If one of them moved on me now, it would give me cause to get the hell out of here without spending quality time with Perry.
I wasn’t as comforted as I could be by the thought.
As soon as the last one had left the room, I lowered my whip. The gun swung around, fixed on Perry while I dug in the padded pocket. The number displayed on the pager’s display couldn’t have been more welcome.
Montaigne. Which meant there was another body. Or three.
Which also meant Perry would have to wait. Guilt curled hot and acid under a bald edge of relief. What did that say about me, that I was glad about someone’s murder because it would get me the hell out of here?
I looked up from the pager, trying not to let the relief show. It was useless, he saw it anyway and his smile broadened, cold sweat bathing my back.
“It’s the police.” I had to work for an even tone. “I’m on the job, Perry. You’re going to tell me what you know now, and I’ll come in to pay you when this is over.”
He didn’t move, but his eyes darkened slightly. “I have waited an entire month for the pleasure of your company, and I don’t intend to deny myself that pleasure any longer.”
Oh, Christ. God help me now. “Tough.” The gun settled, pointed right between his eyes. He wasn’t a low-level grunt like the ‘breed at the door. If I popped him in the head, it might just make him angry. “Bodies in the street take precedence over our bargain, Pericles. You know that. Start talking.”
“I could talk to you for hours, dear one.” His tone had turned silky, and the scar throbbed. The heat in my lower belly dipped down, and I had to choke back a sharp inhaled breath. He was doing it again, using the scar to fiddle with my internal thermostat and mimicking the physical aspects of desire.
It had to be a mimicry. Whore, the voice in my head snarled. Just like a goddamn whore.
God help me, but it felt familiar. Did he guess that was where I was weak? How much did he know about me? About my past?
Stop it. Mikhail made you stronger than this. Don’t let Perry get to you.
I set my jaw. He liked playing with the scar while I was near him. Each time I visited it was the same—him messing with my pulse and my nerves, trying to make me respond.
At least I wouldn’t have to use the flechettes this time. Or my whip.
Most of the time, he liked to be strapped down, and he liked to be cut while he bled the blackish ichor of hellbreed. Sometimes he would even talk while he made me cut him, and that was the worst. The closest he came to worming inside my head was while I was frantic with loathing at what he told me to do, cursing myself for ever making the goddamn bargain despite anything Mikhail ever said.
Oh, God. Come on. Get me out of here. “Stick to the point, Perry, or I’ll track it down from the other end. That’ll mean I won’t come in when it’s done, since you’ve refused to help.”
“When have I ever refused you anything, Kiss? I could give you so much more than you’ve ever dreamed.” His voice dropped, and the lights dimmed, candle flames twisting and hissing, sputtering as darkness spilled through the air. Silver shifted and chimed in my hair. The chain holding the ruby was a thin thread of fire, the ruby’s setting hot against the hollow of my throat. It had never singed me yet, but each time I wondered.
My legs were shaking. I braced my knees. “Cut the crap. Give me what you have on this hellbreed. That’s my final word, Pericles.”
“You’re no fun.” He sounded genuinely regretful, but that smile was like sharp rocks under icy water, just waiting for naked feet. “All we have is her name and her general description. Fair, but with dark eyes, and for some reason, allied with a Were. Surprising, no? She is far from her master and should be returned. Which we have undertaken to do. We cannot, after all, have our vassals going about with animals. It destroys the general sense of order so necessary for a smoothly running society.”
“Why is she hanging around with a Were?” And a rogue one, to boot. My mouth was parched, the fumes of the Jack Daniels I’d taken down reaching my head. I hadn’t eaten; my body was starting to get that funny shaky feeling it usually did just before Perry ordered me to strap him into the frame and start.
I knew that shaky feeling. It’s the same thing as when your body rebels and tries to collapse on you, but your mind won’t let it.
Sometimes he wanted the knives. Most of the time it was the flechettes, razor-sharp and silver-plated. On a few very bad nights he made me use my fists until his preternatural skin broke and bled, and the only sounds would be my sharp exhales of effort and his low, bubbling breath right before he gurgled More.
