Part 23 (1/2)

It was difficult, but I persevered for three hours.

That was how long it took for me to track the Stygian and catch her alone.

The sweep of my kukri had missed her head-but not the hairs growing out of it. And while my grasping fingers had not found her eyes an instant later, they had s.n.a.t.c.hed those hairs out of the air before they could fall. The tracking spell the skull had taught me had been good enough to let me find the Stygian, despite any countermeasures she might have taken.

When she entered her hotel room, I was half an inch behind her. She never knew I was there until my lips touched the back of her neck, and I unleashed my demon upon her.

She let out a sudden gasp, as my Hunger, starved for so long, rushed into her flesh. Though she might have had the mind and thoughts of a dozen alien beings, she had a mortal life force and a mortal body-a woman's body, and, as I had told the skull, a rather lovely one at that.

She tried to struggle for five or six seconds, until her nervous system succ.u.mbed to my Hunger, until the first o.r.g.a.s.m ripped a moan of equal parts ecstasy, need, and despair from her throat.

”Shhhh,” I told her, my teeth gently finding her earlobe and my hands roaming. ”It won't hurt. I promise.”

She cried out in despair again, as her body began moving in helpless acquiescence to desire, and my own reservations flickered and died before the raw, aching need of my Hunger.

I spend most of my life fighting my darker nature.

Most of it.

Not all of it.

I bore the Stygian to the floor and fed her to my demon.

Lara would help me get rid of the body.

7.

A long, long shower and the cleansing force of the rising sun had been enough to wash away the illusion that had obscured my true features.

I visited my brother at his office the next day.

”How's business?” I asked him.

He shook his head, scowling. ”You know what? I've been doing so much gopher work for the Council and the Wardens, I think I must be forgetting how to be a private eye.”

”Why's that?”

”Oh, I went up against this complete joke of a bad guy yesterday,” he said. ”Kidnapper. I mean, you should have seen this loser. He was a joke joke.”

”Uh-huh,” I said.

”And somehow he manages to get away from me.” Harry shook his head. ”I mean, I got the kid back, no problem, but the little skeeve skated out on me.”

”Maybe you're getting old.”

He glowered at me. ”The worst part is that the chick who hired me, it turns out, isn't even his mother. She was playing me all along. The kid's been missing for three days, and his real real parents are trying to get the cops to freaking parents are trying to get the cops to freaking arrest arrest me. After I pull him off a freaking sacrificial altar-okay, a cheesy, stupid sacrificial altar, but a sacrificial altar all the same.” me. After I pull him off a freaking sacrificial altar-okay, a cheesy, stupid sacrificial altar, but a sacrificial altar all the same.”

”Where's the chick?” I asked.

”Who knows?” Harry said, exasperated. ”She's gone. Stiffed me, too. And good luck trying to get the kid's parents to pay me for the investigation and rescue. There's a better chance of electing a Libertarian president.”

”The perils of the independent entrepreneur,” I said. ”You hungry?”

”You buying?”

”I'm buying.”

He stood up. ”I'm hungry.” He put on his coat and walked with me toward the door, shaking his head. ”I tell you, Thomas. Sometimes I feel completely unappreciated.”

I found myself smiling.

”Wow,” I said. ”What's it like?”

THE WARRIOR.

-novelette from Mean Streets Mean Streets Takes place between Small Favor Small Favor and and Turn Coat Turn Coat and before ”Last Call” and before ”Last Call”

Once upon a time, when moving into a new neighborhood, I spent a few days meeting the new neighbors. Nothing big, just visits to say h.e.l.lo, introduce myself to the other family with children my son's age, another family with a high-school-aged daughter who often babysat for the other families on the street, the usual sort of thing. I had a bunch of innocuous interactions with them that didn't look like anything special-at the time.

Fast-forward five years. Over the next few years, I came to learn that some of the most inane, unimportant little things I had done or said in that time had impacted several of my neighbors in enormous ways. Not necessarily good or bad, but significantly, and generally in a positive fas.h.i.+on, or so it seemed to me.

If I'd chosen different words to speak, or timed my actions only slightly differently, it might well have altered their lives-and if I hadn't been paying close attention, I might not have realized it had happened at all. It was my first real-life lesson in the law of unintended consequences-and the basis of my belief that big, important things are built from small and commonplace things, and that even our little acts of petty, everyday good or evil have a c.u.mulative effect on our world. A lot of religions make a distinction between light and darkness, and paint portraits of dramatic battles between their champions.

But maybe the ”fight on the ground” is a lot more common than we ever really think. It happens every day, and a lot of the time we might not even be aware that it's going on-until five years later, I guess. Our smallest actions and choices matter. They tell us about who we are.

That was the idea I tried to carry into ”The Warrior.”

That, and the idea that what seems like a good thing or a bad thing might not be either, seen from another point of view. Many readers were upset with Michael's fate at the end of Small Favor Small Favor-how horrible that a character who was basically so decent got handed such a horrible fate, being shot and crippled for life by the champions of h.e.l.l itself. What a tragedy that he couldn't continue the fight.

Judge for yourself how tragic it was for him.

I sat down next to Michael and said, ”I think you're in danger.” Michael Carpenter was a large, brawny man, though he was leaner now than in all the time I'd known him. Months in bed and more months in therapy had left him a shadow of himself, and he had never added all the muscle back on. Even so, he looked larger and more fit than most, his salt-and-pepper hair and short beard going heavier on the salt these days. sat down next to Michael and said, ”I think you're in danger.” Michael Carpenter was a large, brawny man, though he was leaner now than in all the time I'd known him. Months in bed and more months in therapy had left him a shadow of himself, and he had never added all the muscle back on. Even so, he looked larger and more fit than most, his salt-and-pepper hair and short beard going heavier on the salt these days.

He smiled at me. That hadn't changed. If anything, the smile had gotten deeper and more steady.

”Danger?” he said. ”Heavens.”

I leaned back on the old wooden bleachers at the park and scowled at him. ”I'm serious.”

Michael paused to shout a word of encouragement at the second baseman (or was that baseperson?) on his daughter Alicia's softball team. He settled back onto the bleachers. They were covered in old, peeling green paint, and it clashed with his powder blue and white s.h.i.+rt, which matched the uniform T-s.h.i.+rts of the girls below. It said COACH in big blue letters.

”I brought your sword. It's in the car.”

”Harry,” he said, unruffled, ”I'm retired. You know that.”