Angel Town

by Lilith Saintcrow

  You hold what you got to. He wasn’t old enough to know how true that really was. “Yeah.” The water slid over my hands. I scrubbed them against each other as if they had blood on them. Which, given my job, was a good possibility. The sink was chill white porcelain, and it felt good to just let the water carry everything away.

  Jill, you’re hiding. What the hell?

  He offered it, the sharp links dangling from his fist. There was a healing scrape across the back of his left hand, looked like matburn. How was Devi finding time to spar with him, if there was a war on Weres and all sorts of other shit going on?

  The Eye’s gleam sharpened, and the stream of water over my hands warmed. I shut off the faucet and flicked my fingers. “Keep it. It’s safer with you.” Because if I take that, I’m going hunting for Perry. And that is probably what he wants, so it’s a Very Bad Idea.

  Gilberto shrugged, his shoulders hunching. “You went off to dance with la Muerta, profesora. Months you been gone, and things going to hell.” He acknowledged the pun with a curled lip, and the Eye hummed slightly in his grip. The chain trembled a little, its links scraping.

  Like lovers’ fingernails. I knew what that felt like.

  Gil watched my face. “What you gonna do? We drowning. Losing turf every day, and la otra cazadora ain’t got time to see the half of it. Weres getting squeezed onto Mayfair and the barrio, and I’m not thinking Mayfair gonna hold out much longer.”

  I shuddered. Mickey’s was out on Mayfair, the only Were-run restaurant I knew of. Plenty of nightsiders caught a meal or a cuppa joe there, and it was relatively neutral ground.

  Neutral, that is, as long as the hellbreed hadn’t declared open war on Weres and were making it dangerous during the day. This was all sorts of wrong, and it pointed to something big.

  Trust Gil to put it in terms of a gang war, too. It actually wasn’t a half-bad metaphor.

  The Eye quivered, dangling from his fingers. Every inch of skin on me prickled, as if I were standing on a flat plain right in a thunderstorm’s path, the tallest thing around.

  “Profesora?” The trembling in him was more pronounced. “What we do now?”

  Like this wasn’t a disaster in progress I didn’t have a clue about how to start solving. It was like five shots of espresso and a bullet whizzing past, like dusk falling, a jolt that peeled back layers of confusion and woke me out of a stupor.

  My apprentice was counting on me. Every soul in this city was counting on me to figure out what the ’breed were up to, and fast.

  Why else had I been sent back? I’d said that. They sent me.

  Sent, brought, what the hell, didn’t matter. I tipped my head back, rolled my aching shoulders in their sockets. Leather creaked, and the gem on my wrist sent a little zing through me, a needle-sharp nerve-thrill.

  Vacation’s over, Jill. Get back to work.

  Everything clicked into place. My chin came down and my eyes opened. I tapped two damp fingers on a gun butt, thinking, and Gil’s face eased visibly.

  “Profesora?” No longer tentative, but he was waiting for direction. The Eye made a low, dissatisfied sound.

  “Put that thing back on, Gil. You’re my apprentice; it’s yours. I’ve got to go downstairs and break up that fight.” I took a deep breath. “If I’m going to go between, it’s better sooner than later. Anya’ll hold the Eye while I do; it’ll even drain it and solve two problems at once.”

  It was a great plan. It might even have worked.

  * * *

  The kitchen wasn’t quite in an uproar. Still, Theron had wisely taken himself off somewhere, probably to the greenhouse.

  Weres don’t like conflict.

  Galina stood near the butcher-block island, her hands up, glancing from one end of the room to the other like a tennis spectator. Saul, near the door to the hall with his arms folded and legs spread, actually scowled at my fellow hunter. “You’re not. And that’s final.”

  “I am not even going to—” Anya halted, glancing at me as I appeared in the doorway. A curious look spread over her face, and she dug in a right-hand pocket, still frowning at me. She fished out, of all things, a pager, and glanced at it.

  That’s right. I was dead, so she took over the messaging service. Either that or it was transferred to hers. I wonder if Monty moans at her about replacement costs, too.

