After all, that was what I lived for, right?
Just stop it. Mikhail’s dead no matter what you intended, and you have a job to do. Just be happy Saul is out there somewhere in the world, that he even exists. Quit moaning and get on with it. This is your big night, you don’t want to be late.
I could have been happy with being a little later. But I stood up, and I did something I hadn’t done since my teenage years.
I approached the altar with slow steps, climbed the steps, and stood right next to the bank of candles and flowers, in the midst of their heady fragrance. They adorned what in pagan times would be a site of bloody sacrifice, whether done kindly or cruelly.
Times have changed a lot less than we think.
I looked up into the wooden face of the man on the cross, under the shelf of carved hair and runnels of painted decorative blood from jagged thorns. A great howling cheated scream rose up inside me, was savagely repressed, and died away.
What could I say to a God who had never spoken to me and a Son who slept?
“You give out redemption, don’t you?” My whisper sounded very loud in the silence, broken only by the hissing of candleflames. “If you’re not too busy right now, I could use a handful. Maybe even just a pinch.”
I was still begging. Just like the girl I had been, before. The weakling.
I’d been taught a better prayer, hadn’t I?
O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell’s legions. In Thy name and with Thy blessing, I go forth to cleanse the night My lips shaped the words, and the candleflames flattened. The scar on my wrist grumbled uneasily, a hot hard knot under the skin, infected.
I shut the thought of Mikhail away, along with the thought of Saul. It took a physical effort, a tensing of every muscle. When it was done, I inhaled, let out a long huff of air.
The click sounded inside my head. I’d never told Mikhail about this switch in the very bottom of me, the one I could now flip. I could lift off, shutting away everything but the job that had to be done, the shining path of vengeance laid out before my feet. That road might eventually end at Hell’s bony clutching gates, but at least I’d take plenty of the predators who preyed on the weak with me. Maybe a few innocents would survive a little longer because I was out getting dirty.
Enough whining. The night could use some cleansing. I was just the girl to get it done. If the Weres kept the rogue out of my way, and if Cenci’s need for revenge on her hellspawn father was greater than her need for revenge on me, and if Perry’s interest in me would keep him from interfering, and if..
I was counting on a lot of ifs, and on a lot of hellbreed jealousy. I was also counting on Navoshtay Niv Arkady being killable, which was by no means certain.
“Only one way to find out.” My voice echoed in the church’s cloistered quiet, the sunsword ringing softly underneath it. The ruby at my throat was warm and comforting. I had never seen a priest in here, but the doors were always open. I was glad on both counts; if I did see a priest now, I wasn’t quite sure I could control my sarcasm. It would hurt too much to be respectful, and in any case I’ve never done submission well.
Did the man on the cross mind? Did he forgive me for it, knowing I was as I’d been made? By the same hand that had made him, the same hand that abandoned him to be nailed up for sins he didn’t commit? Sins he had no choice but to pay for, over and over again?
Was memory a curse for the man on the cross too?
Quit fucking around, Kismet. Get your ass moving.
I did. But as I left the church I felt comforted, for once. I pushed open the doors and stepped out into an early evening eerily dark with storm clouds covering the sky’s bright eye. In the west was a crimson streak. Dusk was coming, the sun sinking under the rim of the earth and night rising to start its games.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I didn’t have to walk out to the Monde or take a cab. I wasn’t more than four blocks away from the church when a pristine black limousine detached itself from parking up the street and crept toward me.
It was absurdly anticlimactic.
I got in, taking one last drowning breath of heavy muggy air crackling with approaching thunder before air-conditioned calm and the smell of hellbreed closed around me. I had to unbuckle the diagonal strap and lay the sunsword across my knees, a bar between me and the blue-eyed ‘breed who lounged, patently unconcerned, across from me on the white leather seat. The blondness of the interior matched his sandy hair, and the scar on my wrist leapt with sick hot delight under the copper cuff.
“Alone at last,” Perry greeted me. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and the stickpin in his pale blue tie was a diamond. I suspected it would have a flaw like a screaming face in its depths. “That is an exceedingly undainty tool for such a pretty thing as yourself, my dear.”
