They massed at either end of the bridge. Hellbreed and Traders, a crowd of them. Bright eyes, painted lips, curve of hips and glimmer of dewy skin, the beauty of the damned on display. On the city side of the river, shapes appeared. I had to blink a couple times before they resolved into a coherent picture behind my eyes.
Crosses. They were carrying two twelve-foot crosses. A slight figure on one, a heavier male figure with silver in his hair in the other. My blue eye turned hot and dry, and I did not let out the breath I was holding until I could focus… and saw the glow of living creatures around both of them.
Gilberto slumped against whatever was holding him to the rough wood. Saul’s head was down, his hair hanging. I saw lashings, instead of nails. They were only tied to the things.
The mockery made my stomach turn over hard. I swallowed hard, and almost wished I hadn’t.
The Talisman made a low angry noise against my chest. A curl of smoke drifted up, tickled my nose. I eased my right-hand gun out. My hand might cramp up again if Perry wanted to play a little game, but I still had my left. Which closed around the bullwhip’s handle, and I set my feet against the bridge’s surface.
If a semi comes along, it’s going to ruin this lovely picture. All of them coming out to see the hunter get hers. They’re going to enjoy this.
“Behold!” someone screamed from above. I snapped a glance up—hellbreed, crawling on the bridge. Like maggots in a wound, seething. Except maggots actually did something useful by cleaning up dead flesh. “The sacrifice!”
Oh, honey, if you’re talking about me, you’d best be warned. I’m not a good sacrifice. I tend to stick in the craw when you try to eat me. I bit back a murderous, contemptuous little laugh. The world narrowed down, became basic.
The only thing that mattered was getting Gilberto and Saul off those crosses. Saul might still be able to run, Gilberto was a chancier proposition, but either of them would stand a better chance if I could somehow get them free.
Where are you, you son of a bitch?
The scar crunched with sick pain, all the way down my cramping fingers. I blew out between my teeth.
There was Perry in a pale linen suit, capering in front of the mob of hellbreed on the city side. His legs moving in ways no biped’s should, he cracked his heels together and danced. The throng of ’breed and Traders were humming, a weird subsonic note with the squealing groan of Helletöng underneath it, rubbing against the fabric of the physical until it frayed.
They were about to bring the crosses onto the bridge. Some of them were dancing too, little jig steps. Behind Perry, to his left, Rutger minced. I could even hear the tip-tapping of his ridiculous shoes against the road.
So, Rutger had been playing according to Perry’s dictates all along. Color me unsurprised.
“Thou Who has given me to fight evil,” I whispered, my lips barely shaping the words, “keep me from harm.”
It was useless, just like everything else.
Now, Jill. Do some good.
I launched myself toward death. Without the scar’s eerie stuttering speed, but still—I was hunter enough to move pretty damn fast. My heels struck sparks as my stride lengthened, and a cry went up from the hellbreed on the mountain side of the bridge. The entire structure reverberated, and the Talisman warmed against my skin. Like a lover’s hand, fingers trailing down between my breasts.
I needed my breath for running, but I heard a cry of rising effort anyway. It was too high to be male, and it echoed oddly. The crowd broke, streaming past Perry and leaping for me. The crosses dipped crazily, and I suddenly understood they were going to throw my Were and apprentice over the side just to be assholes.
Well, it wasn’t surprising. It even had a kind of mad hellish poetry to it, just what you’d expect from Perry.
The scar was dead, but I pulled on it anyway. A thin trickle of etheric force slid through it, a wire of nasty heat up my arm. Perry stopped in mid-caper, his eyes blazing infernos. The thing that wore his human shell rippled through pale skin, and his grin was a shark’s.
Gunfire. But I hadn’t shot anyone yet. I was still just out of optimal range, and—
There was a commotion behind the screen of ’breed and Traders. Then the screaming started, and I was within range. I leapt as I reached the first of them, my own gun speaking. Howls and screams lifted—that’s one thing about facing a crowd of Hell’s citizens.
