Heaven's Spite

Book 5: Jill Kismet

by Lilith Saintcrow

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

Jill Kismet has no choice but to seek treacherous allies - Perry, the devil she knows, and Melisande Belisa, the cunning Sorrows temptress whose true loyalties are unknown.

Kismet knows Perry and Belisa are likely playing for the same thing - her soul. It's just too bad, because she expects to beat them at their own game. Except their game is vengeance.

Nobody plays vengeance like Kismet. But if the revenge she seeks damns her, her enemies might get her soul after all...

"Packed with nonstop action…a compelling tale." - Romantic Times on Flesh Circus

Release date: November 1, 2010

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 320

Sample

How fast does a man run, when Death is after him?


The Trader clambered up the rickety fire escape and I was right behind. If I’d had my whip I could have yanked his feet out
from under him and had him down in a heartbeat. No use lamenting, had to work with what I had.


He was going too fast for me to just shoot him at the moment.

Didn’t matter. I knew where he was headed. And though I hoped Saul would be quick enough to get her out of the way, it would
be better if I killed him now.


Or got there first. And then killed him.


He went over the edge of the wall in one quick spiderlike scuttle and I flung myself up, the silver charms tied in my hair
buzzing like a rattler’s tail. The scar on my right wrist burned like a live coal pressed against my skin as I pulled etheric force through it. A sick tide of burning delight poured up my arm, I reached the top and was up and over so fast
I collided with the Trader, my hellbreed-strong right fist jabbing forward to get him a good shot in the kidneys while my left hand tangled in his dark, dirty hair.


We rolled across the rooftop in a tangle of arms and legs, my leather trench coat snapping once and fluttering raggedly. It
was singed and peppered with holes from the shotgun blast, where I’d lost my whip. I was covered in drying blood and very,
very pissed off.


Just another night on the job.

Oh no you don’t, fuckwad. One hand in his hair, the other one now full of knife hilt. The silver-loaded blade ran with crackling blue light as the
blessing on it reacted to the breath of contamination wavering around the Trader’s writhing. I caught an elbow in the face,
my eye smarting and watering immediately, and slid the knife in up to the guard.


The Trader bucked. He was thin but strong. My fingers slipped, greasy with blood. I got a knee in, wrestled him down as he
twisted—


—and he shot me four times.

They were just lead, not silverjacket slugs. Still, the violent shock of agony as four of them slammed through my torso was
enough to throw me down for a few moments, stunned and gasping, the scar chuckling to itself as it flooded me with crackling
etheric force. My body convulsed, stupid meat freaking out over a little thing like bullets. A curtain of red closed over
my vision, and I heard retreating footsteps.


Get up, Jill. Get up now.


Another convulsion running through me, locking down every single muscle. I rolled onto my side as lung fluid and blood jetted
from my mouth and nose. The contraction was so intense even my eyes watered, and I whooped in a deep breath. My hands scrabbled uselessly against dirty rooftop. My nails were bitten down to the quick; if they
hadn’t been I would’ve splintered them on tarpaper.


Get UP, you bitch!

My feet found the floor, the rest of me hauled itself upright, and I heard my voice from a dim, faraway place. I was cursing
like a sailor who just found out shore leave was canceled. Etheric force crackled around me like heat lightning. I took stock
of myself and took a single step.


So far so good.

Now go get him. Get him before he gets there.

I stumbled, almost fell flat on my face. Getting peppered with plain lead won’t kill me, but if it hits a lot of vitals it’s
pretty damn uncomfortable. My flesh twitched, expelling bits and chunks of bullet, and I coughed again rackingly, got my passages
clear. More stumbling steps, my right bootsole squeaking because it was blood-wet. The knife spun, blade reversed against
my forearm, and I blinked. Took off again, because the Trader’s matted black hair puffed up as he dropped over the side of
the building.


Now I was mad.

Go get him, Jill. Get him quick and get him hard.


A waxing half moon hung overhead, Santa Luz shuddered underneath its glow, and I hurled myself forward again, going over the
edge of the building with arms and legs pulled in just in case. The drop wasn’t bad, and I had some luck—the stupid bastard
decided to stand and fight rather than run off toward the civilian he’d marked for death.


