Huntress

by Christine Warren, Marjorie Liu, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclaine

  Quickness counted in this kind of situation, and it looked like Lilli had that advantage over her opponent. She executed a quick pirouette on one heel, sweeping the other leg out in front of her and knocking the man’s legs out from under him just as he tried to scramble to his feet. He hit the concrete with a grunt. Shifting forward, Lilli planted her palms on the floor and vaulted herself back onto her feet. She intended to throw herself right back into the fray, but something stopped her.

  Across the space that separated them, Lilli met the man’s grim, hazel gaze, then watched it shift to his left. She followed his sightline and felt a surge of excitement when she saw what he was looking at. On top of the disordered desk across from the bottom of the stairs lay a huge leather-bound manuscript of certain antiquity. Lilli recognized it instantly from the images Samael had shown her. She’d been right; the Praedicti codex was in this house and almost in her grasp. She could practically taste her freedom. Between her breasts, the pendant seemed to pulse with anticipation.

  Renewed determination flowed into Lilli. Jerking her attention back to the last obstacle in her path, she launched herself into an attack. Two lunging steps built her momentum so that when the man in front of her finally gained his feet, one of hers instantly whipped around and plowed straight into his stomach.

  That was the idea, anyway. To her surprise, he reacted with unexpected speed, sweeping his arm down to knock her ankle up and away from its target. A quick balance adjustment allowed her to keep her feet, but it cost her a couple of steps backward. Raising her hands into a defensive posture, she danced forward until she came within arm’s length of him and punched the heel of her hand up toward his nose.

  Again, he moved quickly. He slid to the side and turned his head in time with her blow so that the impact softened and glanced off his cheekbone instead of sending shards of bone and cartilage up into his sinus cavities. Before Lilli could follow through with the other hand, the man in front of her stepped back and began to mutter something under his breath.

  ShitshitshitSHIT!

  Again with the magic. Lilli did not intend to stand around and let someone cast spells on her, no matter what job she was here to do and no matter how much his glasses made her contemplate what it would be like to try to fog over the lenses. Quickly, she looked from the magician to the manuscript and calculated a few angles in her head.

  Here goes nothing, she thought as she lowered her head and took a deep breath.

  Several things happened in the next moment: the sorcerer in front of her raised his right hand and aimed his open palm at Lilli’s chest; Lilli bent her knees, gathered her strength, and threw herself into a flying somersault in the direction of the desk; and the open manuscript of the Praedicti Arcanum seemed to rustle its pages with a restless air of discontent.

  “What the hell?” she heard the man—now behind her—roar as she landed hard where a wheeled desk chair had been sitting, sending the seat spinning and the entire chair rolling crazily into the far wall.

  Not bothering to look around, Lilli made a grab for the book and gave a breathless cry of frustration when a body slammed into her back and pinned her to the surface of the short filing cabinet beside the desk. She tried to scramble forward, her fingers stretching toward the book, but a large, masculine hand attached to an arm with much greater reach shot past hers and shoved the manuscript off the other side of the desk. She cursed as she heard it thud to the ground.

  Ironically, so did the man on top of her.

  “I. Need. That. Book!” she grunted and shot her elbow back into her attacker’s ribcage.

  She heard the dull thunk of the impact and his hoarse shout of pain, but the bastard didn’t move. That pissed her off. Gritting her teeth, Lilli pushed her hands into the top of the cabinet and tried to gauge her amount of wiggle room. With his hips pinning hers and his abdomen pressing down on her lower back, she didn’t have much.

  Still, a girl always had options. Letting him take her weight, Lilli lifted her feet off the floor, spread her legs, and hooked her feet around the backs of her opponent’s knees. At the same time, she arched backward, raised her hands off the cabinet, reached back, and boxed his ears firmly.

  The man behind her roared in pain, surprise jerking him backward. Unfortunately, with Lilli’s feet hooked around his knees, he couldn’t step back. He lost his balance and toppled onto his ass, curses ripe enough to peel paint coloring the air around him. Lilli tried to untangle her legs from his before he hit the ground, but gravity moved faster than she did. She landed on top of him and rolled off immediately.

  Tucking her knees under her body, she attempted to hurry to her feet, her hands reaching automatically for her second misericorde when the magician’s fingers shot out and shackled her left wrist, pinning it to the floor. His other hand pressed against the center of her chest while the tip of her sharp, narrow blade pressed hard against his, directly above his heart.

  Stalemate.

  “You might be able to stick that knife in my heart before I can stop you,” he panted, his breathing as hard and rough as hers, “but I’m not sure you want to bet on it.”

  Lilli hesitated. Was speed really the question here? She had no desire to kill this man for the sake of a damned book, even less when she thought about who had sent her after the book in the first place. She had taken this job as a way to free herself from Samael once and for all; if she killed for him, he’d own a piece of her for eternity.

  Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t bluff.

  “I like to gamble,” she said, deliberately stripping her voice of all emotion, making it hard and cold and deadly. “People tell me I have the devil’s own luck.”

  “Go for it then. If you think you can beat me to the punch, why don’t you demonstrate?”

  Lilli frowned. “You want me to kill you?”