You don’t have to watch where you shoot as much. And with the only two people who mattered to me up on the crosses, I didn’t have to worry about hitting them.
My right hand seized up, the scar fighting for control. I could feel it, thin little tendrils of corruption yanking on muscles and nerves. But nightly murder will make shooting more than a habit. It will burn it so deep into your hands you don’t have to think—if you’re breathing you’re fighting, and the scar wasn’t deep enough yet to reach that yet.
It was a losing fight. But then, it always was. The tide of Hell is so broad, so deep, we can’t hope to do more than hold it a little while.
I cannot hold back the tide forever. Another misdirection, a good one because it held the seed of truth. Perry hadn’t wanted Argoth to come through and come gunning for me. He just wanted me to damn myself, and he’d worked it so I could. It had taken him years, but he’d done it.
The entire bridge shuddered, and I heard something familiar. Very familiar. When Anya fights, she cusses almost as much as I do. I saw her, breaking through the hellbreed like an avenging angel, firing with both hands and moving inhumanly fast. Hunter-fast, as fast as I was moving now.
Behind her, there was a roil of struggling figures. Weres, more than I’d ever seen in one place before. They were swarming the Traders and trying like hell to stay out of the way of the ’breed. The ’breed were concentrating on Anya, but she was giving them so much trouble it was going to take a while.
And up on the top of one of the crosses, Saul raised his silver-starred head.
29
Crunch.
The whip snapped and Rutger danced back. Perry snarled. The scar boiling with agony on my wrist, I was too slow because I had to fight it. Its tendrils were all the way up to my elbow now, twisting and yanking.
I was screaming. My only battle cry now.
“Saul! Saul! Saul!” His name, over and over again, while the Weres clustered the Traders holding the crosses. Lionesses leapt, and if you haven’t seen the Norte or Sud Luz pack lionesses work together to take down a kill, you’ve missed one of the most amazing sights on earth.
The huge splintered things jerked and danced crazily; Gilberto’s head flopping and Saul moving, looking around. I couldn’t watch, I had my hands full; Rutger skipped toe-tapping aside and Perry leapt for me. I faded to my left, firing, how I was going to reload with a cramping hand and the whip keeping them back was an open question. Perry darted in, took a shot in the shoulder, and snarled. My wrist bloomed with hot acid pain, and he wasn’t bleeding the way he should have been.
That was worrying. If I’d had time to worry, that is.
I was still screaming Saul’s name when Anya appeared, her arms up, the sunsword’s silver length rising forever from her hands. Shock jolted through me.
She can’t use that without a—
The Eye dilated on my chest, singing a long high sustained note of power.
This is why two hunters can take on an army of hellbreed. Because it never occurs to ’breed to give, or to help each other. Each one of them is out for himself, plain and simple, in any melee. None of them ever thinks to share.
You can’t use a sunsword without a key. But I reached, an unphysical movement from the Eye on my chest toward the blade’s hilt, a hand held out in thin air. A red glimmer showed in the empty space trapped in the sunsword’s hilt, whirling as it strengthened.
I might have been damned, but I was still hunter enough to help her. She’d expected me to understand and use the Eye as the key, both of us working in tandem to hold back the tide.
>
Anya caught hold, strong slim mental fingers in mine. The silver in her hair crackled with blue sparks, and the sun was almost up over the horizon. If we could last long enough for it to break free, we might have a chance.
Flame blossomed against the sunsword’s razor-silver edge. The Eye twitched on my chest, and the fire deepened golden-orange. A thin wire of white ran through the blade’s center, the red gleam in the hilt suddenly a small star, and the fire coughed as it exploded free.
Dawn was early today. The light drenched the bridge, and the leaping sinuous forms of the bonedogs howled and cowered. Rutger screamed, falling in slow motion, as the sword descended.
The scar fought, clawing at the meat of my arm, for control. I shot Perry again, but I was too slow, the world dragging me down and my body refusing to put up with one more damn thing. He collided with me, a huge snapping crunch that turned the world over, I flew. Hit the concrete bridge railing, more things breaking inside me, and a warm gout of blood exploded between my lips.
