Redemption Alley

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “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’ planned, and that I don’t like. I tracked ’em over the city limits. We got ourselves a genuine grade-A problem goin’ on here.”

  “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.”

  “Mom…” He shivered, mumbling. The nurse—Concepcion, I remembered her name with another one of those wrenching mental efforts—merely glanced at me. They see a lot of me at Mercy, and they’ve long since stopped caring what I do or look like as long as I don’t shoot anyone.

  Sometimes they get disappointed, but they’re used to that in the ER.

  “Kismet?” His tone was too dreamy, and I glanced at Connie.

  She shrugged, brushing me aside with one soft shoulder as she handed his wallet and badge over. Her shoes squeaked on the linoleum. “Shock. Head wounds are messy. And this thing. Looks clean, but the edges are ragged. Madre, you bring in some int
eresting things, no?”

  “No other wounds?” Raw disbelief married to unwilling hope inside my chest. I hate those pairings. They usually end up badly. The edges of the leg wound weren’t discolored, and held no trademark candy-sweet corruption. He wasn’t poisoned, thank God.

  “They only wanted to play with him before Shen came down.” Irene tilted her head, a tendril of that fantastical hair brushing her flour-pale cheek. “I tried to—”

  Leon made a restless movement, as if he couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to open her mouth. “Speak when you’re spoken to, Trader.”

  “How soon can I get him out of here?” I gave Connie the full benefit of my mismatched stare.

  She paled, but gamely rolled her eyes. “Señora, this needs stitching. And he’s in shock—”

  “We can fix that. Get some sutures.”

  “I am no doctor—”

  “Now, Connie.” I said it very softly. I am not going to wait around here for someone to come to finish him off. “Get some fucking sutures and get him ready to travel.”

  “Galina’s?” Leon made another restless twitch, and I glanced at him.

  “Of course.” There’s no place else in the city I can be sure he’s safe, not after tangling with Shen like that. Jesus. I shot her hair. She’ll really be after me now, and I have to question this Trader.

  Hard.

  The nagging sense of something not-quite-right returned, but I didn’t have the leisure to ferret it out.

  The Trader chose that moment to pipe up again. “I brought him here, I was worried—”

  I barely saw Leon clear leather, his Smith & Wesson suddenly pointed at her forehead. The knife in his other hand pressed its flat, silver-loaded blade against one milky shoulder, and the Trader shuddered. A slight sizzle; the silver ran with blue sparks. Under the smell of Lysol and human pain endemic in emergency rooms, the sweet-pork foulness of burning Hell-tainted flesh cut sharp, a serrated edge.

  Concepcion gasped.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Leon said, conversationally. “You one small step from being sent to face Judgment, Trader. Got that?”

  No flush crept up through Irene’s sick pallor, but a greenish tinge bloomed along her cheeks. Her jaw worked, her gaze shivering back and forth between Leon and me, but otherwise not a muscle flickered. She nodded, and my fingers eased off the gun butt. My gun remained in its holster.

  Why would a Trader help Carp? There must be an advantage in it for her. Of course, not having me kill her is an advantage. Am I really that scary?

  When he peeled the knife away, an angry line of blisters boiled through her skin. They weren’t reddened either, but tainted with green like the pale underside of a poison-bearing frog.

  I wondered if she would bleed green, and didn’t want to find out. What had she bargained for, to end up like this?

  Not your problem, Jill.

  I could sense no sorcery hanging on her, and she didn’t appear to have much in the way of invulnerability or superstrength. Of course, I hadn’t tried to kill her yet, so that didn’t mean much. “Sutures, Connie. And move it along, I’m on a schedule here.”

  “Si, señora.” Concepcion didn’t waste further time arguing, just brushed past me and pushed the curtain aside.

  “Jill?” Carp sounded even more dreamy and disconnected. It was a bad sign.

  “Right here.” I did something that surprised me—I picked up his hand where it lay discarded against the remains of his slacks. Whatever had made the hole in his leg had chewed right through his clothes; thank God it hadn’t hit the femoral artery.

  His fingers were limp, cold and clammy. I squeezed them. “What were you doing there, Carper?”

  “Waitress. The waitress.” His eyes rolled up into his head and he shivered. “Teeth. They all had teeth.”

  No shit, Carp. They all do. My pager went off, the slight soundless buzz against my hip a reminder of how vulnerable I was. I fished it out of its padded pocket with my free hand and glanced at the number.

  It was familiar. Someone paging me from my own house, most probably Theron. He was likely to be climbing the walls by now.

  Concepcion reappeared with handfuls of medical supplies. “I should not do this, señora. He needs to be admitted.”

  “He’ll be admitted all right, Connie. Suture him up and give us a few cc’s of adrenaline in case he goes under, and something for the pain.”

  “There are more policia here,” she whispered, shoving the crackling plastic into my hands. Sterile packaging, each tool in its own little pouch. “They are asking if any of their kind has been admitted. Go.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Would this ever end? “All right. We’ll go out the back. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let your patient die.”

