Night Shift

I had already killed. I had already committed the greatest sin possible, to crown all my other sins.

If the car slowed down, if they stopped, it would be the last time. The last time.

Split lip, I'd had a split lip and a damn-near dislocated shoulder, and a busted-up spleen—and those were only the lightest injuries. Mikhail told me later it was a wonder I'd been walking, he could smell the blood and hurt on me even across the street.

Punch, bag shudders, follow it up with elbow, lift the knee, move in low, the force on a punch has to come from the hip just like whip-work or it's useless.

Useless. Like I used to be.

The purring of the Oldsmobile's engine returned, growing louder. I stopped, head hanging, fingers tightening on the cold metal Men. All of them, men. The same type of men I'd been so close to, so many times, swallowing if I had to, spitting when I could, letting my body do things while the real part of me retreated into a little box—a box that grew smaller and smaller each time.

When it finally became too small, would I vanish?

I had already sailed off the edge of the world. Now I just had to take as many of them with me as I could before I was finally put down. I turned, eyes wide, headlights blinding me, gun lifting—and warm fingers clamped around my wrist.

No, the tall white-haired man had said, another language blurring through the words, a song of a foreign accent. Not tonight, little one.

Kick. Kick. Stamp down, both fists smacking the heavy bag. Fists blurring, low sound of effort through clenched teeth.

I struggled, but he was too strong, and I squeezed the trigger as the car eased past. The sound of the.22 was lost under a blare of the horn and catcalls, and he twisted the gun out of my hand, ignoring the car. I tried to punch him, he didn't seem to move but the punch went wide, and I spun aside, jailing. My arm stretched, my injured shoulder screaming. He let go, and I landed in snow, my skin burning. I coughed, and a bright jet of blood smashed out through my teeth.

The last thing I felt was gentle fingers in my ragged, strawlike dyed-blonde hair. I tried to curse at him, hooked my fingers and tried to take off some of his skin. My broken nails scratched only air. I tried to scream, choking on blood.

He had watched me for a few moments, weighing me.

My fists thudded into the bag. I stopped. My ribs flickered as I took in deep heaving breaths. How had he seen anything valuable in that broken girl in the snow? And the gun had vanished; he never mentioned it afterward.

Had he guessed how desperate I'd been, and what I'd done with the goddamn gun before he'd seen me? Did he care? Monty never mentioned my police record. Then again, my name was different by the time he met me. I was different, all the way down to the bone. Sometimes I wondered if my fingerprints had changed.

I gave the heavy bag one last punch, listening as it swayed on its chain. The creaking was familiar, and echoed through the warehouse. My breathing evened out, and my eyes tracked across the wall. A long slim shape under a fall of amber silk, the crossbow and hunting bow, the mace and the wooden spear with its tassels rusty and clumped together, its tip gummed with black residue.

And Mikhail's sword, a faint glow ru

The carved ruby in the hollow of my throat warmed, responding. Air brushed my skin, the scar twitching as I noticed it again, the preternatural acuity of my senses almost normal now that I'd spent a while with it uncovered. I would have to visit the Monde Nuit early, both to gather information about whatever hellbreed was killing cops, and also to express my displeasure to Perry. He shouldn't be calling me.

It wasn't part of the deal.

Not tonight, little one. I had not known my teacher's voice then. I hadn't known it was the voice of salvation.

As if I deserved salvation, deserved to be plucked from the snow and given a new life.

I don't want to think about this. "Mikhail," I whispered. The whisper bounced back, taunted me. He was dead, choked on his own blood, betrayed by a viper in woman's clothing, and I was still here. I hadn't been able to save him.

All the training, all the striving, all the pain—and I still had not been able to save him.

The heavy bag stilled, its chain making a slow sound of metal under tension. I wanted to kick it again, listen to the familiar creaking, but I didn't. Instead, I turned on my heel and stalked for the door, grabbing my harness from its peg.

I needed a shower.

One thing about, being a hunter—sometimes your night doesn't work out exactly as pla

If you're on the nightside and you're legal, you're welcome in Micky's. Even if you're not-so-legal you're welcome, as long as you pay your tab and don't start any trouble.

I was heading up Bolivar Street to the foot of Mayfair when something brushed against my consciousness, and I put the Impala into a bootlegger's turn, headed back and around the corner onto Eighteenth. Tires smoked and screeched; a horn blared behind me, and I zagged the Impala into a halfass parking spot in an alley and was out of the car in a flash, my senses dilating.

The reek of the thing I was hunting smashed through my nose, and I felt more than heard its footsteps like a brush against a drum. Moving fast, and moving away.

I bolted out into the street, plunged into an alley on the other side, and scaled the side of the building by tearing my way up the outside of the fire escape. Vaulted over the side of the roof and began to run, my coat flapping behind me.

The baked smell of daylight still simmered up from pavement and rooftop, but the stink cut right through it with a harsh serrated edge. I leapt, etheric force pulled through the suddenly blazing scar, and hit a tenement rooftop going full speed, barely rolling to shed a little momentum, glad once again that I wear leather pants. Denim can get shredded when you're going this fast.

I don't wear leather because it makes my ass look cute, you know.

Fuck this thing's quick, watch it Jill, cross street coming up, you can head it off if it keeps going in a straight line—

But of course it couldn't be that easy. I landed hard in the middle of Twenty-Ninth Street, the shock slamming up through my hips and shoulders as I ended up on one knee, concrete smoking and puffing up dust under the strain of my sudden application of force. Air screamed away from my body, my coat snapping like a flag in a hard breeze. Two blocks down, an indistinct quadruped shape—the streetlight had burned out—squeezed down into the road itself.

Oh, shit Please don't tell me it did what I think it just did. But I was already moving, and lo and behold things were about to get interesting.

The son of a bitch had just gone down through a manhole. The manhole cover lay off to one side, dents in its surface I didn't have time to examine. I also didn't have time to drag it back so a car wouldn't break an axle in the hole. No, I just breathed an imprecation and leapt, dropping down through the hole with arms and legs pulled close, bracing myself for whatever waited at the bottom.