The crosses swayed, but the Traders had broken and were fleeing. The ’breed hanging in the bridge’s spires slid away like oil, hissing at the terrible light spreading from the sunsword. Anya screamed, a hawk’s cry, and stabbed down. The blade slid through Rutger’s chest as if through soft butter, sinking into the concrete below just as effortlessly. Pavement scorched, and the ’breed’s dying scream was lost in the inferno roar as the sunsword burned, cleansing the corruption.
Don’t let go, Jill. Whatever happened to me, I had to keep the sunsword going. The Eye was a warm weight on my chest, humming along happily as something burned.
Don’t you dare let go.
I tried to get up. My chest was broken, a fragile eggshell in pieces. The warmth between my lips was blood, I coughed up more. Perry bore down on me, his face avid with terrible glee, each footstep making the bridge sway like tall grass in a high wind.
The crosses were down now, Weres crowding them. They were cutting the leather straps free, and as I rolled my head painfully to get a better look, charms digging through my hair and into my skull, I saw two of them lift Saul tenderly between them. Perry’s footsteps drew closer, each one like the heartbeat of some huge monstrous thing.
Relief burst inside me. I turned my head back. Looked up at him.
The sunsword’s light etched lines on his face, eating at the shell of seeming he wore. I coughed again, fresh blood welling up. The scar jolted with sick heat, etheric force like a mass of red-hot wires sliding up the nerve channels and fusing flesh and bone back together. Healing me, probably so he could do more damage. And the corruption from the scar was spreading up to my shoulder.
I cried out, scrabbling weakly, a small sound lost in the chaos.
He loomed over me, his lips shaping words I didn’t want to hear. Just two of them, really.
You’re mine.
Helpless, I just lay and watched. Get up, Jill. Get up and kick his ass.
But Saul was safe, and the Weres had Gilberto too. There was nothing left to do but hold the sunsword’s fire steady, the Eye burning as my blood touched it—
“Goddamn motherfucking sonofabitch, get the fuck away from her!”
Anya. The sunsword’s light turned fierce white, the glare of full noon as the sun lifted its first limb over the rim of the mountains, and the world was lost in that brilliance. The light filled my eyes, my mouth, my nose, all the way down to my toes. I held the sunsword in sight as long as I could, realizing the hopeless broken cawing sounds I was hearing as quiet fell on the bridge were my own screams, my voice ruined.
The shadow that was Perry flinched aside from the assault of light. He was really such a small thing, that shadow.
I blacked out briefly, surfaced still holding the line to the sunsword. Nothing mattered but that line, etheric force thundering through it, and the cleansing light. If I was lucky, it would burn me to ash too, and—
“Let it go, Jill!” Anya yelled. “Let it go, or you’ll melt the bridge! Let go, hunter!”
Again, that snap of command.
So I did, my mental fingers loosening. The white-hot glare receded, bit by bit, and the Eye hummed softly. The sense of pressure building inside the Talisman had bled off significantly. Like the spear hanging in my weapons room, it needed to be drained every once in a while, or it would get dangerous.
Even more dangerous than it usually was, that is. I had to tell Gilberto about it. So many things I had to do.
I lay there. There was a crackle, and a warm bath of sensation. It was healing sorcery, and if Anya was doing that, it meant the fight was over. I shut my eyes and let her work.
If I wasn’t dead, I had to be able to walk for what I had to do next. But for the moment I just lay there on the bridge, listening as the Weres spoke softly and the sounds of hellbreed and Traders fleeing retreated in the distance.
30
Galina freed the stethescope’s earbuds with a practiced motion. “He’ll be fine,” she said quietly. Her eyes glowed green, and the sunlight pouring through the window made her skin luminous. “A little bit of shock. They starved him. No sign of beatings or other abuse.”
My fists refused to unclench. For once, I didn’t try to hide it. “You promise? You swear?”
“Of course.” She gave me an odd look, her necklace flashing against her white throat. “Are you all right?”
In other words: What the fuck, Jill? You never doubted me before.
