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There was something in my throat, a difficulty like talking through mud. "Sorry, Mike. Give a call if you need me, and see the psych boys for some downers if you have to. Okay?"
"It's not me I'm worried about, Jill. It's you. You're looking a little worn out."
I wonder why. I made a face, freeing my fingers from his. "So they tell me. When the nightside slows down, I will too." I turned on my heel and was gone up the steps before he could respond.
Harp matched me step for step, and she waited until we were in the back yard before her fingers closed around my arm. "Jill."
I stopped, staring across the yard at the greenbelt behind the house. There were bushes back there, and a screen of trashwood trees. Dusty greens and grays ran together in front of my eyes, and I was suddenly sure it would be a good place to watch the house from. I caught no breath of being watched, but you don't live long as a hunter without checking the terrain.
Harp's fingers didn't loosen. She could break my arm without half trying, with a Were's strength.
Of course, I could heal in moments and repay her with interest.
What am I thinking? She's my friend, and she's a Were. I'm too close to the edge if I'm even thinking like this. But the engine in my head didn't stop turning over the probabilities, evaluating every single living thing around me.
When you can't turn that machine off, it's time to get some rest. Unless, of course, you can't rest because the bodies are piling up.
Harp didn't shake me, but I got the idea she wanted to. "What's going on?"
I tried not to feel relieved. "I wish I knew. I only have half the pieces of the—"
Her face went through frustration, a flash of anger, and settled on impatience. "No. I mean with you and Saul."
Dammit I suppressed a guilty start, knew she would feel it anyway. "Don't know there either. You're the one who sicced him on me. Besides, he thinks I'm tainted."
Good one, Jill. Why did he swap spit with you, then? And so nicely, too. I felt the flush creeping up my cheeks again, couldn't stop it. Cursed inwardly.
"He apologized. He didn't understand, and you know what Rez Weres are like." Harp's tone was so dismissive I felt my teeth want to grind together.
"Not so much. I never worked with a Rez Were before." I pulled away from her hand, achieved exactly nothing. Felt the temptation to grab her wrist and lock it, give the quick jerk to dislocate and bring my knee up…
Calm down, Jill. She's not the enemy here. "Let go, Harp. I'm not in the mood."
"He's acting possessive." In her you-are-being-dumb tone.
So I played dumb. "Who?"
"Saul."
"Is that what it is." Then, mercifully, my pager went off. I dug with my right hand in my pocket and fished the damn thing out. "Let go. It's Galina." Thank God it's her. Anyone else calling, it'd be likely to be another body in the streets. The Weres are chasing the rogue, and that just leaves this blonde hellbreed and her loving daddy to deal with.
She gave up, letting go of my arm and making a short noise of a
I ca
"You're not exactly fully human anymore, Kismet." She had to raise her voice a little, and thunder underscored her words. I took a deep breath of the dusty green smell of impending rain and hunched my shoulders.
Yes I am, I wanted to shout back over my shoulder. I am still human, and humans don't date Weres.
Yeah, the snide little voice of my more sarcastic side piped up. But rogue Weres don't work with hellbreed either. And hellbreed don't make bargains with hunters. Pigs are going to start flying any moment now.
Chapter Twenty-one
Galina's shop was shut up tighter than an oyster, the sign turned to «closed» and the blinds on the front windows drawn down. Her back door was closed and locked too, and the red-orange carapace of Sanctuary shielding wedded to the walls resounded uneasily, crackling with the charge in the air. The storm was coming in fast, breathless expectancy hanging thick under the clouds, pressing on pavement and hurrying people.
I knocked at Galina's red-painted back door for a long time, more uneasy than ever. I couldn't break in and poke around inside her house without dealing with the Sanctuary bindings, and if she wasn't answering she was either out or had retreated to her i
Then who the hell called me from here? And would Galina be out with a rogue Were on the streets? Not to mention the hellbreed action recently.
I thought about it, eyeing the porch roof over her back door.
A few moments later I was on the roof, and I cased it thoroughly, even sweeping behind the glass cube of the greenhouse where Galina grew all sorts of fun stuff. I mean, where else are you going to get your hellebore and mandrake, if not from your local Sane?
I don't like this. Who called me? Where's Galina?
My boots creaked, dyed dark with dried blood. My coat flapped, lifting on stray breaths of breeze as wind flirted uneasily between earth and storm-laden sky. The scar pulsed, random little soundless chuckles of wet delight spilling up my arm from its puckered tissue.
Even the emergency hatch behind an AC unit was closed and stubborn. I moved to the edge of the roof and peered down the deserted street, not liking the feeling I was getting.
A slight prickling between my shoulder blades, as if I was being watched. Was it nerves? God knew I was having a little trouble with mental balance, lately. Getting almost-killed twice in one day can do that to you.
It's not the getting killed that's worrying you, Jill. It's a Were. Specifically, a Were who's "getting possessive," in Harp's immortal phrase.
It took a physical effort to get my mental train off that track. Stay focused, Jill.
I eased along the edge of the roof to peer down at the front of the store. Stray bits of paper rustled, skipping down the pavement. I caught a breath of diesel and a powerful hit of green-gray river water, and the ozone smell of approaching lightning. The street was deserted, lamps flickering into life in the gathering artificial twilight.
A glass and iron box a block up caught my eye, and my skin roughened instinctively. I felt cold all over, my breath shortening and my nipples peaking under my T-shirt, hard as chips of rock. Phone booth. Galina's got her number stenciled on her front window, and my pager's not exactly a secret I'm a goddamn idiot.
The cloak of red-orange energy over the building shivered restively, like a horse.
I froze.
The click of a hammer cocking sounded very loud behind me.
"Don't move," Navoshtay Siv Cenci said, in a pleasant, light tone. "Keep facing the street, hunter."
I've been shot before, hellbreed. But I stayed where I was, my back alive with gooseflesh and the knowledge that a 'breed who had nearly eviscerated me and made mincemeat out of Harp was behind me, with a gun. The click sounded like a large-caliber model. Or maybe that was just my nerves again.
Behind me. She had to have come up from the porch roof. Had she been watching from down the street? How had she gotten my pager number? It wasn't a secret, but still—
Galina had better be inside her sanctum. If you've touched her I will kill you. Rage worked its way up inside me. Subsided with an effort that left me shaking, struggling to think clearly through the adrenaline haze. It wasn't logical—even a hellbreed couldn't harm a Sane inside her own House. Galina was too smart to go outside, wasn't she?