Night Shift

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Which, by Were codes, was a magnanimous refusal to prove my dominance.

  That earned me a startled glance, but I turned my gaze back to Harp, who wore a wide white-toothed smile. I touched the back of my right wrist, scrubbed at it with my fingers. Touching the scar wasn't a good time, so when I had it uncovered for a while I rubbed at the back of my wrist, a nervous tic I was helpless to stop. "Fine. But one nasty comment and he's out the door. I haven't been half-drowned in storm-drain shit tonight to take lip from a Were you can't babysit. Now start talking."

  The warehouse creaked as the side door opened. I smelled food, and Were. Dominic made no attempt to keep quiet. Wise of him.

  Harp knocked back her drink in one smooth motion. I poured myself another.

  "It started out in Massachusetts—this rogue is ranging further than any I've ever seen. The kills look strange, very strange. About three-quarters of the kills are a regular rogue's—tracked from a resting-site, muscle meat gone, a high level of violence, souvenirs taken. The other quarter are… well, too savage to be a Were, blood for the hell of it and no muscle meat taken." She took a deep breath as Dominic padded into the room.

  "Your plates still in the same place, Jill?" He sounded unwontedly cheerful. "That Thai place on Seventy-Second is still open. Go figure."

  I didn't know there was a Thai place on Seventy-Second. Trust a Were to know where all the munchies are.

  "Everything's where it should be," I told him, leaning back braced on my hands. "Drop the other shoe, Harp."

  She did. "He's killed two hunters already. Devon Blue in Boston, and Jean-François in Louisiana. Saul's sister was running backup for Jean-Francis. Our rogue killed her. It was a hell of a fight, from what we can tell."

  My stomach turned over hard. "Holy shit." My eyes jagged over to Dustcircle, who was staring into his drink.

  Killing another Were's sister is a big deal. The only thing bigger is killing another Were's mother. It's one of the few completely taboo things among them.

  "I'm sorry." My voice dropped. No wonder he was in a bad mood.

  And Boston and Louisiana were too far apart for a regular rogue. They tend to stay in familiar territory, which makes them easier to track. Rogues are normally completely predictable, behavior-wise, at the mercy of instinct run amok. To have a rogue acting un predictably was bad, bad news.

  Or it wasn't a rogue at all. But if Harp said it was…

  Saul glanced up, and I thought I saw surprise in his dark gaze before Dominic came out with plates and chopsticks, carrying two large plastic bags as well. He must have bought one of everything on the menu. "Chowtime, boys and girls. Kiss, you need to eat. You look like you're trying to diet yourself to death."

  "Don't call me that." I wrinkled my nose as chili pepper and coconut crawled up into my sinuses and made themselves at home. "You got everything four-stars again, didn't you."

  "Live it up, baby." Dominic handed me a plate and a pair of wooden chopsticks. "We've got the files, and you might as well take a look at them. You know the city better than we do, and we'll need to start checking everywhere a rogue might go to ground."

  I caught the look he flashed to Harp, and was suddenly sure there was more. "If it's a rogue Were, why is it acting unpredictably, and why does it smell like hellbreed?" But only sometimes. Still, even "sometimes" is enough to give me nightmares.

  God knows I don't get nightmares easy anymore. I just dream about Mikhail.

  It's anyone's guess which was worse.

  "We don't know." Harp sounded cautious again. "We were hoping maybe you'd have an idea. Operations suggested bringing you in, and when the trail veered this way we thought we'd pick you up."

  Aha. Suddenly more about this makes sense. I tapped my chopsticks against my plate, meditatively. "That's not what you're really asking."

  Silence, broken only by the rustling of plastic. Dominic plopped down on the wooden floor between me and Saul, and Harp slithered off the couch to sit with us, folding her long legs up with inhuman grace. Warm air swirled, touching my cheek—their skins throwing out heat like sidewalks on a summer day.

  Shit. Sometimes I wish I couldn't hear what people aren't saying. I set my plate down, my skin going briefly cold.

  Laid the chopsticks across them. They want to talk to Perry. "No way, Harp. He'll eat you alive."

  "We just want to ask some questions." Her eyes met mine.

  "Dinner first," Dominic said. "Eat, then argue. Come on, Kiss."

