The images were burned into the darkness behind my eyelids. A cavalcade of horrors, Hell reproduced in miniature, and Perry’s soft corrupting voice, smooth as velvet and so, so amused.

God is not here. Of all people you should know that.

Dark exhaled up from the cold pavement, the sun sliding below the rim of the earth. “How is she?” Rosie’s voice, soft and respectful.

“Quiet.” Saul’s deadpan reply held no trace of levity. “Taking it a little hard.”

“I brought some coffee.” Wonder of wonders, Rosie sounded shy. “Jill? Want some coffee?”

Get up, Jill. Mikhail’s voice, the harshly weighted syllables, as if he was tired and wounded. Get up, and do your duty. You are hunter. This is what you do.

I raised my head. Slowly. The sun was on her tired way back down under the rim of the earth, and night was rising.

Rosie’s freckles stood out garishly against the paleness of almost-shock. Her hair was pulled sleekly back, but she still looked tired and frazzled. Carp was talking to a forensic tech, leaning against a squad car, a defeated slump to his shoulders. He looked a little green, and his hair stood up as if he’d run his fingers back through it more than once.

“Thanks.” The word cracked, my voice as dirty and disused as an empty room. I took the Styrofoam cup of coffee sludge Rosie offered. The laces of her white canvas sneakers were dirty, and that one small detail suddenly filled my eyes with tears. “I’m sorry, Rosie.”

“For what?” She shrugged. “Better we find these people now. We have a chance of identifying them. Hopefully, that is.” One side of her mouth pulled down. “You look like hell.”

Not yet I don’t. But soon I probably will. I took a sip of the burned coffee. “Thanks.”

“You gonna be okay?”

No. Not even close. No way. “Fine.”

Saul leaned over, bumped me with his shoulder. The coffee splashed inside the cup, its surface oils swirling.

“What do you want us to work on, Carp and me? We’ve been getting up to speed on this organ stuff with Badger and Sullivan.”

I returned to myself like a heavy sigh, sinking back down into my body. Leather creaked as I sat up straight, I heard a car door shut quietly. Someone else started to heave. I took another swallow of the liquid masquerading as coffee. “You and Carp can process the scene and keep on the lookout for another one. Other than that, nothing. It’s too goddamn dangerous to have you guys poking around, I don’t want to lose either of you.”

I suppose I should have taken it as a compliment that she didn’t argue. “What are you going to do?” She sounded less like a seasoned detective and more like a teenager frightened to death by ghost stories told around a campfire. It just showed how sane she was.

“Find the Sorrows bitch responsible for this,” I answered quietly. “Take her out. And her entire happy crew of helpers. Kill them and leave them in stinking gobbets somewhere, and curse their bones so that their souls find no rest in this world or the next. Nobody fucks with my city.”

A short pregnant pause was broken only by the sound of someone still heaving. Quiet murmurs.

“Well,” Rosie said finally. “Nice to know you have a plan. Anything we can do?”

“Keep your heads down.” I rocked up to my feet, my knees protesting. I felt bruised and tender all over. “One way or another this is all going to be over soon. Either I’m going to kill them all….” I glanced at Perry, who had finally moved and came silkily through the organized chaos of processing one of the worst murder scenes in Santa Luz history.

“Or?” Rosie prompted. “Do I really want to know?”

“Or you’ll need a new hunter, and quick. Not to mention you’ll want to get as far away from this fucking city as possible.” I handed the coffee cup back.

“Lovely, Jill. That’s really reassuring.”

“Not my job to be reassuring. You’re a good cop, you know that?”

“Coming from you, that means something.” A tired, sour smile lit her face. “I’ll go tell Carp the good news. You might want to slide away before he decides to corner you and tell you not to do anything stupid.”

“You’re not going to tell me that?”

“He thinks you’ll listen; I know better. Be careful.” She looked up at Saul. “You too, Tonto.”

He nodded, silver chiming in his hair. Perry reached us as Rosie stepped away, heading back to Carp.

“Jill—” Saul began, rising like a dark wave.

“Hang on. Perry?”

“Kiss.” A tilt to his chin, a raising of one blond eyebrow, and his eyes began to glitter. He looked far more like the hellbreed I was used to seeing inside the walls of the Monde Nuit.

“Find Melisande Belisa. Bring her to me.”

He was about to protest, I suppose. At any rate, he opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then stopped, studying me intently. I was safe enough right now, if the wendigo was going to attack me it would have to find me first. Which wasn’t a comforting thought, but we needed someone on our side who knew what this other Sorrows bitch was up to.

And Belisa, damn her eyes, was the only one I could think of. Besides, if she gave me any trouble I’d have Saul and Perry hold her down while I took her spleen out the hard way.

And I would enjoy every goddamn moment of it.

I am not a nice person.

I held Perry’s gaze for a long, restless eternity. Then I folded my arms, the ruby at my throat beginning to vibrate. The scar, slumbering since I’d found the bodies, tingled. His aura tightened, the bruised sludge that marked him as hellbreed. Funny, but nothing with an aura like his should be able to produce hellfire in the blue spectrum.

Just what was Perry, anyway?

He dropped his eyes. “Certainly, my dear. Anything for my Kiss. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Good.” I watched him turn with an oddly uncoordinated grace, and begin walking away. “I want her alive, Perry. But I want her frightened.”

He waved one hand above his shoulder, as if I was bothering him with trifles. Saul bumped into me, crowding; I bumped back. The taste of ashes, burned coffee, and sourness still hung in my mouth. The scar on my wrist pulsed, but quietly, a soft mouthing caress, scales rasping seamed and puckered skin.

“Saul.” My voice sounded strange, as if I was several miles away and hearing myself talk. Pushing everything else away, boiling everything down to the simplest possible essence.

Distilling it.

“Right here.” And he was. I could feel his attention like sunshine on my face—but from far away.

From very far away. I focused on the gleaming paint of Perry’s limo as dusk spread over the sky, turning the blue to purple and tinting the clouds with pink in one last gasp of brightness. “I need you to go down into the barrio and find out what kills a wendigo. Keep digging until you find something, then come back to me. Take the car, I won’t need it.”

“Jill—”

“No. I need you to do this for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Some things.” Things I don’t want you to see me do, Saul. I love you.

“What kind of things?”

Bloody, screaming things. I watched as the headlights turned on and Perry’s limo smoothly banked out of the parking lot, heading north on Quincoa. “Please, Saul.” Don’t make me say any more.

“Try not to get into trouble,” he said, heavily. “Give me your keys.”

I dug in a pocket and handed them over, still staring at the spot where Perry’s limo had sat. My eyes blurred, and I felt the final click that meant I was lifting off, sliding away from the earth, into the space where there was no room for what I was feeling. The space that would hold me until it was safe to feel something again.

I have had enough. My city. They are trying to do this to my city.

“Jill?” Saul bumped into me again. Just like a Were, crowding me so I knew he cared. “I’ll come find you as soon as I know how to kill it. I promise.”