Well, an exorcist usually ends up eccentric. It's the nature of the job. Eva paints and gilds hollowed-out chicken eggs. Benito likes hanging upside-down in a gravity rack, says it helps him sleep. And Wallace likes going out into the desert for jaunts with only a loincloth and a canteen for company.

The number on the pager blurred as I blinked at it. Then I let out a soft breath, my ribs squeezing down, and the sound caught in my throat became a low reedy whistle, as if I'd been punched hard and had to suck the air back in.

When I could talk again, I said, "Fuck."

"What's up?" Avery didn't sound very interested. He leaned back, his good eye closed, the ice clasped to his face.

"Got to go. It's past dawn, you should be all right for a while. Call if you need me." Shut up, Jill. You had to go see him anyway.

But he shouldn't be calling me, dammit. Christ. Why am I so upset?

It wasn't just the prospect of going into the Monde Nuit. I did that every month.

She stinks of hellbreed.

That was it. I smelled like hellbreed. Like the very things I fought. Usually I ignored the point successfully enough to function.

Thanks to a stinking country-boy Were, I now had to think about it.

I stood up. Avery waved his beer bottle, languidly. "Another parade of heart-stopping excitement, brought to you by the Santa Luz Exorcist Squad." The ice crackled as he shifted it against his face. "I'm going to go see Galina, have her fix this eye. Don't forget about Saturday."

"I'll see if I can squeeze it in," I tossed over my shoulder, settling my coat with a quick shrug. The whip brushed my thigh as I strode away, and the ruby warmed in the hollow of my throat.

I was grateful for that warmth. It crawled down inside me, and as I hit the stairs at the end of the hall—one exit and entry for any exorcist's lair, it works out better that way—I looked down at my left hand. The ring was there, silver still bound tight around my third finger. Mikhail's promise, Mikhail's mark, given to me before I even knew Perry existed.

I blew out between my lips as I swung up the stairs, my shoulders coming up and a welcome heat beginning behind my breastbone. It was anger, and I fed it with every last scrap of energy as I blew down another long hall and out the back door of the administrative section of the jail, into the cold, clear light of dawn.

I knelt in a back pew at Mary of the Immaculate Conception, my forehead against the hard wood of the seat in front of me. Candles flickered dimly, and despite the simmering heat of midmorning outside it was cool and quiet in here. My pager had stopped buzzing.

Get it together, Jill.

There was only one thing to do, and I was putting it off. I swallowed dryly, heard my throat click.

"Thou Who," I began, and heard Mikhail's voice next to mine as he taught me the prayer. "Thou Who hast…"

I couldn't say them, so the words unreeled in my head as I forced my shaking hands together in tight fists.

Thou Who hast given me to fight evil, protect me; keep me from harm. Grant me strength in battle, honor in living, and a swift clean death when my time comes. Cover me with Thy shield, and with my sword may Thy righteousness be brought to earth, to keep Thy children safe.

A tall order, even for God. In a fight between God and hellbreed, I would rather have a good stock of ammunition on my side.

That's blasphemy, Jill, no matter how much it helps. But you're damned anyway, aren't you. What does it matter?

I lifted my face. The crucifix over the altar was a gentle one, not like the twisted screaming monstrosities I've seen in some churches. This Christ looked almost tranquil, as if there had been no pain at all, as if death was a balm and not something to fight tooth and nail against.

Maybe that's what Mikhail saw in me. Fighting tooth and nail. Like a Were, tooth and nail. So I stink of hellbreed, do I? Well, it keeps the innocent safe. Or safer, at least.

That was the trouble with the prayer, Mikhail told me. Even if you only mouthed it, you ended up doing it. Believing in it.

Stupid, he would snort after a few shots of vodka. They call us heroes. Idiots.

But I didn't want to think about that. If I started brooding about how much I missed Mikhail, I might inadvertently give Perry an opening. And nobody wanted that except Perry himself.

I started again. "Thou Who," I whispered, my lips numb. "Thou Who…"

I could not frame the middle part of the prayer. There was only one part that mattered, anyway. I whispered it into my sweating hands, clasped together in prayer. "O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell's legions."

I've had enough of being forsaken, God. You think you could cut me a little slack? Run, running, my brain like a rat in a cage.

You're not too tightly bolted right now, Jill. Maybe you should do something to take the edge off. But what?

I dropped my forehead down again and breathed in, smelling incense and wood and candle smoke, the particular mix that means Catholic. Get out your guilt and your rulers and your smell of wax and wine, and you had my childhood. Or at least the part of it that gave me the reflex of prayer.

As a hunter, I was barred from both Confession and Communion for the sin of murder repeated every night, not to mention trafficking with Hell's minions. But I could still pray, and I would, by special dispensation, be buried in hallowed ground if there was enough of me left to bury.

Unless I died contaminated. Or unless, like Mikhail, I wanted to go into Valhalla with flame licking my bones.

Mikhail. The anger rose again, tattered and threadbare, and I petted it, coaxed it, mulled over it to give myself strength. Rage was my best friend, for all I kept it a banked fire most of the time. You cannot fight effectively if your head's full of anger. You have to think past the rage, let it fill you and see the world in front of you as action and reaction, with your own path laid clear and shining in front of you, whether through a fight or to the door of a hellbreed nightclub.

Oh, fuck. Get going, Jill. You have shit to do and a rogue Were to catch. Get out there and kick some ass. You've done it every month since you made the bargain, sometimes twice, and you're still here. You smell of hellbreed and you're tired and your temper's a little frayed, but you're still here, goddammit. Now get up, and go twist Perry's arm until he gives up what you want.

And teach him to stop fucking with you. Be unpredictable.

I licked dry lips and pushed myself up. The hard wooden back of the pew slipped under my slick palms. My voice was a bare whisper, but it came. "O my Lord God, do not forsake me when I face Hell's legions. In Thy name and with Thy blessing, I go forth to cleanse the night."

Though it's more like midmorning. My bootheels clicked as I reached the end of the pew, genuflected, and turned my back on the altar. I dipped both hands in the holy water, lifted its coolness to my face, hissing out slightly as a thin tendril of it rolled over the scar with a tracer of acid fire. I wiped the holy water in my hair, smeared it over my shoulders, and took a deep breath.

Then I got going.

The Monde Nuit is a long low building, and it sits in a brackish depression of etheric energy. The silver on me warmed, responding to the contamination of hellbreed in the air. The parking lot was mostly paved, but the for edges were gravel, and a spindly, thorny edge of greenbelt looked sucked-dry, clinging to the edge of contagion. I left my tmpala parked in the fire zone and headed for the door, eyeing the bouncer. This early in the day, there were only six cars in the lot, not counting mine. One was a low black limousine, its windows blind with privacy tinting, pristine despite the dust and haze of the day.