  She shrugged. “Tonight I have many patients, not just one.”

  “And you can’t remember this particular one, right?” I handed over a fifty-dollar bill—hey, she had kids to feed, I knew that much—and nodded to Leon, shoving the packets in assorted pockets of my trenchcoat. “Help him. I’ll watch the Trader.” A few moments’ work had a tourniquet above the hole in Carp’s leg. He wasn’t bleeding badly but moving wasn’t going to be a fun experience for him. Leon got him up off the bed, and I heard raised voices toward the Admissions section of the ER.

  The Trader stared at me, her lips parted. All of her had a matte finish except her lips and the dark holes of her eyes. In dim light, or nightclub shine and flicker, she was probably a sight to behold. Here under the fluorescent wash, she just looked tubercular, but with a green undertone instead of consumptive flush.

  “Get moving.” I pointed. “You’re still alive because you brought him here. Don’t make me reconsider.”

  20

  Where have you been?” Galina got that much out before she saw Carp, who was pale as death and hanging onto Leon like a shipwrecked man clinging to drifting wood. His injured leg wouldn’t work quite right. She moved forward to help him without missing a beat. “Goddammit, Jill, you just missed Theron.”

  Dammit. I made another one of those gut-wrenching physical efforts, trying to prioritize. There were too many things to do. “Is he okay?”

  “He said something about your house infected with hellbreed—oh, my goodness. Hello, Leon. Get him in here, lay him on the table. Open up that cupboard on the left—”

  I started unpacking medical supplies from my pockets. “Infected with hellbreed?”

  “He barely got out in time. Says there’s at least six there. And they’ve found more scurf—” Galina’s eyes widened as she took in the Trader, but she didn’t mention it, just helped Leon get Carp onto a table in the small room off the main showroom of her store. The table, an old butcher-block number matching the one upstairs in her kitchen, had legs carved with the winged serpent of the Sancs and a system of straps that could hold down a pain-maddened hunter or a dangerous, untreated victim of a Possessor. The old thick leather straps also sheathed thin flexible silver wires, blessed and knotted specifically to constrain harm and evil. Coupled with a Sanc’s traditional protections in the house walls, this was an excellent place for stopgap exorcisms, interrogating reticent Traders, or engaging in a little trauma surgery when a hunter’s life gets interesting.

  Though not as interesting as it is right this second. “Scurf? Where?”

  “Near the river. The 3700 block of Cherry, he says you’ll know when and if you get there. Good God, what happened to this guy? Who is he?”

  “Homicide detective. Name’s Carper. Keep him here, and keep him alive for me. This Trader stays here too, I need her in one piece and available. You.” I pointed at Irene, who jumped as if pinched. “You come with me into the other room, I’ve got a few questions. Leon, we’re going scurf hunting in a few minutes. Stock up on ammo and whatever else we need.”

  Some days it’s nice being the resident hunter. It means some decisions are just not consensus. Leon nodded and sidled against the wall. Galina hunched over Carp and kept working to
patch him up.

  “The ammo is in that cabinet there. Take what you need,” Galina said as I left the room.

  The Trader followed me out into the darkened front room, the walls humming and alive with Sanctuary shielding. Crystal balls in the glassed-in case under the counter sparked, swirling softly with golden light. The stock rustled, books and materials all alive in their own specific ways in a store that has the advantage of being completely useful—unlike a few other occult shops I’ve had the bad luck to try to supply myself from.

  Sometimes I wonder what hunters do without Sancs in their territories. Santa Luz is lucky to have Galina.

  “All right. Start talking.” I rested one hand on my bullwhip, the other on a gun butt. If it made her nervous, she didn’t show it.

  Much. Her eyes were wide. The dim light was kind to her, making her bloody hair a river of softness and her shell-like hips curves of delight. The stain on her lips made her look just-kissed. She must have been pretty in her own way, while human. “I’m allowed to talk now?”

  “Don’t get cute. Carper had a lead in the organ-theft case, and it was you. You have exactly thirty seconds to tell me what you know, everything you know, leaving nothing out, or we learn if you bleed green too.” I didn’t even have to snarl, the flat matter-of-factness in my tone was more chilling than ranting and raving would be.

  I was too tired to rant and rave. The successive shocks were beginning to wear on me.

  Get over it, Jill. Focus.

  “Organ theft.” Did she sound relieved? She nodded, and a curl fell forward, sweetly and fetchingly, into her face. A shadow of hardness in her eyes told me the attractiveness was only skin-deep. There was something else under that thin crust.

  “And dirty cops. Start talking.” I kept one eye on the clock.

  “Oh, that. It wasn’t even work, just something I learned on a house call.” When I gave her a blank look, she smiled, a thin tight curve of lips that brought the hardness out and made her look a lot less sex-kitten. “I’m one of Shen’s dogs, hunter. We’re available for reasonable rates if you have… desires, and the money to pay for them.”