Redemption Alley

One of the higher-ups wants you dead. I eyed Perry. “You wouldn’t be the only one sending hellbreed after me, would you? What about skunk-haired idiots busting in on a nest-cleaning and trying to kill me?”

“Skunk-haired? His eyebrow lifted. “None of my protégés deserve that appellation.”

“What about a ’breed sent to kill me in my own home and whisper someone else’s name?” I pressed. I got a half-second of some other emotion flickering across his face. Did Perry look, of all things, surprised? “So you ride in to my rescue, huh? You’re helping me. How very congenial of you.” Like shit you are. You’re probably neck-deep in this too, God knows you always are.

My tone must have warned him. His eyes narrowed a fraction, and instead of looking at me like a prize entrée, he eyed me like a cobra eyes a mongoose.

It was a welcome change. Still, it bothered me. What had calmed him down enough that the staining on his whites retreated?

I holstered both guns, though my entire body fought it. They were my protection, and these were hellbreed, for Christ’s sake. “You can start by telling me which of your little hellbreed friends wants me dead.”

“And what will you pay for that information?” He cocked his pale head, still regarding me with that cautious, unblinking reptile stare. His coterie cringed even further.

Jesus Christ, Jill, what are you going to do now? There was only one thing I could do. “I don’t need to pay you, Pericles. You were in violation and we renegotiated. And you can threaten all you want, but if the scar goes sour, I’ll be well within my rights to erase your sorry little ass from the face of the earth and send you screaming to Hell. Your choice.”

There it was, as plain as I could make it. If he made trouble, better it was here with Leon backing me up and the scar still mostly workable.

“And that would reduce your power by an order of magnitude or two.” Perry was very still, a statue carved of gray ice and platinum hair. His eyes had half-lidded, their gasflames burning down.

Why isn’t he angrier? “Maybe I’m willing to risk it. What other hellbreed wants me dead, Perry?”

“There are many who wish your death, hunter. Aren’t you happy we have such a marvelous little agreement?”

Oh no you don’t. “The only agreement we have, Pericles, is that you trade information for your continued survival. You’re in this city on my sufferance. This is the last time I’m asking, hellspawn.”

Leon didn’t move, but I could almost feel him tensing. Had I been backing up a mouthy hunter, I would have been getting a little itchy too. This was wrong. All wrong.

Perry didn’t move, but there was a general scurrying and his hellbreed scrambled away like roaches once the light’s on. The moaning hellbreed on the floor tried to scrabble away from Perry’s slow, even footsteps.

Perry stopped, looking down at the mess of thin black-welling ichor and torn flesh. “Haasai,” he rumbled in Helletöng, and the injured ’breed drew in a huge hissing breath, as if preparing to scream.

The owner of the Monde didn’t even seem to move. One moment he stood, hands in pockets, looking down at a wounded member of his species.

The next, his foot came down, and the injured ’breed’s skull shattered like a watermelon dropped on concrete. I skipped away, guns clearing leather again, and braced myself. Preternatural flesh steamed, scurf slime cringing away from the deeper contagion of hellbreed ichor, and Perry made a short satisfied sound. A low chuckle, to be exact, as if he had just been surprised by something enjoyable.

My stomach turned over hard, rebelled against its moorings, and then I was too busy to care, because Leon let out a short sharp garbled word and Perry had taken three steps in a rush, with that same eerie darting quickness.

My left-hand gun spoke, a brief muzzle-flash and a roar. The bullet whined and pinged, and Perry stopped short. The sleeve of his suit coat smoked; a crease not intended by the tailor along his shoulder.

It was my night for trick shots, I guess.

“The next one goes in your head.” My heart thundered, the scar snapping and twanging with pain like a rope in a high wind, puckering the flesh of my arm. It’s not doing anything, Jill, you know it’s not, goddammit focus! “Settle down, hellspawn.”

Perry’s head cocked like a lizard’s, a flicker of tongue too red and wet to be human showing between his white, white teeth. Once before I’d seen what lurked under the pretence of bland humanity he wore, and my brain had shunted that memory aside, refusing to hold it. I was goddamn grateful at the time, and even more so now.

We stood like that, Perry’s head not six inches from my right-hand Glock’s muzzle, my left gun settling slightly lower, zeroed in on his mouth.

“Argoth,” Perry whispered. The rumble of Hell’s mother tongue under the word made the shadows turn angular, the lights buzzing and crackling. “Argoth is coming. You should be thankful, my dear one, that I’ve kept this little ant farm safe. You should get on your knees and pray to your bloodless Savior. I can only hold the tide so long.”

“What tide?” Argoth? Nobody I’ve heard of before. I’ll bet I don’t have time to run by Hutch’s and set him to working on it, either. The ’breed behind Perry drew back, with scary nimble quickness, making little inhuman sounds wherever they stepped.

“Silly, stupid little hunter.” Perry leaned forward on his toes, for all the world as if wanting to tango and waiting for a dancer unwary enough to join him. “You truly think you owe me nothing? You think we renegotiated?”

Don’t fall for it, Jill. But I did. My fingers tightened on the triggers, and the little clicks sounded very loud, especially when echoed by another, sharper, more definite click from Rosita. “Take one step closer, Perry, and fucking find out.”

We stood like that for five ticking seconds, the scar working a red-hot coathanger up the cha

If I ever was sure, that is. And it wouldn’t stop me from parting out the body and burning each steak and hamhock down to ash.

And scattering the ash.

Miles apart, continents apart if I could.

The owner of the Monde stepped mincingly… away. He retreated, his eyes still bright blue, and it u

Six feet away he halted, came back down on his heels, and pointed to the ’breed on the floor, a quick sketch of a movement. “He was becoming troublesome, you know. You killed him just in time.”

“I only wounded him, Perry. You murdered him all on your own. What’s Argoth?” Have I heard that name before? Don’t think so. Shit. Never rains but it pours. My pulse was struggling to thunder again, but control clamped down. The switch inside my head trembled—the one that could flip and make the world into a chessboard, every move clear and clean, with nothing even resembling hesitation to keep me from what had to be done.

The uncomfortable thought arrived right on schedule. Like bashing a hellbreed’s head in? Did that just have to be done? Does Perry think of it that way?

“Not what, but who. He is Death come calling, and you will see him soon enough.” Perry smiled broadly, his teeth gleaming. “You think you can manage without my help? Go and see, my dearest.”

“Don’t even think of welshing, hellbreed.” The switch trembled again, I forced it to stay still. I had never even told Mikhail about that part of me, the way I could lift out of my own body and just do what was needed.

What was necessary.