Lilith Saintcrow - Heaven's Spite

Hellbreed and Traders aren’t known for impulse control.

Inside the box were glinting shapes that refused to make sense for a moment. I exhaled, hard, as if I’d been punched.

Mikhail’s voice, from the secret space inside my head he always occupied. Sekhmet is Eye of Ra, and this is Eye of Sekhmet. Been passed down, milaya, from hunter to hunter in Jack Karma’s lineage. Before the first Karma we know little. But this is Talisman he had, for whatever reason. Is for my little snake when I am gone, no?

And then I was there in that shitty little hotel room, Mikhail’s life gurgling out through the hole in his throat and Melisande Belisa’s tinkling laugh echoing as she fled. With this Talisman clutched in her spidery little fingers. It had probably bought her up quite a few ranks in the Sorrows’ arcane and crowded hierarchy.

My shot went wide. Perry rammed into me, we slammed into the wall across the living room. Drywall dust puffed out. His fingers closed around my right wrist, squeezing . Bones ground together and the scar sent a sick wave of hot delight up to my shoulder, his fingertips plucking as if my arm was a string instrument. He pressed against me, his other hand worming at my hip, looking for my whip handle. And there was something hard in his pants, too. Shoved right up against me as if I wasn’t a hunter.

As if I was what I had been before Mikhail plucked me out of that snowbank.

A knife handle smacked into my left palm. I jerked it free and cut , the blade going in with little resistance. Silver in my hair and at my throat rattled and crackled, spitting blue sparks showering his marred, ichor-streaked face. He was grinning madly, and I didn’t dare blink while I sheared through whatever served him as stomach muscle, finishing with a twist, and brought my knee up.

He recoiled, I heaved him away. The gun came down, but he knocked the barrel aside as I squeezed the trigger again. The bullet whined, dug a furrow out of the floor, and buried itself in the wall between living room and my bedroom. The scar shrieked with pain, napalm rubbed burning into skin.

My leg came up. I kicked , the blow unreeling, boot smashing solidly into his belly. A gush of black ichor pattered free. He folded over, arms wrapped over his stomach, and hissed, baring his teeth. The mask of bland normality slipped for a moment, and troubled air swirled in two points behind him, above his shoulders. The buzz of flies rattled everything in my living room, and the etheric protections laid in the walls tolled once like a bell.

It was a shame I couldn’t consecrate the warehouse’s grounds and keep him out of here permanently. I’d give up my monthly municipal check for that. But no—I’m a hunter, not a priest.

He fled, and I tracked him with the gun. My aim wasn’t off—I plugged him twice in the back before he nipped smartly down the hall, footsteps too light to be human, hitting the ground oddly.

It was only after the front door banged closed and the sound of him running—northward, toward the meat-packing district and the Monde Nuit—faded too much even for my hellbreed-jacked hearing that I slumped against the hole in the wall. I tore my gaze away from the hall and stared at the box on the table.

Hard darts of silver glitter spiked up from the Talisman. My legs were unsteady. I made it, step by uncertain step, across what seemed like acres of floor, my boots gripping through a thin stinking scrim of hellbreed ichor. When I could look into the box fully, my smart eye watering and hot tears slicking that one cheek, I saw that it was, indeed, the Eye.

The ruby at my throat was a pale imitation of this barbaric red gem in its rough silver-claw setting. It glowed fierce crimson, darts of light shimmering into white glow at the edges. Its chain, large silver links that looked sharp enough to cut, was broken. Spilling out of the box, vibrating in place, the Talisman rattled as I drew closer.

I halted. But the necklace just vibrated more intensely on my coffee table, next to the stack of Home Beautiful and Cook’s Illustrated Saul was always reading. A thin curl of smoke rose from the paper of the box.

Is it going to burn me? I was acutely aware of sweat touching the curve of my lower back, blood and hellbreed contamination all over my clothes, the scar humming a soft little chortle of corruption on my right wrist. And who was I kidding? Both my cheeks were wet, because my eyes were brimming with tears.

My throat clicked as I swallowed drily and blinked away the water, looking for traps. He’d had plenty of time to lay them, but I saw nothing except the burning etheric smear of an angry and awake Talisman. The smell of burning intensified.

The Talisman hummed, plucking at the strings under the world’s surface. But not like a hellbreed. No, this was music. It was humming along with the song that naturally unmade things. The same music that triggered landslides and catastrophes, a great harmonic resonance instead of the crashing discordance of hellbreed corruption.

I don’t even believe in Sekhmet, I’d told Mikhail.

And his response? I don’t either, milaya. But never hurts. Don’t have to believe to do job. Just have to do.

It took more courage than I thought I had left to take the final five steps to the table and reach down. I was prepared for sparks, or for a backlash of etheric energy to knock me away. Prepared for anything, actually, other than the thing that actually happened.

My fingers touched cool metal. The thready curls of smoke evaporated, leaving behind the smell of burning and the reek of rotting hellbreed. I found I was holding the Talisman, and the sharp edges of the chain brushed lovingly against my hand. They didn’t cut, they just scratched a little.

Like fingernails against a lover’s skin.

Oh, my God. The gem nestled in my palm and thrummed at me. When I lifted it to my throat, the broken links of the chain slid across my skin and melted together as if they’d never been ripped from a hunter’s chest. The Talisman settled against my breastbone, its low humming note disappearing into the sound of wind touching the walls and the etheric protections settling back down.

And I knew, miserably, that I should have shot Perry when I had the chance. Because sooner or later I was going to have to go back to the Monde Nuit and ask him how he got his hellspawn hands on the gem my teacher’s killer stole.

M ickey’s on Mayfair Hill is the kind of restaurant locals like to keep to themselves. Good food, a full bar down two steps in the back, pictures of film stars decking every wall, and a strict policy of toleration. It helps that Mayfair is the part of town where you can see same-sex couples walking hand in hand more often than not—the churches have rainbows on their signs, most of them stating unequivocally ALL ARE WELCOME!

The nightclubs are wildly popular, too. I’d call it a cliché, but that might get me in trouble.

It also helps that Mickey’s is completely owned and mostly staffed by Weres. When you have claws and superstrength, tolerance takes on a whole new meaning.

Lean dark Theron met me at the door. The Werepanther’s face was unusually solemn, and his shoulders came up a fraction as I swept the door closed. “Kid looks shaken up.”

Not even a greeting. Weres are normally so polite, too.

“He should be.” I glanced past him, saw Saul in our regular booth. Across from him, Gilberto slumped, staring at his beer bottle. The bottle’s label was half picked off.

The kid wasn’t old enough to drink, but that didn’t matter in the barrio. It doesn’t matter on the nightside, either. I turned a blind eye—God knows an apprentice is kept on a short enough leash otherwise.