Angel Town

by Lilith Saintcrow

  It was too much concern all at once. “Fine,” I mumbled. My fingers dropped to the gun butt, smoothed the warm, comforting metal. A very nasty supposition was rising in my head, like bad gas in a mine shaft. Fading? I don’t like the sound of that. “Um. Amalia—”

  She didn’t listen, just set off again. Paused for half a second by the second door on the right. “Brace yourself. Really. It’s…my God. Come on.” She twisted the balky old glass-crystal knob—everything in the house looked like it had been restored from one hell of an estate sale. “Saul?” Her voice dropped, became soft, questioning. “Saul, I’ve brought someone to see you.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. It hit the rock that had been sitting there for a good half hour, mixed with the bile coating my windpipe, and twisted so hard I almost choked.

  Saul? The room was dark. Amalia drew me in, and the sudden gloom confused me. My one sneaker squeaked on the hardwood floor, and an overstressed tremor went through me, my skeleton deciding it could shiver itself to pieces now that the fun and games was over.

  The room was very plain. White cotton drapes over a small window, a white iron bed, a long human shape on it. He was curled up, sparks of silver in his dark hair, and my skin tightened all over me.

  Was I afraid? Yes. Or no, I wasn’t afraid.

  I was outright terrified.

  “Saul?” It was a harsh croak. I tore my arm out of Amalia’s grasp, and she let me. There was a cherrywood washstand by the door, my hip bumped it as I took two unsteady steps.

  The shape on the bed didn’t stir. A rattling sound rose from it—a long, shallow, tortured breath. The silver in his hair was charms, ones I knew.

  Because I’d given him every one of them. Tied most of them in with red thread, too, while sunlight fell over us and a cat Were’s purr made the air sleepy and golden. Sometimes he would drum his long coppery fingers on my bare knee, and I would laugh.

  I was halfway to the bed before I stopped, remembering how filthy I was.

  That never mattered to him. I inhaled sharply.

  It smelled sick in here. Dry and terrible, a rasping against my sensitive nose. Like a hole an animal had crawled into to die. It was clean, certainly, every corner scrubbed and the bedcovers and drapes bleached and starched. Still, the reek of illness brushed the walls with shrunken centipede fingers.

  Oh, God. “What’s wrong with him?” I whispered. It was a useless question. I could guess.

  “Matesickness.” Amalia’s own whisper made the air move uneasily around me, little bits of fur and feathers brushing my drying sweat. “The closer you can get to him, the better. Lie down next to him. He needs to know you’re alive.” She backed up, reaching for the doorknob. “We thought you were dead. Weres don’t survive without their mates. You know that.”

  “I was—” I began, but she swept the door closed, leaving me alone in the dark. I swallowed, hard. I was dead. The sudden certainty shook me all the way down to my filthy, aching toes.

  I was dead, and Perry had something to do with it. Maybe even a lot to do with it. And now…Saul. My pulse picked up, a thin high hard beat in my wrists and throat and ankles, behind my knees, my chest a hollow cave.

  The shape on the bed stirred. Just a little. I saw a gleam of dark eyes under silver-starred hair. Only it wasn’t just the silver. There were pale streaks, gray or white, and that was new.

  I took a single step. “Saul?” High and breathy, like a little girl.

  He twitched. The rattling in-breath intensified. The gem on my wrist gave out a thin sound, like crystal stroked by a wet fingertip.

  When you’re ready.

  I was beginning to think I wasn’t ready for anything about this. But it was too late. I’d already clawed my way up out of my own grave, hadn’t I?

  You can’t do that and not accept the consequences.

  14

  My knees hit the side of the bed. I stared down at him. His back was to me, and even in the dimness I could see he was skeletal. The sharp boniness of a hip under his boxers, ribs standing out in stark relief, shoulder blades like fragile wings. His head was too big for his neck, and he tipped it back. The silver moved in his hair, chiming sweetly, and a gout of something hot boiled up inside me. There was nothing in my stomach to throw up, but the shaking all through me demanded I do something. Kill whatever was hurting him, hold it down and put a bullet or twenty through its head—

  “Jill?” A faint whisper. He inhaled, another long rasping rattle.

