Angel Town

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Then he was on me, the Lance moving so fast it blurred, still wicked sharp even through the shredding of ash rising from every surface, screaming its bloodlust and defiance. But I’d thrown myself forward, already inside the arc of his attack, and grabbed.

  My right hand closed on the Lance’s haft, and its chill jolted up my arms. Argoth had raw power, and a hellbreed’s ability to twist things into obeying him. But I was a hunter, and I was human, and I had an edge when it came to forcing a Major Talisman to do what I wanted it to.

  Or so I hoped.

  Because after all, we made the Talismans. They’re ours. They do not come from Hell.

  My left hand clamped down over his, my fingers biting with preternatural strength, and we were face-to-face for a long, shattering moment while I drove him back. There was a warm wind behind me, and it smelled of peppery adrenaline and vodka, leather and musk and the warm smell of Mikhail’s skin as he lay beside me in our shared bed. I pushed, and the wind behind me wasn’t just Mikhail. It was my fellow hunters, Anya and Gilberto, and Monty and my cops; it was my city exhaling as dawn rose and shuddering as dusk fell, while I prowled its rooftops and alleys; it was the hornets buzzing and the spear singing a glassy bloodlust cry, the gem burning on my wrist and every inch of silver on me suddenly running with the same clarity that folded around the winged things.

  And finally, it was Saul, his eyes dark with pleasure as he sighed into my hair. Saul cooking pancakes and yawning, his sleepy smile a reward all its own. Saul holding me while I wept, my own arms around him as we both shook, the promise of pain shared and halved in the darkness.

  You will not survive, Michael had told me. You will have to sacrifice yourself again to destroy Hyperion.

  All I felt, finally, was relief that Saul was safe with Galina.

  I drove forward, legs pumping, and Argoth’s face corkcrewed in on itself as he realized what I was about to do. He tried to let go of the spear, but I had his right hand locked too. The gem sang on my wrist, a rising tide of light inside my bones.

  I pushed against him, close as a lover, his hot rank breath in my face and his teeth champing, spattering me with yellow foam.

  Not so pretty now, are we.

  I threw us both into the hellmouth. The silver I was carrying and my hunter’s aura would disrupt it. The shock would shred my physical structure, but that was a small price to pay.

  Wasn’t it?

  Mercifully, everything went black.

  39

  Confusion.

  “Hold her head up.” A familiar voice, but so tired, almost slurring the words. “Jesus.”

  Stutter-flashes of light. Rumbling as the storm retreated, cold rain lashing down. I was wet all over, and freezing. Every part of me burned with savage pain. Someone’s arm under my head, sharp little charms biting into my skull. Heaving breaths; someone was moaning.

  I’ll bet there’s a lot of wounded. Then, muzzy amazement. Wait.

  “I’m not dead?” I actually said it out loud, my lips rubbery, sounding like a dumbfounded drunkard.

  A short growl-cough of a laugh, one I recognized. “No. Not yet.”

  My eyes flew open. I tried to move, too, my entire body tensing, but Saul’s arm tightened under my head. He was haggard and damp with rain, and the blood on his face made every part of me cold with fear.

  “Relax,” he said, gently but firmly. “Just settle down for a second, okay?”

  “Galina—” I began.

  “She’s okay. Mad as hell, but okay. We’re going to have to have a talk, Jillian.”

  I stared at him. There was crusted stuff in my eyes. I blinked. Lightning spattered through the clouds. The stadium’s roof was a gigantic gaping hole. The whole place was peppered with huge chunks of concrete, as if the gods of urban architecture had decided to throw up over everything.

  Monty is just going to have a fit. It was a good thought, a sane thought. It meant I was alive. Saul’s mouth was drawn tight, and he looked fine. Bloody, but fine.

  “You are never doing that to me again,” he informed me. “I swear, Jill. If you even try I’ll…” He ran out of words, his irises flaring with orange as the cougar came close to the surface. It retreated, and the rumble in his chest was a growl.

  My lips were cracked. My mouth tasted foul. But I managed to get the words out, only slurring them a little. “Nothing. Could be worse. Than losing. You.”

