Hunter's Prayer

by Lilith Saintcrow

  She had long black hair, blue-black, and a hint of tilted-catlike to her eyes. Her skin was a little darker than the Sorrows usually preferred, but well within canons, and her eyes were the limitless black of the adept who has practiced for more than four cycles of their calendar; black from lid to lid, no iris or white to break the sheer gelid orbs. She wore delicate golden eardrops, and the bruising of Chaldean my blue eye could see in her aura was disciplined, a parasitical symbiote. A sickness that helped, like an arkeus helped a Trader.

  The Elder Gods give to those who serve them well, almost as often as they consume them.

  She wore blue silk, in utter defiance of passing for normal. A Chinese-collared shirt, loose pants, slipperlike shoes. As if she was still in a House’s quiet, incense-laden darkness, shafts of sunlight piercing the dim smoke.

  If it was the end of a cycle by their calendar, the air would be full of crackling expectation; and as night fell there would be a black flashing knife and the gurgle as a drugged prisoner—or more likely, one of their own, a male raised in the House’s gloom for just this purpose—would wind up throat-slit, sacrificial death fueling ceremonies from a time when the Elder Gods walked the earth.

  The Elder Gods were gone now, locked behind a wall so old even hunter legends only whisper of its making. But sometimes the smaller Chaldean demons come through and wreak havoc. The Sorrows accumulate what they can and spread their Houses like a sickness, praying for the return of their hungry masters.

  I lifted both guns. My fingers tightened. Sunlight fell over her, bringing out the highlights in her hair, the mellow burnish of her skin.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’ve had all I can stand of people saying utterly incomprehensible things. “For Mikhail,” I whispered. Father Rosas’s heart monitor beeped, incongruous in the charged, suddenly buzzing quiet.

  She lifted both hands, palm-out but loose, with no tingle of sorcery surrounding them. “I loved him too. I just had to kill him.”

  I felt it again, Mikhail’s body in my arms as he choked on blood and her mocking freezing laughter as she disappeared. As I screamed Mikhail’s name until the Weres—small consolation that they were watching him just as I was—came to bear him away from the shitty little hotel room where he’d breathed his last and give him a clean-burning pyre.

  And not so incidentally, to restrain me as I tried to throw myself after the Sorrows adept. She would have killed me then.

  I was stronger now.

  Shoot her now, goddammit! Shoot her! “I told you. No Sorrows in my city.” My voice cracked, I could barely force out a whisper through my rage-tightened throat.

  “You killed my brother.” A swift grimace pulled down the corners of her pretty mouth. “We thought he could stay here unnoticed. In a seminary.”

  “Was an utt’huruk in one of his classmates part of the plan?” My voice was ragged. Kill her. Kill her now.

  But she had used that word. Brother. It wasn’t like a Sorrow. And he’d said, sister.

  They lied, though. It was SOP when dealing with Sorrows: don’t believe a fucking word. Masters of the mindfuck, sometimes they even make Perry look simple.

  And this one had taken in my teacher, probably the smartest fucking hunter on the face of the earth. She had done it so easily.

  “The Chaser was sent to bring him back. It took you to kill him, hunter.”

  Like hell. How did it get in Oscar? By mistake? “He bit his poison tooth.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth. The situation began to resolve behind my eyes—maybe the Sorrows boy had been hiding out in the seminary. It was almost likely, and almost logical.

  “I don’t blame him. We know how … unkindly you view us.” The sunlight faded, a cloud drifting across the sky. She looked out the window, presenting me with a profile I had only seen before in shadows, through a haze of bloodlust, rage, fear, grief. And a slice of her throat, visible above the Chinese collar. “I am in violation, hunter, and I’ve come here for your help. One of our adepts has escaped us, and is engaging in forbidden acts.”

  I felt one eyebrow raise. “I didn’t think there were any acts forbidden to a Sorrows House adept. Except, of course, being a decent fucking human being.” I eased back on the triggers a little, kept the guns pointed at her. Saw Mikhail’s face again, the light dimming in his eyes, the last gurgle as blood pumped free of the gaping razor-made wound in his throat.

