Night Shift

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Get it together, Jill.

  There was only one thing to do, and I was putting it off. I swallowed dryly, heard my throat click.

  "Thou Who," I began, and heard Mikhail's voice next to mine as he taught me the prayer. "Thou Who hast…"

  I couldn't say them, so the words unreeled in my head as I forced my shaking hands together in tight fists.

  Thou Who hast given me to fight evil, protect me; keep me from harm. Grant me strength in battle, honor in living, and a swift 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.

  A tall order, even for God. In a fight between God and hellbreed, I would rather have a good stock of ammunition on my side.

  That's blasphemy, Jill, no matter how much it helps. But you're damned anyway, aren't you. What does it matter?

  I lifted my face. The crucifix over the altar was a gentle one, not like the twisted screaming monstrosities I've seen in some churches. This Christ looked almost tranquil, as if there had been no pain at all, as if death was a balm and not something to fight tooth and nail against.

  Maybe that's what Mikhail saw in me. Fighting tooth and nail. Like a Were, tooth and nail. So I stink of hellbreed, do I? Well, it keeps the innocent safe. Or safer, at least.

  That was the trouble with the prayer, Mikhail told me. Even if you only mouthed it, you ended up doing it.

  Believing in it.

  Stupid, he would snort after a few shots of vodka. They call us heroes. Idiots.

  But I didn't want to think about that. If I started brooding about how much I missed Mikhail, I might inadvertently give Perry an opening. And nobody wanted that except Perry himself.

  I started again. "Thou Who," I whispered, my lips numb. "Thou Who…"

  I could not frame the middle part of the prayer. There was only one part that mattered, anyway. I whispered it into my sweating hands, clasped together in prayer. "O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell's legions."

  I've had enough of being forsaken, God. You think you could cut me a little slack? Run, running, my brain like a rat in a cage.

  You're not too tightly bolted right now, Jill. Maybe you should do something to take the edge off. But what?

  I dropped my forehead down again and breathed in, smelling incense and wood and candle smoke, the particular mix that means Catholic. Get out your guilt and your rulers and your smell of wax and wine, and you had my childhood. Or at least the part of it that gave me the reflex of prayer.

  As a hunter, I was barred from both Confession and Communion for the sin of murder repeated every night, not to mention trafficking with Hell's minions. But I could still pray, and I would, by special dispensation, be buried in hallowed ground if there was enough of me left to bury.

  Unless I died contaminated. Or unless, like Mikhail, I wanted to go into Valhalla with flame licking my bones.

  Mikhail. The anger rose again, tattered and threadbare, and I petted it, coaxed it, mulled over it to give myself strength. Rage was my best friend, for all I kept it a banked fire most of the time. You cannot fight effectively if your head's full of anger. You have to think past the rage, let it fill you and see the world in front of you as action and reaction, with your own path laid clear and shining in front of you, whether through a fight or to the door of a hellbreed nightclub.

  Oh, fuck. Get going, Jill. You have shit to do and a rogue Were to catch. Get out there and kick some ass. You've done it every month since you made the bargain, sometimes twice, and you're still here. You smell of hellbreed and you're tired and your temper's a little frayed, but you're still here, goddammit. Now get up, and go twist Perry's arm until he gives up what you want.

  And teach him to stop fucking with you. Be unpredictable.

  I licked dry lips and pushed myself up. The hard wooden back of the pew slipped under my slick palms. My voice was a bare whisper, but it came. "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."

  Though it's more like midmorning. My bootheels clicked as I reached the end of the pew, genuflected, and turned my back on the altar. I dipped both hands in the holy water, lifted its coolness to my face, hissing out slightly as a thin tendril of it rolled over the scar with a tracer of acid fire. I wiped the holy water in my hair, smeared it over my shoulders, and took a deep breath.

  Then I got going.