  A flash of pain crossed his face, and it tore at my heart. I never wanted to hurt him. But he simply leaned forward, his other arm slipping around me as well, and pulled me close. We clung to each other, one bone-thin Were and a very tired hunter, and if there were tears on my cheeks nobody saw and I didn’t care.

  He was alive. So was I.

  It had to be enough.

  * * *

  We didn’t get to stay like that, though. “Jill?” Anya Devi, softly.

  Saul’s arms loosened. I found I could move. “Jesus,” I moaned, and someone laughed.

  “Always did know how to throw a party, darlin’.” Leon’s Texas drawl was thick as cream. He must’ve been tired. “Nice friends you got. Where you find them?”

  “Oh, shut up.” Anya sighed. “Jill. Please.”

  I got my legs working again. Saul helped. He hauled me up carefully, I still weighed more than I should. Denser muscle, denser bone, the gem sparking on my wrist, humming a low note of satisfaction. My skin crawled. I was covered in guck and goop and I stank to high heaven.

  Everything stank. The not-grass was dying, lashed by cold water. The altar was crushed under a huge shipwreck-shape of concrete, a charred stick jetting up from its crest. After a second I realized it was a flagpole, and the char-tattered rags hanging from it were anonymous. The hellbreed and Traders were either dead or fled, but there were bodies everywhere. Mounds of corpses, and grim-faced Weres picking through them, looking for survivors.

  Or looking for their kin, or for hunters.

  “Did we…” I steadied myself against Saul’s shoulder. Did we lose anyone? I couldn’t say it.

  “Some. Maybe.” Anya was wet clear through, leaning on Theron. The Werepanther looked somber, but Devi just looked tired. “We’ll deal with that in a bit. There’s…something you should see.”

  Oh, Christ, what now? But I squared myself, wearily, and found I could stand. Not very steadily, but I could at least hold myself upright. I could even fight, if I had to.

  Except what was left to kill?

  I had a sneaking suspicion I was about to find out.

  The Lance lay near the altar, twisted like the flagpole, quivering a subaudible hum of distress and frustrated anger. It was weak, very weak. All the force it had accumulated was now spent, and all it could do was shake like a whipped dog.

  Dog. “Gilberto?” I whispered. “And the…the dog?”

  “Gil’s fine.” Anya pointed. “See?”

  My apprentice was bandaging Benny Cross’s leg. Half of Gil’s hair was singed off, Benny was covered in all kinds of crap, and the dogsbody slumped next to Gilberto, hanging its narrow head. It glanced at me, ears pricking, but it looked as tired as Anya. As tired as I felt.

  Thank you. I didn’t even know who I was thanking. “Good deal,” I rasped. “Okay. What’s next? Point me at it. I’ll kill it.”

  “Good.” Devi shook herself away from Theron with a quick glance of thanks. “Because it’s Perry. Sort of. And if you don’t ventilate that fucker, I just might.”

  40

  At the northern edge of the battlefield, a few of the winged things had gathered. The rain avoided them.

  They didn’t turn as Anya and I approached, Saul and Theron hanging back with perfect Were tact. A few other hunters—Dmitri Roslan, Jack Quint, a short, hard-faced woman I realized was Belle de Sud herself, with her long brown fingers flicking uneasily at her whip handle, four or five others—stood in a loose semicircle, watching. Dmitri flicked me a salute, his usual grin absent; I returned it without thinking.

  I couldn’t
help it. I stared at the wings. They were all white, some with flecks of brown. And huge, managing to look perfectly natural instead of a violation of biology. The clarity had faded to a slow gleam around them, no longer hurtfully bright. They faced something chained to the goalpost, glints of gold shifting as the blackened, charred thing moved slightly. A ripple of tension went through the winged, as if they expected him to break the thin golden bonds and start making trouble again.

  Bitterness filled my mouth. Anya tapped at a gun butt, her face set.

  The tallest of them half-turned as I halted next to him. It was Michael the Caretaker, and there was no shadow of scarring left on his face. His wings drooped a little, as if he was tired, too. His eyes were the same, though, bright and mild, that shadow of pain sending an answering twinge through me.