  As if he could smell me, as filthy as I was. Shame boiled through me. God, couldn’t I ever be clean?

  No. You’ve never been clean, and he always was. Always.

  The wetness on my cheeks was either tears or blood. “God,” I whispered back. “God.”

  That managed to make him move. Slowly, painfully, hitching one hip up, rolling. My hands were fists. One of his scarecrow hands lifted, dropped back down on the white lace coverlet. He tried again, reaching up, and I grabbed that hand with both of mine.

  He jerked in surprise. For a mad moment I was sure I’d hurt him, tried to ease up, but his fingers bore down with surprising hysterical strength. He pulled, and I went down onto the bed, trying not to land on him.

  His stick-thin arms closed around me. The shudders came in waves, I wasn’t sure if he was shaking, or me, or both of us, because he was saying my name. Over and over again, in that dry cricket-whisper that hurt my own throat, and I sobbed without restraint. He was kissing me, I realized, his thin lips landing on my bloody forehead, his leg snaking up and over me, body curled around mine as if he could hold us both down while a storm passed overhead.

  Only the storm was inside my buzzing, aching head. Memory exploded, shrapnel tearing through my brain.

  “I just want you to do one thing,” he said into my filthy hair. I almost cringed.

  Anything. Just stay with me. I stilled, waited.

  “Just nod or shake your head. That’s all. Now listen, Jill. Do you still need me? Do you want me around?”

  “I—” How could he even ask me that? Didn’t he know? Or was he saying that he felt obligated?

  “Just nod or shake your head. I just want to know if you need me.”

  It took all I had to let my chin dip, come back up in the approximation of a nod.

  “Do you still want me?” God help me, did Saul sound tentative?

  It was too much. “Jesus Christ.” The words exploded out of me. “Yes, Saul. Yes. Do you want me to beg? I will, if you—”

  “Jill.” He interrupted me, something he barely ever did. “I want you to shut up.”

  I shut up. For a few moments he just simply held me, and the clean male smell of him was enough to break down every last barrier. I tried to keep the sobs quiet, but they shook me too hard. The breeze off the desert rattled my garage door, and the last fading roll of thunder retreated.

  He stroked my hair, held me, traced little patterns on my back. Cupped my nape, and purred his rumbling purr. When the sobs retreated a little, he tugged on me, and we made it to the door to the hall, moving in a weird double-stepping dance. He was so graceful, and I was too clumsy.

  He lifted me up the step, got me into the hall, heeled the door closed. My coat flapped. My boots were heavy, clicking against concrete. I probably needed to be hosed off.

  I had to know. I dug in, brought him to a halt, but couldn’t raise my eyes from his chest. “A-are you s-s-still—” I couldn’t get the words out. I was shaking too hard.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” he informed me. “I’m staying, Jill. As long as you’ll have me. I can’t believe you think I’d leave you.”

  I cried for a long time, there in the dark. He held me, stick arms strong for a Were who was wasting away, and he kept repeating my name.

  How could I possibly have forgotten him? Even if I forgot myself, I would remember him. If I was blind I would know him. I hadn’t even known what I was missing, but it had been him.

  I should have been looking for him as s
oon as I clawed up into the night and screamed.

  I was. I didn’t know it, but I was. And I couldn’t even tell if that was a lie I was telling myself or the bare honest truth, because the sobs were coming so hard and fast they shook both of us.

  We curled around each other like morning glory vines, and for that short while everything else faded away. He didn’t say anything else, and neither did I.

  There was no need.

  * * *

  It was the first good sleep I’d had since I’d come up out of the grave, and it wasn’t nearly long enough.

  The gun was up, pressure on the trigger and my arm straight and braced. I blinked, and Anya Devi, her blue eyes narrowed, held both hands up, one of them freighted with a glowing-green glass bottle. “Easy there, killer.” She even sounded amused, the tiny silver hoops in her ears glinting. Her coat brushed her ankles, and I realized she was tense and ready. I wouldn’t put it past her to dodge a bullet.