  And oh, how he had loved her, meeting her in furtive alleys and motels, keeping his relationship with her a secret even from me. Even though I’d been his apprentice, closer to him than anyone else, Mikhail had kept his secrets. A hunter, snared in a Sorrow’s net, Belisa’s plaything in a game still murky to me. After his death the Weres and I had cleared the Sorrows House on Damietta Street.

  I had not left a single one of them alive. But Belisa had already stolen Mikhail’s amulet, the Eye of Sekhmet. It was probably in a Sorrows treasure-room right now, a pretty prize that had probably bought her the right to move up a few more ranks in the stifling cloister of priestesses.

  True to form, she didn’t even offer an apology. “Both New Blasphemy priests are alive.” She kept looking out the window. “And so is your pet cat. Be grateful.”

  Let me take off my cuff and thank you, bitch. “You have twenty seconds before I blast you out that window and into Hell,” I informed her. Calm and steady, Jill. See what she knows, if anything. “You might want to start talking.”

  “Her name is Inez Germaine.” She smiled as she dropped this piece of news. “Blood-colored hair, very sleek. From the North House in Alsace-Lorraine.”

  I stared at her. Could Robbie have mistaken Chaldean for French?

  No way. They don’t even sound similar. “I’m still not convinced.” I thumbed the hammers back slowly, hearing two small clicks. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

  “She is attempting an evocation, hunter. She is fueling it with death and acquiring funding from the sale of bodily—”

  Four. Three. I’ll admit it. I lost my temper and fired early.

  I pulled both triggers at the same time, the sound was deafening. I kept firing, glass shattering, she was gone in a flurry of blue silk. I leapt to the window ledge, clearing the bed in one swift movement, and almost plunged out, just in time to see her land on the pavement below, roll gracefully, and bolt down Sarcado Avenue. Glass ground under my feet as I crouched on the windowsill, both guns leveled.

  Five stories is nothing to a Sorrow, going after her now will just make everything messy. She had an escape route planned. This was the first step in the game. Just like she played with Mikhail.

  No getting away this time, bitch. Not on my watch.

  I took careful aim with my right-hand gun, closing out everything around me, including Saul bursting through the door and the sudden scramble of sound from the hall. Sighted at her fleeing back, inhaling smoothly; squeezed the trigger.

  Roaring sound, smell of cordite. I swear I could almost see the bullet as it leapt from the gun’s barrel, a brief burst of muzzle flash lost in the weak cloudy winter light.

  She stumbled, red blossoming as her right shoulderblade shattered. That’s going to hurt as it heals, isn’t it. No matter. I’ll hunt you slowly. And before I’m done, bitch, you’re going to beg. Just like Mikhail did.

  Six months I’d spent eating myself alive, wondering if I’d been too late to save my teacher because of jealousy, like any jilted lover. Until Saul and a hunt for a rogue Were had crossed into my city, and Perry’s game to eat up whatever was left of my soul had shown me with stark clarity that I had not been to blame.

  I had not killed my teacher. She had.

  “Jill? Jill?” Saul. He grabbed my shoulders, dragged me back from the window. “What the fuck?”

  “It’s her,” I was saying, in a monotone. “It’s her. The bitch. It’s her.” The beeps of the heart monitor were steady in the background; Father Rosas hadn’t even twitched. He must have been tranked o
ut of his mind.

  “Christ, was that really a Sorrow?” He shook me as I heard yells out in the corridor, running feet. “Jill? It reeks in here. Jillian!”

  “It’s okay.” I shook my head. I was shaking, and my voice hit the level just a hair under “blood-chilling”: soft, chanting in a singsong, tasting each word. “I’m okay. It’s her. The bitch herself. I’m going to take her apart joint by fucking joint—”

  “Come on.” He pulled me under his arm and dragged me toward the door, the peculiar blurring of his Were camouflage beginning just at the corner of my vision. “Jesus Christ, you were only in here for a minute. Can’t I leave you alone for ten seconds without gunfire? This is a hospital.”

  Do you really want me to answer that, Saul? I let him pull me along, numbly. It’s her. The bitch. It’s her.

  “To hell with dead whores,” I heard myself say. “I’m going to hunt myself a Sorrow.”