  The Monde Nuit is a long low building, and it sits in a brackish depression of etheric energy. The silver on me warmed, responding to the contamination of hellbreed in the air. The parking lot was mostly paved, but the for edges were gravel, and a spindly, thorny edge of greenbelt looked sucked-dry, clinging to the edge of contagion. I left my tmpala parked in the fire zone and headed for the door, eyeing the bouncer. This early in the day, there were only six cars in the lot, not counting mine. One was a low black limousine, its windows blind with privacy tinting, pristine despite the dust and haze of the day.

  My coat flared on the edges of a hot afternoon wind. This close to the desert, up on the fringes of the valley the Luz River kept watered and kind-of-green, everything smelled of sand and heat. The whip tapped against my thigh and I kept my hands loose and easy. Touching a knife now would show nervousness. Weakness.

  You never show a hellbreed any weakness. It's a cardinal law, not to be bent or broken like so many other laws.

  The bouncer didn't stop me, though his was a face I hadn't seen before. He was a massive slab of muscle with a flat sheen to his eyes, and he didn't quite meet my gaze. His submachine gun, slung on a leather strap, was a flagrant violation.

  Goddammit, Perry. You son of a bitch.

  My heart stopped pounding by the time I palmed the doors open and saw the Monde's interior, vast and cavernous during the day, no shaft of sunlight piercing its gloom. Nightclubs always look saddest during the day, and even though the Monde pulsed with the glamour of Hell, it was still a broken sight at this particular hour, dappled bits of light sliding over the deserted dance floor, the tables all empty, and the electric lights on overhead. Two janitors—ancient, decrepit, broken things that might once have been Traders—shuffled aimlessly, pushing brooms.

  The massive bar was off to the left, and as usual Riverson was there, his blind filmy eyes widening as he took me in. "Kismet." His tone was flat, and he reached behind himself for the bottle of vodka. "You're here."

  Score one for you, blind man, stating the goddamn obvious. I kept the words behind my teeth.

  Mikhail had brought me in here to meet Riverson, who for a human with no taint of Hell was extremely knowledgeable about Hell's citizens, not to mention still alive to be questioned—both incredible achievements.

  The blind man hadn't been blind back when Mikhail first met him, but by the time I saw him he was a scarecrow of a man with a shock of white hair and those filmed, useless orbs that seemed nevertheless to notice a good deal more than most of the sighted ever would.

  And the first time I'd come here, Perry had shown up at the end of the bar, looking very interested. Mikhail had almost drawn on him, but Perry made an offer… and a few months later, I'd sat in a chair with Perry circling me, negotiating the bargain that made me able to do what I do so well.

  Murder, chaos, and screaming, that is. Hey, when a girl's got talents…

  I shoved the memories back down into their little black box, took the shot Riverson poured, tossed it back, and slammed the shot glass down on the bar. The sound was a rifle crack in the hush. "I'm early." My voice was flat, uninflected. "I'm here on business. Put it on the tab."

  "You can wait up in his office. They're finishing the meeting—Kismet! For God's sake, don't!"

  The old man actually sounded concerned. A meeting, eh? Wait in the office? I don't think so. Perry, your meeting's about to be adjourned.

  And by making a statement here I could probably find out something useful. I bit back an iron-edged laugh and s
talked through the open maw of the building, skirting the dance floor and aiming to the left of the stage. The painted-black door opened smoothly, and I found myself in a back hall lit with red neon tubes along the ceiling.

  The light tinted everything bloody, and I strode down the linoleum, my heels clicking even more sharply and the charms in my hair chiming sweet and soft.

  Perry, you have been a very bad boy.

  The scar prickled, a fiery loathsome tendril of pleasure twining up my arm. I'd had it uncovered for so long it almost felt normal.

  Almost.

  The door I wanted was at the end of the hall, and as I approached it I heard the mutter, like flies magnified by the space inside a stripped-out skull. It was Helletöng, the language of the damned, and my heart gave a smothered leap and settled back into its regular pace.

  Do it quick, Jill. Just like ripping a Band-Aid off. Do it hard and quick.

  The door—blank steel, no knob on my side—was maybe three yards away. I gathered myself and skipped forward two long strides, kicking it inward and adding a generous portion of etheric force pulled through the scar on my wrist turned hard and hurtful, a bruised swelling. The steel crumpled, smashing inward, and I rode the motion down as the door crashed into the floor.