“I just want to be sure,” I mumbled. Stared at Saul’s sleeping face. He was gaunt, and the yellow tint to his copper skin was new. His fingers were too thin, bony knobs.
Their metabolisms run a lot faster than regular humans’. It’s one reason why Weres are all about the munchies.
I wanted to lie down on the bed next to him. Put my arms around him and whisper, It’s all okay, you’re safe now. But the scar was still burning. The corruption had been driven back, healing sorcery pushing it away as thin blue threads settled in and bound bone back together, repaired blood vessels and muscles, swirled through me and made every inch of silver on me glow softly. My right hand cramped, fingers squeezing down as if I held Perry’s throat between them.
“Gilberto?” I whispered.
Galina sighed. But she was smiling wistfully. “Young. He’ll bounce back. I gather he gave them quite a time. Doesn’t know when to quit, that boy.”
Sanctuaries are gentle souls. It’s really terrible that so few people pass their entrance exams. The world could do with a few more.
“No, he doesn’t.” It’s part of being a hunter.
Theron knocked at the door. The smell smoked off him in waves, an unhappy cat Were sending out a musk of aggression and combat readiness. “Kid’s awake. Asking for you.”
I nodded. “The altars?”
“We found four of them. Devi spiked them all. We had just enough time to get to the bridge. You okay?”
“Fine,” I lied. It left my lips easily, a preparation for the other lies I was going to have to tell today. “Galina, can you give me a minute?”
“Sure. I should mix up some boneset for Gil anyway.” She gave me another curious look, her eyes darkening before they cleared, and I had to work to keep my face set. “Are you sure you’re all right, Jill?”
“Peachy. Just, you know. Tired.” I exhaled sharply. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“Pshaw. Mikhail said that all the time.” She grinned, slipped past me, and I saw her brush against Theron’s arm as she left. He looked down, a private smile curling his lips, and my heart swelled up, lodged in my throat. They’d been dancing around each other for a while.
What else did Mikhail say to you, Galina? I didn’t ask. What could she tell me? A big fat nothing, that’s what.
Nothing that could save me.
She went down the hall to her spare bedroom. I heard Hutch ask her a question, her soft reply. It was like listening through cotton wool, I didn’t have the scar jacking me up into redline sensitivity.
> I never thought I’d miss that.
“Jill?” Theron sounded uneasy. I dragged my attention away from Saul’s gaunt, yellow face.
“Tell him I love him.” I didn’t sound like myself. Who was the woman using my voice? It was a thin, colorless murmur. “Do you hear me, Theron? When he wakes up, you tell him that.”
“You’re going to tell him yourself.” A crease appeared between his eyebrows. I hoped my face wasn’t betraying me. “Right?”
“Yes.” Another lie. Really racking them up. What did it matter? “Of course. But I want you to tell him as soon as he opens his eyes, Theron. It has to be the first thing he hears. Promise me.”
He examined me, top to toe, for a long moment. I was covered in gunk, I hadn’t even washed my face yet. Normally I like at least my cheeks and forehead clean, if nothing else. But this time I’d left the grime. I already felt filthy all the way down inside where soap couldn’t reach. No washcloth was going to help.
“Theron.” I tried not to sound like I was pleading. Failed miserably. “Please.”
He nodded once, his dark sleek head dipping. “I promise. It will be the first thing he hears.”
“Good.” I did not look at the bed again. Closed the sight of Saul’s face against the crisp, white pillowcase away, deep in my chest where the pain was already beginning. Took the first step away.
The steps got easier. I brushed past Theron, who took a deep breath. I was hoping the smell of the Eye, its forest-fire burning, would cover up everything else. He didn’t move, just stood stock still as the ribbon-flayed edge of my coat brushed his leg.
“Jill?”
I paused, between one step and the next. If he asked me… “Huh?”
“Don’t do anything stupid.” He stared at the bed, that line still between his eyebrows, his profile clean and classic. They’re all so beautiful, the human flaws burnished away.
It’s enough to make you sick.
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