Redemption Alley

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “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.”

  “Love you too, kitten.” A disembodied voice echoing behind him. Last call for boarding, probably. “See you soon.”

  It can’t be soon enough for me. “See you.”

  He hung up. I listened to the dial tone for a little bit, then reluctantly put the phone in the charger and hauled myself up, paced back out to the barrel. The coals were back to glowing red. The formula and the sample were history. Apocalypse averted, again.

  Saul’s coming home. Thank God.

  I made sure the barrel wasn’t close to anything flammable and watched the last few dregs of light swirl out of the sky. When it was full dark, I shrugged into my trenchcoat and checked my ammo. I locked my home up safe and sound and headed out into the newborn night despite the stiffness in my legs and the aching in my heart.

  He’s coming home. He’s on his way.

  A thin fingernail-paring of waxing moon hung low in the sky. My city lay below, drowning out the night’s lamps with streetlight shine. A field of electric-burning stars covering up holes of darkness, some Hell-made, some human.

  And one more grave.

  I went back to work.

  Glossary

  Arkeus: A roaming corruptor escaped from Hell.

  Banefire: A cleansing sorcerous flame.

  Black Mist: A roaming psychic contagion; a symbiotic parasite inhabiting the host’s nervous system and bloodstream.

  Chutsharak: Chaldean obscenity, loosely translated as “oh, fuck.”

  Demon: Term loosely used to designate any nonhuman predator with sorcerous ability or a connection to Hell.

  Exorcism: Tearing loose a psychic parasite from its host.

  Hellbreed: Blanket term for a wide array of demons, half-demons, or other species escaped or sent from Hell.

  Hellfire: The spectrum of sorcerous flame employed by hellbreed for a variety of uses.

  Hunter: A trained human who keeps the balance between the nightside and regular humans; extrahuman law enforcement.

  Imdarák: Shadowy former race who drove the Elder Gods from the physical plane, also called the Lords of the Trees.

  Martindale Squad: The FBI division responsible for tracking nightside crime across state lines and at the federal level, mostly staffed with hunters and Weres.

  Middle Way: Worshippers of Chaos, Middle Way adepts are usually sociopathic and sorcerous loners. Occasionally covens of Middle Way adepts will come together to control a territory or for a specific purpose.

  OtherSight: Second sight, the ability to see sorcerous energy. Can also mean precognition.

  Possessor: An insubstantial, low-class demon specializing in occupying and controlling humans; the prime reason for exorcists.

  Scurf: Also called nosferatim, a semi-psychic viral infection responsible for legends of blood-hungry corpses, vampires, or nosferatu. Also, someone infected by the scurf virus.

  Sorrow: A worshipper of the Chaldean Elder Gods.

  Sorrows House: A House inhabited by Sorrows, with a vault for invocation or evocation of Elder Gods.

  Sorrows Mother: A high-ranking female of a Sorrows House.

  Talyn: A hellbreed, higher in rank than an arkeus or Possessor, usually insubstantial due to the nature of the physical world.

  Trader: A human who makes a “deal” with a hellbreed, usually for worldly gain or power.

  Utt’huruk: A bird-headed demon.

  Were: Blanket term for several species who shapeshift into animal (for example, cougar, wolf, or spider) or half-animal (wererat or khentauri) form.

  extras

  meet the author

  LILITH SAINTCROW was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, WA. Find her on the Web at: www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed REDEMPTION ALLEY,

  look out for

  FLESH CIRCUS

  Book 4 of the Jill Kismet series

  by Lilith Saintcrow

  Kiss. A delight, as usual.”

  Don’t call me that, Perry. I eyed the second one from the Cirque, a small, soft boyish Trader with huge dark eyes and a fine down on his round apple cheeks. My stomach turned over, hard. “Let’s just get this over with.” I sounded bored even to myself. “I have work to do tonight.”

  “As do we all.” The Ringmaster’s voice was a surprise—as hearty and jolly as he was thin and waspish. And under that, a buzz like chrome flies in chlorinated bottles.

  The rumble of a different language. Helletöng.

  “Always business.” Perry shrugged, a loose easy movement, and I passed my eye down the small, doe-innocent Trader. He was thin and birdlike, and he made me uneasy. Most of the time the bad is right out there where you can see it.