  “I already said I’m not sure you can.”

  His voice sounded taunting, but his eyes were deep and serious. There was something in them that tugged at her. Lilli had been a hunter for years; she’d been in situations once or twice where she’d had to kill something, so she’d seen what eyes looked like when the light went out of them. She didn’t want to see his eyes that way.

  “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “If you think you’re that fast, prove it. Try to kill me.”

  Cursing, she turned aside her blade so that the flat of it pressed against the man’s faded black t-shirt. From behind the desk nearby, she almost thought she heard a rumble of discontent.

  “You first,” she snapped, jerking her wrist free of his surprised grip.

  Slowly, cautiously, the man took his hand away from his threatening position over her heart and pushed himself into a sitting position. “How about you answer a few questions for me before I make up my mind?”

  “Name, rank, and serial number?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe later. But first, why don’t you tell me what you want with the Praedicti Arcanum?”

  FOUR

  Aaron watched the woman’s face as he pushed to his feet and took careful note of the emotions expressed there.

  “Personally?” she asked. “Not a damned thing.”

  She didn’t appear to be lying, but that didn’t make sense. “I saw you make a grab for it, and I assume that’s why you’re here. Are you a professional thief?”

  “At the moment, what I am is damned sore.” The woman rose—her five feet and six inches looking much more impressively feminine when they weren’t concentrating on breaking his bones—and slapped her hands against her flanks, sending a cloud of dust flying from the seat of her pants. “You might not look like a linebacker, but you pack a hell of a punch when you’ve got gravity on your side.”

  Aaron fought back a surge of pride at that. He’d never been a terribly physical guy, and he’d been afraid that he was the only one who felt like he’d just failed to outrun the bulls in Pamplona.

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” he said. “Are you some kin
d of professional burglar, or is breaking and entering a hobby of yours?”

  She appeared to consider that for a minute before she answered. “No, more of an occupational hazard.”

  “In what occupation?” he demanded, attempting to mask his confusion with impatience. “What exactly is it that you do?”

  “I’m an authorized Appearance Enforcement Agent.”

  “A what?”

  She sighed as if she’d expected the question and yet had been hoping not to hear it. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

  “A bounty hunter?” he repeated incredulously. When in God’s name had he entered a surreal parallel universe? “I’m obviously missing something. How about we start again? I’m Aaron Bullard, and this is my uncle’s house. Who the hell are you and why did you break in and try to steal the Praedicti Arcanum?”

  “Lilli Corbin.” She gestured to the knife she’d dropped in their earlier struggle and raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind if I pick that up?”

  “That depends on what you’re planning to do with it.”

  “Just put it away. I promise. The blade is warded, and I’d hate to lose it.”

  Aaron couldn’t say he felt completely reassured, but he nodded his permission and only twitched a little when she picked up the misericorde. Sliding it into the sheath along her leg, she even went so far as to resnap the hilt guard. How much more could a guy ask?

  “Now what about question number two?” he prompted when she seemed content to keep quiet.

  Lilli frowned. “What?”

  “You never answered my second question,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and fixing her with his fiercest stare. “Why did you break in and try to steal the Praedicti Arcanum?”

  Damn, he had a good memory.

  Lilli took a good look at the man in front of her and weighed her options. In her experience, people often reacted negatively to hearing you were working for a Prince of Hell, and she really had no desire to tussle with this guy again. He might look like a bit of a wimp, but he was surprisingly wiry. And intriguingly hard. She’d hate to tell him the truth and then have to knock him upside the head and steal the book while he was unconscious. Not to mention that, given the demonstrations he’d offered earlier, she thought she’d do well not to underestimate his magical abilities. A power blast to the head would not improve her mood for the remainder of the evening.

  On the other hand, she was disinclined to lie. Telling the truth made her life easier, so Lilli always tried to stick to it where possible. It kept her from forgetting which lie she’d told earlier, and given the sort of company she tended to keep when she was on a job, a secret part of her had always assumed she had less wiggle room than the next guy when it came to keeping a pure soul. She also just flat-out revolted at the idea of lying for Samael, which was what this would feel like since he’d been the one who sent her here in the first place.

  Maybe, this time, omission was the better part of valor.

  Actually, the last thing she wanted was for there to be a next time. Her new mantra was “Get it over with!” She might even work it into a tattoo, one that featured an hourglass that seemed to run faster the closer she got to her goal.

  Time to lay the tarot cards on the table.

  “I was hired to retrieve the book by a client who claims that it was stolen from him.”

  Aaron barked out a laugh. “You’re trying to tell me that you think Uncle Alistair was a thief? Lady, I don’t know who your ‘client’ is, but you need to go back and explain to him that my uncle wasn’t the type to cheat on his taxes, let alone steal from someone. You’ve come to the wrong place.”

  Lilli watched his face as he spoke. He clearly believed what he said. In fact, his expression so clearly telegraphed his thoughts, she had a fleeting hope that he never acquired a taste for gambling. He’d suck at poker.

