Free Hunter's Prayer by Lilith Saintcrow Page B

razor-sharp. If the Sorrow made a move, my Were would open his throat.
    “What are you out here for, Neophym? Who’s holding your leash?”
    He had apparently decided to talk. “Sister,” he choked, gurgling. “My … sister … please …”
    I bit my lip, weighing it. On the one hand, the Sorrows were trained to lie to outsiders.
    And on the other, no Sorrow would ever use the word sister. The only word permitted for female within the House was mistress. Or occasionally, bitch.
    Just like the only word for man was slave.
    I considered this, staring into the Sorrow’s eyes. “What’s a Sorrow doing in my town, huh? You’ve been warned.”
    “Fleeing … chutsharak. ” His breath rattled in his throat.
    Chutsharak? I’ve never heard of that. “The what?”
    It was too late. He crunched down hard with his teeth, bone cracking in his jaw; I whipped my head back and Saul did the same, scrambling away from the body in a flurry of Were-fast motion. I found myself between the body and the priests, watching as bones creaked, the neurotoxin forcing muscles to contract until only the crown of the head and the back of the heels touched the floor. A fine mist of blood burst out of the capillaries of his right eye.
    Poison tooth. He’d committed suicide, cracking the false tooth embedded in his jaw.
    Just as his heels slammed back, smashing into the back of his head, his sphincters released. Then the body slumped over on its side.
    “Dammit.” I rubbed at the cuff over my right wrist, reflectively. “ Damn it.”
    “What’s a chutsharak? ” Saul’s voice was hushed. Behind us, Father Rourke took in a deep endless breath.
    I shook my head, the charms in my hair shifting and tinkling uneasily. “I don’t know.” My throat was full. “Gods above. Why are they sending children? I hate the Sorrows.”
    “It’s probably mutual.” Saul approached the body carefully, then began to mutter under his breath, the Were’s prayer in the face of needless death. I left it alone. The poison was virulent, but it lost its potency on contact with a roomful of oxygen. He was in no danger.
    “Jillian?” Father Guillermo sounded pale. He was pale, when I checked him. Two bright spots of color stood out on his cheeks. “What do we do next?”
    “Any other transfers in the last year? Priest, worker, student, anyone?”
    “N-no.” He shook his head. “J-just K-Kit. Him.” His eyes flickered past me to the body on the floor. The stink was incredible.
    Father Rourke kept crossing himself. He was praying too. His rubbery lips moved slightly, wet with saliva. Probably an Our Father.
    Sometimes I wished I was still wholly Catholic. The guilt sucks, but the comfort of rote prayer is nothing to sneeze at. There’s nothing like prepackaged answers to make a human psyche feel nice and secure. “I’ll need to go over the transfer records. Why would a Sorrow want to infiltrate a seminary? Are you holding anything?”
    His face drained of color like wine spilling out of a cup.
    “Gui? You’re not holding anything I should know about, are you?” I watched him, he said nothing. “Guillermo?” My tone sharpened.
    He flinched, almost guiltily. “It is … Jillian, I …”
    “Oh, for God’s sake. I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me what I need to know!”
    “Sister Jillian—”
    “What are you holding?”
    “Jillian—”
    I snapped. I grabbed the priest by the front of his cassock, lifted him up, and shook him before his shoulders hit the wall. “Guillermo.” My mouth was dry, fine tremors of rage sliding through my hands. The scar on my wrist turned to molten lead. Behind me there was a whisper of cloth, and Rourke let out a blasphemy I never thought to hear from a priest.
    “Take one more step and I hit you,” Saul said, quietly, but with an edge.
    “I could have died.” I said each word clearly, enunciating each consonant. “ Saul could have died. If I’d known you were holding something I could have