Free Angel Town by Lilith Saintcrow

ending up with my arms around his throat. He straightened, and my legs came up instinctively around his middle. Just like an uncle taking a kid piggyback riding, and I was breathing in his hair.
    “We’re running for the barrio,” he said over his shoulder. “Relatively safe there, even with the war.”
    “War?” I took a deep breath. Cat Were, musk and wildness—familiar, but it wasn’t him I was thinking of.
    Saul. Where are you, catkin?
    The last thing I remembered was Galina’s face when she told me he’d been taken. By hellbreed. But there was a maddening blank spot after that, bruise-colored, aching, and blank as a dead TV monitor. I had no time to settle down and think and try to figure out what to do about it.
    “War on Weres, Jill. You’ve been out a while. Things are…complex.” He tilted his head and tensed.
    The skittering footsteps drew closer. The night pulled itself taut, a drumskin over vibrating hatred. “I can fight.” But I held on.
    He burst into motion, bolting for the blind end of the alley. Up the wall in a breathless rush, and the city yawed underneath. Fur scraped my arms, he dropped halfway into catform, and I hugged him as tight as I could, my right wrist coming alive with sweet piercing pain. I hoped I wasn’t throttling him—and I hoped he could run fast enough.
    Because a choked cry rent the darkness behind us, and I knew they’d found our trail.

11
     
    W e almost made it. The edge of the barrio was temptingly close, but there were just too many of them. They were between us and safety, and we crouched on a rooftop in the lee of a billboard for car insurance. Traffic crawled along Lluvia Avenue below, rubies one way and diamonds the other, civilians with no idea a running battle was going on above their heads.
    I slid from Theron’s back as he gasped, his sides heaving. Hauling my ass around probably hadn’t done him any good.
    “Catch your breath,” I told him, and slid the gun free. Even if the ammo was no good, it would at least slow the Traders down, and if I could bleed them out badly enough the corruption of their bargains would finish them off.
    Hellbreed were a different proposition. But I’d think of something. “Run for the barrio. I’ll draw them off.”
    “You…and your…Lone Ranger…shit.” He didn’t look good—cheesy-pale, those bruises, and if my eyes weren’t fooling me, thinner than when we’d started this whole barrel of fun. His metabolism was at scorch level to heal him and provide the speed he’d just used to cart me halfway across the city. “Never…ends…well.”
    Now that sounds familiar, too. I cast an eye out over the rooftop. “Quit talking. It’s wasting breath, and I need you ready to run when I make a diversion.”
    He gulped, his sides heaving, and shuddered. His breathing evened out, and he closed his eyes. “You have… no weapons. How…are—”
    “I’ve got a weapon, I’ll think of something.” I checked the gun, my fingers moving with ease. The ammo clipped to my new belt, worse than useless, was still comforting. “More than one way to skin a hellbreed, Theron.”
    “What do you remember?” He was perking up. This was a good hiding place. I almost didn’t want to leave it, but sooner or later they would find us. When they did, it would be ugly. He needed food, and rest, and the cold machine of calculation inside my head piped up with the thought that maybe he could tell someone who would care that I was walking around…alive? Kind of alive? Undead? Not-dead-anymore?
    Did I have any friends?
    “I sort of remember Galina telling me hellbreed took Saul. Not much after that. Or before, for that matter.” I sounded flip and casual, unconcerned. Don’t let him know you’re worried, too. Scanned the rooftop, crouched in a well of shadow, my ears perked for any faint hint of the things I’d spent the years since Mikhail’s death hunting. I remembered now, murderous nights and adrenaline-soaked cases, the