Just the single word. Each and every time.
I’d given up wondering why he wanted me to hurt him. Maybe it was just another move in the game he played, trying to get inside my head. Maybe he couldn’t get it anywhere else. Still, my mouth tasted sour and my hand felt like it was shaking, though the gun was steady.
“If we knew, Kismet, I would not be allowing this show of defiance from you, however charming I find your homicidal little displays.” He finally moved, waving one elegant finger at me. “When I receive more information, I shall bring it to you.” A meaningful pause. “Personally.”
That’s mighty nice of you, Perry, Not like you to be so accommodating. “Who’s her master, then?”
“A certain gentleman in New York. One who is most displeased with her disobedience, and intends to teach her a lesson as soon as she is returned to him.” Perry’s smile broadened. “See what a very good boy I am being, my dear? And all for your sake.” Two of the candleflames died under the weight of his voice, and his hands came down, curled over the ends of the chair arms. He pushed himself up to his feet, very slowly, his eyes on mine the entire while.
New York? Jesus. The master of the Big Apple’s hellbreed was so old and frightening I’d heard even the city’s contingent of hunters steered clear of him. I hoped the one looking for this hellbreed was just a smaller fry from that pool. “Fine. Thanks for the information.” Slowly, so slowly, my thumb came up and uncocked the gun. It took all my fading courage to holster it. “If this pans out I’ll have the mayor give you a medal.”
“Stay with me for ten minutes, Kismet.” His tone had turned soft as velvet, cajoling, and the stretched-wide smile was gone, replaced by a look of utter seriousness that might have been almost human except for the indigo staining the whites of his eyes. “Only ten minutes. I will forgive your visit this month and wait until the next if you stay with me for that short while.”
Shock threatened to nail me in place. This was something new, and my busy little brain started worrying at it, trying to decipher his angle. “You’d give up this month’s visit for ten minutes now?”
He stood at the end of the table, looking up at me. Two more candles snuffed, then another two. The light darkened, even more bloody now. I should have felt a little better, having the physical high ground here.
I didn’t.
“Ten minutes now, and I will forgive your payment on our bargain this month. My word on it, Kiss.”
I wish he’d stop calling me that. I licked my lips, wished I hadn’t when his eyes fastened on my mouth. “I don’t suppose you’d forgive next month’s too.”
That earned me a sardonic look. He said nothing, merely stood there, and just that much was enough to make a shallow trickle of sweat trace its way down the channel of my spine.
“Fine. Starting from when I came in the door.” I backed up, hopped off the table without looking, and breathed out through my mouth. The two ‘breed I’d killed stank.
He didn’t even quibble. It was a bad sign. “Come here.” He indicated the seat on his left, the one that had been empty. “Sit… there.”
I walked slowly down the table, my coat rustling and creaking. Here in the meeting room the floor was mellow hardwood, not linoleum. More candles snuffed, and my breath came short and sharp. I looked at the chair, tested it with one finger, and sank down in it.
The i
ron was hard, and cold. Velvet and horsehair pillows did nothing to stop the chill from biting immediately through the layers of my coat and leather pants. The ruby at my throat sparked, a single bloody point of light in the charged silence.
“Good,” Perry murmured. He lowered himself down in the tall chair. “Put your hands flat on the table.”
I swallowed. Did it, the mirrorshine surface cold and slick under my sweating palms. The last of the candles died. I was alone in the neon-lit dark with Perry and two rotting hellbreed corpses by the door.
God, do not forsake me now. Then I quit praying. God was fine, but He was often busy. It was up to a hunter to pick up the slack.
Perry exhaled, a soft sound of satisfaction like a sheet drawn up over a cold dead face.
What is he going to do? Best not to guess. Best just to wait and see.
It was, after all, bound to be unpleasant.
When his hand came down over my right wrist I started nervously. “Shhh.” He made a low cold hissing noise, maybe meant to be soothing. “Be still.”
