Lilith Saintcrow - Heaven's Spite

I had damned myself.

The Talisman was a warm weight on my chest. It hadn’t turned on me yet. How long would it last?

Just long enough, I promised myself.

My left hand could still make a base for the banefire. I concentrated, hard , as the flaming blue wisps fought me in a way they never had before. But they came, moaning and crying, and they burned . Bubbling, blistering the skin.

That sacred fire burned me.

I cast the banefire. It hit the altar and roared up in a sheet of cleansing flame. I could have stayed and let it take me too.

But I had things to do.

T he sky had cleared, bright diamond points of stars glaring through the bowl of night.

The warehouse was echoingly empty. The Weres had cleaned up and restocked the fridge. The food probably wouldn’t go bad—they’d gather here afterward for Saul, if I succeeded.

Not if, Jill. When. You’re just damned, not out. But then I would move, and the leather cuff on my right wrist would rub against the blackened scar. A jolt of sick pain would go through me, and I would almost flinch.

I walked from room to room, stashing ammo, touching things. I’d never noticed how bare and drafty the entire place had looked before Saul moved in. The weapons and the clothes were mine. Everything else… well.

The sheets were still tangled from the last time we’d rolled out of bed to catch Trevor Watling. Saul had slipcovered the old orange Naugahyde couch in pale linen, stocked the kitchen with cooking gadgets, arranged little things on shelves and even hung an ailing wandering Jew up in the living room, in a fantastically knotted macramé holder complete with orange beads and the faint smell of reefer—a thrift-store find he’d been so proud of. The laundry room was arranged the way he liked it, the detergent within easy reach and the eight different kinds of fabric softener sheets ranked neatly on top of the dryer.

Everywhere I looked, there was something he’d touched. I opened the kitchen cabinets, ran my knuckles over the fridge’s cool white glow. The dishwasher had finished running, and it was full. The drying rack was full of the last load of pots and pans from breakfast, not arranged the way he would have, but still.

I filled up on ammo. Loaded a couple more clips. Considering writing a note. Decided it was a cliché. Anya would piece it together, one way or another.

Before I left, I stood for a long time in our bedroom door, looking at the peaks and valleys of the sheets and thin blankets. He ran warm, and I never needed much in the way of covers. We slept during the day, the bed set out in the middle of the floor so I could see anything creeping up on me.

The low hurt sound I was making shocked me back into myself. There were still other things to do. I’d just meant to come here to get some ammo, and…

The Eye twitched on my chest, a tiny dissatisfied movement. I wiped my cheeks and touched it with a tentative, tear-wet finger. No crackle of electricity. It wasn’t going to get rid of me just yet.

But under the cuff, the blue veining was spreading from the blackened lip print. Up my arm, in tiny increments.

“God,” I whispered. “You bastard.”

I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Mikhail? Perry? God Himself?

I didn’t have nearly enough time with him.

But I couldn’t bitch about it. There was nobody else to blame. I’d damned myself.

The clock next to the bed showed the time in pitiless little red numbers. My car was dead, and I had to get to Via Dolorosa. I ached all over, healing sorcery crackling through me in little blue threads. It didn’t burn like banefire, but it was probably only a matter of time.

Only human strength and healing.

It would have to be enough.

I made sure I had enough ammo. Stalked into the weapons room, stared at the long slim shape under its fall of amber silk. I couldn’t take the spear—it was just asking for trouble. The sunsword might help, but one look at me and Galina would know there was something wrong. Plus, why drag more trouble to her door? She and Hutch were safe, and that was where I wanted them.

After all, I’d sucked at protecting Gil and Saul. Now every innocent in my city was going to be at risk. Perry had to have more of a plan, and without me to keep him in check…

Goddammit. There isn’t any way out. There hasn’t ever been.

I couldn’t even blame God. I’d done it.

I came back to myself with a jolt. The clock read five minutes later. I’d just checked out, like a CD skip.

Can’t afford to do that. Something left to do, Jill. Then you know what’s going to happen.

I turned on one steel-shod heel. My coat flared out. I realized I was running my fingers over gun butts, checking each knife hilt, my hands roaming over my body like I was in a music video or something. I dropped them with an effort just as my pager went off.

I fished it out, gingerly. It was Badger again.

She could wait. Dawn was coming soon.

The cab let me off at the end of the Wailer Bridge, made a neat three-point, and drove away maybe a little faster than was necessary. The driver wasn’t Paloulian—it was a big, thick good ol’ boy in a flannel shirt and greasy jeans, with a ponytail under his bald spot and the radio tuned to AM talk.

It just goes to show you can get a cab to anywhere, even Hell. If you know how.

The eastern horizon was paling, scudding clouds over the mountains breaking up in cottony streamers. A faint glow of pink showed where the sun would crown and push itself up.

A long, long night was ending.

The bridge is a concrete monstrosity with high gothic pillars, built during the big public works binge of the thirties to try and keep Santa Luz from bleeding to death. Every once in a while someone would make noise about renovation, and about whose job it was anyway to pay for said renovation, and on and on. Then there would be a big public outcry about the homeless who lived under the bridge’s glower on the river’s banks, especially the ones you could see trudging over every morning, heading for downtown. They shuffled like the hopeless, and sometimes one of them would go over the side and into the water’s uncaring embrace.

They were mine just like everyone else in Santa Luz. There were predators even here, and I’d chased cases over on this side of the river before.

Today, though, the Wailer stood empty. There wasn’t even a stream of traffic for the industrial park and docks on the other side. I kept thinking that someday they were going to zone in some residential and spread up into the canyons like Los Angeles. But no, why do that and worry about landslides during spring downpours when you had the rest of the desert stretching away from the river’s artery to fill up? There were a couple retreat mansions up there, mostly people with more money than sense, but nothing else.

Four lanes. A yellow line down the middle. The city really needed some dividers out here, but they were engaged with a running fight with county over who was going to pay for that . It’s the oldest story of bureaucracy—who’s going to foot the bill?

Except I knew who was going to be paying on this bridge today. It was yours truly.

I went slowly, looking for traps. Nothing on this side of the bridge, but it made an odd sound—humming a little, as if it was cables instead of concrete. The water underneath, and the rebar inside, would make it an excellent psychic conductor.

I stopped halfway, scanning with every sense I owned. Having the scar gone was like being blind; I hadn’t realized how much I depended on hyperacute senses and jacked-up healing. I was back to being an ordinary hunter—about as far away from a normal person as possible, but still. I was used to so much more.