Hunter's Prayer (22 page)

24

I
had never been so glad to see my own four walls again. The warehouse clicked and rang as I collapsed on the couch, keeping a wary eye on Belisa as she moved to perch on a chair opposite, glaring at me through her good eye while she clasped the pack of ice to the other side of her face. When she wasn’t avidly peering at the interior and the furnishings, that was.

Storing up little bits of deduction to mindfuck me with later, no doubt.

Perry stood slightly behind her. He was immaculate, gray suit, the first two buttons of his crisp white dress shirt undone, his shoes shined to perfection. He looked very satisfied with himself, in his bland blond sort of way.

Belisa was moving gingerly, and her blue silk shirt was crumpled, her slippers were battered. It had probably been a hell of a fight, but for tangling with Perry she was strangely unharmed. I wondered if it was because I’d threatened him.

Not likely.

Saul went straight for the kitchen. I heard the cupboard opening, glass clinking. “Anyone who wants whiskey better speak up now,” he said, calmly enough.

“God, yes.”
Oh, Saul. Thank God for you.
I rested my head against the couch’s back, almost beginning to feel like I could breathe again. Leather creaked, I hadn’t bothered taking my coat off.

“If you have anything decent, I’ll take it.” Perry’s eyes rested on me. Under the leather cuff, the scar ran with rancid flame, trailers of heat sliding up my arm. Smoky desire, sliding through the map of my veins as if he was touching me, running his fingers up the inside of my elbow.

I didn’t look away, but I did clamp down on my self-control. I was vulnerable now, exhausted after expending so much power. And any time human animals get close to death, sex is the easiest thing to tempt them with afterward. “Belisa?” I kept my tone neutral.

She almost flinched, recovered. “That would be nice.”

Perry leaned on the back of the chair. “What?” It was a soft inquiry, and I saw the blood drain from her face.

She looked terrified, and I couldn’t blame her.

“That would be nice, mistress.” All the color had leached out of her tone too. She shivered, hunching her shoulders.

Mistress.
The term for a bitch-queen, a Sorrow higher in status than herself. What had Perry done to her? Abruptly, I felt sick all the way down into my stomach. He’d found her and brought her, and from the looks of it she’d resisted; and now he was rubbing it in. For her benefit, and also for mine; just to drive home that I owed him for bringing her in.

Christ. Well, you knew what he was when you struck the bargain, Jill. Don’t pretend otherwise.
“Drinks all round, then.” I sank into the couch.

The two cars full of naked women had made it to the police station; Montaigne had left a message on my answering machine, alternately swearing at me and thanking me, then swearing at me again. I’d sort it out later.

Right now I had other things to worry about. A few clipped sentences in the Impala, with Perry’s limo right behind, had laid out the chain of events for me: Saul had gone into the barrio and poked around, not finding much of anything until Perry showed up with Melisande Belisa in tow and a long thin iron-bound case—the firestrike spear Father Guillermo knew was hidden under the altar in the seminary’s main chapel, a secret kept by Sacred Grace since its inception. Perry swore whatever was inside should kill the wendigo.

The catch? He hadn’t actually opened the case yet. Both of them felt my wild plunge into the barrio, Saul had left Perry to corral the bruised and beaten Sorrow and set off as fast as he could to find me and either kill the thing chasing me or buy me enough time to escape.

He didn’t want to talk about killing it, and he didn’t want to talk about how the spear had burned his palms.
It doesn’t matter,
was all he would say.
It’s fine.

Saul brought the bottle and four glasses. He poured, slamming the bottle down when he was done, and left two glasses on the table. He handed me a glass half-full of amber liquid. He took his own and settled on the couch, and I wished I could cuddle up next to him, feel his heat.

But he was still angry, the musky fume of fury hanging on him. He was wound tighter than a clockspring, I knew enough to leave him to himself right now. Werecats are dangerous and unpredictable; if he snapped now I would have to calm him down the old-fashioned way. The thought sent a spike of heat through me, cleaner heat than the spoiled spillage of the scar, and I tossed down half my drink in one motion. I didn’t think Perry and Belisa were to be trusted poking around the warehouse while Saul and I attended to some demons of our own.