  "Hellbreed don't like Weres. And this one's different, he's not your average shiny-eyed weirdo." The chopsticks rattled as I shifted, my knee brushing the plate. "Give me what you want to ask him about, I'll take it in. I've got to go in there anyway, I might as well."

  And the more business I have to handle, the more I can put off going in there to make my monthly payment. My skin chilled afresh, gooseflesh prickling up hard all along my back.

  "We're curious about this hellbreed, Jill. It's a golden opportunity for the Squad to find out what's going on inside his little domain. We have half a dozen cases he might have his fingers in, and nobody can get close enough to even snap a picture of him."

  No doubt. "That should tell you something." I poured another healthy cupful of JD, set the bottle down, and tossed the whole glass back. "Jesus Christ, Harp. Don't push this one. You know better, Mikhail would tell you the same thing. Did tell you the same goddamn thing."

  Harp decided to push it. But carefully, her voice soft and uncertain. "Not even a meeting in a neutral place?"

  Perry doesn't do neutral, sweetcheeks. " No, Harper. Not a chance." I shifted restlessly, and Dustcircle twitched.

  Dominic, a takeout container in his hand, studied me with lambent eyes. Brown feathers in Harp's hair stirred, and the warehouse echoed, little chuckles and sighs as my voice bounced back to me.

  "I had to ask. Operations feels it's a priority." She dropped her eyes, looking at her plate.

  Two submissions from as many Weres in under ten minutes. It was a record of sorts, but one I didn't feel good about setting. "You can tell that snake to slither back into his hole, I'm not taking you to see Perry. I can barely keep my own skin whole around him, and looking out for you is a distraction I don't need. You know how hellbreed feel about Weres." I poured myself another healthy dose of amber alcohol, knocked it back, and set the glass down with a small, precise click. Decided it was time for a subject change. "So we have a rogue ranging out of accustomed territories, a quarter of the kills not following a rogue's standard pattern, and the stink of hellbreed.

  A hellbreed manipulating a rogue Were, maybe?"

  Dominic busied himself with dishing up the food. Harp settled into her seated posture, rubbing at her eyes as if tired. She looked so lovely and languid, it was hard to believe she could shift and tear an ordinary human to shreds in less than fifteen seconds.

  Dustcircle piped up. "A rogue Were is hard to control."

  Bingo. "Easier than a Were with his wits about him." I stared at my empty plate, the white circle with the cheap chopsticks bisecting it. "You said something about files, Harp?"

  "Yeah." She accepted a filled plate from Dominic with a nod of thanks, one blonde braid dipping forward over her shoulder. The feathers were brown and stippled, hawk from the look of it; her tribe was allied with the Washington D.C. hawkflight. "But not until after we eat."

  Good idea. My stomach rolled uneasily, but I put a bright face on it. "The night's young. I'll peek at the files and then you can start canvassing the barrio while I go through the hellbreed clubs. I want to find out what hellbreed's tangled up in this, or we're just shooting in the dark."

  "A rogue should be predictable," Dustcircle muttered, as Dominic glorped some phad Thai onto his plate. "We've missed something. But regardless, we should hunt him first."

  My temper all but snapped. "You've done a bang-up job of catching this predictable guy so far. And for your information, Were, I am the resident expert when it comes to hunting hellbreed
."

  "Is that why you smell like one?" Dustcircle nodded his thanks to Dominic, not bothering to glance at me.

  Harp already gave you my bona fides, country boy. I counted to ten. It didn't work, so I counted again. Harp's hand paused halfway to her mouth, as if she wanted to clap it over her lips but couldn't quite make it there. Dominic, his chopsticks in midair, sighed wearily. Being mated to Harp must mean a whole lot of uncomfortable moments, and he was a smooth-it-over type of guy.

  To top the whole damn unsatisfactory conversation, my pager buzzed against my hip, clipped to my belt. The damn thing was waterproof, which I alternately vilified and blessed. I undipped and glanced at it, barely seeing the number. Perfect Just what I need.

  I got to my feet slowly, the floor creaking underneath me. "Duty calls." My voice sounded unnatural even to myself. "Harp?"

  She made a small noise, as if the breath had been knocked out of her. "Jill."

