Night Shift

I saw her, in the middle of the conflagration.

Navoshtay Siv Cenci crouched on her father's chest, her face a mask of keening inhuman rage as she tore at his face. His eyes were already deep gaping holes welling blackish ichor. Lightning smashed down, a gunpowder flash etching every detail into my retinas.

Slim female hellbreed with long pale hair and a nose that echoed his, her eyes mad and alight with crimson as she hunkered down in the middle of fire crippling for an ordinary 'breed, ignoring the weak jerks and twitches as Arkady's old, immensely strong body fought to live, not knowing the battle was over. She held up the eyes with one hand, each with its long string of raveled nerve root, and her mouth opened once, twice. Dribbles of darkness spilled from the corners of her mobile mouth, and I saw the flames flinch away from her. Her other arm reached up, fingers clasped around the hilt—slim fingers, blackening and curling at the touch of holy sun-fired metal.

I sat in the middle of the street with eyes that felt as wide as plates, staring like a child listening to a fairytale too horrible to be unreal.

The sunsword sang a high keening note of agony before the fire—even the burning gasoline—flattened and died with a wump, as if starved of oxygen.

I felt around blindly with my stinging hands, the reek of burning gas and scorched paint in my nose. Found my lost gun. My legs didn't want to work, but I pushed myself up, shaking, as the first spatters of rain began again. More thunder caromed through the sky's unhealthy orange cityglow. Lightning spattered between clouds.

The sounds Cenci made as she ripped even further at decaying hellbreed flesh brought everything I'd ever thought of eating up to the back of my throat. I doubled over, heaving so hard black spots danced in front of my eyes again.

There's even a limit to what a hunter can stand, I thought, amazed. Shotglass-sized drops of rain dotted the cracked asphalt. Crazy loops of scorching and cracking marred the entire surface of the street. Had I done that, or had the dueling hellbreed done it? The road was a mess. I spotted two lampposts and a telephone pole down, and a couple more buildings smashed. Down the street there were lights, and I caught the distant sound of sirens.

I'm alive. I didn't believe it even as I thought it.

Hands were at my shoulders. "It's over." Perry sounded very pleased with himself. "There now, my dearest. That wasn't so bad, was it? One little thing left to do, and we will go home."

My forehead left a bloody, soot-grimed streak on his immaculate, linen-clad shoulder. Not a hair out of place. He wasn't even bruised, or scorched.

The sounds behind me ceased. Tension tightened between the raindrops. I jerked away from Perry, whose hands dropped back to his sides.

Cenci stood amid the wreckage of the limousine. Ice now marred the edges of shattered steel and broken glass. I thought I caught sight of the driver's body in there, but my gaze locked on Arkady, who was swiftly collapsing into ru

They rot quick, when they're older. It was a comfort to imagine Perry like that. More of a comfort than I liked.

Navoshtay Siv Cenci's eyes met mine. They were crimson, glowing, and entirely crazed, but I saw…

No. I thought I saw…

No. I saw. I saw comprehension in them, and devouring grief, and shattering pain. I saw agony in those eyes, and my guns dropped to my side.

The anguish burning in her eyes was almost human.

"Kill her," Perry whispered, sweetly. His breath touched my cheek, hot and laden with moisture. "Kill her now, hunter. She killed your people."

Blackness smeared Cenci's chin. Her clothes were smoking rags, and I wanted to look down, see if her belly was curved. I suspected not. I remembered the pool of oily viscosity in the front yard of the death house, and I thought of her crouching in the dark of night, her arms crossed over her midriff and her eyes gone crimson just as they were right now while she bit her lip so as not to make a sound, as one of her father's filthy experiments slid out of her body and onto the mortal grass.

She's not human! She killed them! Kill her! Kill! My brain shrilled it at me, but my hands were limp and cold. The guns dangled.

No. Not human. The body bags loaded with bits of her ravaged victims I'd seen screamed for vengeance. That was my function, that was my job. To put her down like a rabid animal, no matter what I'd promised.

But I didn't shoot. I held her eyes, and I thought of Saul. I thought of a rogue laid under spells of concealment and protection, and I thought of the trail vanishing each time.

Because she had protected a Were whose name I now knew. Billy Ironwater.

My muscles strained between the two urges—the urge to kill, to do my job and be the vengeance of her victims, and the small still voice of my conscience, trying to speak through the soup of rage and destruction. Trying to show me the way.

I hesitated, on the knife-edge. Why was I not killing her? Which was the right path to take?

Did I even care?

Then Perry made his mistake. The mistake that put the last piece of the puzzle in place.

"Do as I tell you!" he hissed, vibrating with rage and impatience. "Kill her, you stupid bitch! "

I came back to myself with a jolt. Uncertainty vanished, and my conscience spoke with the voice of brass trumpets. I knew the right thing to do, and what Perry wanted me to do, and found with relief that I could still make that choice.

No. My lips shaped the word, without breath to make a sound. It was wrong. Just how I couldn't say, but I knew it was wrong.

If I killed her, I would no longer be a hunter.

I would be as bad as Perry if I cut her down now. Worse, even.

Had that been his game all along?

Certainly, something deep whispered inside me. He's been watching and waiting to trap you, and Arkady gave him a perfect opportunity. It's just another game for him, maneuvering you into taking a life you shouldn't. Damning you just like a Trader, and taking his payment. Then it won't be him in the rack, screaming.

It will be you. And he will not let you go.

Cenci nodded. It was a slight movement, her chin dipping faintly. Then she turned, the rags of her clothing fluttering on the sudden sharp rain-laden wind, and was gone, into the black mouth of an alley. Masked as thoroughly as ever a hellbreed was.

Perry twitched.

I threw myself back and to the side, avoiding his clawed hand. The guns spoke as I squeezed both triggers, staggering them. Each shot hit him full in the chest. Once, twice, three times. Four. Black ichor burst out, his diamond stickpin vanishing in a mess of gore.

He snarled, lightning etching sharp shadows into his face. They were the lines of an ancient inhuman hunger, and for a moment I saw beneath the screen of blond bland humanity and glimpsed the truth, as if I was between again.

I saw him, and my heart stopped, sanity struggling with the flash of revealed evil before my brain mercifully shut it away, unable to remember the full horror. My breath stoppered itself in my chest, heart struggling to function.

A clotting, cloying reek of spoiled honey and rotting sweetness boiled over me before the rain flashed through where he had been standing, and I heard retreating footsteps. Perry ran in the direction of the Monde Nuit, and I lay on the cold street as the slashing fat needles of water soaked through leather, cloth, and my scorched hair.

My breath came back, spilling into flaccid lungs. My heartbeat kept going, the stubborn muscle not knowing when to quit.

Thank God. Thank you, God.

If I lay there with my face upturned to the rain, the shaking juddering sobs wouldn't matter. I had very little time to cry, because the sirens were getting closer, and I had to find a phone.