You’re not the first man to tell me that. I stared out the window as the quiet residential streets around Immaculate Conception flowed by. The driver was behind a pane of smoked glass, and Perry sat with his back to the driver and regarded me. “No word for your faithful slave, dear Kiss? You’re even surlier than usual. I’ve decided to forgive your insubordination this time as well. Comforted?”
There’s nothing you can do that would comfort me, Perry. Except stop breathing, and maybe not even then. I wouldn’t put it past you to rise from a grave or two. I caught myself, focused my eyes out the window. Mikhail had always told me a woman had an edge in this kind of bargain.
I was about to use that edge for everything it was worth. Besides, my head was full of colorless gasoline fumes, and all I needed was a spark. I hoped I was as dangerous as I felt right now.
He fell silent for a short while. I could feel his eyes crawling avidly over me, leaving behind a sparkling, oozing trail like the wetness coating a hot scaled tongue.
The driver was taking the direct route to the Monde.
Like that’s a blessing, Jill.
The scar turned warm. Heat oozed up my arm, a pleasant bath of sensation. I set my jaw as the limo turned left, bracing my foot against the floor.
“You make this so difficult.” He managed to sound mocking and contrite at once. I didn’t dignify it with a response. “I’ve done what you wanted. Arkady is waiting at the Monde, enjoying such blandishments as might make him a little more amenable. I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort soothing his ruffled feathers and persuading him to overlook—”
Now, Jill. Go on the attack. “Bullshit.” My voice slashed through his. “You’ve convinced him I can be used as bait for his daughter, since you’ve deduced—or maybe you even know—that the Weres are hot on the rogue’s trail. Can the act, Perry. I’m tired of this game.”
“There are other games to play.” His eyes half-lidded, a movement I could sense, though I kept my gaze out the window, by the sudden heat brushing my cheek. Every nerve was agonizingly aware, waiting for the violence. “You should take that abominable thing off. I like to hear your pulse.”
“The cuff stays on, Perry.” At least until I start getting my ass beat by Arkady. The limo’s engine opened up, accelerating up the slight hill of Mendez Road.
“You’re harsh.” Delicate, dainty as a cat. “What have I done to deserve your ire, avenging one?”
You’re here instead of in Hell, Perry. And you’re fucking with my head. Watch me fuck right back. “Just don’t start with me. I’m not in the mood.”
“Changeful woman,” he murmured. I sensed his eyes lighting up with predatory glee. The scar prickled, burrowing wetly into my skin. “It’s your prerogative, I suppose.”
Keep going, you scumsucking hellspawn. I was an idiot to think I could manipulate a hellbreed, especially one like him.
Still, even idiots get lucky sometimes. I felt lucky tonight. Or maybe just reckless.
He kept his voice low, thoughtful. “You’ve grown quiet. And very thoughtful.”
I glanced at Perry. His profile was presented to me, he glanced out the opposite window, one leg crossed ove
r the other, his hands folded on his knee. He looked like a mild-mannered businessman.
I let him have it with both barrels, a mismatched stare and my seeming-full attention fixed on him. “I’m wondering how far you can be trusted when Arkady decides he wants to rip my throat open.” Or just use those eyes on me until I do it myself.
Perry’s head slowly turned. His blue eyes met mine, a shadow of indigo clouding the whites. “That is one thing you don’t have to worry about, Kiss. You’re signed, sealed, and mine. Navoshtay Niv Arkady isn’t what you should fret over.” His colorless tongue stole out, touched his bottom lip in a flicker of motion. “You should worry more about satisfying me once this meeting is over. You’ve put yourself right into my hands.”
Oh, have I? Amazingly, I felt the corners of my mouth tilt up. It was a crazy, suicidal smile, and I heard Mikhail’s voice from a long time ago—it seemed like centuries. When you stop fearing them, milaya, you have made first mistake.
“That’s what you think, you hellspawn fuckhead,” I informed him sweetly as we bumped across railroad tracks, the limo braking. The Monde was less than ten minutes away, along an extended stretch of road packed with slaughterhouses and warehouses, as well as rumbling bits of railroad track freighted with commerce. I’d never approached the Monde from the meatpacking district before.