  The Trader leaned in to the Ringmaster’s side, and the ’breed put one stick-thin arm over him. A flick of the loose fingers, probably meant to be soothing, and the parody of parental posture almost made acid crawl up the back of my throat.

  “This is Ikaros,” the Ringmaster said. “Do you have the collar?”

  I reached into a left-hand pocket, my trenchcoat rustling slightly. Cool metal resounded under my fingertips, and I had another serious run of thoughts about stepping back, turning on my heel, and heading for the Pontiac.

  But you can’t do that when the Cirque comes to town. The compact they live under is unbreakable. They serve a purpose, and any hunter on their worldwide circuit knows as much.

  It just goes against every hunter instinct to let the fuckers keep breathing.

  Perry rumbled something in Helletöng, the sound of freight trains painfully rubbing against each other at midnight.

  I paused. My right hand ached for a gun. “English, Perry.” None of your goddamn rumblespeak here.

  “So rude of me. I was merely remarking on your beauty tonight, my dear.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. I shouldn’t have dignified it with a response. “The next time one of you hellspawn rumbles in töng, I’m going back to work, the Cirque can go down the line, and you, Perry, can go suck a few eggs.”

  “Charming.” The Ringmaster’s smile had dropped like a bad habit. “Is she always this way?”

  “Oh, yes. Always a delight, our Kiss.” Perry’s slight smile hadn’t changed, and the faint blue shine from his irises didn’t waver either. He looked far too amused, and the scar was quiescent against my skin.

  Usually he played with it, waves of pain or sick pleasure pouring up my arm. Fiddling with my internal thermostat, trying to make me respond.

  My fingers curled around the metal and brought it out.

  The collar was a serious piece of business, a spiked circle of silver, supple and deadly looking. Each spike was as long as my thumb from knuckle to fingertip, and wicked sharp. Blue sparks flowed under the surface of the metal, not quite breaking free in response to the contamination of two hellbreed and a Trader so close. My silver apprentice-ring, snug against my left third finger, did crack a single spark, and it was gratifying to see the little Trader shiver slightly.

  I shook it a little, the hinges moving freely. It trembled like a live thing, the blue swirling hypnotically. “Rules.” I had their attention. My right hand wanted to twitch for a knife so bad I almost did it, kept my fingers loose with an effort. The charms in my hair rattled. “Actually, just one rule. Don’t fuck with my town. You’re here on sufferance.”

  “N
ext she’ll start in about blood atonement,” Perry offered helpfully.

  I held the Ringmaster’s gaze. My smart eye—the left one, the blue one—was dry, but I didn’t blink. He did—first one eye, then the other, slight lizardlike movements.

  The Trader slid away from under his hand. Still, their auras swirled together, and I could almost see the thick spiraled rope of a blood bond between them. Ikaros took two steps toward me and paused, looking up with those big eyes.

  The flat shine of the dusted lying over his irises was the same as every other Trader’s. It was a reminder that this kid, however old he really was, had bargained with Hell. Traded away something essential in return for something else.

  His lashes quivered. That was his first mistake.

  The next was his hands, twisting together as if he was nervous. If the Ringmaster’s hands were flaccid and delicate, the Trader’s were broad farmboy’s paws, at odds with the rest of his delicate beauty.

  I wondered what he’d Traded for to end up here.

  “We’ll be good.” His voice was a sweet piping, without the candysick corruption of a hellbreed’s. He gave me a tremulous smile.

  “Save it.” I jingled the collar again, watched him flinch just a little. The hellbreed had gone still. “And get down on your knees.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” The Ringmaster’s tone was a warning.

  So was mine. “I’m the hunter here, hellspawn. I decide what’s necessary. Get. Down on. Your knees.”

  The Trader sank down gracefully, but not before his fingers clenched for the barest second. Big, broad hands, and if they closed around my neck it might be a job and a half to pry them away.

  He might have looked like a tchotchke doll old ladies like to put on their shelves, but he was Trader. If he looked innocent and harmless it was only the lure used to get someone close enough for those strong fingers. And that tremulous smile would be the last thing a victim ever saw.

  I clipped the collar on, tested it. He smelled like sawdust and healthy young male, but the tang of sugared corruption riding it only made the sweetness of youth less appetizing. Like a hooker turning her face, and the light picking out damage under a screen of makeup. The stubble on his neck rasped and my knuckles brushed a different texture—the band of scar tissue resting just above his collarbone. It was all but invisible in the dimness, and I wondered what he’d look like in daylight.