His skin was warm, and felt human except for its supple invulnerability, like metal made flesh. The shell of a hellbreed, hard to breach without a lot of luck and firepower.
Silver. Lots of silver, and lots of luck. I swallowed again, pressed my hands into the table. If I killed him,
would his mark fade? Do I chance it? If Mikhail was here…
But Mikhail, like God, wasn’t here. I was on my own.
“Have you visited your teacher’s grave?” Perry’s voice was so soft I almost didn’t catch the words, my every nerve strung tight.
What the hell? Mikhail’s grave, where his ashes were buried in consecrated ground, its headstone with curved Cyrillic script scored deep into granite, hoping to last a little longer than other, more perishable things. Like flesh. Or memory.
Bile rose in my throat again. I made no reply. It was all part of Perry’s game, trying to worm his way into my head. Less than ten fucking minutes, and I’d be free for another month.
“Answer me, Kiss. Have you?”
My mouth was so dry I had trouble with the word. “Yes.”
His thumb moved a little, a slight flexible movement. The mark jolted another wire of unhealthy heat through me, my ears suddenly picking up sounds from the rest of the building. Creaks. The rumble of Helletöng. Running water from the bar. If I looked down with my smart eye I would see the mark flushing with power, swelling with corruption.
“And?”
“And what?” Don’t Perry, Keep your fucking mouth off Mikhail’s name. But I wouldn’t say it. That would be like blood in the water.
“Did his ghost rise to comfort you?”
“No.” I poured out a bottle of vodka, though. Wherever he is, he’s sleeping sound. I drew my breath in, shut my eyes. Exhaled.
“You need some small comfort.” His thumb moved again. “You allow me so little. I could help you so much more.”
If this is a sample of your help I’ll go my own way, thank you. I bit back the words. He hadn’t asked me a direct question, I could get away with silence. It was the safest course.
Perry made a small annoyed sound, his fingers suddenly biting down. Small bones in my wrist creaked and crackled. The pain was almost a balm.
“Why do you make this so hard?”
I found my voice. “Make what so hard?” I don’t need to make this hard. You do that very well, thank you.
Besides, the harder Perry found this game, the better I liked it. It gave me an edge.
He tried again. “Think of what it could be like.” His tone had dropped to a murmur. “If you sat here, with me at your right hand. Imagine what I could do with you to direct me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for your asking, my dear.”
I had to swallow a braying, hysterical laugh. “You’re hellbreed.” It was all I needed to say. If I bit into the apple of that offer, the snake wouldn’t be far behind. It was the same old song. Take a little, then a little more, and before you knew it you were up to your eyeballs in filth—your own, and a good deal more.
What makes you different, Jill?
I knew what. Mikhail had made me different. And as long as I was true to him and what he taught me, I was on the side of the angels.
Figuratively, of course. God needs killers as much as Hell does, I guess.
Maybe more.
“What kind of hellbreed?” Perry sounded only mildly interested.
I had to admit it. “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” Now there was amusement, the lazy grin of a shark evident in his voice. “All I ask is that you turn a very little, Kiss. Just a very, very little.”
It was a jolt of cold water. He could fiddle with the scar and try to worm his way in all he wanted, but Perry was just too fucking impatient to crack me. And I wasn’t a stupid teenager anymore, ready to believe anything a man told me.
Just a little bit. I’ve heard that line before. Just do something small for me, and I’ll give you everything you ever wanted. How stupid do you think I am, Perry? I set my boots against the floor, tensing in every muscle. “We have our bargain. You won’t get anything else from me.”
As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. My wrist ached as Perry squeezed, a fraction of a hellbreed’s strength enough to make sweat break out along the curve of my lower back.
“I have enough time. I’ve broken stronger Traders than you.”
So I’ve heard. Since I’d already pissed him off, I might as well go with it. “I’m not a Trader.” I’m a hunter, and one day I’m going to kill you too. When I do. Perry, I’m going to throw a party afterward. Hell, I’ll have it catered and bring out the barbeque. If II be a red-letter day.