  Then my left hand came up, I would have clapped it over my mouth if it hadn’t still been full of heavy metal gun. “Christ,” I choked. “I think I’m going to be fucking sick.”

  “Hold it for a few seconds,” he replied, practically, palming the door open and dragging me out into the hall. He got me down the hall, neatly avoiding the chaos of security guards and running nurses, and out through a fire door, adding to the general fun. I felt sorry for the poor cardiac patients, fleetingly. And sorry for Father Rosas, though he probably hadn’t heard a damn thing. She’d probably drugged him; poison and chemicals are a Sorrow’s stock-in-trade. And Guillermo would mean less than nothing to her. Belisa’s game right now was with me.

  In an alley below I lost breakfast and everything I’d ever thought of eating for lunch. Saul held my hair back as I retched and swore, alternately, hearing the little gurgle of Mikhail’s life bubbling out through his throat and her laughter like tinkling glass.

  All in all, for facing down Belisa again, I handled it pretty well.

  15

  This is beginning to piss me off.” I stared at the small brick building. The office on Quincoa—Kricekwesz’s—was closed again, this time at three in the afternoon. “Doesn’t this doctor ever open up?”

  Saul lit a Charvil. “You want to go in and take a look around?”

  My stomach flipped. I studied the front of the place: windowless because of the chance of projectiles, Family Planning Clinic in gold on the door that had a peephole and an intercom box with the Closed sign hanging from it as well as a UPS NO! stenciled underneath on white-painted bricks. There weren’t any protestors out here, and I supposed that was a good thing. A doctor who did abortions needed to be circumspect and safety-conscious; if he didn’t have a crowd of Jesus freaks out front it meant that he hadn’t pissed off the religious fanatics.

  Yet.

  I took my time, looking at the roof, the security cameras, the steel door. “Ricky didn’t say anything about needing an appointment.”

  “Kind of odd for the doc not to be here.”

  “He doesn’t keep night hours either.” I sighed. My mouth tasted sour even through the cinnamon Altoid Saul had given me. My hands were no longer shaking, but I still felt a little … unsteady.

  I couldn’t believe something so callous had come out of my mouth. To hell with dead whores. I’m going to hunt myself a Sorrow.

  It was exactly the sort of thing a hellbreed would say. Or a Middle Way adept, one of those selfish bastards. I couldn’t believe myself.

  “Christ.” I let out a sharp breath. “If I’m going to do any breaking and entering, I want it to be for a good cause. We’ll come back tomorrow. All the doc will be able to do anyway is confirm Baby Jewel wanted to get rid of a career impediment.” Shame twisted under the words as soon as I heard my own voice. “Christ, Saul. I can’t believe what I’m saying.”

  His hand closed over my nape, warm and hard. Saul reeled me in as he leaned back against the wall of the alley we’d chosen for surveillance. “Relax, kitten.” He exhaled smoke over my head. “Just take a breath.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned against him, my head cradled below his collarbone and shoulder. My cheek rested against his T-shirt, and I pushed his coat aside and breathed him in.

  His thumb worked along the tense muscles at the back of my neck. He took another sharp breath in, inhaling the smoke, and blew it out. “She really got to you.”

  “Mindfuck central.” I jagged in another breath. God, Saul, what did I ever do without you? But I knew. I worked myself into the ground and killed myself by inches, that’s what I did. Just like every other hunter. “They probably have a dossier on me a mile thick.” And it doesn’t fucking help that I have to visit Lucado again. I hate pimps. Jesus Christ, but I hate pimps. I shoved the thought away. It went without protest, used to being pushed under the rug. I was no longer vulnerable, I was a grown-up, kickass hunter, and I wasn’t going to forget it.

  “What do you think the game is?”

  “There’s a vanishing possibility she actually knows something.” My voice was muffled in his shirt. He was warm, warm as a Were, a higher metabolism radiating energy. “The trouble is, there’s nothing Chaldean that does this. The demons like to possess, not eat. And the Sorrows don’t use body parts. They like the whole person, bleeding and screaming. After they’ve mindfucked the hell out of them and torn them into little bits and slit their fucking throats and—”

  “Jill.”

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  I did.

