Lilith Saintcrow - Night Shift

Cities need people like us,

those who go after things the cops can't catch and keep the streets from boiling over. We handle nonstandard exorcisms, Traders, hellbreed, rogue Weres, scurf, Sorrows, Middle Way adepts all the fun the nightside can come up with. Normally a hunter's job is just to act as a liaison between the paranormal community and the regular police, make sure everything stays under control.

Sometimesoften enoughit's our job to find people that have been taken by the things that go bump in the night. When I say "find" I mean their bodies, because humans don't live too long on the nightside unless they're hunters. More often than not our mission is vengeance, to restore the unsteady balance between the denizens of the dark and regular oblivious people. To make a statement and keep the things creeping in the dark just therecreeping, instead of swaggering.

And also more often than not, we lay someone's soul to rest if killing them is just the beginning.

BOOKS BY LILITH SAINTCROW

Jill Kismet Novels

Night Shift

Hunter's Prayer

Dante Valentine Novels

Working for the Devil

Dead Man Rising

The Devil's Right Hand

Saint City Sinners

To Hell and Back

Dark Watcher

Storm Watcher

Fire Watcher

Cloud Watcher

The Society

Hunter, Healer

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Orbit

Hachette Book Group USA

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.orbitbooks.net

Copyright 2008 by Lilith Saintcrow

First Orbit edition: July 2008

Excerpt from Hunter's Prayer copyright 2008 by Lilith Saintcrow

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, Inc. The Orbit name and logo is a trademark of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd.

ISBN-10: 0316001783

ISBN-13: 978-0316001786

Printed in the United States of America

For Nicholas Deangelo,

who never asked why.

The most terrible thing to face is one's own soul

Anonymous

"Sit. There."

A wooden chair in the middle of a flat expanse of hardwood floor, lonely under cold fluorescent light.

I lowered myself gingerly, curled my fingers over the ends of the armrests, and commended my soul to God.

Well, maybe not actually commended. Maybe I was just praying really, really hard.

He circled the chair, every step just heavy enough to make a noise against bare floorboards. My weapons and my coat were piled by the door, and even the single knife I'd kept, safe in its sheath strapped to my thigh, was no insurance. I was locked in a room with a hungry tiger who stepped, stepped, turning just a little each time.

I didn't shift my weight.

Instead, I stared across the room, letting my eyes unfocus. Not enough to wall myself up inside my headthat was a death sentence. A hunter is always alert, Mikhail says. Always. Any inattention is an invitation to Death.

And Death likes invitations.

The hellbreed became a shadow each time he passed in front of me, counterclockwise, and I was beginning to wonder if he was going to back out of the bargain or welsh on the deal. Which was, of course, what he wanted me to wonder.

Careful, Jill. Don't let him throw you. I swallowed, wished I hadn't; the briefest pause in his even tread gave me the idea that he'd seen the betraying little movement in my throat.

I do not like the idea of hellbreed staring at my neck.

Silver charms tied in my hair clinked as blessed metal reacted to the sludge of a hellbreed filling the ether. This one was bland, not beautiful like the other damned. He was unassuming, slim and weak-looking.

But he scared my teacher. Terrified him, in fact.

Only an idiot isn't scared of hellbreed. There's no shame in it. You've got to get over being ashamed of being scared if you're going to be a hunter, because it will slow you down. You can'tafford that.

"So."

I almost jumped when his breath caressed my ear. Hot, meaty breath, far too humid to be human. He was breathing on me, and my flesh crawled in concentric waves of revulsion. Gooseflesh rose up hard and pebbled, scales of fear spreading over my skin.

"Here's the deal." The words pressed obscenely warm against my naked skin. Something brushed my hair, delicately, and silver crackled with blue sparks. A hiss touched my ear, the skin suddenly far too damp.

I wasn't sweating. It was his breath condensing on me.

Oh, God. I almost choked on bile. Swallowed it andheld still, every muscle in my body screaming at me to move, to get away.

"I'm going to mark you, my dear. While you carry that mark, you'll have a gateway embedded in your flesh. Through that conduit, you're going to draw sorcerous energy, and lots of it It will make you strong, and faststronger and faster than any of your fellow hunters. You'll have an edge in raw power when it comes to sorcery, even that weak-kneed trash you monkeys flatter yourself by calling magic."

The hellbreed paused. Cold air hit my wet ear. A single drop of condensation trickled down the outer shell of cartilage, grew fat, and tickled unbearably as it traced a dead flabby finger down to the hollow where ear meets neck, a tender, vulnerable spot.

"I'll also go so far as to help you keep this city free of hellbreed who might interfere with the general peace. Peace is good for profit, you know."

A soft, rumbling chuckle brushed against my cheek, with its cargo of sponge-rotten breath.

I kept my fucking mouth shut. "Stay silent until he offers all he's going to offer,milaya." Mikhail's advice, good advice. I was trained, wasn't I? At least, mostly trained. A hunter in my own right, and this was my chance to become what?

Even better. It was a golden opportunity, and if he thought I should take it, I would. And I wouldn't screw it up.

I would not let my teacher down.

So stay quiet, Jill. Stay calm.

I kept breathing softly through my mouth; the airreeked of hellbreed and corruption. Tasting that scent was bad, as bad as breathing it through my nose.

I just couldn't figure out which was worse.

Something hard, rasping like a cat's tongue, flicked forward and touched the hollow behind my ear, pressing past a few stray strands of hair. If I hadn't been so fucking determined to stay still, muscles locked up tighter than Val's old cashbox, I might have flinched.

Then I probably would have died.

But the touch retreated so quickly I wasn't sure I'd felt it. Except that little drop of condensation was gone, wasn't it?

Shit. I was now sweating too bad to tell.

The hellbreed laughed again. "Very good, little hunter. The bargain goes thus: you bear my mark and use the power it provides as you see fit. Once a month you'll come visit, and you'll spend time with me. That's all