Saint City Sinners

If the cops didn't care or were unable to investigate, Gabe would never be avenged, and her daughter would remain in danger.

Not while I'm alive. Not while I have a single breath in me.

Tension, screaming in my shoulders; the cuff blazed with dappled, fluid green light. Light like Japhrimel's eyes, blazing while he looked up from the floor. I drew in a long sweet breath scented with kyphii and the old delicious smell of Gabe's house, the scent-landscape of a place lived in and loved by generation after generation of Necromances.

I stepped around the corner and into the kitchen.

A ricocheting blaze of loud pops, pain tearing into my chest. Black blood rose to seal the bullet wounds away even as I blurred, moving with inhuman speed. The bullets from a Glockstryke 983 projectile repeater would have killed a human psion-but I was no longer human. My sword was a solid arc of silver, white flame singing in its heart, as I carved Pontside's hand off at the wrist.

He was blond, but his muddy hazel eyes were the same as hers. He wore a crumpled gray suit and a damp tan trenchcoat, a gleaming badge clipped to the front pocket of his blue cotton button-down shirt. I could see the resemblance-they shared a parent, at least. Did Pontside hate psions because his half-sister was one and he wasn't, or did he simply hate all of us except her because he was a cop? Did he even hate his sister? Or was the rumor about him hating us just coffee-break fodder?

Blood sprayed. He howled and I kicked him, heard ribs snap under the force of the blow. He fell backward, grinding into broken dishes, before Mercy even had time to scream. The gun, with his hand still clutching it, thumped wetly on Gabe's kitchen floor.

Revenge filled my mouth; sweet and hot. I let out a chilling little giggle that shivered glass from the cabinet doors and made the windows squeal as they bowed out in their frames. Then I stamped down hard into his fair blond face.

It was like kicking a watermelon with fragile glass bones. Mercy let out a short, violent cry, I looked up as Pontside's body jerked and twitched, flopping. I saw the light as the soul fled, one sharp burst of brilliance fading into the foxfire glow of false life, the nerves begi

I wanted to stuff his soul back into his body and kill him again. But I'd settle for her, the bigger traitor.

Mercy's eyes were wide and dark. Sweat stood out on her pale skin, darkening her plain blue T-shirt. The smile stretched my lips, a grimace that made her flinch and cower against the kitchen island, her hip smacking a piece of broken plate and pushing it down to shatter on the floor.

I studied her for a long moment, my sword flicking. Blood smoked off the blade. The smell of violets and white mallow mixed with the reek of blood and stink of released bowels.

I lifted the blade. "Why?" Again the windows squealed, as my voice throbbed at the lowest registers of what could be defined as "human." "You're a psion! A healer! Why?"

Her hands curled into fists as she stared at me, her proud spiked hair begi

I can kill her. I can kill her right now. Right fucking now. I shook with the urge to do just that.

But I wanted to make it last. And I wanted to know why.

"We were poor," she choked out, her eyes falling past me to linger on the mess of meat that was her brother. "Herborne paid for my Academy schooling, I was in debt up to my eyeballs and Gil… he never made enough." Her chin quivered. "Eddie was going to give it away, Valentine! Give away the cure! The stupid motherfucking Skinlin was going to ruin everything." She sucked in a deep painful breath. "You don't know," she whispered. "He was rich, he had his little rich-girl Necromance and-"

So she had hatched this plan, bombed her own clinic, arranged Eddie's death, arranged Gabe's death, collaborated in the murder of how many? "For money." My contempt smoked, shattered more glass, made the walls tremble. "How many have you killed? And how many have fucking died of Chill while you tried to cover everything up?"

Noise, cutting through the syrupy tension and crackling static of my fury. Sirens in the distance. I heard them, and maybe she did too. Pontside probably had time to trigger a call for help on his HDOC. The Saint City PD was on their way.

Doesn't matter. If they had a hand in this I'll kill them too. The ease and naturalness of the thought should have disturbed me.

My hand twitched, the tip of my blade making a precise little circle, painting blue flame on the air from the runes ru

"You've never been poor," she whispered. "You don't-"

What the fuck? "I've been poor." My voice sliced through hers. "I've eaten heatseal-and sometimes not even that. I was poor and hungry for years, you stupid bitch. I did espionage and bounty hunting. But I never assassinated anyone." It wasn't strictly true-I'd killed in self-defense, and I'd killed Santino.

But that was different. Wasn't it?

I don't kill without cause. My own words rose up to taunt me. But by the gods, this was cause.

This was vengeance.

"Congratulations." She jerked her chin in the direction of the still-twitching body. "That makes him your first." How dare you, you piece of shit? The fury rose in me again and blue fire answered, crawling up my sword to caress my hand. I stopped, my jaw dropping as I stared at the shivering sedayeen. The sirens whooped and brayed, getting closer.

No. It couldn't be.

The world slowed down. Time stopped. Blue fire closed over my vision, and I felt the touch of my god, slipping through the stubborn, torn-raw layers of my mind. The feeling was weightless, like leaving the meat of the body behind and rising into the clear rational light of What Comes Next, the great secret Death whispers into the ears of the departing. My left shoulder squeezed with sudden pain so sharp and fierce I gasped, falling back into the low guard, the blade slanting up and singing a high thin keening note as my steel recognized the presence of the only Power I bowed my head to, Death Himself.

This? This little bitch, this traitor, was who Death wanted me to spare? This was the geas laid on me by my god, who I had always trusted with everything, my life, my fears, my vulnerability itself?

The choice is yours, He said, His deep infinity-starred eyes resting against mine. It is always yours.

"No," I whispered. "No."

I wanted to kill her. I ached, I hungered to strike, to carve, to watch the blood flow, to end her miserable life. I'd sworn. Was I required to break the oath I had sworn to my best friend, my only friend?

The sirens dipped closer, and I heard the whine of police hovers. I heard my voice, shaking, freighted with a fury so intense it shivered more glass into breaking. "Anubis et'her ka."

The prayer died on my lips. My vision cleared. I saw her teeth pulled back in a grimace of effort as she cowered against the counter. She was sedayeen, a healer, incapable of defending herself.

But she was perfectly fucking capable of betraying Eddie, of tossing Gabe's house while looking for the cure, capable of lying to me. Lying like Japhrimel, lying like a stone faced demon. Lying worse than a demon, even; Japh hid things from me for a reason!

"Cameron," I croaked. "Your bodyguard. Pico-Phize."

Mercy shook her head, sadly. "She suspected. We were going to eliminate her at the clinic, but…. She was Pico-Phize corporate too, she was going to meet Massadie yesterday, when he called from Ta