He hit me hard, ramming us both into the brick wall of the building we’d just been tangling on top of. This rooftop was a chaos of girders and support structure for the water
tank looming above us. I got my left arm free, flipped my wrist so the knife blade angled in, and stabbed.


Another piece of luck—his arm was up, and my aim was good. The knife sank in at a weird angle, the axillary region exposed
and vulnerable and now full of silver-loaded steel. My knee came up so hard something in his groin popped like bubble gum,
and I clocked him a good one with my hellbreed-strong right fist.


Stupid fuck. While he was running, or at least just trying to get away, he had a chance. But fighting a pitched battle with an angry helltainted hunter? Not a good idea.


He folded, keening, and I coughed up more blood. A hot sheen of it slicked my chin, splashed on my chest. I pitched forward,
following him down. My knee hit, a jolt of silvery pain up my femur; I braced myself and yanked his head back. His scream
turned into a harsh rasping as the neck extended, vocal cords suddenly stressed.


Another knife hilt slapped my palm and I jerked it free of the sheath. My right hand cramped, he made a whining noise as I
bore down, my body weight pinning him. I’m tall for a female but still small when compared to most hellbreed, Traders, or
what-have-you. The scar helps, gives me denser muscle and bone, but when it comes right down to it my only hope is leverage.
I had some, but not enough.


Which meant I had to kill him quick.

The silver-loaded blade dragged across easily, parting helltainted flesh. A gush of hot, black-tinged blood sprayed out. Human
blood looks black at night, but the darkness of hellbreed ichor tainting a Trader’s vital fluids is in a class all its own.


Arterial spray goes amazingly far, especially when you have the rest of the body under tension and the head wrenched all the
way back. The body slumped in my hands, a gurgle echoing against rooftop and girders, twitches racing through as corruption
claimed the flesh. I used to think that if Traders could see one of them biting it and the St. Vitus’s dance of contagion
that eats up their tissues, they might think twice about making a bargain with hellbreed.


I don’t think that anymore. Because really, what Trader thinks they’re going to die? That’s why they Trade—they think the
rules don’t apply to them. Every single one of them, you see, is special. A special little snowflake, entitled to kill, rape, terrify, and use whoever and whatever they want.


They think they can escape consequences. Sometimes they do.

But not while I’m around.

My legs didn’t work too well. I scrabbled back from the body, a knife hilt in either fist. Fetched up against the brick wall,
right next to the indent from earlier. Sobbing breaths as my own body struggled for oxygen, my eyes locked to the Trader’s
form as it disappeared into a slick of bubbling black grease starred with scorched, twisting bones.


Watch, milaya. My teacher’s voice, quietly, inside my head. You watch the death you make. Is only way.

I watched until there was nothing recognizably human left. Even the bones dissolved, and by daybreak there would be only a
lingering foulness to the air up here. I checked the angle of the building—any sunlight that came through the network of girders would take care of the rest. If
the bones had remained I would’ve had to call up some banefire, to deny whatever hellbreed he’d Traded with the use of a nice
fresh zombie corpse.


But no. He’d Traded hard, and he’d used his bargain recklessly, burning up whatever remained of his humanity. I coughed again,
shuddered as the adrenaline dump poured through me with a taste like bitter copper. Training clamped down on the chemical
soup, my pulse evening out and my ribs bringing down their heaving.


Just another day on the job. And we were three scant blocks from Molly Watling, his last planned victim. Who was probably
scared out of her mind right now, even if Saul had shown up to get her out of the way.


It’s not every day your ex-husband Trades with a hellbreed and shows up with a thirst for human flesh, hot blood, and terror.
Trevor Watling had worked through his current wife, three strippers, and two ex-girlfriends, not to mention a mistress and
another woman grabbed at a bus stop. His sole victim of opportunity, his practice run for the others.


Even killers start out small.

I blew out between my teeth. The reek was amazing, and I was covered in goop, guck, and blood. The night was young, and I
had a line on the hellbreed Trevor Watling had Traded with. A hellbreed I was going to talk to, up close and personal, hopefully
with some silverjacket lead, because that was my job.