  “You understand,” he said, quiet.

  I don’t understand this at all. “Yes,” I heard myself say, dully, a good pupil aiming to please. “Sacrifice.”

  Michael nodded. “You were willing, again, even when there was no hope. That creates a…new thing, you could say, in the Pattern.” He looked back at the charred form, and his shoulders dropped again. “His father is dead. He is utterly flesh now, as he wished to be.” A world of sadness in the words. “The choice is yours, to spare or to kill.”

  I didn’t want to think about that yet. “Where’s Mikhail?” My hands were fists. “I saw him. He was here. Where is he?”

  Michael shrugged. One wing flicked, delicately, sending a clean breeze over my filthy cheeks. “Only the ones present are here.”

  “Well, no shit.” Sarcasm gave me fresh strength. The gem muttered, etheric force trickling back through me. I needed food, and rest, and maybe a couple pints of something eye-wateringly alcoholic before I’d be anything close to my mettle, but right at the moment I didn’t care. I was shaking.

  But not with the weakness. No.

  With rage.

  He turned, this time facing me fully. “Love cannot be forced. Love is only given, freely.” A faint smile, but he didn’t look happy. Instead, it was that sorrow again. “Love is only proved, though it asks no proof in return. This is important, but it is not our task here. We are to witness your choice.” Again a wing dipped, indicating the blackened body, and I was forgetting I’d ever seen him without the snowy feathered expanses.

  My fists ached. “What were you doing down there in the Hill’s boiler room all this time, huh? Just waiting for this?”

  “Witnessing.” He nodded slightly, as if the question was expected, weighed his answer, and added more. “Serving the Pattern.”

  “Your Pattern fucking blows.” It wasn’t up to my usual standards. I sounded more like Gilberto than myself. “It’s insane. It hurts good people. It’s not fair.”

  “It is,” he said gravely, “all we have.”

  He made a sudden movement, and another ripple went through the winged things. But he’d just unlimbered his sword from somewhere. It was a heavy broadsword piece of work, too tall for me, with wicked finials on the guard and a ruby the size of a fist at the end of the pommel. It looked razor sharp, and its bright blade smoked with dappled light.

  It looked a little like the sunsword. Well, the sunsword was a toothpick compared to this, but still, you could see an echo.

  He presented me with the hilt. Anya breathed an obscenity.

  “It is your choice,” Michael repeated.

  It was hard work to shake my right hand out. Even harder to touch the damn thing. Warm strength poured down my arm from the cool metal, and Michael nodded approvingly.

  I probably looked ridiculous, stepping across the sludge-dying not-grass, gingerly and awkwardly holding a broadsword almost as long as I was tall away from me. The winged stepped back in unison, but the hunters moved forward, almost as if prearranged.

  Is this part of his fucking Pattern too? The bitterness was all through me.

  He’d been burned, terribly. Weeping cracks coated his charred flesh, but his eyes were still the same sterile blue. The dome of his skull without any hair to cover it was subtly wrong, and he seemed smaller. Of course, anyone’s going to look small covered in fourth-degree burns and chained to a goalpost, right?

  Even a hellbreed.

  His lips cracked. Thick colorless fluid wept from them. “Kissssssss.” Sighing, like a lover.

  “Hyperion. Perry.” I swallowed hard. My palms might have been sweating, or it might have been the rain or the filth making the hilt slippery. The sword hummed, a thunderbolt contained. His own black blade lay in pieces around him, and Perry raised his burned-bared head and stared at me. “Or should I say, Argoth.”

  A shrug. More blackened skin broke, a brittle sugar-glaze. How he was still alive? “Only a part of him. A fragment. Insurance, originally. A doppelgänger, meant to be a placeholder here, in case the masters needed hands in this world.”