  "While I'm gone, will you teach the country boy some manners? My job is hard enough without assholes complicating it. I presume you have a copy of whatever file you want me to face Perry down with. Leave it here, lock up when you're done."

  I turned on my heel and stalked away, the warehouse echoing and my teeth clenched so tight my jaw ached. They were silent. I was hungry. And my coat was still sopping-wet.

  Great.

  Chapter Nine

  Avery clasped the bag of ice to his face. "Don't say a word," he groaned, leaning back in his chair. "Not one single fucking word, Kiss. I'm warning you."

  I hunched my aching shoulders, bracing my elbows on my knees as I inhaled, exhaled, dangling the bottle of beer in my right hand. "I'm not saying anything, Avery." My wrist burned, I'd pulled a hell of a lot of etheric force through the scar. "I'm not even thinking it."

  "Liar." His leg was tightly bandaged, his throat bruised, and the tiled hall echoed as he let out a gusty sigh. Here at the downtown jail, below the five stories that held the normal criminals overnight or during trials, this corridor terminated in three rooms, each with a circle scribed on the floor. Sometimes they were empty for two or three days at a time.

  Then there were nights like tonight. Two exorcisms referred in by the two Catholic parishes, one by the local Methodist church, and another three dragged in by Eva and Benito, two-thirds of the regular exorcists in town responsible for doing straight rip-and-stuffs. Wallace was visiting his mother in Idaho, and on a busy night like this I could have strangled him, though he needed the vacation.

  Regular exorcists shouldn't do more than two a night. It's draining psychic and physical work, and for anything out of the ordinary they were supposed to call me in. Avery had tried to take on his third exorcism of the night by himself, and I'd arrived just as the possessed—a meek little morbidly religious shut-in on Benton Avenue who was even now unconscious inside one of the holding cells for the night—did her level best to tear his eyes out after chewing his leg open and throttling him. She was lucky to still be alive, as I'd had to tear the Possessor out of her in a hell of a hurry and drag both her and Avery downtown for some medical attention.

  Possessors are nasty little things, and once an exorcism gets referred it's almost a given that they've wormed their way into someone with weeks of effort, driving them crazy a little bit at a time. Most of the possessed have no memory of the whole time—big chunks of their life gone—maybe an unconscious reflex, the psyche shutting away the trauma of having a parasitical psychic rider. It's one of the biggest violations imaginable, your mind and soul not your own—and the fact that Possessors, the little worms, tend to prey on the religious and naive, not to mention the middle to upper-middle class, isn't much of a comfort. For once the poor aren't targeted by a species of hellbreed, but that was small reassurance at best.

  Plus, Possessors find it easier to slide in while the ambient psychic temperature is fermenting-hot. Like right after one hunter passes away and a new one takes his place. All in all, big fun.

  I took a long drag off the beer. It was ice-cold, filched from the small fridge under Avery's desk, the same desk I leaned my knee against as I eyed him. Technically you're not supposed to have alcohol anywhere near you on duty, but exceptions were sometimes made for exorcists.

  You don't last long without a drink or two—or six—in this line of work.

  Wrestling on the floor with a woman who was no doubt very nice and sweet when she didn't have a Possessor inside her just made a cold beer go down that much better. My shoulders ached, and she'd gotten her teeth in my throat, worrying at the band of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. If she'd been true hellbreed or even Trader, that might have given me a problem. But Possessors are the low end of the hell pool, I could handle five or six of them on a given night without getting tired like a regular exorcist. Still, more than one or two a night wasn't good for anyone involved.

  "How you doing?" Avery's good eye blinked furiously, tears running down his scraped cheek from the stinging of ice against swelling tissue. "You look pissed."

  No, what I am is tired. Though I just had a snotty-ass Were country boy run his mouth off about hellbreed at me.

  "New case."

  "Heard about that." Avery shifted a little in his chair. The entire jail above us seemed to hold its breath, I cocked my head and took another long draft of cold beer.

  "News travels fast."

  "Five cops."

  "Yeah." I sighed. I don't even know if that rookie survived the night. No matter, if he wakes up and he's coherent Montaigne will buzz me. "Christ, Avery. Jesus Christ."

