“I don’t care if I go back to being a human hunter,” I flung at him, getting my balance and my bearings. “You do that to me again, Pericles, and I will kill you.”
“I’m only trying to be nice.” His smile widened as he licked his fingers clean of blood. “Wouldn’t you like me to be nice? I can be very, very nice to you.”
If you only knew how many times I’ve heard a man say something similar. “Sit the fuck down.” I pointed the knife at the chair. “Now.”
He did, very slowly. I decided it was safer if I got away from the bed. My hands shook, but the knife was steady. Or at least, I hoped it was steady. I took an experimental step. Another. Kept going until I could see his profile, and the glass of brandy spilled on the carpet.
It was time to get back to business. He wouldn’t be satisfied with just that exchange, but I might get something out of him nonetheless. “They were all three pregnant? How the fuck do you know?”
He closed both eyes, settled back in the chair. “Ah, now I have your attention. The sum of your regard. The sunshine of your—”
“Stop fucking with me, Perry. What do you know about this?” I licked my lips, wished I hadn’t. The scar gave a small twinge, another jolt of pleasure sinking through my bones.
“I know they were all pregnant.” He said it like it meant nothing. He did hear all sorts of things, and I would have to check, but it was a damn good clue.
If I could follow it. And if he wasn’t lying.
“And?” How do you know anything about this case at all, Perry? How deep are you in? And what the fuck is that thing that nearly killed me?
“And nothing more, my dearest whore, unless you pay me.”
Oh, God. “In what coin?”
“You know what I want.”
Rage rose. The knife did shake, perceptibly, as my grip tightened on it. “If you are involved with these murders, Perry, I will—”
“What? Kill me? You’ve made that threat already. Don’t be boring. If I were involved, would I tell you anything? Besides, there are some things even I will not stoop to profit from. But you should beware. My protection, as I’ve said, may only extend so far.” His voice dropped intimately, like a hand between my legs. “But you could have all my protection, and so much more besides.”
Some things you won’t stoop to profit from? There’s a short list. I took a deep breath. Christ, Saul. Come back soon. Please come back soon.
“Sit down,” Pericles said softly. Almost kindly. “No more of this, tonight. Though I do love to hear you whimper.”
“Go to hell.” It wasn’t very creative, but I was kind of at the end of my leash. This was far worse than any other encounter I’d had with him. He’d been watching me for a while, and hellbreed were masters at finding out what made people tick and taking them apart, piece by piece.
Seducing them.
“Oh, no. I like it here ever so much better. Sit down, my dear. In a little while I’ll fetch another drink.”
My breath turned harsh in my throat. But he kept his eyes closed, the black blood stopped soaking through his clothes, and the scar didn’t erupt on my wrist. He tilted his head back against the white leather of the recliner. Resting. As if he was satisfied.
Christ, Perry. What happened to you? You kept trying to make me react by making me hurt you, and now you pull this? The thought that he might have figured out a way to make me react the way he wanted was chilling, to say the least. It meant I would have to find a whole new way to relate to the bargain I’d made, a whole new way to deal with him.
Like I don’t have enough problems.
Or maybe he was just moving in on me because I was vulnerable, because this case was bothering me more than I wanted to admit. I lowered myself down in the chair opposite him, the knife’s blade throwing back colored light. Blue from the TV screens, red from the glare in the bulletproof window, gold from the track lighting.
“One day.” His voice was very quiet, very soft, and almost human. “One day, Kiss, you will have to face just how much like me you can become before you give in.”
“You can’t turn me, Pericles.” But my throat was dry as sand. I knew better. If he kept getting better at pushing me, things might get sticky.
I’d have to kill him.
“I don’t have to. You’ll turn yourself, given enough time. Now be quiet. I want to listen to you breathe.” All semblance of life left him, draining away until he was only an icon painted on the white leather of the chair, a black-splashed icon with his arm clamped against his side. The silver content in my knife must have hurt like a mad bastard even as it healed.
For the first time we sat there, Perry and I, and he didn’t speak. Neither did I. And when the two hours were up I left. I made it to the iron door at the bottom of the stairs, buckling the leather cuff on, before I started to run. I had promised Saul, yes.
But I couldn’t stay there a single moment longer.
Chapter Sixteen
I hit the door still running as the cab pulled away. Tossed my torn and battered coat over the habitual chair at the end of the hall and pounded into the practice space, barely hearing the creaks and echoes as the warehouse registered my presence.
The reinforced heavy bag hung, its scuffed red sides repaired with tape several times. Before I reached it, both my fists were balled up so tight I felt my bones creak.
I began.
Leather and vinyl popped. The charms in my hair jingled. Left hook, uppercut, right hook, combinations Mikhail had taught me, my second-best boots scuffing the mats on the floor, the heavy bag shuddering as sweat began to drip down my spine, my arms, my legs.
My teacher’s voice, with its harsh song of gutter Russian under the language we shared. Use it, use it use it! Zat is best friend right there. Should be able to do this in sleep, milaya, use it! Hurt it! Kill it! Do it!
How had he seen the potential in me, the scared, skinny, beaten girl in the snow? He’d never told me.
Of course, I’d never asked, too grateful for his care. For the attention he paid me, attention I was starved for. We are supposed to love our teachers, otherwise it’s unbearable. You have to trust your teacher with your heart and soul, with the other end of the thin silver-elastic cord that is your only way of escaping Hell once you descend. And Mikhail and I had been lovers, of course—it was inevitable, so much adrenaline and prolonged contact, two people closer than siblings or spouses or even twins.
But we are also supposed to hate our teachers, because they must teach us how to fight. A teacher cannot afford to be an apprentice hunter’s friend. Soft in the training room means unprepared out in the dark depths of the nightside, and that’s something no teacher wants. Losing a fellow hunter is bad.
Losing an apprentice is a thousand times worse.
So to hear Mikhail’s ghostly voice was a double-edged comfort. I was making a sound, too. A low, hurt sound, as if I’d been stabbed. The skin on my knuckles broke and bled, leaving wet prints on the thick red vinyl. The blood would grime the ring he’d given me when he accepted me as an apprentice, the ring that was singing a thin distressed tone as my furious pain communicated itself to the metal. The carved ruby spat spark after spark, each a guncrack of frustration.
Sweat fell in my eyes, stinging, and I pounded on the heavy bag. The doorbell rang, but I ignored it. Anyone knocking at my door would either come in and get shot or go away.
Throw elbow, solid, tighten up, hit so zey know zey been hit! Not like that, want to lose fucking hand? Tighten up! Vurk it, vurk it, vurk it— Mikhail’s voice, barking through the painful hole in my memory, the years of training peeling away until I was the girl standing on the streetcorner again, cold wind against the backs of my bare legs as the cars crept by, each with its cargo of hungry-eyed men.