Night Shift

Chapter Seventeen

Stasis. The world slowing down, stopping, as the hellbreed stared at me, force crackling over him in an egg-shaped shield. Everything hung in the air—drops of blood, shattered bits, a Trader falling from the roof where he had tried to get some height to leap down on Saul Dustcircle, who had finished rolling aside and was ready for him, a Bowie knife somehow appearing in his hand, a random dart of light jetting from the blade.

Goddamn Weres and their damn little camouflage tricks.

The 'breed's eyes met mine. He was old, and I bet he'd produce hellfire in at least the green spectrum. Anything above red is seriously bad news, and anything above yellow means kiss-your-ass-goodbye-hunter-it's-time-to-die.

Unless you have a share of hellbreed strength yourself. I drew in an endless breath, the tatters of my coat brushing out on a breeze coming from nowhere, my own aura extending, spiking with a random pattern of brightness. A hunter's aura: disciplined by the training and each exorcism I've performed, a hard shell of etheric energy that makes sure I stay in me—and nothing else gets in.

The sunsword roared with flame, more than I'd ever seen, a tail of orange and yellow like the sun's corona spiking up to touch the ceiling, heat shimmering.

I dared him, silently, and knew that he read it in my eyes, in the slight lift of my chin and the way my fingers grew almost soft on the hilt. You never, ever clutch a sword, it makes the strike inaccurate.

His answer was just as slight—a shifting of weight, an infinitely small smile lifting the corners of his sculpted lips. I realized he was grinning under his thatch of wet-dark hair, and I saw again, noticed again, his eyes were almost completely black. Infinitely black, with a pale shimmer like disoriented oil floating on the top of a deep sucking tarn. Those eyes were deadly, threatening to suck me in and drown me.

Riptide. Grabbing, whirling, sinking, arms and legs weighted with lead, even my eyelids suddenly drowsy, heavy as a guilty conscience and just as deadening.

Why are his eyes so deep? The thought glittered like a flung knife, like one of my knives, flying true, its load of silver along the flat of the blade—where it couldn't be sharpened off—hissing with white flame as it streaked under the 'breed's uplifted arm and socked home in his ribs. The sound, a heavy solid thunk like an axe driven into dry wood, smashed through my head as the sunsword swept down, painting a fiery streak after its edge.

The clash—sunsword versus hellbreed—was like Mack trucks colliding. The Shockwave threw me back, clutching at the hilt, feet scraping in debris shaken down from the roof. The collision blew every bit of glass in the place, including the lightbulbs and the bottles over the bar. The 'breed screeched, no murmuring rush of Helletöng now but a wounded scream, and there was a rushing confusion.

The sword dimmed. Darkness closed almost-absolute around me, light filtering down through the shattered roof as I gasped, my eardrums rattling and a hot wet trickle of blood sliding down from my nose, matching the hot trickles dripping out of my eyes. I collapsed to my knees, only vaguely aware of Saul Dustcircle's arm under my shoulders as I bowed over backward, fingers still loose around the pommel but other muscles tightening up, convulsing. The scar prickled, wetly, a satisfied little lick that sent revulsion spinning down through my stomach.

Don't throw up, Jill. You're alive, you survived, don't puke. Not in front of the Were.

"What the fuck was that?" He sounded a little less than calm. A lot less. It was the first time I've ever heard a Were actually sound frantic.

Don't worry, country boy. Everything's under control. I wanted to reassure him, but my mouth for once didn't obey my brain.

"You threw my knife," I whispered.

Then I passed out.

It was only a brief second of unconsciousness. I came to right afterward, the sunsword quenched and weighing down my hand. I heard footsteps crunching through smashed and shattered bits. The reek of dead hellbreed and crisped Trader was incredible.

A slight sound to my left brought me fully back into myself. The scar ran with wet heat, as if hot, inhuman breath was touching the ridged skin.

"Look at this mess." Perry finished lighting a cigarette, flame caressing his face with gold for a moment before he clicked the lighter shut. My eyes stung, then adjusted. We'd caused a hell of a lot of damage. "I am going to be hard-pressed to make amends for this, Kiss. You really do know how to complicate matters."