  “Montaigne,” she said, flatly, and I almost started. “Shit.” She stalked for the phone by the end of the counter, and Galina’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

  “Hey.” Saul’s arms loosened. The circles under his eyes were fading, and I wondered how long it would be before Galina started feeding him, too. He was still too damn thin. “You okay?”

  “Peachy.” I did what I should have done in the first place—reached out, touched his bony shoulder. Fever heat bled through his T-shirt, and I reeled him in. He came willingly enough, and when I closed my arms around him he let out a shuddering sigh. He’s taller than me, but his head came down to rest on my shoulder, his entire body sagging, and I held him. Slid my fingers through his hair, and I was still stronger than even a strictly human hunter. Because he leaned into me, and I held him with no trouble, just a little awkwardness.

  “You don’t even smell the same,” he murmured. “But it’s you. It is.”

  Was he trying to convince himself? My heart squeezed down on itself, hard. What could I say? It is me, don’t worry? That was ridiculous, and a lie, too.

  I wasn’t sure just who I was, right now. And even though I didn’t want him to worry, there wasn’t a hell of a lot else he could do.

  And really, it was time to worry. It was time to worry a lot.

  “It’s me,” Devi said into the phone. A long pause, and the tinny scratch of another voice over a phone line brushed at the tense silence. If I concentrated, I could hear it more clearly.

  I didn’t. I stroked the rough silk of Saul’s hair. “It’s okay,” I whispered, and the sheets of energy cloaking Galina’s walls lightened.

  Go figure. For once, I was being soothing. Should’ve known it wouldn’t last.

  “Really.” Devi tapped her fingers on the counter, once. Frustration or impatience or habit, I couldn’t tell. “Okay. Tell Eva to keep them away from that place, have her hold Sullivan and Creary there so we can question them. Do not let them go any closer to that—yeah, okay, I know you know. And relax. I’ve got good news for once.”

  Another short pause, then a jagged little laugh. “Very good news, Monty. Keep your hat on and have faith. We’re on our way.”

  Faith? That’s not anything I’d ever say, Devi. Sullivan and Creary—that would be Sull and the Badger, homicide detectives. Eva was one of the regular exorcists working Santa Luz’s nightside, handling standard cases and calling me in for anything out of the ordinary.

  Devi smacked the phone down like it had personally offended her. “Galina? I need an ammo refill. And some grenades.”

  “Got it.” Galina sounded relieved to be given something to do. The herbs in the bay window breathed out spice, basking in a flood of sunlight that was no longer pale and brittle with winter. She took off at a dead run, her slippers whisking the wooden floor as the house settled with an audible thump. Her robes swished lightly.

  Anya’s attention turning to me was a physical weight. “Jill?”

  Saul stiffened, but I kept stroking his hair. “That was Monty.”

  “It was. Saddle up, change of plans.”

  “Good deal.” I tried not to feel relieved, failed miserably. “What’s boiling over now?”

  “Missing rookie cop. Vanner. Something about him being at a crime site and going shocky-weird?” Anya’s tone was light, but the inside of my head clicked and shifted.

  I let Saul draw away. “Vanner. I remember him.” Called him Jughead. Was always running across weird scenes. “Where did they find him?”

  “Eva brought him in a week after you disappeared. He was up at New Hill—”

  I blinked. Goddammit. “What was w
rong with him?”

  “Catatonic. I gave him a looksee, but there was nothing we could do. They kept him in one of the barred rooms at the Hill; two days ago he vanished.”

  Jesus. A chill walked down my spine. Vanishing from a barred room at New Hill is a Houdini act and a half. The last I’d seen of Vanner, he’d been in shock, in the back of an ambulance, after seeing me fight hellbreed-controlled corpses. “Vanished. Out of a barred room. Okay.”

  Anya nodded, the beads in her hair clicking as braids fell forward. “Well, Creary found him. She called in Eva, and as soon as that Faberge-painting bitch showed up, the rookie made a beeline for guess where.”

  “Where?” But a sick feeling began under my breastbone, a spot of heat like acid reflux.

  I had the idea that I already knew where Jughead Vanner was going. It made a sick kind of sense, like cases start to do once they heat up.

  Anya’s mouth drew down at both corners. “Where else? Henderson Hill. The old one.”