  But she wasn’t my enemy.

  I lowered the gun, pushed myself up on one elbow.

  The room was empty. Westering sunlight poured past the sheer white drapes, and crusty, dried crap crackled on my skin. I hadn’t even washed my face. I felt cotton-stuffed, the way you do if you’ve ever fallen asleep after a long wracking bout of sobbing. Like I’d been cleaned out and Novocained. My mouth tasted fucking awful, too. My foot had swollen inside the one sneaker I still had on, and I wanted a hot shower, a gallon of coffee, and some weapons.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  Devi answered my first question before I could ask. “He’s downstairs, eating. Has a lot of body mass to put back on.” She offered me the venom-green bottle as I sat up, sheepishly lowering the gun the rest of the way. I sniffed cautiously and smelled licorice and alcohol.

  Absinthe. Devi believes in the stuff the way other people believe in football, God, or sex. Mikhail’d felt that way about vodka. Me, I can take it or leave it—I save all my love for the tools to get the job done.

  No. I don’t. I save most of it for him. The rock in my throat eased, miraculously. “Sorry.” Liquid sloshed in the bottle, I made a face. “What the fuck?”

  “Good for you, cures everything. Go on, take a hit.” One corner of her mouth quirked slightly. “Or do you remember hating it?”

  I lifted it to my mouth. Took a swallow. It burned all the way down, and it was unspeakably foul. “Gah.” My face squinched up, it coated the back of my throat and went off in my stomach like a bomb. But I took another long swallow. That was as brave as I could get.

  It was booze, after all. And a belt was just the thing to bolster me.

  She accepted the bottle back, took a long hit, her throat working. Then she lowered herself cautiously into a high-backed mission-style chair by the bed, the one thing I’d missed last night. Leather creaked as she sank down with a sigh.

  “So.” She studied the bottle. “You bleed clean. That’s not a ’breed mark on your arm anymore. Couple months ago you disappeared. Found my car torched out in the desert, plus one very large crater that reeked of angry hellbreed out where those goddamn stones are. Or where they were, I should say, because whatever it was shattered them and fucked up the ley lines but good. We’re in the middle of a war here, and all of a sudden you show up at the Monde, bust Theron out just in time, and…” Her straight eyebrows went up, the scar down her right cheek—the claw had dug in right at the outside of her eye, like a tear—crinkling a little as her mouth twisted. The bindi gleamed, a sharp dart of light. I studied it while I waited for her to finish the thought.

  While she decided what to do with me, was more like it. I had no illusion that anything else was going on. She was up on everything happening in my town, and I was…what?

  Confused, still not thinking straight, and still exhausted.

  “I bled clean before,” I managed, through the pinhole my throat had become. “Even though I had the mark.”

  She said nothing. Examining me like a gunfighter, the silver in her hair glowing, her gaze disconcertingly direct, like every hunter’s. Crow’s-feet touched the outer edges of her eyes, and the lines as her mouth pulled tight against itself would only keep carving themselves deeper from now on.

  It is our job to keep gazing, unflinching, on the worst Hell has to throw at us. It is our job to never look away.

  When she said nothing else, the silence stretched uncomfortably. I stood it as long as I could. I itched all over, and the need to find more weapons itched as well, right under my skin where nothing but metal and ammo would scratch. “I barely even remembered my own name. I killed a Trader on a rooftop. He had a card for the Monde. I went there. Perry seemed…glad to see me.”

  She let out a short, plosive breath and settled into immobility. The quality of a hunter’s concentration can spook civilians; something about our trained stillness just makes them uncomfortable. “Right into the lion’s den. Well, at least that hasn’t changed.”

  I searched for words to boil the whole complex tangle down to its essentials. “He was…I heard Theron. I thought it was Saul. Everything came back. At least, everything up until a certain point. So I got him the hell out of there.”

  “Good. He shouldn’t have been there.” She let out a sigh, her shoulders sagging for a moment. “So here’s the million-dollar question, Kismet.” She took another hit off the bottle, venom-green liquid sloshing. “You still a hunter?”