  “Actually, I don’t think I have,” she said steadily. “I’m not a take-his-word-for-it kind of girl. I did a little research before I came out here, and from what I hear, Alistair Carruthers was asking some pretty detailed questions in the last couple of weeks before he died. The kind that wouldn’t just tell him what the manuscript was and where to find it, but the kind that could help him decide what to do with it if he happened to have it in his possession.”

  Aaron shrugged, but a crease had appeared between his brows. It gave him an intent and worried sort of look. “So what? Asking questions about something has nothing to do with owning it. I can ask questions about the Book of Kells, but I think Trinity College and the Irish government would have something to say if I claimed to have it in my basement.”

  Hm, he had books on his mind, did he? Maybe that was a sign. “Oh, and did you visit Dublin just a few days before they noticed the book was missing?”

  He stilled. He hadn’t been moving, but stillness suddenly gripped him like a fist, tightening before her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  Lilli hesitated only a second before she laid it all out. No guts, no glory. “My client claims that he has evidence that Alistair Carruthers was on his property a few weeks before his death. He would have had ample opportunity to find and take the codex and to conceal it before my client got around to noticing its absence.”

  “If that’s true, then it’s likely any number of people would have also had access and opportunity in that same time frame. How does your ‘client’ intend to prove that my uncle was the one who actually stole it?”

  “Um, I’m not sure he’s really worried about offering proof …”

  “Well, he should be. Unless he’s prepared to produce a bill of sale or some other documentation of his claim of ownership, I doubt there’s a court in existence that would support a claim of theft and order the artifact be returned to him.”

  She snorted. “Record keeping is not my client’s forte. Mr. Bullard, while I didn’t see a bill of sale, my research turned up no evidence proving your uncle’s ownership, either; so I have no reason to dispute S—, um, my client’s claim.”

  “Well, I do. I know my uncle, and I know he was not a thief. I’ve seen the man give back a penny of change to a store clerk if it was a penny too much. His family has lived in this town since it was founded. Heck, his family founded it. Honor and honesty were everything to him. But he was supposed to have broken into your mysterious client’s house and made off with an item as valuable and unique as the Praedicti? I have no reason to doubt that my uncle came by his ownership of the text in a completely innocent and above-board manner.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you some kind of lawyer?”

  “No, a curator. Why?”

  “No reason.” Lilli shifted and sighed. “Look, this obviously isn’t getting us real far. I came here to get the book. I was hoping I could do that quickly and discreetly, but we both know that didn’t happen. Now, we could turn this into a legal battle and pit you against my client and let you two duke it out to see who can prove they really own the thing, but I doubt anyone would want to do that. My client wants the manuscript. I have a feeling he’s willing to do a lot to get it. Why don’t you tell me how much you want to sell it back to him? I’ll run the number by him and see what we can do.”

  “I don’t think I feel comfortable with that. Not when I know so little about your client. You haven’t even told me his name. He could be completely the wrong sort of person to allow to take control of the Praedicti.”

  “There’s a right sort of person?”

  “Absolutely.” When she opened her mouth below a rather offended glare, he bowled right over her. “You’ve already admitted that I know more about the codex than you do. Given the context of this conversation, I’m going to take it to mean that you also fail to understand what exactly the Praedicti is capable of.”

  “It’s a book. I pretty much figured it was capable of lying there and being read.”

  “And that’s it?”

  She scowled. “I already made sure that it wasn’t cursed or enchanted in any way. And it�
��s obviously not a spellbook. So what else could it do? Prophecies don’t cause future events, they just speculate on what they might be.”

  “In general, yes, that would be the definition of predictions; but the predictions in this book aren’t general. They are highly specific and are divided into two groups: the first set predicts events like the spread of the plague across Europe, the Norman Conquest, even the execution of Joan of Arc.”

  “Right. I don’t see how that’s the sort of thing that becomes dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  He ignored her. “The second set predicts the course and outcome of a great apocalypse brought about by the unleashing of the fury of Hell upon the mundane world.”

  “The Revelation of St. John does the same thing,” she pointed out impatiently.

  “Yes, but St. John doesn’t preface his vision with a recipe for how to accomplish that unleashing.”

  Lilli froze, felt herself go cold. “The Praedicti does?”

  “Add a sprinkle of brimstone and bake at three-fifty until golden brown.”

  She closed her eyes and groaned.

  “Well, shit.”

  FIVE

  The coffee had gone cold while Aaron and Lilli tried to kill each other, but it didn’t take long to boil the kettle and fix another pot. Pouring a cup for each of them, Aaron set Lilli’s in front of her and then slid into his own chair across the kitchen table.

  “Thanks.”

  “I suggest starting at the beginning.”

  “That would take way too long. There’s just too much.”

  “Sum up.”

  She took a drink, lingered over it, obviously stalling. “A few years ago, I was doing a job that involved tracking down a particularly bloodthirsty goblin.”

  “I thought you said you were a bounty hunter.”

  “I am. I specialize in non-human tracking, capture, and rendition.”

  “Non-human?” Aaron repeated. “You mean visitants.”

  She made a face. “I’ve always hated that term. Doesn’t it imply that they’re visiting from somewhere else? Because I can guarantee that most of what I go after is completely homegrown.”