  I couldn’t even feel good about guessing right. Of course. Of course it had to be the one place a regular exorcist—and many nightsiders—wouldn’t go. A psychic whirlpool of agony, fear, and degradation, especially since the great demonic outbreak of 1929, when the inmates had ceased being prey for sadistic jailors and turned into a buffet for Hell’s escaped scions.

  Ever since ’29 hunters have been not just mostly outnumbered. We’d been outright fighting a losing battle, for all that we give it everything we have—and everything we can beg, borrow, steal, multiply, murder, liberate, or otherwise get our hands on.

  It is not enough.

  And what the hell was Vanner doing heading for that place?

  Anya watched me, very carefully. Like I should know something else.

  I kept my hands away from the gun butts with an effort. My face was a mask. I did know something else about that place. Or, more precisely, there was someone I suspected I’d find at Henderson Hill. Someone I wanted to talk to.

  If he would talk. If I could make him talk.

  So I ignored the tiny chills walking all over me. “Let’s go.”

  “Not without me.” Saul’s hands actually turned into fists, his shoulders squared as if he expected round however-many-they-were-at-now.

  I reached, once again, for diplomacy. It was a goddamn miracle. “It’d be nice if I could go with Devi to watch my back, and you stay here and fuel up. I can pretty much tell you’re not going to go for that.”

  I was right. Again. When I didn’t want to be.

  “What part of everywhere do you not understand?” The question was mild enough, but his hands curled into fists again, and weariness swamped me.

  The old me would have argued, or at least given it the old college try. He was safest here in Sanctuary…but he’d been taken from the street right outside. I remembered that. I remembered Galina telling me to calm down when I found out, up in the greenhouse. I remembered burning rubber out to the Monde, and something there waiting for me. Something huge, a thing I bumped up against the edges of, my brain shying away like a skittish horse. The black cloth bulging over that memory was wearing thin, little bits peeking out through its moth-eaten, merciful darkness.

  Right now he’s safer right where you can see him, Jill. So you can make sure nothing happens to him. Or you can kill whatever touches him.

  With this amount of ammo and my knives securely strapped in, not to mention the creaking-new bullwhip, it sounded doable. More than doable.

  It sounded good.

  And if it saved me from descending into the chaos of between to look directly at whatever had happened to turn my memory into Swiss cheese and kill me, then bring me back…well. Maybe I was a coward for feeling relieved, but it was getting to where I didn’t care as much as I should.

  “Fine.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. “Get ready, then. You’d better go armed.”

  19

  Out of the four of them, Eva took it best when we showed up. Sullivan went even paler than usual, only his receding coppery hair under his bleached-out Stetson showing any color. His thin hands twisted together, and he drew himself up and back into the inadequate shade provided by a warehouse’s side as if I might not notice him if he hid well enough.

  Montaigne, in an ill-fitting sports jacket despite the heat, stared. His bulldog jaw dropped, and he hadn’t shaved in a while. Cigar smoke drifted across his scent, and the tang of whiskey. There were bags big enough to carry a week’s worth of luggage under his eyes.

  The Badger was actually in a tank top and jeans, the white streak at her temple glowing and her round, pale face sweating. She is, like some heavy people, astonishingly light on her feet, and many a perp has been surprised when he thinks the rotund little lady cop’s the easiest one to escape or overwhelm. She acquired her nickname even before her streak began, working a downtown beat and quietly, in her own unassuming way, taking absolutely no shit from anyone. Right now she stared, and I had the uncomfortable idea that coming back from the dead is not guaranteed to keep you any friends.

  Eva, slim and dark, hopped down from the hood of Avery’s Jeep and strode toward us. She gave Devi a brief nod, looked curiously at Saul, and swept her long hair back over her shoulder.

  Devi contented herself with nodding back, for once, and moved over into the shade. Sullivan let out a sound that might’ve been an undignified eep, quickly turned into a cough.

  “Nice to see you.” Eva blinked under the assault of sunshine, wiping her fingers on her jeans. “Christ.”