  “I need you calm, baby. Nice and calm. You start going off the deep end and your pheromones get all wacked-out, and that makes me real unhappy. ‘Kay?”

  I nodded, my cheek moving against his shirt. He smelled of spice, woodsmoke, Charvil cherry tobacco, and familiar musk. I don’t want to make Saul unhappy. That’s the last thing I want.

  “‘Cause I like you nice and sweet, kitten.” His voice rumbled in his chest, not just the words but the sound soothing me. “I like you sleek and I like you purring. I don’t like no fucking Sorrow playing with your head, and we’ll fix it just as soon as we can. But for right now, baby, honey, kitten, Jilly-kiss, you need to calm the fuck down before I give you a dose of calm. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I heard his heartbeat, even and unhurried. This was rapidly getting out of hand. “I’m calm.”

  “No you’re not.” Amusement in his voice. “But close enough.”

  “I could still use a dose.” At least when you’re in bed with me I’m sure you’re not going to vanish.

  That thought vanished too, like bad gas in a mineshaft. I couldn’t afford to start on that particular mental path right now.

  “Bet you could. Me too.” He moved a little, bumping me, I leaned into him. “Business before pleasure, baby.” His voice rumbled against my ear.

  “Who made up that rule?” I am handling this very, very well. All things considered.

  “You did. Want to break it?”

  Shit. “We’d better get to Hutch’s. I’ve got books to hit before I have to face a few hours with a hellbreed.”

  “You want dinner?” Christ, did Saul sound tentative? Why? I wasn’t going to break. I’d handled worse than this. The enemies I didn’t like were the ones that surprised me, that’s all. Once I knew they were in town, it became a clear-cut problem: seek and destroy.

  Knowledge is the hunter’s best friend, Mikhail always used to say.

  Oh but it hurt to think of Mikhail. Hurt down deep, in a place I shut off from the rest of my life, the place that only bloomed when I was up alone at night with the wind mouthing the corners of the warehouse, low-moaning its song of streetcorners and loneliness. A place that hadn’t shown up too often since Saul had waltzed into my life and first irritated the hell out of me, then worked his way inside my defenses and ended up twined around my heart. Worked in so deep I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.

  The trouble with love is that it leaves you so fucking vulnerable. It’s a weak spot. But without that weak spot, what the e
ver-living fuck is a hunter fighting for?

  “No.” I stepped reluctantly away from the shelter of his warmth. “I’d better not. Hanging around him tends to upset my stomach.” I sighed, rolling my tense shoulders, and blew out a long breath. “Feel free, though. You can hit the stands for a burrito or something while I’m in Hutch’s.”

  “You think I’m going to leave you alone in the bookstore with Hutch?” His eyebrow rose, and the world suddenly jolted back into its familiar configurations. “I know how hot he thinks you are.”

  Hutch’s was a bust. Hutch hadn’t had time to do more than pull the sources he thought were most likely and skim for translatable passages. The term chutsharak didn’t appear to mean anything at all. Hutch himself turned white when he saw me, showed us into the back room, then closed down and hightailed it. Which meant we spent the better part of the day into the night poking through moldering books and not finding much that I didn’t already know about the Sorrows.

  He also hadn’t managed to find anything on Saint Anthony’s spear. Which meant that either Hutch was slipping—or Rourke had lied to me.

  Guess which one my money was laid on.

  When the time came, Saul drove—my hands were a little shaky. Our first stop was Mary of the Immaculate Conception, and I spent twenty minutes in a back pew with my eyes closed, smelling the peculiar odor of a church. Incense, vestments, ritual wine, the dash of hope, belief, terror, pleading. A familiar mix, comforting and spurring in equal measure.

  The beads of the tiger-eye rosary slipped through my fingers as I sat, swaying slightly, the prayer repeating itself inside my head.

  Thou Who hast given me to fight evil, protect me. Keep me from harm. Grant me strength in battle, honor in living, and a quick clean death when my time comes. Cover me with Thy shield, and with my sword may Thy righteousness be brought to earth, to keep Thy children safe. Let me be the defense of the weak and the protector of the innocent, the righter of wrongs and the giver of charity. In Thy name and with Thy blessing, I go forth to cleanse the night.