Besides, there was this redhead bitch of a Sorrow to catch.

But first things first. “So Rourke lied. It wasn’t Saint Anthony’s spear. I
knew
there wasn’t such an artifact.”

Saul shrugged. Belisa leaned forward, took a glass, and handed it up to Perry, flinching. Then she took the last one for herself.

I don’t think I like the looks of that.
I eyed her over the rim of my own glass. Whiskey exploded in my stomach, another clean brief heat as my metabolism burned through it.
I’m alive. Alive. Thank you, God. I’m alive.

Saul’s tone was carefully neutral. “Gui didn’t want to lie to you, but he’d taken an oath to keep the secret. I wonder what else they’re hiding in there.”

I don’t care right now. Sort it out later, too.
I shivered. The thing had glowed, white-hot, and part of the smell of burning had been Saul’s hands charred down to the bone. “How are your fingers?”

He wriggled them, almost fully healed. I caught a flash of pink scarring rapidly shrinking. “Hurts a little. But fine.” He spared me a tight smile, the corners of his mouth and eyes crinkling. Even though smoky musk rage pounded in the air around him, he still wanted to put me at ease.

I love you.
The words choked me for a moment. I looked back into my glass. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “So
you
were looking for the spear, too. And your brother.”

Belisa hunched her shoulders, staring into her glass. The warehouse creaked and muttered around us. The ice crackled against her face; her other eye, black from lid to lid, seemed oddly unfocused. “The plan was simple. We were to find the spear, kill the creature, and bring back Inez Germaine. Use her to buy our way back into the good graces of our House. It was my inattention that allowed my brother to escape, and we were both due for punishment and liquidation once we were returned unless we achieved something … extraordinary, something that could be legitimately seen as needing an escape as part of the plan. I visited him, explained the plan; he was to bring me the firestrike once he found where it was hidden. The New Blasphemy priests hid it well, and we were running out of time. When I visited him he had
still
not located the spear. And our House sent the Chaser for my brother, and—”

“And I got involved. So you decided a little mindfucking was in order?” I couldn’t help it.
I should kill her right now. Goddammit, she killed Mikhail and she’s sitting on my goddamn couch. In his house, the house he gave to me. Goddammit.

“I know you have reason to hate me,” she said evenly. “You’ve killed my brother. Tit for tat, we’re even. Are you happy? We have less than a day before the evocation of the Nameless will alter the balance of power in every Sorrows House in the
world.
Inez isn’t just playing in your little city, hunter. She will be a new Queen Mother above even the Grand Mothers, and we will—”

I choked on my whiskey, my protest that he had cracked his own poison tooth with no help from me dying in my throat. “Wait just one goddamn second. Less than a day? But the end of the cycle isn’t until—”

“It’s tomorrow. Your calculations are off. They usually are, when you add the Gregorian calendar to the mix.” Belisa’s shoulders hunched even further. “We are doomed. All of us, doomed.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake.
“I’m not going to give up yet. When
exactly
does the cycle end? Tomorrow,
when?
”

“At 1:15
P.M.
And thirteen seconds.” She eased the ice away from her face and took a gulp of the whiskey. She looked as dejected as it was possible for a Sorrow to look, but her black eyes were oddly empty. As if they were painted on.

Perry took a small mannerly sip, raised his eyebrows, and took another. But he was crackling with awareness; he looked ready to leap on Belisa if she so much as twitched. I found that comforting—but still, seeing her flinch away from him rubbed me the wrong way.

Hard.

I finished mine and reached for the bottle. The bottle neck chattered against the mouth of my glass. I poured myself a tall one.

“Jill?” Saul. Carefully, quietly, his
you want me to kill someone or what?
tone.

“One in the afternoon.” I settled back on the couch, leather creaking. The charms in my hair chimed, shifting, the scar on my wrist pulsed as Perry’s eyes rose to meet mine. Why was I looking at him? Because he was right in front of me, and I didn’t want to look at Belisa. “Will freeing the human sacrifices help stop it?”

Belisa shrugged. “For an evocation of this nature, she would keep them close at hand. The ones you freed were probably decoys, or only to reward her human tools. You said they had been used?”

