Redemption Alley

“You are only one, hunter. And we are legion.” The black strings of her hair rubbed against each other, squealing as she subvocalized. Helletöng rumbled through the floor, vibrating against my bootsoles.

“That does not particularly bother me.” I sounded like it didn’t, too. “I’ve killed more in a night than you have in this dining room, Shen.” I paused. “You, Trader. I told you to pick him up.”

The Trader squeaked as if she’d been pinched and moved to obey. I kept both guns on Shen. I might get out of this alive. All hail the poker-faced hunter and her ability to talk smack.

Shen took two long strides forward, the fabric of her kimono’s lower half moving in odd ways, silk groaning and stretching. “You will not leave this place alive,” she promised, and the helltainted on every side moved closer. A rising growl slid through them, Helletöng rubbing at the walls.

Oh, so that’s the way we’re going to do this? My free hand was suddenly full of Glock. “Outside, Irene. And gently. If he dies, you’re fucking next.” I waited until I heard her start moving, Carp’s shapeless groan as he lay cradled in her stick-thin, dead-white arms, her purple satin gloves now stained with blood. This I took in through my peripheral vision, my heartrate cool and steady, both guns still locked on the mistress of the Kat Klub. “Is that the way you want to play it, Shen?”

Nothing human lived under the skirt of that antique kimono. The scar prickled, a mass of hot needles burrowing into my wrist, and the world got very still again, clarity settling over each edge and curve. The contortionists were still writhing on the stage, joints crackling and sequins scraping.

“Take her,” she whispered. But none of the assembled ’breed or Traders moved.

Apparently, right at this moment, even fear of Shen An Dua couldn’t make them swarm me. It was an indirect compliment.

I showed my teeth. My entire body relaxed into the flow of the moment, the absolute chilling certainty of violence taking all indecision out of the equation. “Bring it,” I whispered. My forearms tensed, cords of muscle standing out as I edged toward that last pound and a half of pressure on the triggers.

A new voice cut across the warp and weft of the interior, slicing cleanly even if it was loaded with Texas so thick the drawl dripped over the sides. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ. What the hell’s this?”

I almost twitched. Relief threatened to unloose my knees, and the situation tipped from ohmyGod I am not going to survive this to Thank God someone else is going to die with me.

Shen’s head turned, a slow movement like a servomotor with oiled bearings. I kept both guns trained on her. I’d once seen her unzip a Trader’s guts and lift a double handful of wet intestine to her plump little candy-apple-red mouth.

Things like that will make a hunter cautious. Add to that the fact that I’d wanted to question the Trader about a certain stable of high-priced underage sex slaves, and Shen’s calm inscrutable smile as strings of human gut hung from her mouth, and you had bad blood between us. I knew she’d been in it up to her eyeballs, but I hadn’t been able to make any of it stick. I couldn’t prove it to my own satisfaction.

I could prove little of what I suspected when it came to her. Which meant I couldn’t kill her with a clear conscience. Or even just a reasonably clear conscience, which, some days, is all you’re going to get in this line of work.

“Hi, Leon,” I said. “Nice to see you.”

“You’ve got crappy taste in restaurants, darlin’,” Leon Budge drawled. “Why don’t we go somewheres civilized where I can get me a got-damn drink?”

Shen surged forward again, and there was a familiar, ratcheting sound. Leon had worked the bolt action on his rifle. “Oh, now, sweetie-pie, don’t do that. Me and Rosita here, we gets nervous when a slope-eyed gal like you gets twitchy.”

Jesus, Leon, how much of a racist cliché can you be? I took two steps, sidling away from the table. Helletöng crested, the sound of skin slipping as drowned fingers rubbed together, chrome flies buzzing in chlorine-laced bottles—the scar sent a wet thrill up my arm, hearing its language spoken.

Two more steps. I took a quick glance, made certain I was out of Leon’s field of fire.

He stood in a battered leather trenchcoat, plain dun instead of black, his hair a crow’s nest of untidy brown waves, copper charms threaded on black heavy-duty waxed thread and clinking slightly as a breeze ruffled his hair. The wreck of the swinging doors smoked around him, and he held the rifle like it wasn’t capable of blowing a ’breed in half with the modifications he’d put on it.

Chubby cherub’s face, wide shoulders, a body kept in shape by a hunter’s constant training but still managing to give the impression of pudginess. Leon looked like a newscaster trapped in goth-boy drag, an impression helped along by the eyeliner scoring rings around each hazel eye and the clinking mass of amulets around his neck on cords, thongs, and thin copper chains. Four plain silver rings on his left hand ran with blue sparks, echoing the silver in my hair. One of them was the apprentice-ring his teacher had given him.

Leon was smiling under a scruff of dark stubble, white teeth peeping out. “Should I put ’er down, Kiss?”

Don’t call me that, dammit. “If she moves.” I turned my back on Shen An Dua and her assembled footlickers and customers, guns sliding into their holsters. “Or hell, even if you don’t like her hairstyle.”

“It’s somethin’.” The cheerful, thoughtful tone never wavered, and he didn’t blink. The bandoliers crossing his chest held small silver-coated throwing knives, each one sharp enough to take a finger off.

Or pop right into a ’breed’s eye and pierce the brain with blessed metal.

“Well, the barber was an amateur.” I shrugged, my knees threatening to buckle with each straight, strutting step.

Rule of dealing with murderous hellspawn: try not to look weak. It gets them all excited.

“You have earned my hatred,” Shen was back to whispering. “Hell and Earth both witness my vow, hunter. You will pay for this.”

Yeah, one way or another. Sure. “You already said that, most honorable Shen An Dua. Don’t be boring.” I would have pantomimed a yawn if my hands weren’t quivering with the urge to take the guns out again, turn around, and put this murderous hellspawn down like the parasite she was.

Leon’s gaze flicked to mine for a fraction of a second. It was a purely professional look, gauging what I was likely to do next. I sounded cool and calm, but something in my cheek twitched like a needle was plucking at the flesh. The glance was also a communication, one I heard as clearly as verbal speech—are you go