  "You'll get whoever it is." He lowered the ice, the plastic chair creaking as he shifted. "If something ever happened to me, you'd kill the bastard that did it."

  You're right, Ave. I am the avenger, it's my job. But Jesus. "Let's hope that never happens. I'd hate to have to train your replacement just when I've gotten used to your silly punk ass."

  He shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting painfully. He would be bruised all up that side of his face tomorrow.

  "Hand me a beer, willya? And tell me what's really bothering you." A flash of his pale chest showed through his torn shirt, and the St. Anthony's medal glittered briefly on its silver chain. I opened the small fridge and passed over a fresh cold bottle, his skin briefly touching mine. The scar on my wrist throbbed. I heard moans and shuffles overhead in the holding cells, and a subliminal thrill ran under my skin.

  Dawn. A hunter always feels it, the sun rising and the city settling into daytime geography.

  Yet another night spent on the run. I opened my mouth, but my pager buzzed again. "Jesus Christ." I sighed, knocked back the rest of the bottle in a few long swallows. Avery let out a sharp little adrenaline-jag laugh, his dark hair sticking sweat-damp to his forehead. He smelled like a good hard workout on a clean human male, no taint of hell. No exotic corrupt smell of hellbreed.

  Not like me.

  "Why don't you get a cell phone?" He clasped the ice to his eye again, hissing out between his teeth. His other hand was occupied with the beer.

  "As many times as I get dumped in water? Or shot? Or hit with levinbolts?" I shook my head. "Can't afford it.

  Pager works fine, and the buzz won't give me away when I'm playing snake-under-the-rock." I undipped the pager, setting the empty bottle down. Avery's desk always looked about to disappear under a mound of paper, and he'd stuck slim candles into the bottle mouths, some burned down and others pristine.

  Well, an exorcist usually ends up eccentric. It's the nature of the job. Eva paints and gilds hollowed-out chicken eggs. Benito likes hanging upside-down in a gravity rack, says it helps him sleep. And Wallace likes going out into the desert for jaunts with only a loincloth and a canteen for company.

  The number on the pager blurred as I blinked at it. Then I let out a soft breath, my ribs squeezing down, and the sound caught in my throat became a low reedy whistle, as if I'd been punched hard and had to suck the air back in.

  When I could talk again, I said, "Fuck."
>
  "What's up?" Avery didn't sound very interested. He leaned back, his good eye closed, the ice clasped to his face.

  "Got to go. It's past dawn, you should be all right for a while. Call if you need me." Shut up, Jill. You had to go see him anyway.

  But he shouldn't be calling me, dammit. Christ. Why am I so upset?

  It wasn't just the prospect of going into the Monde Nuit. I did that every month.

  She stinks of hellbreed.

  That was it. I smelled like hellbreed. Like the very things I fought. Usually I ignored the point successfully enough to function.

  Thanks to a stinking country-boy Were, I now had to think about it.

  I stood up. Avery waved his beer bottle, languidly. "Another parade of heart-stopping excitement, brought to you by the Santa Luz Exorcist Squad." The ice crackled as he shifted it against his face. "I'm going to go see Galina, have her fix this eye. Don't forget about Saturday."

  "I'll see if I can squeeze it in," I tossed over my shoulder, settling my coat with a quick shrug. The whip brushed my thigh as I strode away, and the ruby warmed in the hollow of my throat.

  I was grateful for that warmth. It crawled down inside me, and as I hit the stairs at the end of the hall—one exit and entry for any exorcist's lair, it works out better that way—I looked down at my left hand. The ring was there, silver still bound tight around my third finger. Mikhail's promise, Mikhail's mark, given to me before I even knew Perry existed.

  I blew out between my lips as I swung up the stairs, my shoulders coming up and a welcome heat beginning behind my breastbone. It was anger, and I fed it with every last scrap of energy as I blew down another long hall and out the back door of the administrative section of the jail, into the cold, clear light of dawn.

  Chapter Ten

  I knelt in a back pew at Mary of the Immaculate Conception, my forehead against the hard wood of the seat in front of me. Candles flickered dimly, and despite the simmering heat of midmorning outside it was cool and quiet in here. My pager had stopped buzzing.