Used.
What a pretty little euphemism. “They were raped.” My voice was flat, and loaded with terrible anger. “Probably repeatedly.”
They’re probably going to need therapy for the rest of their lives.

Belisa nodded. “And several of the victims were pregnant?”

I nodded. The ruby nestled in the hollow of my throat was comfortingly warm.

“Then it’s simple.” She took another gulp of whiskey. “The harvested fetal tissue is probably to provide a base matrix for the Unnamed’s entrance and physicality. She’s going to create a
Vatcharak
—an Avatar.” Admiration, probably unconscious, shaded her voice. “The other organs went for cash to build her new House, and still others went to feed the creature. Which was insurance, I would guess. The chain around its neck carried a powerful control spell. I wonder if she created it herself?”

I don’t know and I don’t care.
“Why dump the bodies?” Of all questions, that was probably the most useless, but the one I most wanted to have answered.

“Probably because she had run out of places to hide them. And also, every place where a victim of this evocation lay slain would become a node-point when she succeeds in bringing the Unnamed through.”

“A node-point.”
I sound shocked.
“Of course. So the Avatar could have ready-made taplines into the ambient energy of the city, draining it like an orange. Which would widen the psychic scar in the ether and give it a
hell
of a lot of power.”

She nodded, like a teacher pleased with a good student. “Very good. I begin to see why your file is red-flagged.”

“Red-flagged? Forget it, I don’t want to know. Why did this bitch pick my city, huh?”

“You allow no House here. No House, no scrutiny by other Sorrows who might discover her plans.”

What, so it’s my fault?
I swallowed the flare of temper and closed my eyes, tilted my head back against the couch, and swore inwardly. Blew out between pursed lips, not quite a whistle. “Jesus
fucking
Christ.”

“I can get almost every Were in this city ready in a few hours,” Saul said tentatively.

“And there are hellbreed who can be coerced—” Perry began, his voice a dark thread, for once not supercilious.

Well, would you look at that. Even Perry’s scared.
“Not enough time. And once this is dealt with, there’d be a free-for-all I’d have to sort out.” I sagged into the couch.
Tired. So fucking tired. I need a vacation. God. How many other graves are there out there, do you think? And other bodies. God. Dear God.
“Why a wendigo?”

“I suspect she came across it in her travels and thought it could be useful. She was in the Alps, and there have been … stories.” Belisa shuddered.
“Chutsharak.”

Curse my curiosity, I had to know. “What is a
chutsharak,
anyway?”

“It’s House slang, not the ceremonial shorthand-garbage you know. It means—well, the best translation is,
oh fuck.
” Belisa managed to sound amused. “Or something of that nature. It depends on inflection.”

Well, one mystery solved.
For a moment I was tempted to just curl up on the couch and go to sleep. Just let whatever was going to happen, happen. The animal inside me just wanted to bury itself in a hole and sleep off the shakes and unsteadiness that came from almost-dying.

Silence crackled, tense and deadly. Unbidden, padding soft and clean into my head, came the sound of Mikhail’s voice. Not singing the prayer in Russian, but growling it out in his accented English, every word a slap against the gray cotton of shock and apathy threatening to close over me. My own voice following along, uncertain and tired, but strong enough.

Cover me with Thy shield, and with my sword may Thy righteousness be brought to earth, to keep Thy children safe. Let me be the defense of the weak and the protector of the innocent, the righter of wrongs and the giver of charity. In Thy name and with Thy blessing, I go forth to cleanse the night.

That is what you swore,
Mikhail’s voice continued.
That is what you prayed. And that is what you will do, milaya.

I gathered myself. When I opened my eyes I found Perry and Belisa staring at me. Black eyes and blue, waiting avidly. For what? It was in Perry’s interest to keep me alive—at least, until he got tired of my resistance. And Belisa? If she could get me to distract this Inez bitch for long enough, she might have a shot at stepping into her shoes.

I rolled my head along the back of the couch, looked at Saul. He was staring into his glass, the musky smell of anger draining away.
Look at me, Saul. Please. Let me know what you’re thinking.