  Thanks. I was dead. I didn’t glance back at the truck, where Saul leaned against the hood. The silver in his hair was bright starring, and he munched slowly on an energy bar while his eyes took in the street in controlled arcs. “Vanner. He was catatonic the whole time?”

  “About as long as you’ve been AWOL, sweets. Ave and the boys will be happy you’ve shown up.”

  “You still dating Avery?”

  She shrugged, and a small smile lifted the corners of her cheerleader-pretty mouth. And she apparently got the message, because she glanced away up the hill. “Sometimes I let him think so.”

  Even in the sun, you could feel a suggestion of a chill draft. She was right at the edge of the Hill’s etheric shadow, and the only surprise about that was how far the stagnant bruising in the fabric of reality had spread.

  Should really do something about that. But what was there to do? Banefire might burn the whole place to the ground and leave a blessing in its wake…but that amount of bane might turn into just-plain-fire at the edges, and with the slumped warehouses and converted offices hunching around here, we could be looking at a huge burnout.

  Before, the scar would have provided me with hellfire. But hellfire around this sort of stagnation and misery would just drive the scar in deeper.

  And with all the Hill’s accumulating force to fuel it, it would spread even further. No, hellfire was so not a good idea.

  “Good deal. So, yeah. How did Vanner present?”

  All the amusement fell away. “Catatonic. Both me and Devi scanned him, he was…inert. In every possible way. I checked him weekly over at New Henderson Hill.” She glanced up the street and actually shivered, her tiny gold-ball earrings winking before disappearing behind her hair and her safari jacket rippling. “Now?” Her shoulders hunched. “I think something’s riding him.”

  “Possessor?” It was a risk, but they didn’t usually go for men. Well, it was about 60–40 in favor of females. But Possessors favored morbidly religious middle-class shut-ins, not reasonably irreligious rookie cops locked up in asylums.

  Still, anything’s possible, and he’d gone shocky after brushing up against the nightside. And even before that, Vanner had shown up at a fair number of odd homicide or burglary scenes, crimes with a nightside connection.

  We’d even joked about it. Or at least, Badge and Sully had.

  Eva shrugged. “I don’t know how he would’ve caught one, and there’s no marks. He disappeared from New Hill tw
o days ago, hasn’t slept or eaten that I can tell. Slippery little fuck, whatever it is, but altogether too active to be a Possessor. Plus, it doesn’t smell right.”

  Out of the four regular exorcists, Ave comes closest to being a hunter candidate through sheer adrenaline-junkie insanity. It’s Eva who comes closest through cool calculation and the tendency to be three or four steps ahead of everyone else.

  They make a good pair. I was actually hoping Avery wouldn’t let her slip through his fingers the way he usually lets women go.

  “So. Smart, mobile, smells different than a Possessor…” I tapped at a gun butt. “All right. You can take the cops and head out as soon as Devi’s done. And be nice.”

  She spread her hands, a plain silver band on her left index finger flashing. “Bitch is the one with the problem, Jill. Not me. Can I just register how happy I am to see you?”

  Likewise. If you only knew. “Duly noted. Hey, how have cases been lately?”

  “Hopping. We’re all working for the cops now, not just Ave, and on shift so we can get some sleep. It’s never been this bad.” And there it was, printed all over her dusky, weary face. The transparent, slightly squeamish relief you see when you show up to handle the weird so people can go back to Happy Meals and vodka tonics. Or what passes for normal to an exorcist. They’re good souls, fighting the good fight, and some of them could almost be hunters.

  But not quite.

  “No worries. We’re on it.” I restrained the urge to clap her on the shoulder. Eva most definitely did not like to be touched. I wondered how Avery managed it.

  “Yeah, well, it’s been getting progressively worse the longer she’s been here. I mean, she handles it, Jill. But she’s not you.”

  Oh, for Chrissake. “She’s a hunter, Eva. Come on. I want to talk to the cops and then send you guys home. Monty’s not sleeping again, is he.”

  “Murder rate’s spiked. The media’s blaming it on the heat, but…” Another shrug, her hands spreading. “Not just murder but all sorts of fun. Rape, arson, assault, and enough weird to make it feel like thirteen o’clock all day. We’ve gotten to the point where even triage isn’t helping.”