It put a whole new shine on things.
Perry paused, his head tilted to the side. The indigo swelled through his eyes, and his hair stirred slightly, lifting on a breeze that came from nowhere because the interior of the limo was still as a drowned mineshaft. “I am going to enjoy breaking you,” he whispered.
Then the night turned red, and chaos descended from above. I was ready for something to happen, but it still took me by surprise.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The limo was a burning mass of fragments, and the fingers in my throat were pure iron. I thrashed, the sunsword clattering to the ground just out of my reach—I’d been holding it when the limo swerved and the bolt from the heavens descended, tearing through metal like it was paper and igniting like a Molotov cocktail.
Navoshtay Niv Arkady crouched over me, his shoulders hunched and hellfire in the yellow spectrum dripping from his oily, curly hair. His eyes were black from lid to lid, and the sheen of oil on their tops was scorch-hot, sucking at me as I went down, black water closing over my head. His teeth were serrated edges of pure ivory bone, and they champed as he sizzled at me in Helletöng, the rumble making the silver in my hair crackle and scorch. A bloody spark spat from the ruby at my throat, and he hissed back. The silver chain against my neck began to bum.
He’d gotten tired of waiting for me, despite whatever promises he’d made to Perry. I’d thought that might happen. Powerful hellbreed are touchy about hunters who make them look bad in front of their peers. Sometimes they can’t contain their little tempers.
What a joy, I’ve finally figured a hellbreed out.
The copper cuff clanged on pavement as I surged up, fighting with almost-hellbreed strength. He bore down, grinding me into the pavement. “You.” His voice was the death of stars, was the cold bleakness of space, his sterile breath scouring my face as I gagged and fought for air, the fingers of my left hand scorching too as I tried to pry his grip loose. He had his foot on my right wrist and he ground down, my scream lost and bottled in my throat. “You stink of the beast!”
A secondary explosion rocked the burning limousine. “Animal.” A load of disgust and hatred made his voice stagger even under its awfulness. His weight, like the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, crushed down on me, my bare skin crawling with acid and loathing. His eyes dug at me, slicing, burning, nerves dying, the rope at my throat and the knife drawing up my arm, riptides of black oil sucking me down.
His breath roared hot and rancid over my face as he sniffed me. “You reek of it!” he screamed, and I remembered the tang of Were that overlaid my scent.
I realized too late that Navoshtay Niv Arkady was utterly and completely fucking insane, and that he had a big problem with anything smelling like Were. Like I did, now, after hanging out with them—and sleeping in the same bed with one.
If he hadn’t intended to kill me before, he certainly did now.
The limo exploded once more, shrapnel flying. Lightning sizzled, thunder sounding very small when compared to the noise in my head. My eyes rolled up, and I dug for every erg of strength I possessed. I convulsed, pitching to the side, trying to throw him off, and got exactly nowhere.
I’m going to die oh shit I didn’t plan for this think of something oh my God I’m not ready yet I didn’t even tell Saul—
Arkady paused, his wetly gleaming head coming up like a lizard’s, his tongue sliding out and poking the air. His cheek was scarred under its copper tones by the sunsword’s finials.
FOCUS! Mikhail’s voice roared inside my head.
My left hand stopped its fruitless digging and flashed down, closed on a gun.
I had almost cleared leather, my fingers suddenly clumsy and black spots crowding in on my vision, when Cenci simply resolved out of the air with the unholy screech of a basilisk and knocked dear old daddy on his ass.
I rolled onto my side, coughing and choking. The noise was terrific. I was glad the street was deserted, because Arkady slid across pavement, bumped up the curb, and flew right into the side of a warehouse with a snapping sound like a really good bowling strike. Cenci vanished, flung back by the strike her father dealt even as he flew, a long coiled serpent of pure force.
Crap. Now she was out of the picture.
Get up, milaya. Mikhail’s voice, tender and pitiless. Get stupid ass moving, woman!