Oh, Christ. Not now. I coughed and choked on the reek, wetness smearing my cheeks. Blood or tears, I couldn't tell. The sunsword keened a little, metal vibrating as it cooled. The red glimmer in its hilt didn't quite go out, but I could tell it would need several hours of direct sun to recharge it. Time to use Galina's greenhouse again.

Am I still alive? A mental inventory returned the verdict that I was, indeed, still alive. And conscious. Plus possessing all my usual bits and pieces.

Hallelujah.

"Who the fuck is that?" Dustcircle jerked me upright, rising to his feet with one fluid motion and dragging me with him by default.

"Friendly," I managed, between whooping retches. I bent over, and my stomach did its level best to rebel against the rest of me. It was declaring its own country and seceding from my union, so to speak.

"Doesn't smell friendly," the Were muttered. "Are you all right?"

He doesn't smell friendly because he isn't, but if you jump him it's going to get real ugly in here real quick. I got in enough air for a word. "Fine."

"You'd better put a leash on that Were of yours," Perry remarked. He stood in a fall of orange citylight creeping through the shattered ceiling. The fires, all of them, were snuffed. And it was cold. My breath made little icy puffs as I gasped. The red eye of Perry's cigarette winked as he inhaled, the smell of burning tobacco and another darker perfume cutting through the death-reek for a moment. "Do you know what you just did?"

Miracle of miracles, the amount of breath I could get in doubled. Enough for two words. "Fuck… you."

"Charming. Do you think we should? It would certainly put a whole new shine on our relationship. I repeat, my dearest, do you know what you just did?"

I just cleared out the Random and almost got hooked like a fish by a 'breed with dark eyes and probably an accent. You know how I am for those tall dark and gruesome boys. I couldn't get in enough oxygen to say it, settled for glaring at him between retches. Silver in my hair chimed, and Saul rubbed at my back over the shredded rags of my trenchcoat.

I didn't have the heart to tell him to stop.

"Take it easy," he murmured. "You looked dazed."

No shit I looked dazed, it almost had my guts for garters. "C-compulsion." My teeth chattered over the word. "Christ."

Never. My brain shuddered, came back to itself. Never met anything like that before. Jesus Christ. Mikhail, why didn't you tell me about this? I could handle everything a lot better if you were here.

The heaves stopped, and Saul steadied me until I could stand again. "Made a hell of a mess." His voice was back to calm and even, maybe even a little disdainful. "Nice trick, with the sword."

Nice trick, hell. You saved me by throwing my own knife. Is it the one I tossed at the Trader who almost jumped you? There were more pressing questions. I held the ember-dim sunsword away from both of us, awkwardly, and shook him off. Faced Perry over the heave-cracked floor of what had been, a very short time ago, a thumping, jiving Trader nightclub.

I sure know how to throw a party, don't I. "What the fuck are you doing here, Perry?" It came out hoarse, and my throat burned with bile even though I was forcing my stomach to stay with the program.

"Saving your delicate skin from being peeled off in strips. Do you know who that was?" The hellbreed cocked his head. He was pristine in a pale suit, as always, and the lamps of his eyes scored a hole in the darkness. They weren't deepening to indigo yet, which was a good thing. If Perry got seriously pissed off, I was in no condition to handle it right now.

"Some jackshit little hellbreed with a nice pair of eyes." I waved my left hand, dismissive. My apprentice-ring ran with blue threads of light, not breaking the surface of the silver yet but close. "I repeat, Pericles, what the everloving fuck are you doing here?"

"I told you, saving you. You just committed violence against Navoshtay Niv Arkady." The faint orange light caressed his pale hair, sliding over its smoothness.

I froze. Passing out again began to sound like a really good idea.

"Who?" Saul didn't sound impressed.

My lips were numb, so Perry answered for me.

"The head hellbreed of New York and the accompanying territories, Were. Our little Kiss just clocked the highest-ranking 'breed on the East Coast—here on diplomatic business, I might add—over the head and gave him a sunburn. And you tossed a knife into his ribs." Perry actually, damn his eyes, sounded pleased as punch at the thought. "Oh, Jill, my pretty little Jillian, do you have any idea what you are going to owe me when this is all over?"