  Two of them, one on either side. I took the first with a quick upward strike, smashing him across the face with a hellbreed-strong fist braced by the handle of my whip. The gun was in my other hand, speaking for me, smashing the shell of the hellbreed on my left. The whip struck, its thundercrack lost under the noise of the gun, and I uncoiled in a flung-wide kick, both boots smashing hellbreed flesh, one on either side. They folded down, both of them stinking now that I'd shattered their shells and dosed them with silver, and the whip coiled itself as I landed, both feet striking the battered curve of the door again.

  As entrances go, it wasn't bad.

  There was a long table polished to a mirror-shine, and tasteful sconces along the wall with yet more red neon, dyeing the air with crimson. Candles hissed in branched iron candelabra, their warm glow somehow bleached.

  At the end of the table, a pair of blue eyes met mine. Perry sat in a high-backed iron chair, the red velvet of its cushions contrasting with the pale linen of his suit. His face under the expensive sandy-blond haircut was bland and interested, but I thought I caught a steely glint far back in his pupils. His fingers were tented together, and he didn't look surprised to see me at all.

  Then again, he never did.

  Gathered on either side of the table were other hellbreed, none as bland or unsurprised as him. The damned are always beautiful, and these were no exception—black leather, exquisite silk, frayed lace, glittering liquid eyes and sculpted lips, four or five had leapt to their feet on seeing me. The table was full, except for the seat directly to Perry's left.

  And there was another surprise, oh friends and neighbors. Most of the damned in the room were instantly recognizable. The movers and shakers of the entire hellbreed population of Santa Luz, the maggots every smaller hellbreed answered to in their network of feudal obligation. There was the tall, sloe-eyed female who owned the Kat Klub downtown; the broker who ran the influence net out in the financial district; the short tense male in the black cloth half-veil that did assassinations for one faction or another, according to who hired him first or paid him most.

  A meeting, and the resident hunter wasn't invited. Why am I not surprised?

  My boots grated against the door, I took another two steps and leapt, landing catlike at the foot of the table, the whip coiled neatly in my hand. The gun tracked onto the nearest 'breed—a slim dark male with a leather vest over his hard narrow chest. I suspected him behind a large chunk of the cocaine trade that had recently soaked the poorer quarters with a wave of overdoses from whatever the supplier had cut it with. The current bet over in Vice was twelve to eight in favor of simple Drano, but Forensics hadn't come up with a verdict yet.

  Jesus, with a submachine gun and some heavy-duty sorcery I could make the world a much better place in about ten minutes.

  The trouble was, there were always more. If I erased this batch others would move in, and I'd have to threaten them into behaving all over again. Talk about your futile efforts.

  Still—My finger tightened on the trigger. "So many scumbags, and all in one room. Fish in a barrel." My lips peeled back from my teeth. "Feels just like Christmas."

  The silence crackled, and leather made a slight sound in my right hand as my fingers bore down on the handle of the whip. The candleflames hissed. Jesus. I should have thought about this before I kicked the door in. Good one.

  Kismet. Get out of this alive.

  But still, for what I wanted, this wasn't a bad situation. Odds were they knew about a hellbreed misbehaving in my town, and by getting a little nasty in here I might be able to avoid nastiness later.

  The silver chain at my throat burned fiercely, and Mikhail's ring scorched. The charms in my hair shifted and jingled sweetly. I took another few steps down the table, bracing myself, as my eyes came up and met Perry's.

  He finally spoke, his words a mere murmur. "So good of you to join us, Kismet."

  It was like a slap of cold water across a dreamer's face. The other hellbreed blinked, shuffled, one of the females baring her teeth at me and hissing. I stilled, looking down at her. The Kat Klub figured in one or two cold cases I wanted to get to the bottom of as well, though its owner usually followed the rules.

