Redemption Alley

I did wonder, standing there and watching them work with their shovels, if they had come over the border. I wondered if they’d been born in my city. I wondered if either of them had any idea who they were burying, or if it was just another job to them. I wondered if they resented the fact that they were cheaper than a machine, or if they were grateful for the work.

And I wondered if they would ever want to know how hard I tried to keep them safe too. I couldn’t fix economic inequality, but I could stop hellbreed from preying on the poor and marginalized. One at a time and piecemeal, but it was better than nothing.

They call us heroes, Mikhail sneered inside my head. Idiots. There is only one reason we do it, milaya, and it is for to quiet the screaming in our own heads.

One of them said something in an undertone. The other laughed, replied with a snatch of softly-delivered song. It sounded oddly reverent. Even if it was just another job, they spoke quietly around the dead.

“Jill?” Theron, at my shoulder again. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Hunters don’t go to police wakes, Theron.” It hurts too much. Far too much.

“At Micky’s. I’ll spot you some lunch too. If I know you, you haven’t eaten.”

I waited in the sun for another ten minutes. It didn’t take them long to fill in the grave and tamp it down. The taller one elbowed his partner, and they glanced at me again before loading their shovels and the Astroturf into the golf cart. They buzzed away. Maybe they had other holes to fill.

Sleep well, Carp. My chest ached with all the things I could never say.

I wiped at my face again. Jesus, Jill. Quit it. “I didn’t have much breakfast,” I admitted.

Theron manfully restrained himself from commenting. “I’ll drive.”

Chapter Thirty-three

The sun went down in a glory of red and orange. Wind shifted, veering in off the baking desert, but it carried a breath of something other than sand and summer on its back. A faint tang that meant autumn was coming. Not for a while, but still coming.

I’d considered calling Perry. I’d even considered waltzing into the Monde Nuit and questioning him about Argoth. And about just what he’d known about Shen’s little bid for a bigger slice of domination in the city.

Questioning him hard.

In the end I dragged the cut-down discarded end of a metal barrel from the railyards behind my warehouse and fed it a mound of barbeque charcoal. I doused the briquettes with lighter fluid and wadded up bits of waste paper, lit a match.

When the coals were glowing red to match the sun’s nightly death I dug in my pocket and pulled out the little Ziploc baggie.

The purple crystals inside were slightly oily, giving under my fingers with a faint crunching through the plastic. I’d searched both Irene and Fax pretty thoroughly, but only Fax was carrying a sample and several folded sheets of paper covered with arcane notations.

I never took any chemistry in high school, so they might as well have been Greek. They burned just like any ordinary paper.

When they were ash I tossed the Ziploc in. There was a brief stench of burning plastic, and flame flared like the yolk-yellow light in Shen’s eyes.

It still bothered me. Why hadn’t she brought other hellbreed to finish me off? Then again, if she was trying to make points with one of Hell’s higher-ups, she would have been greedy for the credit and unwilling to share. A big drawback to being hellbreed—they can’t trust each other, and barely even trust Traders mortgaged to their eyebrows.

Which meant that maybe, just maybe, nobody else knew about this little foray into experimental chemistry.

Dream, he’d called it. More like a nightmare. A nightmare nobody would wake up from. Cold sweat prickled along my arms, along the curve of my lower back. With this shit to provide a banquet, Argoth could have stuffed himself to the gills on death and destruction. He could have made an entire continent a living hell.

Hey, he’d done it last time.

The only thing about averting a goddamn apocalypse is that it happens so routinely. None of the civilians have any idea how close the world is, all the time, to going up in smoke.

Sometimes I wonder if that ignorance is really a blessing.

The purple crystals sizzled, I poked at the fire with Saul’s barbeque tongs to make sure every little scrap was consumed. Sparks rose, and I kept my face well out of the hot draft. Who knew what this shit could do to you?

I did. I’d seen it.

Argoth is coming… I can only hold the tide so long.

How much had Perry known? Only as much as he’d told me? Or was he hoping I’d disrupt Shen’s plans?

I didn’t want to know badly enough to let him fiddle with my head again.

Getting cowardly in your old age, Jill?

It didn’t matter. If another hellbreed was crazy enough to try following in Shen’s footsteps, they’d get the same treatment. I knew what to look for, now. And even if Perry hadn’t been involved… well, we’d just have to see.

I hate just waiting to see.

The scar pulsed under a copper cuff, one of the old ones Galina had dug up for me. With Saul gone I was back to the copper, since I can’t work leather to save my life.

The sun finished sinking below the horizon. My city trembled, waking up to nightlife.

The phone shrilled. I made sure every scrap of chemical and paper was gone, then stamped inside and scooped it up right before the answering machine would click on. “Talk,” I half-snarled. What now? Goddammit.

“Hey, kitten.” A familiar voice. He sounded sad, and bone-deep exhausted. “Glad to hear you.”

Oh, God. “Saul.” I sounded like all the air had been punched out of me. “Jesus. Good to hear you too. What’s going on?”

“I was about to ask you that. Can’t get hold of Theron. Everything okay out there?”

I closed my eyes, throttling the sigh of relief in my chest. “Just fine. Been a little busy, is all. How are you? What’s going on out there?”

“You sure you’re okay, kitten?” The rumble hid behind his voice. Distress.

“Just fine. Fine as frog’s fur.” I just fucked this thing up six ways from Sunday and almost lost my whole city. But it’s cool. “We had a scurf scare and some Traders getting uppity. The usual. It’s all packed away now.” I stopped myself from babbling with sheer relief. “How are you? What’s happened?”

“She’s gone.” A world of sadness in two words. “I’m coming home. Due in Tuesday at eleven P.M., I’m at the train station now.”

Oh, thank God. “I’m so sorry.” My breath caught. He’s coming home. “You sound awful.”

“Thanks.” A dollop of wry humor lightening grief for just a moment. “She went peacefully. My aunts were there.”

I listened to him breathe for a few endless moments. “I love you.” Soft, high-pitched, as if I’d just been caught in the wrong bathroom in junior high.

It must have been the right thing to say. The rumble behind his breathing lessened. “I love you too, kitten. Pick me up?”

“With bells on.” Where am I going to find a car? Shit, I don’t care. He’s coming home.

“You sure you’re okay?” Now he sounded concerned. “You seem a little—”

“It’s just been a long couple of days. And I miss you, and I feel bad for you.” And I almost lost my city. I almost didn’t catch what was happening. I got lucky.

Except hunters don’t really believe in luck. Another reason to feel uneasy.

Like I needed one.

He didn’t question it further, thank God. “All right. I’ve got to go, the train’s boarding.”

I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. Yellow and faintly-blue stars danced under my eyelids. “Go on. I’ll pick you up at the station. I love you.”