Lilith Saintcrow: Angel Town

Which meant it wasn’t very much like prison at all.

Once I was dressed and the gun was checked, cleaned with a just-bought kit, and set on the flimsy bolted-down nightstand, I lay down on top of the cheap chintz bedspread and let out a long sigh. The ruined, filthy clothes were in a plastic bag; I’d dump them elsewhere. Something told me it was best to leave no traces.

My hair was already drying, raveling up into dark curls. I was pale, and the face in the mirror was nothing special except for the mismatched eyes. Long, thin nose, mouth pulled tight and thin, bruise-colored shadows under said eyes almost reaching down to the prominent cheekbones. I looked half starved. I was hungry again.

Who the hell am I?

Evidence: one silver ring with Cyrillic script inside, one gun, one weird gemlike thing implanted in my right wrist. Speed and strength enough to take on four men without breaking a sweat. Of course, there was the little matter of Martin Pores and his vanishing Mercury, but if I had just dug my way up out of a shallow grave maybe I’d hallucinated that bit and just wandered around dreaming of diner food.

I couldn’t rule that out.

The only other thing was the tattoo. A black tribal-looking scorpion, high up on the inside of my right thigh. It itched and tingled, but maybe that was only because I’d scrubbed at it, thinking it was dirt.

My hands were capable and callused. My battered feet were healed, too. No sign of the bloody mess they’d been after walking miles of highway. Even if I’d just been wandering around in a hallucination, I’d been shoeless and bleeding. But now you couldn’t tell.

For some reason, I turned my head and looked at the window. My hair felt weird. Like there should have been something in it. Lots of little somethings digging into the back of my head. Tiny gleams, little hard things.

For just a moment I had it, but it slipped away again. Frustration rose hard and hot in my throat, I swallowed it.

I knew my first name. I knew I didn’t have a problem killing someone, but I preferred not to.

At least, not when they’re human. When they’re something else…

Something else?

“Maybe I’m insane.” My own voice caught me off guard, hit the flimsy walls and bounced back to me. “That’s an option, too. Consider all the alternatives, Kismet.”

Kismet?

Another light turned on inside my head. Jill Kismet.

That’s who I am. But who is she?

I waited, but nothing else came up. It was daylight. Sleepytime, because daylight was…safe.

I tested that thought. It felt right. “Daylight’s for sleeping,” I whispered. “Night is when I work.”

Well, that was comforting to know. Or not.

I closed my eyes, told the gnawing in my belly to go away, and waited for dusk.

It was as good a plan as any.

I reached down with my left hand, slowly. Pushed my right sleeve up, heavy leather dried stiff with blood and other things. Unsnapped the buckle. Dropped the cuff on the floor, and turned my wrist so she could see.

The air left her all in a rush, as if she’d taken a good, hard sucker punch. “Jesus,” she finally whispered, the sibilants lasting a long time. “Jill—”

“This stays between us.” I was now back to sounding like myself, clear and brassy. All hail Jill Kismet, the great pretender. “I’m going to take care of it.”

She didn’t disbelieve me, not precisely. “How the hell are you going to do that ?”

I shrugged.

She read it on my face, and another sharp exhale left her. “And if…”

I suppose I should have been grateful that she couldn’t bring herself to ask the question. So I answered it anyway. “If it doesn’t work, Anya, you will have to hunt me down. No pity, no mercy, no nothing. Kill me before I’m a danger to my city. Kill Perry, too. Burn him, scatter the ashes as far as you can. Clear?”

She grabbed the absinthe bottle. Tipped it up, took a good, long, healthy draft, her throat working. “Shit.”

“Promise me, Anya Devi. Give me your word.” Now I just sounded weary. My cheek twitched, a muscle in it committing rebellion. The scar cringed under the assault of sunlight, I kept it out. The pain was a balm.

She lowered the bottle. Wiped the back of her mouth with one hand. “You have my word.” Quietly.

I dropped my right hand. With my left, I pulled the Talisman up. Freed the sharp links from my hair, gently. It was hard to do one-handed, but I managed. I took six steps, laid the Eye on the table. The sunsword quivered. “For Gilberto. Will you…”

“You don’t even have to ask. I’ll train him.”

Then she offered me the bottle.

Tears rose hot and prickling. I pushed them down. Took a swallow, the licorice tang turning my stomach over and my cracked lips stinging. When I handed it back to her, she didn’t wipe the mouth of the bottle. Instead, her gaze holding mine, she lifted it to her lips, too.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard, so hard I tasted blood. The thought that it would be tinged with black made my stomach revolve again. There were so many things I wanted to say. Things like Thank you, or even, I love you .

Because I do. We are lonely creatures, we hunters. We have to love each other. We are the only ones who understand, the only ones who will ever understand.

Except I wasn’t a hunter anymore, was I?

“I need a car,” I croaked. “It won’t be coming back.”

When I woke, the dream faded. For a second I had everything, it trembled inside my head…then it was gone. And I needed to go, too. Dusk was rising, and something told me the hotel might not be…safe. The need to get out and move itched under my skin.

I found out something else, too: I liked heights. I especially liked gliding along rooftops like a ghost, peering into the streets below. Looking for something I couldn’t define while dusk rose from every corner, cloaking the city in peculiar static heat, the rising wind bringing me an oddly familiar tang of river as everything exhaled.

Preparing for the plunge into darkness.

Everything about it was familiar. Even the shapes of the city streets, the arterial bloodflow of traffic, the quiet neighborhoods and the back alleys, the parts that lit up only when the light failed. And yet, everything was unfamiliar—the sneakers were too light, and I felt oddly naked. Like I should have more, a heavy weight on my shoulders and something flapping at my ankles, something on my face and those little weights tied into my hair. Not to mention the fact that my left hand kept dropping to my side like it expected to find another gun. Or something else.

The city revolved inside my head. I knew the street names, sometimes only after I dropped down to their level and looked around a bit. The town clung to the banks of the river, a big granite Jesus on top of a hospital downtown spread his arms in a menacing blessing, nightclubs pounded and weird things skittered in the shadows. Every building greeted me with a secret smile, little bits of the geography whirling like snowflakes until they settled against the rest of my mental map.

It was next to the granite Jesus, looking out over all those tiny dots of light, that something else stirred inside my aching head. I crouched in Christ’s spreadeagle shadow, watching the very last dregs of light swirl out of the sky, and sniffed the wind. Even in summer, nights out in the desert can get chilly. No trace of moisture in the air, but a thin faint thread of something candyspiced and wicked tickled my nose.