Lilith Saintcrow - Heaven's Spite

Nothing. Even my blue eye was oddly clouded.

The wind came off the river, ruffling my hair. I wondered what would happen when the silver started to burn my skin.

You’ve got a while, Jill. Use it.

This could have been just another ploy. But I didn’t think it was. The glyph on the letter, tucked safely in one of my pockets, had to be Perry’s name in their language. Or another lie—maybe Julius’s. Perry had neatly double-crossed Julius as well. That’s the thing about ’breed—they can’t even trust each other.

What, after all, do you think Hell is?

The image of Belisa’s body, slumped in front of the altar under a pall of bruise-dark Chaldean, rose up in front of me in vivid detail. I could have counted each of her tangled dark hairs and named every bruise and cut. Memory is a curse.

I’d known as soon as I fired that I’d done something wrong.

What the—

I whirled. Footsteps. Lots of them, and the sky was darker than it had any right to be. Dawn wasn’t far off—but the closer to dawn, the harder the fight. And if what I was hearing wasn’t just a trick of sound bouncing off the waters, I was in even deeper shit.

They massed at either end of the bridge. Hellbreed and Traders, a crowd of them. Bright eyes, painted lips, curve of hips and glimmer of dewy skin, the beauty of the damned on display. On the city side of the river, shapes appeared. I had to blink a couple times before they resolved into a coherent picture behind my eyes.

Crosses. They were carrying two twelve-foot crosses. A slight figure on one, a heavier male figure with silver in his hair in the other. My blue eye turned hot and dry, and I did not let out the breath I was holding until I could focus… and saw the glow of living creatures around both of them.

Gilberto slumped against whatever was holding him to the rough wood. Saul’s head was down, his hair hanging. I saw lashings, instead of nails. They were only tied to the things.

The mockery made my stomach turn over hard. I swallowed hard, and almost wished I hadn’t.

The Talisman made a low angry noise against my chest. A curl of smoke drifted up, tickled my nose. I eased my right-hand gun out. My hand might cramp up again if Perry wanted to play a little game, but I still had my left. Which closed around the bullwhip’s handle, and I set my feet against the bridge’s surface.

If a semi comes along, it’s going to ruin this lovely picture. All of them coming out to see the hunter get hers. They’re going to enjoy this.

“ Behold! ” someone screamed from above. I snapped a glance up—hellbreed, crawling on the bridge. Like maggots in a wound, seething. Except maggots actually did something useful by cleaning up dead flesh. “ The sacrifice! ”

Oh, honey, if you’re talking about me, you’d best be warned. I’m not a good sacrifice. I tend to stick in the craw when you try to eat me. I bit back a murderous, contemptuous little laugh. The world narrowed down, became basic.

The only thing that mattered was getting Gilberto and Saul off those crosses. Saul might still be able to run, Gilberto was a chancier proposition, but either of them would stand a better chance if I could somehow get them free.

Where are you, you son of a bitch?

The scar crunched with sick pain, all the way down my cramping fingers. I blew out between my teeth.

There was Perry in a pale linen suit, capering in front of the mob of hellbreed on the city side. His legs moving in ways no biped’s should, he cracked his heels together and danced. The throng of ’breed and Traders were humming, a weird subsonic note with the squealing groan of Helletöng underneath it, rubbing against the fabric of the physical until it frayed.

They were about to bring the crosses onto the bridge. Some of them were dancing too, little jig steps. Behind Perry, to his left, Rutger minced. I could even hear the tip-tapping of his ridiculous shoes against the road.

So, Rutger had been playing according to Perry’s dictates all along. Color me unsurprised.

“Thou Who has given me to fight evil,” I whispered, my lips barely shaping the words, “keep me from harm.”

It was useless, just like everything else.

Now, Jill. Do some good.

I launched myself toward death. Without the scar’s eerie stuttering speed, but still—I was hunter enough to move pretty damn fast. My heels struck sparks as my stride lengthened, and a cry went up from the hellbreed on the mountain side of the bridge. The entire structure reverberated, and the Talisman warmed against my skin. Like a lover’s hand, fingers trailing down between my breasts.

I needed my breath for running, but I heard a cry of rising effort anyway. It was too high to be male, and it echoed oddly. The crowd broke, streaming past Perry and leaping for me. The crosses dipped crazily, and I suddenly understood they were going to throw my Were and apprentice over the side just to be assholes.

Well, it wasn’t surprising. It even had a kind of mad hellish poetry to it, just what you’d expect from Perry.

The scar was dead, but I pulled on it anyway. A thin trickle of etheric force slid through it, a wire of nasty heat up my arm. Perry stopped in mid-caper, his eyes blazing infernos. The thing that wore his human shell rippled through pale skin, and his grin was a shark’s.

Gunfire. But I hadn’t shot anyone yet. I was still just out of optimal range, and—

There was a commotion behind the screen of ’breed and Traders. Then the screaming started, and I was within range. I leapt as I reached the first of them, my own gun speaking. Howls and screams lifted—that’s one thing about facing a crowd of Hell’s citizens.

You don’t have to watch where you shoot as much. And with the only two people who mattered to me up on the crosses, I didn’t have to worry about hitting them.

My right hand seized up, the scar fighting for control. I could feel it, thin little tendrils of corruption yanking on muscles and nerves. But nightly murder will make shooting more than a habit. It will burn it so deep into your hands you don’t have to think—if you’re breathing you’re fighting, and the scar wasn’t deep enough yet to reach that yet.

It was a losing fight. But then, it always was. The tide of Hell is so broad, so deep, we can’t hope to do more than hold it a little while.

I cannot hold back the tide forever. Another misdirection, a good one because it held the seed of truth. Perry hadn’t wanted Argoth to come through and come gunning for me. He just wanted me to damn myself, and he’d worked it so I could. It had taken him years, but he’d done it.

The entire bridge shuddered, and I heard something familiar. Very familiar. When Anya fights, she cusses almost as much as I do. I saw her, breaking through the hellbreed like an avenging angel, firing with both hands and moving inhumanly fast. Hunter-fast, as fast as I was moving now.

Behind her, there was a roil of struggling figures. Weres, more than I’d ever seen in one place before. They were swarming the Traders and trying like hell to stay out of the way of the ’breed. The ’breed were concentrating on Anya, but she was giving them so much trouble it was going to take a while.

And up on the top of one of the crosses, Saul raised his silver-starred head.

Crunch.

The whip snapped and Rutger danced back. Perry snarled. The scar boiling with agony on my wrist, I was too slow because I had to fight it. Its tendrils were all the way up to my elbow now, twisting and yanking.

I was screaming. My only battle cry now.

“ Saul! Saul! Saul! ” His name, over and over again, while the Weres clustered the Traders holding the crosses. Lionesses leapt, and if you haven’t seen the Norte or Sud Luz pack lionesses work together to take down a kill, you’ve missed one of the most amazing sights on earth.