  I don’t want to find out. I’ve had enough of this already, and we’re only ten minutes in.

  I stepped back. The collar glinted. My apprentice-ring thrummed with force, and I twitched my hand, experimentally.

  The Trader let out a small sound, tipping forward as if pulled off-center. His knees ground into the dust. My stomach turned. It was just like having a dog on a leash.

  I nodded. Let my hand drop. “You can get up now.”

  “Not just yet.” Perry stepped forward, and little bits of cooling breeze lifted my hair. I didn’t move, but every nerve in my body pulled itself tight as a drumhead and my pulse gave a nasty leap. They could hear it, of course, and if they thought it was a show of weakness things might get nasty.

  Ikaros hunched, thin shoulders coming up.

  My left hand touched a gun butt, cool metal under my fingertips. “That’s close enough, Perry.”

  “Oh, not nearly.” He shifted his weight, and the breeze freshened again. His aura deepened, like a bruise, and the scar woke to prickling, stinging life.

  A whisper of sound, and I had the .45 level, the hammer cocked. “That’s close enough.” Give me a reason. Dear God, just give me a reason.

  He shrugged, and remained where he was. The Ringmaster was smiling faintly, his thin lips closed over the tooth-ridges.

  I backed up two steps. Did not holster the gun. Faint starlight gilded its metal. “The chain, Perry. Hurry up.”

  He smiled, a good-tempered grin with razorblades underneath. It was the type of smile that said he was contemplating a good piece of art or ass, something he could pick up with very little trouble. His eyes all but danced. A quick flicking motion with his fingers, the scar plucking, and a loop of darkness coiled in his hands, dipping down with a wrongly musical clashing. His left hand snapped forward, the darkness solidified, and the Trader jerked again, a small cry wrung out of him.

  Ikaros’s eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed. Spidery lines of darkness crawled up every inch of pale exposed flesh, spiked writing marching in even rows as if a tattoo had come to life and started colonizing his skin.

  Perry’s hands dropped. The Trader lay in the dust, gasping.

  The Ringmaster sighed, a short sound under the moan of freshening breeze. “He is your hostage.” Now his cane had appeared, a slim black length with a round faceted crystal set atop it. He tapped the ground twice, paused, tapped a third time with the coppershod bottom. The crystal—it looked like an almighty big glass doorknob except for the sick greenish light in its depths—made a sound like billiard balls clicking together, underlining his words. “Should we break the Law, he will suffer, and through him, I will suffer. He is our pledge.”

  The Trader struggled up to his hands and knees. The collar sparked, once, a single point of blue light etching sharp shadows behind the pebbles and dirt underneath him. He coughed, dryly. Retched once.

  Perry grinned. The greenish light from the Ringmaster’s cane etched shadows on his face, exposing a breath of what lived under the mask of banal humanity. “May your efforts be fruitful, brother.”

  “No less than your own.” The Ringmaster glanced at me. “Are you satisfied, hunter? May we pass?”

  “Go on in.” The words were bitter ash in my mouth. “Just behave yourselves.”

  Ikaros struggled to his feet. He moved slowly, as if it hurt. I finally lowered the gun, watching Perry. Who was grinning like he’d just discovered gold in his underpants.

  The Ringmaster took the Trader’s elbow and steered him away, back toward the convoy. Their engines roused one by one, and they pulled out, a creaking train of etheric bruising, tires shushing as they bounced up onto the hardtop from the access road and gained speed, heading for the well of light that was my city below.

  Last of all went the limo. The Trader slumped against a back passenger-side window, and the inside of the vehicle crawled with green phosphorescence, shining out past the tinting. Its engine made a sound like chattering teeth and laughter, and its taillights flashed once as it hopped up onto the road and passed the city limits.

  Jesus.

  Perry stood, watching. I swallowed. Took another two steps back. The scar was still hard and hot against my wrist, like almost-burning metal clapped against cool skin.

  I waited for him to do something. A conversational gambit, or a physical one, to make me react.

  “Goodnight, sweetheart.” He finally moved, turning on his heel and striding for the limousine.

  It was amazing. It was probably the first time in years he hadn’t fucked with me.

  It rattled me more than it should. But then again, when the Cirque de Charnu comes to town, a hunter is right to feel a little rattled.