Lilith Saintcrow - Redemption Alley

I struggled up to my feet, taking harsh deep barking breaths. The crimson stain in the west was the sun finally dying. And the plume of black smoke stretching up into the gathering dusk was a huge fucking neon sign.

Priorities, Jill. Your city’s in danger. They could have another evocation site, and you’re stuck here without a car. What are you going to do?

Why weren’t there news helicopters circling? Someone had to have seen this from the highway. Out here in the desert, you could see forever, couldn’t you? A pillar of smoke during the day, miles from the city—

Instinct, and instinct alone, made me raise my head. I wouldn’t have heard the car’s tires over the snap and crackle of flame. Behind me, banefire exploded, and the heat of it against my back was comforting enough to make my knees sag again.

Or maybe it was the green Charger, slid into a bootlegger’s turn and sending up a great spume of dust that did it. Because the passenger door opened, and I ran for the car as if my soul depended on it. I assumed it was Leon, come back to pick me up.

That assumption was my next mistake. A muzzle flashed, and something hit me in the chest like a padded hammer, and all of a sudden it was burning, my heart was a lake of fire inside my chest.

This time, they used silver. They shot me four times, and the last thing I heard was the crunch of feet on gravelly dirt as blackness closed over me, shot through with lead and redness. And a voice that was familiar, a woman’s voice.

“We’ve got them by the balls now. Give me that rope.”

T radeoff for being a helltainted hunter: silver fucking hurts to get shot with. The wound closes slowly, not poisoning me the way it poisons a hellbreed, but at about three-quarters the usual speed. I lose blood I can’t afford, too, thick trickles of trying-to-clot claret.

I came back to consciousness slowly, in patches. Something hard was against my back, my head lolling, eyelids fluttering. My hair hung down in greasy wet strings, silver charms hanging like odd, blue-glowing fruit.

“They’ll be here. They can’t afford not to.” The woman’s voice was familiar. Slight smacking sounds—a wet, openmouthed kiss. “Relax, sweetheart.”

“You didn’t see what she did.” Male. Sounded familiar, too, and scared of his own shadow, with a whining edge that set my teeth to clenching together. “She almost shot me. And the entire place, just like a bomb hit it. Jesus.”

What the hell? Grogginess receded, and the scar prickled, a pucker of skin, still feeling full and obscenely flushed.

“I saw enough. Even Shen’s scared of her. Don’t worry so much. We have the only samples left, I saw to that. You have the formula, and we have the hunter to trade in. Everything’s going to be okay.” Another soft, wet kiss and a small moan. Someone was having a good time. “Just as long as you do what I tell you.”

The world resolved around me, my consciousness sharpening.

I was in a chair. The air pressure was still, swallowing sound, echoing, telling me I was underground. Rope crisscrossed my chest, holding me in the chair. My hands were tied behind my back, fingers swollen, my elbows tied together, my ankles lost in coils of blue and white nylon rope.

I shifted my weight a little, looking for slack in the ropes. Found some.

Whoever had tied me up had done a goddamn messy job of it. I stilled, watching the silver in my hair run with blue sparks under the smooth metal surfaces. Hellbreed contamination in the air, but not a lot of it.

I saw concrete, a crumbling wall threaded with thin trickles of dried nameless fluid. I was in the dark, but electric light played over a vertical edge, a corner with teeth where the concrete had been worn away.

My eyes fell shut again. I was so tired. Even my toes hurt. Even my hair hurt. And I was starving. I would have given about anything for a chicken-fried steak right about then. And a nice cold beer.

Jill, wake up. My own voice, soft and urgent. Wake the fuck up. Something’s happening right in front of you.

The scar ran with wet heat. My wrists rubbed against each other, and the hunger shifted under my breastbone, turned steely and sickening. I heard nylon rubbing against a cross-beam as a body shifted below, dead fruit. You’re tied up with the same type of rope. Wake up, Jill.

It was like a bucket of cold water. I snapped into full consciousness silently, my wrists rubbing, the scar turning hot. It burrowed in toward the bone, and I wondered if it would slip my control and fill with yellow flame again.

The idea of burning expanded my chest with unsteady glee. I clamped down on it, reflexively.

Can’t afford to do that, no matter how good it feels. I blinked crusted something out of my eyes, felt the tingle along my skin as the last bullet hole in my chest closed over, the silver-coated slug pushed free and no longer hurting me. The scar hummed, the strings of the physical world thrumming like a violin touched by a master’s fingertips. Just the slightest plucking, making subtle vibrational music.

Something was about to happen.

Too late. It’s too late.

Hopelessness threatened to scour the inside of my head. Bullshit it’s too late, I answered that whining little voice. Get out of these ropes, Jill. That’s the first step. Everything else comes from that.

I rubbed my wrists together like Lady Macbeth. The skin on my entire body tautened. They hadn’t even taken my trench off, the dumb bunnies. And the rope had plenty of give in it—enough for my purposes, anyway. Etheric force tingled in my swollen fingertips, my concentration falling into itself like a rock down a bottomless well, and tough nylon frayed, parting.

It took all my waning energy to keep the state of fierce relaxation so necessary for sorcery. Strand by strand, the rope parted. Nervous silence ticked on the other side of the wall, broken only by the sound of breathing and the occasional wet kiss or moan.

“What if they don’t show?” the male said, fretfully.

“They have to show,” Irene said, with utter mad certainty. “We’re holding all the cards, Fax. Just relax.”

I wondered, for a few seconds, how she’d gotten free of Galina. Either she’d tricked the Sanctuary—hard to do, but Galina had that core of blind decency that made her able to do what she did—or there had been violence. It was vanishingly possible that she might have overwhelmed Galina physically for long enough to escape, but treachery was more likely.

Inside a Sanctuary’s house, the owner’s will is law. It had to have been a trick. But if she’d hurt Galina, the Trader bitch was going to pay in blood.

That’s not the only thing she’s going to pay for, Jill. Get out of the rope.

My concentration slipped. Sweat trickled cold down the valley of my spine, a flabby fingertip tracing. I regained myself, felt more strands slip, fraying loose under the knife of my will.

“They’re late,” Fairfax whined.

If it hadn’t been so critical to keep quiet, I might have laughed. They’re expecting hellbreed they’ve double-crossed to be on time. Silly them.

“They usually are. Will you just relax? ” Irene’s tone held less fondness and more command now. Movement in the light told me someone was pacing, sound of high heels clicking. No more kisses, and no more soft words.

The air pressure changed like a storm front moving over the city, pushing thunder in front of it. These two Trader idiots were about to get a huge surprise, either from their visitors—or from me. Copper coated my palate, adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream to sharpen me and deaden the edge of exhaustion. This is about to get real ugly real quick. Hurry, Jill.