Lilith Saintcrow: Night Shift

"I guess this is goodbye," I said brightly. Blinked furiously behind the shades.

He shook his head a little, glancing across the platform behind me. The silver wheel and the twisted unrecognizable bracelet threw back sharp darts of reflected light. I tried to memorize everything about his face, storing it up like a thief.

"Take care of yourself," I added. I babbled. Like a complete idiot.

His jaw set, his mouth thinning. He nodded, privately, as if wrapping up a long internal conversation.

Saul's right hand came out of his pocket, and he held up something I had to squint at to make sense of. The shades didn't help, and neither did the water in my eyes.

It was a leather cuff, with buckles. Just wide enough for a wrist; for my wrist. He held it out, and I took it. I was helpless not to, my hand just flew up and grabbed it.

"That should last you longer than the copper." He stuffed his hand back in his pocket and cocked his head, regarding me. The departure announcement began blaring in the background, as last goodbyes were said all around us and people hurried to file onto the train. "When it gets worn or the buckles snap, I'll make you a new one." His voice dropped, as if he had something in his throat too. I have to go home. My mother deserves to hear from me about… everything."

"I know," I jumped in. "Don't make it worse. Just go. Get the hell out of here." Don't go. Stay. Please, stay .

But I couldn't say it. I closed my teeth against the words. There were so many reasons why he shouldn't stay. He was Were, and I was human—tainted with hellbreed.

Corrupted, even if I retained my soul. No matter how hard I fought it, I was going to Hell eventually. And I'd just had an object lesson on what could happen to Weres once they tangled with anything hellbreed.

It wasn't fair. It was monstrously, hideously, absolutely unfair.

It doesn't matter , I told myself. God, just make him go. Keep him safe .

His eyebrows drew together, stubbornly. It just made him handsomer, the richness of his skin almost too real under the sunlight. "I have to say something."

Oh, Christ. Don't draw this out . "Just go , will you?"

"I'm going." His shoulders hunched. "But I'm coming back. You can't cook worth a damn."

With that he was gone, flowing away with the peculiar Were economy of motion. I stayed nailed in place, buffeted by a stream of people who were heading for the exits now that everyone was safely stashed on the train. When his feet left the platform and he hopped up into the carriage Dom and Harp were already in, the snap of his feet leaving the ground of my city echoed in my chest like a broken guitar string.

I turned blindly away. It was a miracle I was able to make it to the parking lot and my Impala with the cuff clenched in my sweating fist. The tears blurring my eyes and sliding down my cheeks didn't stop even when I dropped into the driver's seat. I put my head down on the steering wheel and heard the lonely sound of a train whistle blaring as the five o'clock special pulled out of the station and chugged out of town.

Life went on. I cleaned out a nest of Assyrian shape-shifters, busted a ring of child-pornographer Traders, and wasn't thrown out of Mickey's the next time I ventured in for beers with Avery. Theron, the Were bartender, simply nodded to me from the smoky dark lounge in back. I actually got to have beers with Ave every week, and we even went to see a horrible movie about zombie-slayers once. It was that calm. Unfortunately, I caught myself playing with a knife-hilt halfway through the film, and one of the supporting actors had shoulder-length dark hair and broad shoulders, not to mention a supple grace that was human enough to bring tears to my eyes. Avery didn't notice.

The weeks rolled by, and it came time for the payment. I finally nerved myself into a visit to the Monde on a gray Saturday night when fall had settled a blanket of sere monochrome over Santa Luz. Perry didn't act surprised to see me—but then again, he never did. In fact, he didn't talk much at all, beyond ordering me to strap him into the frame and use the long flat silver flechettes. The sounds he made were almost worth it, and I was so close, so close to cutting his throat. It would have been easy.

I could have killed him while he was strapped down. I could have .

I didn't. I don't know what stopped me, but I suspect it was the memory of silver in a man's dark hair, and his hand holding mine as yellow-white flames burned and the Weres sang their ancient, sad melody.

Cenci wasn't the only one a Were had saved. I could finally admit as much to myself.

By the time the hour was over, I was sweating while I cut, thinning black hellbreed ichor spattered over the frame and the white, white enamel floor of the room Perry reserved for his little games with me. I left him hanging in the frame, bleeding, and headed for the door, the flechette falling from my hand and chiming as it hit.

The edge was there, the temptation to kill him overwhelming. But he was strapped down, and if I murdered him now, or even tried to…

He spoke again. Just five little words. "Come back," he whispered, the sound sliding through the air and kissing the scar with a finger of soft delight. "Finish the job."

I did not pause. I ran, and his silky laughter followed me, falling from his bloody mouth. I knew his mouth was running with blackness because I'd punched him hard enough to make his lips a mess of meat.

When I finally got home that night I stood in a hot shower, sobbing and scrubbing at myself with coal-tar soap until I was raw all over, the water sliding down the drain turning ice-cold and running pink and red. I collapsed on my bed afterward, hugging sheets that still smelled faintly of a man's smoky musk.

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

No rest for the wicked. I cried myself to sleep, got up the next night, and went back to work. But not before I visited Mikhail's grave with another bottle of vodka.

It was a relief to finally know I had not killed him. If I'd hung back, purposely waiting, on that night, it was only because I loved him. Had it been otherwise, I would have pulled the trigger on Cenci. You are either damned or you're not, and if you're not, you can stop worrying about your teacher's death in a shitty little hotel room.

Whatever responsibility I carried for Mikhail's death, it was not because I had deliberately robbed him of backup that night. I could swear that much with a clear conscience now, and if the keening infection of grief under my heart didn't stop, at least it got easier to bear.

Things picked up after that. There was a scare about a scurf infestation moving up from Viejarosas to the south—Leon's territory. We found a few arkeus who had a nice little Trader stable specializing in rape and extortion, busted it up. I took almost half a clip of heavy ammo before Leon knocked out one of the Traders. He told me later he'd thought I was a goner.

Not yet , I told him. I'm too mean .

He laughed, thinking I was joking.

There was the regular rash of exorcisms around Halloween, and I finally nabbed the hellbreed flooding the city with adulterated cocaine. Right after I beat him to a brackish pulp another one moved in to sell adulterated heroin, and I lost a few pints of blood teaching that hellspawn that if you were going to import drugs into Santa Luz, cutting them with shit wasn't good business sense.

Then came damn near a month of almost-quiet, and I roamed the streets at night looking for trouble and not finding any.

It was a good feeling, but also a faintly unsteady one.

I came home on a chill winter night. The mountains in the distance were wearing their hoods of snow again, and as soon as I pulled into the garage I knew something was different. I slipped out under my closing garage door and padded around to the side entrance, silent as death.