Time to get back to work.

But I just stood there for a few more moments, staring blankly at the smear on the rooftop. I’ve given up wondering why some men think they own women enough to beat and kill them. It used to be like a natural disaster—just get out
of the way and hope it doesn’t get you. Then I thought about it until it threatened to drive me batshit, chewing over the
incomprehensible over and over again.


Now it was enough just to stop what I could. But, Jesus, I’m so tired of it.

A vibrating buzz almost startled me. It was the pager in its padded pocket. I dug it out and glanced at it, and my entire
body went cold.


What the fuck is he doing calling me?

I tested my legs. They were willing, capable little soldiers now that the crisis was over. My shirt was ruined, and my leather
pants weren’t far behind. Still, all my bits were covered, and my trench coat was ripped and tattered but still usable.


I got going.

My pager went off again, and when I slid it out of my pocket Concepción, the Filipina ER nurse, looked at me funny. But they’re
used to me at Mercy General, and Saul made soothing noises at the sobbing, red-haired almost-victim.


“Montaigne at the precinct will have details,” I told the ER nurse, who nodded, making a notation on her clipboard. “She’ll
probably need sedation, I don’t blame her.”


The stolid motherly woman in neatly pressed scrubs nodded. “Rape kit?”

I shook my head. “No.” Thank God. I got there in time.

Of course, if I hadn’t, Molly Watling would be carted to the morgue, instead of driven to the ER or even forced to endure a rape exam. Small mercy, but I’d take it. Connie’s expression said she’d take it, too; her relief was palpable.


“It’s all right,” Saul said soothingly. The silver tied in his hair with red thread gleamed under the fluorescents, and he
didn’t look washed out in the slightest. But then, Weres usually look good in any lighting. “You’re safe now. Everything’s
okay.”


The slim red-haired woman nodded. Fat tears trickled down her damp cheeks. She flinched whenever I looked at her.

“Bueno.” Connie patted the woman’s arm. “Any injuries?”


I shook my head again. “Nope. Shock, though. Ex-husband.”

Comprehension spread over Connie’s face. No more needed to be said.

I rolled my shoulders back once, dispelling the aches settling in them. “So, sedation. Call Montaigne, get a trauma counselor
over here, and Monty’ll take care of the paperwork.” County Health has counselors on standby, and so does the police department.
Especially in cases like this. “I’ve got to get going.”


Connie nodded and deftly subtracted Molly from Saul. The redhead didn’t want to let go of his arm, and I completely understood.
A big guy who looks like Native American romance-novel cheesecake, red warpaint on his high cheekbones? I’d be clinging too.


“Th-thank you.” The almost-victim didn’t even look at me. “F-for everything. I didn’t th-think anyone would b-believe me.”

Considering that her ex-husband had terrorized every woman before he’d killed them, and he’d been a real winner even before Trading, it made sense. If I’d been a little quicker on the uptake, I might’ve been able to save some of the other women
as well.


But I couldn’t think like that. I’d done what I could, right?

That never helps. Ever.

“He’s not going to hurt you anymore.” I sounded harsher than I needed to, and she actually jumped. “He’s not going to hurt
anyone anymore.”


I expected her to flinch and cower again. God knows I’m hardly ever a comforting sight.

But she surprised me—lifting her chin, pushing her shoulders back. “I sh-should thank you t-too.” She swallowed hard, forced
herself to meet my eyes. It was probably uncomfortable—a lot of people have trouble with my mismatched gaze. One eye brown,
one blue—it just seems to offend people on a deep nonverbal level when I stare them down.


And like every other hunter, I don’t look away. It’s disconcerting to civilians.

I nodded. “It’s my job, Ms. Watling. I’m glad we got there in time.” Too late for those other women. But take what you can get, Jill. I shifted my attention to Connie. “I need a phone.”


“Si, señora. Use the one at the desk.” And just like that, I was dismissed. Connie bustled the woman away out of the curtained enclosure,
and the regular sounds of a Tuesday night on the front lines swallowed the sharper refrain of a terrified, relieved woman
dissolving into fresh sobs. The smell of Lysol and human pain stung my nose almost as much as the dissolving reek of a Trader’s
death.