  It was my turn to nod slightly. “But you wanted more. Slipped the leash, made a deal with Jack Karma, and got the original locked away in Hell. Then you started planning how to get all of the original’s power, all the other pieces of him.” I coughed, tasted smoke. Thunder roiled in the distance, and the rain intensified. “But for that, you needed a hunter. Because you didn’t just want all of your father. You wanted to be real. Anything above an arkeus isn’t usually physical, it can be disrupted and once it is, goodbye and good night. The bargain with Karma and his line kept you here and gave you a simulacrum of flesh, and you could afford to settle down and wait for a hunter who could take on your poppa and keep you bolted to the physical world at the same time.” You followed Mikhail all the way from Europe. That’s almost why he drew on you in the Monde that first time I saw you. Did he think he was free of you? Not likely. So what was he thinking?

  Would I ever know?

  His tongue flickered, startling cherry-red. He studied me for a long time, and I let him. The sword quivered heavily, but my arm wasn’t tired. It was building in me, the knowledge of what I had to do.

  “I am flesh now,” he finally hissed. “Flesh, my darling one. You made it possible. You killed the original, as you so quaintly call him. I am his heir, and we are linked. I am your other half. We’re the same coin, my love.”

  Negation rose inside me. But I nodded again, slowly. He was at least partly right. I’d been mortgaging bits of myself to Perry for years, telling myself it didn’t make me a Trader. It gave me the strength to police the nightside more effectively, and his mark on me had been the punishment I deserved.

  For everything.

  No. I couldn’t afford to lie here. He was right. There was only a thread-thin edge between Perry and me. A coin’s edge. He had waited for me for a very long time. Waited for the hunter who was, at bottom, like him.

  We are the ones crying in the dark, and on our backs they build golden cities.

  God help me, I understood.

  “So what is it to be?” More of his brittle skin cracking as he shifted. The thin golden chains sent up threads of steam, whisked away by the cold wet breeze. “Cut me loose, and take your place as my keeper? Think of what you can do, with me your willing slave. Think of the battles you can win.” Another wriggling motion.

  He might eventually squirm free, I realized. But it didn’t seem important.

  “Or strike me down with that avenging sword—overcompensating a bit, aren’t we? And damn yourself with murdering the helpless, whose only crime was to wait for you and love you?” Those white teeth were now grimed with thin pinkish fluid, darker lines accumulating between them. He writhed again. “I waited so, so long for you, my dove. Theirs is not the only Pattern.”

  There. That’s what he’s after. “No,” I dimly heard myself say, through the roaring in my ears. “I suppose it isn’t.”

  “We can make a new one,” he whispered. “Just you and me. A fair one. You can mete out justice, and I will make it total. Just let me loose.”

  I stepped closer, boots squishing in the muck. “I suppose it isn’t the onl
y pattern.” Louder now, clear and strong. “It’s not even the one that matters.”

  Perry gazed up at me. “Let me free.” So soft, all the promise in the world. “You will never be lonely, Kiss. Not so long as I am able to comfort you.”

  Oh, God. The problem wasn’t that he said it.

  The problem was that it was true. There was only a hairsbreadth of difference between Perry…and me. Or at least, the part of me that made sure I survived. The stranger who lived inside me, strong and ruthless where I was weak. And with him dead, I would be—down in the secret place where the animal of survival crouches, the part of me that was coldly determined to do what had to be done—alone.

  Utterly alone.

  The sword rose, thrumming, its blade suddenly pouring with white radiance. Perry bared his teeth, more skin crackling, and the golden chain burst with a tinkle. My right wrist flamed with cramping pain, but I brought the blade down with a scream. It cut, the goalpost singing before it groaned and tipped, smashing into the wet ground with a plorch.

  Lifted and flung, my right arm on fire, torn out by the roots, every nerve screaming…and I landed, hard, my fingers forced open and the sword clattering away. Rustling filled the broken bowl of the stadium, and they took wing, spiraling up with a grace and authority that forced a dry barking sob from my aching, parched throat.

  The last one bent over me, blue eyes dark with sorrow. But he was smiling, and he laid one warm finger to my lips. Warmth broke over me in a wave, white light filling my head for one long glorious moment.

  Well done, he whispered. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe I just thought he did. Maybe I needed someone to say it.

  In any case, there was a pop of collapsing air, and he vanished.

  I lay there in the rain, fresh cold sludge working up through my hair and the tatters of my coat, with my right arm flung up as if to protect me.

  My whole, naked, unmarked right arm.

  41