Redemption Alley

The crowd out front had vanished. Most of them were likely to be Traders and hellbreed, probably thanking their lucky stars they hadn’t been inside.

“Fucking hell.” I restrained the urge to kick something.

The blood-haired Trader was gone.

So was Carp.

Chapter Nineteen

Leon drove, of all things, a big blue Chevy half-ton. The interior smelled of grease and jostled as the engine labored.

“This thing needs a tune-up,” I told him. “What the hell are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you.”

“Where the fuck’s your car, darlin’? And I’m here because you called, and because someone’s been trappin’ scurf in my neck of the woods. I wouldn’t mind, since we got enough and to spare, but trappin’ ’em means they have somethin’ pla

“My car blew up. What do you mean, trapping scurf?” I clung to the oh-shit strap while he took a corner, working the gears like they were going out of style. Beer cans rolled around my ankles and a metal footlocker containing ammo and various other odds and ends rattled, sliding forward to smack my boots.

Then Leon did something I hated. He closed his eyes.

Oh shit.

I came back from Hell with a gift or a curse, depending on which way you look at it. My blue eye can see between and below the surface of the world. It is that ability to go between that sets me apart from other hunters—that and my bargain with Perry. Most of us just come back from Hell with some interesting instincts, a grasp of sorcery, and the ability to see through the masks hellbreed like to wear.

But some of us return with more.

Leon came back a tracker. You name it, he can follow it. All it requires, he says, is the right mindset.

And a healthy amount of Pabst Blue Ribbon to dull his sensitivity the rest of the time. If Budge wasn’t half-drunk, things were very bad indeed. The only good thing about it was he needed a bathroom about as often as a female hunter does.

Beer does that to you when you’ve got a human metabolism. Me, I can’t drink enough of the damn stuff to even get a buzz.

I didn’t ask who we were following. Leon had seen Carp, unmistakably human and bleeding in the middle of a hellbreed haunt, and had further seen me unwilling to leave without him. Some things are just understood.

Leon floored it, and the pickup began to shimmy in interesting ways. “Movin’ fast, and agin the wind.”

Not like wind matters to Traders or hellbreed, Leon. I hung on for dear life as he slammed us through traffic, missing a semi by bare inches and almost dinging the paint job on a showroom-bright black SUV that blared its horn and dropped back. Leon’s eyelids flickered like he was dreaming.

“What do you mean, trapping scurf?” I repeated. That was bad, bad news on all fronts.

“I mean catching the little bastards and shipping them out of town, both by rail and by water. I didn’t think it was possible—who the hell would want ’em, huh? Hang on.”

Hang on?

Leon twisted the wheel, hard. We cut across two lanes of traffic, he floored it, and I started to feel a little green. It wasn’t the speed, it was the fact that he had his eyes shut tight.

Even when you’re used to Leon, it’s creepy.

“You might want to slow down. I’m having some problems up here.”

“What kinda problems?”

Where do I start? “There’s a case. Some dirty cops. They’ve already tried to kill me.”

“Holy shit.” That snapped his eyes open for almost fifteen seconds, but it wasn’t comforting at all. His dark gaze was filmed as if by cataracts, shapes like windblown clouds rolling over the eyeballs. Wind roared through the half-open window; I didn’t have a hand to spare to roll it up. I was busy hanging on.

For some reason, nobody ever says a goddamn thing about the way Leon drives.

He closed his eyes again, stamping on the accelerator, and I was seriously considering commending my soul to God yet again that night when he jagged over, zipped into an alley neat as you please, stood on the brakes, and bailed out like his pants were on fire.

I followed, sliding across the seat and hopping out his side. He’d taken the keys with him, so I swept the door closed and pounded after him. He was only capable of human speed, but human speed is pretty damn fast when you’re a hunter.

He plunged through an alley, up a fire escape, zigzagged across a low rooftop and came to an abrupt halt, staring across the street. I skidded to a stop right next to him, gave the street a once-over, and looked up at the granite Jesus glowering at downtown.

“Holy shit. She brought him to the hospital?” I didn’t mean for it to come out as a question. Well, I told her that if he died she was next. I suppose it’s logical.

“That’s one almighty-big statue there,” was all Leon said. He blinked a couple times, his shoulders coming down and the colorless fume of urgency swirling away from him.

“That’s Sisters of Mercy. Used to be Catholic. I thought you were in there once, when Mikhail and you—” I bit off the end of the sentence, swallowed it, and looked for a way down. “Well, let’s go on in, then. I need that Trader and I need that cop, too.”

“He’s a cop?” Meaning, I thought you said they was tryin’ to kill you.

“He’s one of mine, Leon. Move your ass.” I paused. “It’s good to see you.”

And it was, too. Some things only another hunter will understand, and moreover, sometimes you don’t want to be questioned. It didn’t matter to Leon what the hell was going on, if I was in it, he was going to be in it too. Up to the eyeballs, if necessary, and without counting the cost or thinking twice about it.

And while we were at it we would find out who was shipping scurf around, for God’s sake.

I hopped up to the ledge, but Leon’s fingers curled around my arm. Only another hunter—or Saul—would be able to do that without me instinctively twitching away. “Jill.”

The street below looked quiet. I took a second look, to make sure. “What?”

“You doin’ all right, darlin’?” Quiet, with absolutely no Texas bluster.

The street swam with light as if underwater, wavering, and snapped into focus when I made an almost-physical effort to clean up my mental floor. “No. I’m not.” The truth burned my tongue, but you can’t lie to another hunter.

You just can’t.

His hand fell away. “Well sheeee-yit.”

“I heartily concur. Now come on.” I leapt out into space, pulling etheric force through the scar at the last moment, and slammed down on the pavement, smoke flashing in the air as the sudden violation of a law of physics rippled around me.

Jesus, Jill, what would have happened if the scar failed? You’d be lying on the pavement bleeding, now.

I told myself not to borrow trouble and stalked for the entrance to the ER. Leon would find his own way down.

Of all the wonders the world has to offer, a Trader hovering by the bedside of a foul-mouthed homicide detective is surely one of the most uncommon. Carp was beaten up, bruised, and had bled all over Kingdom Come from a couple shallow head wounds and a more serious one on his right thigh that looked like a huge dogbite.

I kept one eye on the Trader while I examined Carp. A phlegmatic Filipina nurse swabbed the hole in his leg. He was shocky but not too bad, and I was worried about being seen here.

Leon crowded into the curtained cubicle, eyeing the Trader in her evening gown and blood-colored hair just exactly as he would eye a critter crawling on his boot before he crushed it.

“You stupid son of a bitch.” I kept my tone calm, low, quiet. “Carp, I should peel your skin off in strips. You idiot.”