Saul let out a sigh. He reached out, his hand cupping my shoulder. “Hello, kitten.”


I leaned into the touch. The smile spreading over my face felt unnatural, until my heart made the funny jigging movement it
usually did when he was around and a wave of relief caught up with me. “Hey, catkin. Good work.”


“I knew he wouldn’t get there before you.” His own smile was a balm against my jagged nerves. He’d put on some weight, and
the shadows under his eyes weren’t so dark anymore. The grief wasn’t hanging on him quite so heavily. “What’s the next emergency?”


I shrugged, held up the pager. “Gilberto paged from home.”

He absorbed this. “Not like him,” he finally said. Which was as close as he would get to grudgingly admitting my apprentice
was doing well.


“That’s what I thought.” I reached up with my left hand, squeezed his fingers where they rested against my shoulder. His skin
was warm, but mine left a smudge of filth and blood on him.


He never seemed to mind, but I took my hand away and swallowed hard.

Saul examined me. “Well, let’s see what he wants. And then, lunch?” Meaning the night was still young, and he’d like a slice
of time alone with me.


It’s kind of hard to roll around with your favorite Were when you’ve got a kid living with you, after all. I was about ready
to start suggesting the car’s backseat, but—how’s this for irony—I hadn’t had time yet. One thing after another, that’s a
hunter’s life. “I don’t see why not. I’ve got a line on the hellbreed Watling Traded with, too.”


He nodded. The fringe on his jacket trembled, and he turned on one heel. “Sounds like a busy night.”


“Aren’t they all.” I followed him out, past other curtained enclosures. Some were open, the machinery of saving lives standing
by for the next high-adrenaline emergency. Some were closed, the curtains drawn to grant a sliver of privacy. Someone groaned
from one, and a murmur of doctor’s voices came from another. Mercy General’s ER was always hopping.


The nurse at the desk just gave me a nod and pushed the phone over, then went back to questioning a blank-eyed man in Spanish
through the sheet of bulletproof glass as she filled out a sheet of paperwork with neat precise scratches. The patient swayed
and cradled his swollen, messily bandaged hand; he was pale under his coloring and smelled of burnt metal and cocaine. I kept
half an eye on him while I punched 9 and my own number.


He picked up on the first ring. Slightly nasal boy’s voice. “Bruja?”

“Gilberto. This better be good.” I regretted it as soon as I said it. He wasn’t the type to call me for nothing.

As usual, he didn’t take it personally. A slight, wheezing laugh. “Package for you, mi profesora. Wrapped up with a pretty bow.”


What? “A package?” My mouth went dry. “Gilberto—”


“Man who delivered it still here. Uno rubio, in a suit. Says he’ll wait for you.”


A blond, in a suit? The dryness poured down, invaded my throat. “Gilberto, listen to me very carefully—”


A slight sound as the phone was taken from my apprentice. I knew, from the very first breath, who was waiting for me at home.

“My darling Kiss.” Perry’s voice was smooth as silk, and full of nasty amusement. “He’s quite a winning elf, your new houseboy.
And so polite.”


Think fast, Jill. My heart leapt nastily. The scar on my wrist turned hot and hard, swollen with corruption. As if he had just pressed his
lips against my flesh again. “Pericles.”


Saul went stiff next to me, his dark eyes flashing orange for a moment.

The hellbreed on the other end of the line laughed. “I have a gift for you, my darling. Come home and see it. I will be content
with the boy until then.”


He dropped the phone down into the cradle. The sound of the connection breaking was like the click of a bullet into the chamber.

I slammed my receiver down, pulling it at the last moment so I wouldn’t break the rest of the phone. The man on the other
side of the glass jumped, and the nurse twisted in her chair to look at me. I didn’t bother to give a glance of apology, just
looked at my Were.


Saul’s eyes met mine, and I didn’t have to explain a single thing. He turned so fast the fringe on his jacket flared, and
he headed with long strides for the door that would take us out toward the exit. I was right behind him. The scar twitched
under the flayed cuff of my trench coat. Saul’s stride lengthened into a run.


