To hell and back, p.32
To Hell and Back, page 32
part #5 of Dante Valentine Series
I snorted, my fingers checking each knifehilt. "Home? What's that? Duty calls."
"You gonna come out for a beer with me on Saturday?" You bet. I'd rescheduled twice with him so far, each time because of a Trader. "If I'm not hanging out on a rooftop waiting for a fucking arkeus to show up, I'll be there."
He came back down onto his heels, twitching his corduroy jacket a little to get it to hang straight over the bulge of his police-issue sidearm. "You should really slack off a bit, Kiss. You're beginning to look a little. . ."
Yeah. Slack off. Sure. "Be careful." I turned on my heel. "See you Saturday."
"I mean it, Kismet. You should get some rest."
If I took a pina colada by the pool, God knows what would boil up on the streets. "When the hellbreed slow down, so will I. Bye, Ave."
He mumbled a goodbye, then bent to dig into the little black bag sitting by his feet. He was the official police exorcist, handling most of the Traders I brought in unless there was something really unusual about them. He only really seemed to come alive during a difficult exorcism, the rest of the time moving sleepily through the world with a slow smile that got him a great deal of female attention. Despite the smile, not a lot of women stayed.
Probably because he worked the night shift tearing the bargains out of Traders and Possessors out of morbidly religious victims. Women don't like it when a man spends his nights somewhere else, even if it is with screaming Hell-tainted sickos.
I hit the door at the end of the hall, allowing myself a single nose-wrinkle at the stinging scent of disinfectant and human pain in the air. The scar burned, my ears cringing from the slightest noise and the fluorescent lights hurt my eyes. I needed to find a better way to cover it up, and quick.
It's not every hunter who has a hellbreed mark on her wrist, after all. A hard knotted scar, in the shape of a pair of lips puckered up and pressed against the underside of my right arm, into the softest part above the pulse.
Two days until my next scheduled visit. And there was the iron rack to think about, and the way Perry screamed when I started with the razors.
My mouth suddenly went dry and I put my head down, lengthening my stride. I'm not tall, but I have good long legs and I was used to trotting to keep up with Mikhail, who didn't seem to walk as much as glide.
Stop thinking about Mikhail. I made it to the exit and plunged into the cold weary night again, hunching my shoulders, the silver tinkling in my hair.
Lilith Saintcrow, To Hell and Back
