It is the Hunter’s Prayer. Several different versions are extant: Mikhail used to pray in gutter Russian, singing the words with alien grace; I’ve heard it intoned in flamenco-accented Spanish and spoken severely in Latin, I’ve heard the greased wheels of German clicking and sliding, I’ve even heard it chanted in Swedish and crooned in Greek, spoken sonorously in Korean and sworn languidly in French, and once, memorably, spat in Nahuatl from a Mexican vaduienne while cordite filled the air and the snarls of hellbreed echoed around us on every side. Me, I say it in English, giving each word its own particular weight. It comforts me.
Faint comfort, maybe, that hunters all over the word had just said or were about to say this prayer at any particular time. Faint comfort that I was part of a chain stretching back to the very first hunters of recorded history, the sacred whores of Inanna who used the most ancient of magics—that of the body itself, with the magic of steel—to drive the nightside out beyond the city walls. The priestesses were themselves heirs to the naked female shamans of Paleolithic times; those who used menstrual blood, herbs, bronze, and the power of their belief to set the boundaries of their camps and settlements, codifying and solidifying the theories of attraction and repulsion forming the basis of all great hunter sorceries. They had been the first, those women who traced ley lines in dew-soaked grasses, drawing on the power of the earth itself to push back Hell’s borders and make the world safe for regular people.
Faint goddamn comfort, yes. But I’d take it. Each woman in that chain had added something, each man who had sacrificed his life to keep the innocent safe had added something, and all uttered some form of this prayer. God help me, for I go forth into darkness to fight. Be my strength, for I am doing what I can.
When I was finished I genuflected, candles shimmering on the altar; an old woman eyed me curiously as I dipped both hands in the holy water. She looked faintly shocked when I smoothed the water on my hair and the shoulders of my ragged coat, wiping two slashes of the cool blessed water on my cheekbones like Saul’s war-paint. I genuflected to the altar one last time, winked at the old woman, and met Saul in the foyer, where he was absorbed in staring at the stained-glass treatment of the Magdalene welcoming repentant sinners with open arms over the door. He dangled the obsidian arrowhead on its braided leather absently in his sensitive fingers, turning it over and over, smoothing the bits of hair and feathers.
He said nothing, and drove the speed limit all the way out to the familiar broken pavement of the industrial district, where the Monde Nuit crouched in its bruised pool of etheric stagnation.
He pulled up into the fire-zone, reached over, took my hand. Squeezed my fingers, hard. Let go, a centimeter at a time. Another ritual.
He would come into the Monde with me if he could. But a Were in a hellbreed bar like this would only spell trouble, and something told me Perry would love to have Saul on his territory.
That’s exactly the wrong thing to think at a time like this, Jill. I stared out through the windshield. The long low front of the Monde beckoned, its arched doorway glowing with golden light. One hell of a false beacon.
“Stay here until I come get you, kitten. Okay?” If the words stuck in his throat, he didn’t show it.
I nodded. The scar on my wrist was hard, hot, and hurtful, a reminder that Perry expected me. A reminder I did most emphatically not need. The silver charms in my hair tinkled uneasily.
“He doesn’t own you.” Now Saul’s voice was thick. “He doesn’t.”
“I know.” I barely recognized my own whisper. “He doesn’t own me. You do.” You’re the only man other than Mikhail who has ever owned me, Saul. You mean you don’t know that?
“Christ, Jill—”
But I had the door open and was out, the chill of a winter night folding around me. I walked to the door, my bootheels clicking on the concrete; there was a line as usual. Hellbreed and others stared at me, whispering, I reached the door. The bouncers eyed me, the same twin mountains of muscle, their eyes normal except for red sparks glittering in their pupils.
Please, I prayed. Let it be one of the nights he’s bored with me. Let him have other business.
Fat fucking chance. Last night he’d actually left the Monde Nuit and expended serious effort on me. Tonight I was probably going to pay for that.
Probably? Yeah. Like I was probably breathing right now.
I stalked between the bouncers, daring them to say anything; if they turned me away I could go back to the car and blame it on his own fucking security. But no, they didn’t make a single move. In fact, one of them grinned at me, and the thumping cacophony of the music inside reached out, dragged me into the womblike dark pierced with scattered lights, the smell of hellbreed, and the jostling crowd of the nightside come out to have a little fun. The ruby at my throat warmed, and Saul’s hickey pulsed.
Was it shameful of me to hope Perry wouldn’t notice it?
I kept my chin up and a confident swing to my hips as I stalked for the bar. Riverson was on duty again, and his blind eyes widened. He immediately reached for the bottle of vodka.
Not a good sign.
I reached the bar, and he poured a shot for me, slammed it down. “You’re supposed to go straight up,” he shouted over the noise. “He’s waiting for you.”
I winced inwardly. Outwardly, I gave Riverson a smile, picked up the shot, and poured it down. It burned. “Not like you to give free drinks, blind man. But I guess my tab’s still good.”
His mouth pulled down, sourly. His filmy eyes flicked past me, evaluated the dance floor. There was very little he didn’t notice. It used to be that a visit to the Monde would be during daylight, to visit Riverson and hear what he had to say, coming in as a hunter’s apprentice and watching Mikhail’s back. He’d never liked coming in here, even during the day. It was a very last resort, and one he hadn’t had to use too often.
Perry had taken an interest the first time I’d covered Mikhail in this hole. Mikhail had nearly fired on him when he made that first appearance, leaning against the end of the bar and eyeing me.
Stop thinking about Mikhail, Jill. You have other things on your mind.
Of course, that was a losing battle. There wasn’t a day passing by that I didn’t think of him. After all, he’d rescued me, hadn’t he? Better than any other father figure I’d ever had.
He had taken a shivering, skinny little girl in out of the cold, and he had trained me to be strong. Mikhail had pushed me, shaped me, molded me—and held the other end of my soul’s silver cord as I descended into Hell to finish my apprenticeship.
Sometimes I wondered what he’d felt, watching my lifeless body on the altar, holding the silver cord steady with the ruby I now wore pulsing and bleeding in his palm, wondering if I was going to come back. Wondering if I would survive the trip down into the place hellbreed call home.
Or did he not wonder? Did he know he’d trained me as best he could, and given me every weapon possible to use against the nightside? Had it been any comfort to him?
“You should stay away from here, goddammit.” Riverson shook his head, his filmed eyes focusing past me. “You stink of Were.”
“And you stink of Hell, Riverson. Keep your fucking advice to yourself.” I slammed the shotglass back down on the bar, turned again, and walked toward the back as if I owned the place. My tattered coat swung like the fringe on a biker’s jacket.
Feets don’t fail me now.
In the back, the tables were full of hellbreed—playing cards, drinking quietly, murmuring in Helletöng that threaded under the blasting assault of the music thudding through shuddering stale air. Their glittering eyes followed me as I strode through, heading for the slender black iron door at the very back, behind its purple velvet rope.