Lilith Saintcrow: Redemption Alley

“Bad?” He had a nice voice, to go with all the rest of him.

I shut my eyes, imagining him right next to me. Tall dark-haired Were, looking like a romance-novel Native American except for the gold-green sheen off his eyes in certain light, the rods and cones reflecting differently. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I even got a civilian out alive.”

“That’s my girl.” A warm rumble of approval, carried through a phone line and suddenly threatening to ease every muscle.

“How’s your mom?” I swallowed sudden dryness in my throat. Saul’s mother hadn’t been too happy to meet the hellbreed-tainted hunter he’d given up his place in the tribe for, but with faultless Were courtesy she’d accepted me into her home as a guest and cooked for me. She’d even introduced me to the extended family and officiated at the firelit ceremony that formalized everything. As far as Saul was concerned, we were formally mated.

As far as his tribe was concerned, we were as good as married, even if I was… well, disappointing. But they hadn’t said a word, just welcomed me with Were politeness.

I wondered if they regretted it now.

“There’s morphine.” Saul’s tone changed now. Deeper, and just a bit rougher. “It’s not bad. My aunts are here. They’re singing to her.”

Oh, Christ. She must be close to passing. No more needed to be said.

I listened to him breathing for a few moments, knowing he was doing the same thing. “I love you,” I whispered. I can’t make it better. If I could I would. I’d hunt down the cancer and put a gun to its head. Slit its throat. Kill it for you.

“I know that, kitten.” A thin vibration came through the phone—he was rumbling, deep down in his chest, a werecougar’s response to a mate’s distress. “You sure you’re okay?”

His mother was dying and he was out there alone, because I couldn’t leave the city—nobody was around to take some of the load; the apprentices who had come out last time to handle the overflow while we were honeymooning had gone home and were needed desperately there.

And he was asking if I was okay.

I don’t deserve you, Saul. The charms in my hair jingled as I played with my pager, unclipping it from my belt. It was habit to take the damn thing with me everywhere, in a padded pocket except when I was hosing blood and stink out of my coat. “Right as rain. Wish I could be there.”

“I wish so too. You be careful for me, you hear?” He was already worrying about the next thing, or he wouldn’t have told me to be careful. He almost never did that, because it implied I couldn’t take care of myself.

Weres are touchy about things like that. “Always am. Do you need me?” Say the word, Saul. I can’t leave now, but I will if you ask me to.

Should I feel grateful, or more guilty, that he understood and hadn’t asked? That he had insisted I stay in Santa Luz, because he knew my responsibility weighed as heavily as his?

“I do, but I’m okay. They need you more.” A long pause, neither of us willing to hang up just yet. He broke it first, this time. “I’d better go back in.”

“Okay.” Don’t hang up. Perry called me, and I’m scared. Come home. I swallowed the words. “You take care of yourself, furboy.”

“You too. Tell everyone hello for me.”

“I will.” I waited another few moments, then straightened my arm to put the phone down. He hated saying goodbye.

So did I.

I laid the phone in its cradle and watched as the light winked off. Let out a long breath, muscles twitching and sore under my torn, blood-stiff T-shirt. My pants were shredded—the arkeus had just missed my femoral artery in its dying desperation, brought to bay and made physical enough to fight at last.

I lifted my pager. The number on it was familiar, and I scooped up the phone and dialed again without giving myself time to think. It rang twice.

“Montaigne,” he barked.

“You bellowed?” I even sounded normal, sharp and Johnny-on-the-spot. All hail Jill Kismet, the great pretender.

“We got another disappearance on the east side. And there’s something else. Can you come in?”

My entire body ached. I hauled myself up from the bed, looked longingly at the rumpled pillow and tossed blankets. Saul was the domestic half of our partnership, I’ve never been good at that sort of shit.

The hurt in my heart hadn’t gone away. It was still a sharp piercing, like a broken bone in my chest. I made it over to the dresser, wincing as my leg healed fully and the scar flushed under the damp leather cuff. The urge to tear the cuff off and make sure it wasn’t spreading suddenly ignited, I pushed it away.

“Jill?” Monty sounded halfway to frantic.

I snapped back into myself and jerked a dresser drawer open, scooping up a black Frodo Lives! T-shirt. “I’m on my way.”

The message light on the machine was blinking. I ignored it and bolted for the bathroom, another pair of leather pants, and quite possibly a sleepless day.

M ichael Spilham.” Monty laid the file down on his cluttered desk. “Vanished from a bus stop out near Percoa Park last night. We have a verified sighting at ten-fifteen, when a coworker drove by and saw him waiting for the bus due at ten-twenty-six. The driver on that route doesn’t remember him, says she wondered about that because he’s a regular. His mother filed a missing-persons when he didn’t come home on time; says it’s not like him. It might be nothing, but it’s in the same area as the other disappearances.”

I nodded. Percoa Park. A brief cold wave slid down my spine—we’d found bodies there before. “That’s a small window.”

“The bus might have been off by five minutes or so. Still, you’re right.”

If Monty hadn’t had something else up his sleeve he would have given me the location over the phone, and I’d already be there searching for clues. The other disappearances on the east side were all the same—people vanishing without a trace, outside, often in very short spaces of time. Small windows in disappearances are common enough, but this one smelled fishy to me.

It stank of hell, actually. Or something unnatural. Still.… “I dunno. Everything about this fits except the gender of the victim.”

But that meant very little too. Women are just bigger targets of opportunity most of the time.

“Can you look at it?” He stared down at his desk. The bottle of whiskey was down by a quarter.

“That’s the plan. Want to tell me what’s bothering you?” I hooked my thumbs in my belt, my dangling fingers brushing the bullwhip’s oiled curve. The precinct building quivered, phones ringing and thin predawn wind boiling against the windows. Monty’s office didn’t have any outside portholes. It was more of a luxury than you’d think—on a summer’s day, the air conditioning didn’t have to fight for primacy.

“I got autopsy reports on the widow.” His shoulders dropped, and he cast a longing look at the Jack Daniels.

I picked up the bottle, uncapped it, took a swallow. It burned on the way down. I used to drink a lot of this stuff, before Saul happened along. “And?”

“Hyoid crushed and damage to the strap muscles, but no cervical vertebrae snapped and no rope burns.” Monty dropped down in his chair. “We’re waiting for toxicology, but there was… she was… there was vaginal bruising. And semen. We might get DNA.”

Oh, Christ. “So we’re looking at a murder here, not a suicide.” I said it so he didn’t have to.

“Whoever set it up didn’t work that hard. There was nothing for her to stand on to get up there. The rope was tied to the—”