn’t surprised, when we crested the rise on a Forestry Service road cutting off the highway at an angle and heading into the canyons, to see more tin roofs throwing blinding spears of sunlight at the sky. It was the eight-by-ten I’d found in the Cherry Street warehouse. That picture had been taken recently, for some reason—probably to familiarize a pilot with the layout so the cargoes could be flown out.

  The drug runners move through further east, trucking things up through the border, carrying them through with illegal immigrants, and paying flyboys top dollar to play tag with Border Patrol. The last time I tangled with serious drugrunning into Santa Luz had been that hellbreed motherfucker selling tainted E, but most of that had been cleaning up the pipeline for ingredients, since the actual drug had been made in the basement of an apartment building at the edge of the barrio.

  “What?” Leon glanced up through the windshield as we rolled to a stop below the top of the rise.

  I gestured briefly, switched the radio—AC/DC moaning about the highway to hell, since we’re both classic rock fans—off. Heatwaves blurred the distance and poured in through the open windows. “They’ve built more onto the airfield.”

  We exchanged a long meaningful look. Rosita was in the back seat, out of sight but close at hand should he need her. “Shit.” He leaned over the seat to grab her.

  I agreed. Coming in this way we had some cover, but the airfield was… well, an airfield, and out in the middle of nowhere where you could see somebody coming. We would raise a roostertail of dust into the stratosphere, and if they had assault rifles—

  We’ll deal with that when we get there. I tipped my shades down my nose, looking over them and memorizing the layout. Light stung, water wrung out of both my smart and dumb eyes. And yes, friends and neighbors, wasn’t there a plucking in the fabric of reality around the airfield? Little dimples of swirling corruption lifting like pollen on the air, rising with the heat, and a brackish well of contamination centered right over the airfield, welling up like crude from a deep, dark secret place.

  Leon eyed it too. “Gives me the willies,” he said finally, a world of hunter’s intuition boiling down to four little words.

  “Contamination. Can’t tell what it’s from, yet.” Baking, sand-smelling wind scoured the inside of the car. Junkfood wrappers rustled and blew. Thank God we’re downwind.r />
  “Yay.” His blunt fingers touched Rosita the way they would touch a lover’s hand. “This ain’t gonna be pretty, darlin’.”

  “I know. If half of what Hutch has archived is true we’re stuck hoping he hasn’t found a door yet.” That’s a hell of a run of luck we’re expecting. “This bothers me, Leon. It bothers me a lot.”

  As usual, he took refuge in understatement. “You get the feelin’ we’re bein’ led by the nose?”

  “All through this goddamn thing. I just don’t see how anyone would think Monty would call me in to look at his ex-partner’s ‘suicide.’ And I don’t see how anyone could expect me to find scurf and take them out, even if I was looking into disappearances on the east side. Those were probably escaped stragglers, unless the ’breed was outside to watch over them. It was probably luck pure and simple, and…”

  “And anytime we get that lucky, someone has to be planning something.” He shifted uneasily in his seat. “So what we gonna do?”

  “We find out what’s going on at this airfield, and what those new buildings are. And with any luck, they won’t be expecting us to hit them here.” Luck. Again. Never a substitute for proper planning, ammunition, or intelligence, as Mikhail would point out to me. The nagging feeling of something missing, of a trap about to spring, hovered over me again, retreated. “Fuck.”

  “My sentimentals ’zactly. So what’s the plan?”

  “What would you do?” Since you’d do exactly what I’d do.

  He sniffed, tasting the air. Made a face. “Drive this piece of shit straight in and keep my eyes open. Then I’d send you out to draw their fire, darlin’, while I bulwark myself in and Rosita covers you. That’s assumin’ they have guards.”

  “I don’t see anyone moving, but that’s no assurance.” Headache pounded behind my eyes, and I slipped my shades back up my nose. The world took on a better contrast, but I’d have to take them off for the last few miles of approach. “This baby’s heavy metal, like my Impala. Should be good as long as nobody hits a gas tank. After blowing up one car already on this case, I don’t think I want to blow up another.”