So did mine.

Sarvedo Street was dark and deserted this time of night. I didn’t pull into the garage. I bailed out in front of my warehouse,
barked a “Stay in the car!” at Saul, and hauled ass for the door. Steel-clad boot heels struck sparks from the concrete, the
front door was open a crack, and I barreled through, rolling and coming up to sweep the front hall and wide-open space of
the living room. The charms tied in my hair buzzed, a warning.


Gilberto was on the couch, dark eyes wide and thin sallow face almost bleached. His knees poked through the holes in his jeans
and his red T-shirt glared against the couch’s slipcover. He looked cheesy-sick, and I didn’t blame him. Because on the other
side of the coffee table, looking down at my apprentice like he was choosing bonbons out of a box, was a bland-faced, pale-haired
hellbreed in a white linen suit.


My apprentice had Jack Karma’s Bowie knife out, the silver loaded along the blade’s flat running with blue light. He held
the knife up, a tiny bar between him and the slender shape of the hellbreed, who was leaning forward, weight on his toes. Highly polished wingtips placed just so on the
hardwood floor, his expensively cut platinum hair ruffled on a breeze that came from nowhere, Perry smiled a shark’s smile.
His chin jerked to the side and he almost moved before I was on him.


The shock grated through me, my aura fluorescing into the visible. Hard little sparks of blue crackled off sea-urchin spikes,
an exorcist’s aura hard and disciplined—and reacting to the soup of baneful intent in the air.


Gilberto let out a harsh yell, his voice breaking. Perry didn’t speak, but that could have been because I had him on the floor,
arm twisted up so far behind his back that whatever he had serving him for bones crackled, the gun pressed to the back of
his shiny blond head. One of my boots was on his other wrist, flexing down until something else made a creaking, almost-snapping
sound.


He gave a token heave or two and went still, the scar turning to soft velvet fire, sliding up my arm.

I would have preferred pain. Either way, the gun didn’t waver. All of a sudden I understood why Mikhail had almost drawn on
him the first time he’d shown up at the bar, sniffing around me. A million years ago, back when I was the apprentice and Mikhail
was the hunter.


The longer I live, the more things just seem to repeat themselves.

Perry chuckled. “Kisssssss.” Subvocal rumbling slid under the surface of the word, trailing away on a long hiss like a freight
train’s brakes failing on a long sharp hill. “Darling. So rough.”


“Shut. Up.” My knee dug into his back. I made sure I was braced, watched him. “Gil?”


A long, tense-ticking two seconds. My apprentice gulped. “Si, señora?” No trace of sarcasm or machismo. That was either good… or very bad.


“Go out the front door. Saul’s in the car. You two are going to have some lunch. I’ll catch up with you.” A nice even tone,
but I did not relax. Perry didn’t move, his body loose and unjointed against the floor. As if I was kneeling on a sack of
loosely threaded bones in a bag of noisome fluid.


“Si, señora.” He got up, slowly, like an old man. The Bowie knife boiled with blue light, and my finger tensed on the trigger.


It was time to make it very clear to a certain hellbreed that my apprentice was off-fucking-limits. If you give ’breed an
inch, they will take twenty miles. Your only hope is to make it clear the first time.


And God help me, I liked making things violently clear to this particular ’breed. “Let’s start at the beginning, Perry. You do not threaten my apprentice.”


He said nothing, just hissed. Which meant I wasn’t getting through.

So I pistol-whipped him twice, bouncing his head off the floor. He hissed again and surged up, I shoved him back down and snapped a glance at Gilberto, who was stumbling in slow motion, a sleepwalker in a nightmare. But he was heading the
right way, toward the front door. Saul would take care of him.


“Sweet nothings.” The sibilants dragged out over the rumble of Helletöng. “Oh, my darling. I’ve missed you.”


I stuck with the safest response possible. “You do not threaten my apprentice.” And I was so close to blowing his head all
over my living room floor. So, so close.


Not only because of the scar, rubbing against itself and moaning on my wrist. Not only because of Gilberto’s cheese-sick cheeks or the fact that Perry was here, inside the house
I slept in.


No. Because it would feel g. . .