I did, dropping flat again from my half-crouch and rolling as the side of the warehouse exploded and Arkady stepped out, siding and dry wall—not to mention glass—whickering through the air. Little bits peppered the street; my coat made a snapping sound as the blow-back pushed at its long flow.
My fingers curled around the hilt of the sunsword, and Arkady moved. He didn’t so much seem to walk as to sidestep through space, as if he folded the street like a cloth and stepped from one wrinkle to another. He kicked me, and the massive impact against my side flung me back across the street, pain exploding and no more breath in the world, lungs starving, almost into the shattered burning heap of the limousine.
He could have snuffed me out. Arkady was playing with me before he killed me.
Now would be a really good time to have Perry on my side. Hell, I’d settle for anyone. The cough drove splintered bits of bone through my lungs, and the scar on my wrist turned almost as hot as the roasting from the burning limo. I smelled cooking hair and my entire body seized up, bones crackling as a long strangled sound of effort burst out of my blood-slick lips.
I was vaguely surprised I had the breath left to still try screaming.
I’m getting really tired of bleeding. Someone stop the world, I want to get off.
But the sunsword was still in my hand. I managed a walloping painful breath in, sucking at it like wine. Even tainted with hellbreed and burning metal, that breath was the sweetest I’d tasted for a long time. My ribs snapped out, and I screamed again as Arkady stepped mincingly nearer, the pavement groaning under his weight of insanity.
More thunder arrived, shatteringly close. I had my legs under me and a complete lungful of air as Arkady reached down, his fingers curling in my hair and hauling me up, probably to throw me around again.
The silver in my hair woke in a coruscating whirl of blue-white etheric flame.
He inhaled a scream like a black hole sucking in a star, dropping me. I landed on my feet, and pumped four shots into him at point-blank range, my shriek lost in the massive noise of his. Blood gushed from my ears and slicked my upper lip under my nose.
Then I brought the sunsword around, and slashed at him as the blade sputtered and burst into flame. I would have hit him too, if Cenci hadn’t collided with him from the side again, her face twisted up in a mask of h
atred and her claws making a snapping sound as they dug for his black eyes.
Her momentum slammed them both back into the wreck of the burning car, great gouts of oily smoke gushing up. I didn’t hesitate, unhealthy strength flooding me from the burrowing burning of the scar, a tidal wave of heat and etheric force jolting up my arm and through the rest of me. My hunting cry mixed with the guttural scream the hellbreed female made, a chorus of female destruction.
I threw myself into the burning wreck of the car, my boots smacking down on something that crunched wetly as I swung the sunsword, flame suddenly belching in a white-hot blowtorch arc. This wasn’t just sunfire—this was nuclear fission, the very soul of flame itself, responding to evil and to my throat-cut yell as I drove the length of bright whiteness into Arkady’s chest.
He backhanded me, a fist narrow and hard as a crowbar landing on my cheekbone, snapping my head aside and flinging me out of the inferno. I landed hard, teeth clicking together with a snap that would have taken a piece of tongue out if I hadn’t almost swallowed it while sucking in breath to scream again. The gun clattered and spun out of my left hand, and I scrabbled back, erasing the skin on my palms in my haste, as the flames made a sound like the world ending.
I saw her, in the middle of the conflagration.
Navoshtay Siv Cenci crouched on her father’s chest, her face a mask of keening inhuman rage as she tore at his face. His eyes were already deep gaping holes welling blackish ichor. Lightning smashed down, a gunpowder flash etching every detail into my retinas.
Slim female hellbreed with long pale hair and a nose that echoed his, her eyes mad and alight with crimson as she hunkered down in the middle of fire crippling for an ordinary ‘breed, ignoring the weak jerks and twitches as Arkady’s old, immensely strong body fought to live, not knowing the battle was over. She held up the eyes with one hand, each with its long string of raveled nerve root, and her mouth opened once, twice. Dribbles of darkness spilled from the corners of her mobile mouth, and I saw the flames flinch away from her. Her other arm reached up, fingers clasped around the hilt—slim fingers, blackening and curling at the touch of holy sunfired metal.
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