Perry made a small annoyed sound, his fingers suddenly biting down. Small bones in my wrist creaked and crackled. The pain was almost a balm.

"Why do you make this so hard?"

I found my voice. "Make what so hard?" I don't need to make this hard. You do that very well, thank you.

Besides, the harder Perry found this game, the better I liked it. It gave me an edge.

He tried again. "Think of what it could be like." His tone had dropped to a murmur. "If you sat here, with me at your right hand. Imagine what I could do with you to direct me. There's nothing I wouldn't do for your asking, my dear."

I had to swallow a braying, hysterical laugh. "You're hellbreed." It was all I needed to say. If I bit into the apple of that offer, the snake wouldn't be far behind. It was the same old song. Take a little, then a little more, and before you knew it you were up to your eyeballs in filth—your own, and a good deal more.

What makes you different, Jill?

I knew what. Mikhail had made me different. And as long as I was true to him and what he taught me, I was on the side of the angels.

Figuratively, of course. God needs killers as much as Hell does, I guess.

Maybe more.

"What kind of hellbreed?" Perry sounded only mildly interested.

I had to admit it. "I don't know."

"Ah." Now there was amusement, the lazy grin of a shark evident in his voice. "All I ask is that you turn a very little, Kiss. Just a very, very little."

It was a jolt of cold water. He could fiddle with the scar and try to worm his way in all he wanted, but Perry was just too fucking impatient to crack me. And I wasn't a stupid teenager anymore, ready to believe anything a man told me.

Just a little bit. I've heard that line before. Just do something small for me, and I'll give you everything you ever wanted. How stupid do you think I am, Perry? I set my boots against the floor, tensing in every muscle. "We have our bargain. You won't get anything else from me."

As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. My wrist ached as Perry squeezed, a fraction of a hellbreed's strength enough to make sweat break out along the curve of my lower back.

"I have enough time. I've broken stronger Traders than you."

So I've heard. Since I'd already pissed him off, I might as well go with it. "I'm not a Trader." I'm a hunter, and one day I'm going to kill you too. When I do. Perry, I'm going to throw a party afterward. Hell, I'll have it catered and bring out the barbeque. If II be a red-letter day.

His fingers eased up on my wrist, caressed the back of my hand, and finally slid between mine. How could such a small touch feel like such a violation?

I flinched, yanking my hand back, but those gentle fingers turned to steel again and pain tore through the hard knot of the scar as he pulled my hand up, turning the palm toward the ceiling and baring the pale glimmer of my wrist under the pushed-back cuff of my coat.

"Naughty, naughty," he murmured, as if I was a puppy. An edge of delight coiled under the words. He'd made me react.

Good for him.

His mouth met the scar, something cat-rasping against my skin, a brief caress.

I set my jaw, my neck aching with tension. Perry chuckled, a low satisfied sound, his breath oven-hot and swamp-wet against my skin as I went rigid in the chair, an invisible knife twisting in the scar, tangling and ripping at nerve-strings. Great pearly drops of water stood out on my forehead, my neck, the curve of my lower back, the backs of my knees.

At least it was pain this time, and not the sick gasping-sweet heat of the first time his lips pressed into my flesh, his aura injecting a nugget of corruption into mine. Pain can be controlled, even if it's your skin being torn off one millimeter at a time. Even if it's the nerves themselves turning traitor and running with hot acid.

Even if it went on until I made a small betraying sound in the back of my throat, instantly swallowing it. It was a half-broken, hurt little cry, as if I'd been punched.

Immediately, he let go, his head coming up, his fingers sliding free of mine. My hand fell limply to the table and I slumped, the sudden relief almost enough to wring another sound out of me.

Perry let out a long breath, jagged, as if he had just finished spending himself. It was an intimate sound, and I cringed away from it. A filthy feeling circled my skin, as if I'd pressed my naked body against a cold grimy windowpane.

Silence returned, neon buzzing finally intruding on my ears like a bee caught on a dead dry windowsill.

I was shaking. I pressed my hands into the table's slick glassy surface and wished I could kill him. The need to get up, to empty a clip into his body, to flick the whip forward and listen to him scream like an arkeus—the temptation shook me. Like a dog shakes a toy in its sharp teeth.

"You may go." Dark amusement burbled under his light even tenor. "Unless you want to stay, my dear. I'd like that."

"Fuck you." It managed to come out steady. I pushed myself up to my feet, managed to stand. Sweat cooled icy on my forehead. The charms in my hair tinkled. "I won't be back until next month."

The urge to kill him shook me even harder. A physical need, like the need to eat or empty my bladder or even the need to breathe.

Kill him, one part of me whispered. You can do it. It might not be easy but you can do it.

The rest of me dug in heels and resisted. If I killed him now, I'd be violating the bargain. And I knew what that would make me in my own eyes.

Just as bad as the things I hunted, that's what.

The amusement intensified. Perry sounded almost goddamn gleeful. "You'll see me before that. Tell your friends from the government I'm hunting their little problem, too. We'll be quite a cozy little bunch, won't we. Like family."

I could have replied, but I didn't. I hit the broken door at a run, his laughter rising behind me, and got the hell out of there.

I ducked under the yellow tape and breathed out through my mouth. Foster hopped down from a Forensics van and hurried over, his dark-blue windbreaker glaring wetly under the afternoon's heat haze.

I still felt cold, and more shaky than I liked to admit. Especially since I'd gotten off easy. Way too easy for Perry. He usually liked to mess with me more.

I had the sick unsteady feeling that he probably would before this was over.

Don't think about that. I blinked the thought back and met Foster's eyes. "What do we have?"

The gully at the edge of Percoa Park was stony and full of trash, and I smelled the thunderous odor of the thing I was chasing, but with no exotic taint of hellbreed. My hair was dry from the heat in the Impala, both windows rolled down, but salt still filmed my skin. I hadn't even managed to stop for a burrito. My stomach was unhappy, and the rest of me wasn't too prancing-pony either.

Still, I was free until next month. I'd make it. Piece of cake.

"Three, we think. Maybe more." Foster was pale, his sleek dark hair slightly mussed. "The Feebs are looking at it."

I shook my head. "Is Juan with them?" Juan Rujillo was the local FBI liaison, and a good one. Not like the last asshole.

"No, he's on vacation." Mike gave me an odd look. It wasn't like me to forget that kind of detail. "You look like shit, Jill."

"Thanks." I just played patty-cake with a nightmare. "How many feds?" I hope the country boy stayed at home.

"Two. Man and woman. She's a looker."

"Hands off if you know what's good for you. I'll just follow my nose." Since I hadn't covered the scar yet, I could smell it all—reek of rotting trash, anemic out here in the dryness, the gassy ripe smell of human death, and the smell of a rogue Were.