  Do we need another example here? Because I'm just aching to teach you motherfuckers the rules of operating in my goddamn town. The table resounded like a drum under my soles. I locked gazes with the hellbreed female.

  "You want to repeat yourself a little louder, bitch?"

  "There's no need to be rude." Perry hadn't moved. His eyes had turned a little darker, that was all. Indigo spread through his irises, but his whites were still clear. My mouth had gone dry, and the scar on my wrist sent a jolt of heat up the bones of my arm to my shoulder socket. "You were, after all, invited to this meeting."

  Invited? Fuck that "I must have missed the engraved invitation." My lip lifted, in an almost-snarl. Our eyes locked, two magnets pushing against each other with invisible force. Pure repulsion.

  Or so I hoped.

  "We called this meeting today to address… extraordinary circumstances." He pressed his fingers together, his mouth making a little moue of distaste at my obtuseness.

  I beat him to the punch. Keep it business, Jill. You might just get out of here without having to spend more time with him than necessary. "Five cops, out on the Drag. Dead. The scene stank of the damned. Hand over the 'breed responsible, and we'll all get along just fine."

  The wet, icy silence that fell warned me. One corner of Perry's mouth lifted, and a chill worked its way all the way down to my bones. Except for the scar. The mark of his lips on my skin warmed obscenely, burrowing in toward the bone.

  I suddenly wished I'd been able to get out to Galina's and get another copper cuff. Without the bar of blessed copper between the scar and the outside air, I was wide-open to him fiddling with it.

  "You are all dismissed." His voice made the candle flames twist. "Spread out through the city. Find the one we seek."

  Wait just a goddamn minute. I thumbed the hammer back, the small click loud in the dim-lit silence. "I didn't give any of you permission to move, Pericles." My soft killing tone couldn't rival his, but it was pretty good anyway.

  Too bad my lips were numb. My heart began to pound, and that was very bad. They could all hear my pulse, just as I could hear the subliminal rumble of Helletöng warping the walls and the strings of energy below the surface of the world.

  The other corner of Perry's mouth lifted, a small smile ran steel ice along my skin. "We are already apprised of a hellbreed causing trouble with the police. We are seeking her even now."

  "Her?" My right eyebrow raised. I noticed with a thin thread of gratification that none of them had moved a muscle. The dusty, exotic,
corrupt smell of them filled my nose, coated the back of my dry throat.

  Perry's smile was full-fledged now. He wasn't hurtfully beautiful like the other hellbreed, which made him—once you thought about it—even scarier. Much scarier. "Her name is Cenci." His tented fingers relaxed a fraction. "I will tell you all we know, my dear Kiss. After you have paid me my due." He now looked extraordinarily happy, and my heart sank, turning to heavy steel inside my chest.

  Oh, fuck. I suddenly, frantically wished I'd thought to stop by the warehouse and pick up the FBI files. They would make an excellent excuse for keeping this meeting all business.

  Like he's going to be fobbed off. You just cost him some face in front of his little lieutenants.

  Then, wonder of wonders, my pager buzzed. I swallowed bile as other hellbreed rose to their feet from the small iron chairs; the ones already standing merely waited. They shuffled out, avoiding the dead bodies at the door, the masked one watching me with eyes blank from lid to lid, black as the devouring darkness between stars. I ignored it.

  If one of them moved on me now, it would give me cause to get the hell out of here without spending quality time with Perry.

  I wasn't as comforted as I could be by the thought.

  As soon as the last one had left the room, I lowered my whip. The gun swung around, fixed on Perry while I dug in the padded pocket. The number displayed on the pager's display couldn't have been more welcome.

  Montaigne. Which meant there was another body. Or three.

  Which also meant Perry would have to wait. Guilt curled hot and acid under a bald edge of relief. What did that say about me, that I was glad about someone's murder because it would get me the hell out of here?

  I looked up from the pager, trying not to let the relief show. It was useless, he saw it anyway and his smile broadened, cold sweat bathing my back.

  "It's the police." I had to work for an even tone. "I'm on the job, Perry. You're going to tell me what you know now, and I'll come in to pay you when this is over."