His fingers eased up on my wrist, caressed the back of my hand, and finally slid between mine. How could such a small touch feel like such a violation?
I flinched, yanking my hand back, but those gentle fingers turned to steel again and pain tore through the hard knot of the scar as he pulled my hand up, turning the palm toward the ceiling and baring the pale glimmer of my wrist under the pushed-back cuff of my coat.
“Naughty, naughty,” he murmured, as if I was a puppy. An edge of delight coiled under the words. He’d made me react.
Good for him.
His mouth met the scar, something cat-rasping against my skin, a brief caress.
I set my jaw, my neck aching with tension. Perry chuckled, a low satisfied sound, his breath oven-hot and swamp-wet against my skin as I went rigid in the chair, an invisible knife twisting in the scar, tangling and ripping at nerve-strings. Great pearly drops of water stood out on my forehead, my neck, the curve of my lower back, the backs of my knees.
At least it was pain this time, and not the sick gasping-sweet heat of the first time his lips pressed into my flesh, his aura injecting a nugget of corruption into mine. Pain can be controlled, even if it’s your skin being torn off one millimeter at a time. Even if it’s the nerves themselves turning traitor and running with hot acid.
Even if it went on until I made a small betraying sound in the back of my throat, instantly swallowing it. It was a half-broken, hurt little cry, as if I’d been punched.
Immediately, he let go, his head coming up, his fingers sliding free of mine. My hand fell limply to the table and I slumped, the sudden relief almost enough to wring another sound out of me.
Perry let out a long breath, jagged, as if he had just finished spending himself. It was an intimate sound, and I cringed away from it. A filthy feeling circled my skin, as if I’d pressed my naked body against a cold grimy windowpane.
Silence returned, neon buzzing finally intruding on my ears like a bee caught on a dead dry windowsill.
I was shaking. I pressed my hands into the table’s slick glassy surface and wished I could kill him. The need to get up, to empty a clip into his body, to flick the whip forward and listen to him scream like an arkeus—the temptation shook me. Like a dog shakes a toy in its sharp teeth.
�
��You may go.” Dark amusement burbled under his light even tenor. “Unless you want to stay, my dear. I’d like that.”
“Fuck you.” It managed to come out steady. I pushed myself up to my feet, managed to stand. Sweat cooled icy on my forehead. The charms in my hair tinkled. “I won’t be back until next month.”
The urge to kill him shook me even harder. A physical need, like the need to eat or empty my bladder or even the need to breathe.
Kill him, one part of me whispered. You can do it. It might not be easy but you can do it.
The rest of me dug in heels and resisted. If I killed him now, I’d be violating the bargain. And I knew what that would make me in my own eyes.
Just as bad as the things I hunted, that’s what.
The amusement intensified. Perry sounded almost goddamn gleeful. “You’ll see me before that. Tell your friends from the government I’m hunting their little problem, too. We’ll be quite a cozy little bunch, won’t we. Like family.”
I could have replied, but I didn’t. I hit the broken door at a run, his laughter rising behind me, and got the hell out of there.
Chapter Eleven
I ducked under the yellow tape and breathed out through my mouth. Foster hopped down from a Forensics van and hurried over, his dark-blue windbreaker glaring wetly under the afternoon’s heat haze.
I still felt cold, and more shaky than I liked to admit. Especially since I’d gotten off easy. Way too easy for Perry. He usually liked to mess with me more.
I had the sick unsteady feeling that he probably would before this was over.
Don’t think about that. I blinked the thought back and met Foster’s eyes. “What do we have?”
The gully at the edge of Percoa Park was stony and full of trash, and I smelled the thunderous odor of the thing I was chasing, but with no exotic taint of hellbreed. My hair was dry from the heat in the Impala, both windows rolled down, but salt still filmed my skin. I hadn’t even managed to stop for a burrito. My stomach was unhappy, and the rest of me wasn’t too prancing-pony either.
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