Redemption Alley

Chapter Eight

Galina looks like a film star from the thirties. Her sleek dark hair is marcel-waved, and her cat-tilted green eyes, set in a pale face, would have been worth a lot of hope in Garbo’s Hollywood. Each All Hallows Eve I want to buy her a flapper’s dress and an ostrich feather, but I never get around to it.

Besides, she’d probably take offense. You never can tell, with a Sanctuary. They’ve got some fu

She pushed the plunger down and pulled the needle free, tamping a cotton ball down and taping it with deft motions. “You’re already up on your garlic, but a little more won’t kill you.” Her rain-gray skirt whispered as she turned away, laying the tape down.

I leapt to my feet and swung my chickenwing-bent arm. Garlic serum burns like hell. “Jesus. Christ. Hurts.”

Her snort was unsympathetic. The Sanctuary snapped the point off the needle deftly in a pint-sized biohazard container and scooped up the tray. Sunlight veered through the skylights and burnished her kitchen table. She lived upstairs over her shop, just a regular garden-variety occult store unless you know what you’re about. Then you realize you could find just about everything a serious practitioner of sorcery needs—and practically everything a Were or witch might need, as well—in her little store. “Well, if you’d prefer getting all slimy and bloodhungry…”

“It might be an improvement.” I sighed as the burn settled down, spreading up my arm. “I should stock up on ammo.” I want all the goddamn ammo I can carry if we’ve got scurf. And a few more hours in the day would be nice. Monty was probably climbing the walls by now, I’d phoned in the location of the body and not much else.

“Again?” But she didn’t demur. “Hang on, I’ll fetch it. Will it be on account? I can spot you a few hundred.”

“No, I’ve got it. Business has been good lately.” Hunters get backstairs funding, both from the city and county; it’s a small price to pay for most municipal or county administrations. We also get federal funding if a paranormal incident is big enough to qualify, or if it crosses state lines.

“Defense spending” isn’t only for mundane threats.

Plus, the Church subsidizes training no few apprentices. Even if they do bar us from Heaven, they try to make sure we’re funded enough to hold back the tide of Hell. We’re usually overworked and just-barely-paid-enough, but that’s better than nothing. Resident hunters don’t need to worry about rent or their next meal, thank God.

We just have to worry about damnation.

And being psychic has its perks when it comes to investing. Mikhail had done very well for himself. Screw that “not using your powers for personal gain” bit. When you’re getting shot, knifed, electrocuted, strangled, dumped in rivers, thrown off buildings, or almost eviscerated protecting the common citizenry, the least the world can do is give you a break or two on the stock market.

Of course, living long enough to claim a retirement fund is the problem.

“Are you going to keep the Glocks or switch to something else?” She paused, the sun shining off her lacquered hair.

I have regular Glocks, not the smaller ones most female cops use. My wrists look small, but hellbreed strength means I can handle the recoil better than most men. One of the best days of my life was switching to bigger guns. “I’ll stick with the Glocks. But fill me up on hollowpoints and the silver-grain armor-piercing rounds. I want to be nastier than usual.”

She nodded, tilted her head as the bell jingled downstairs. “Were,” she said shortly, and vanished.

Coming to take me to the dance. I picked up my shredded coat and shrugged into it. The walls quivered slightly, the Sanctuary binding responding to my nervousness and Galina’s as well. Inside their little houses Sancs are the law; the price they pay is being more vulnerable outside than even a weak untrained psychic. But they usually fix it so they don’t have to go outside much—and hunters and Weres, not to mention most hellbreed, will beat the tar out of anyone hassling a Sanctuary. Neutral supply of necessities is the least of the services they provide.

I gauged the fall of sunlight and glanced at the kitchen clock—Elvis in a red jacket, his hips swaying regularly. The days were long, but still, every hour of sunlight gone heightened the possibility of a nightfight with scurf.

Enough to give any hunter shivers. If I wasn’t already halfway to twitched-out between tripping over dead cops and getting shot full of garlic.

The scar throbbed. I reached over, fingers trembling, and stripped the leather cuff off my right wrist. Stared down at the band of paler-even-than-my-usual-milk skin.

On our too-short honeymoon I’d left the cuff off, and I’d even gotten a bit of a tan. For all a hunter’s sun-worship, I stay out too much at night to be anything but fishbelly. I was back to putting the cuff on when I didn’t want to be distracted by the wash of sensory acuity.

Air hit my skin with a thousand sharp needles, suddenly alive again. My nose tingled, picking up the reek of garlic, silver, the dry smell of herbs hung in the large pantry, wet earth from the greenhouse on the roof. Fur and cologne that was a Were downstairs, Galina’s perfume, the incense and Power of her shop.

I examined the lip-print. It wasn’t any bigger. It was just the same as it had always been, and when I tipped it up into the sunlight uncomfortable, allergic warmth spilled up my arm.

Goddamn you, Perry. Getting into my head again. Worming his way in.

My exhaled breath stirred the leaves of small potted herbs growing in the windowsill, under a double drench of light. Air conditioning sent a cool draft across my shoulders. I’d have to change into my first spare and place another order with Jingo out on Cortada Street for another two or three custom jobs.

They don’t sew ammo-loops into regular leather trenches, you know. And I don’t have time anymore for sewing, if I ever did.

I was shaking. My fingers almost blurred. It had been so close last time, and the time before that. Perry had brought me right to the line, made me look over, and I still didn’t know how I had stepped away from the edge.

Yes you do. Get moving, Jill. I slapped the cuff on and buckled it as footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Jill!” Someone shouting, and I knew the voice.

I met Theron halfway. “What’s up?”

“Barrio’s emptying out.” He wasn’t even out of breath, though his dark hair was disarranged and his eyes were lambent, sheened with orange. An excited Were is like an excited hellbreed, the eyes get all glowy. “One of the ’cougars ran across spoor on the east side, right near where you said. They’re tracking now.”

My heart settled into a high fast thumping and I pushed a strand of dark hair, weighted down with a silver wheel-charm double-knotted with red thread, out of my face. It clinked against more charms. “Great. Let’s roll. Galina, that ammo, please?”

“Be careful.” She was at the bottom of the stairs, the pendant at her throat winking with its own light as the air conditioning kicked off again. Her hands were full of cartridges stacked on a red cloiso

She’s pretty much the only person who tells me that. Anyone else knows it’s useless. Then there’s Saul, who would never tell me that because it implies I couldn’t take care of myself. Except he had last time… because he was worried, and tired, and watching his mother die by inches.

More unpleasant thoughts, arriving right on schedule. “I can’t be careful, Galina. It’s not in the job description. Is the sunsword still black?” It was a good weapon in a dark hole, but it had been drained past recovery a while ago.

When it had been shoved through Navoshtay Niv Arkady’s chest by a half-crazed hellbreed female crouched on a burning car. Just another day in the life of a hunter.