  Why the hell would you ask me that? “It’s not like I have a choice of career options.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn’t strictly true. You could lay it down and walk away at any moment. Nobody would say a word, or judge you.

  Idiots, Mikhail used to snarl sometimes. They think we do this for them. Is only one reason to do, milaya, and that is for to quiet screaming in our own heads.

  I found out I’d laid the gun in my lap, and I was twisting the ring around my finger. Do svidanye.

  Honest silver, on vein to heart. Now it begins. Bile crept up into my mouth. It took a few hard swallows before I could speak, the silvery insectile curtain inside my head shifting a little as…something…peeked out.

  “Mikhail,” I whispered. “I found out…something. About him.”

  She nodded. “You did. Here’s another million-dollar question, Kismet. Do you want the last two and a half months back? Or d’you want to head out onto the Rez with that Were of yours? There’s no…” She paused, swallowed hard. Her eyes had darkened. “There’s no obligation, Jill. You did what you had to do.”

  “What did I do?” I was honestly puzzled, and the hornet buzz inside my head threatened to rise again, swallowing thought whole and triggering reaction. I shoved it away, my shoulders tensing as if I’d been hit. “That’s the one thing I can’t remember. I woke up in my own grave, Devi. I’m as confused as it’s possible to get. I’m digging myself up, then this guy drops me off in an alley, and all I can think of is getting some ammo. But I didn’t remember the silver, or…Jesus fuck-me Christ. Of course I want my goddamn memory back. What are you thinking?”

  “I have…an idea.” The admission, pulled out of her. “But have you considered that you might not want your memory? That there might be things you’d prefer to forget? This isn’t the type of job that gives you happy dreams. Saul loves you, you’ve got a chance to—”

  I slid off the bed. I had to get that goddamn sneaker off before it turned my foot gangrenous. “There’s a war on? Against Weres?” And you expect me to sneak off into the sunset. Great. Well, now I know what you really think of me, right? Great.

  She let out a longer sigh, one she probably practiced on her apprentices. “They’re driven into the barrio. Galina’s doing what she can, but—you remember Galina, right?”

  “Of course.” I limped for the door. “I remember almost everything, up to the moment I pulled up in front of the Monde. I was working on a case, which I’m guessing is wrapped up now. Can you find me some clean clothes? And more weapons?”

  “I can, but Ji
ll—”

  “I’ve got to pee.” And with that, I made an inglorious retreat out into the hall. I wasn’t lying—I really did have to piss like a racehorse.

  But I was afraid that if I stayed in there any longer I’d lose my temper. Or, even worse, I would look down at the space on the bed next to me, the pillow still dented from Saul’s beautiful, wasted head, and entertain ideas of riding off into the sunset after all.

  15

  I was taller than Anya, and broader in the hips. But the leather pants fit me just fine, and the black Angelcake Devilshake T-shirt too. I knew that wasn’t mine—I’d started buying my tees plain and in job lots, because they ended up shot and blood-drenched, not to mention sliced, diced, and dipped in unspeakable foulness so much. Just like the rest of me.

  Even the sports bra and unmentionables fit just fine. There was a pair of scarred leather boots that looked damn familiar, and hugged my feet as if they’d been broken in but good.

  But it was the weapons that did it.

  Another modified .45, this one shiny instead of dull black. Holsters for both the old gun and the new. A complicated array of leather straps that came alive in my hands, buckling itself on like an octopus hugging me, holding weapons. Knives with silver loaded along the flats, from the big main-gauche to a slim stiletto almost lost in its sheath. Cartridges of silverjacket ammo, and the crackling-new bullwhip with wicked-sharp sweetsilver jingles at its tip, secured in its own little loop.

  The coat was a little too long, a black leather trench instead of a duster like Devi’s, and it smelled like comfort. Copious pockets and more loops sewn in for the pile of ammo Devi had brought up in two paper grocery bags. The more I slipped into the loops, the better I felt.