She stood in the road, a statue of fluid silver. Behind her, other Blacksuits secured the apartment safe house, which she saw in flashes: dreamglass piled on the kitchen counter, broken bones and windows, captives splayed on the floor. Safe. In front of her, Maura Varg fled into an alley. Cat followed her. She closed with Varg, not fast enough—the woman’s glyphwork must be pushing her to the edge of sanity, to outrun a Suit. Alley shadows fell slick on Cat’s skin, and far below the world she heard the sunken moon’s song.
A carriage pulled up at the far end of the alley, door open. She saw it, and through silver the other Suits saw it, too, and Justice activated plainclothes officers nearby for pursuit. Varg would make the carriage before Cat could catch her. Normal horses couldn’t outrun a Blacksuit, but not all horses were normal.
A black, burning blur fell on Varg from the rooftops. She struck pavement and then the alley wall, skidded, found her feet in a tussle with a smoking human figure. Not a Blacksuit—and really burning, skin licked by flame, charcoal flakes falling as he moved. Fangs flashed bone white within the fire.
Raz.
Varg jumped on him. He hit her three times; the fourth time she caught his wrist. Glyphs shone noon bright on her arms. She spun him around and caught his neck in the crook of her arm. Her blade steadied against his throat.
Cat stopped.
They stood opposed in the alley.
“That’s right,” Varg said. “Don’t move.”
Varg backed toward the carriage. Cat took two steps forward.
Raz’s fires died, leaving scales of char like a snake’s dried skin about to shed.
“I’ll kill him.”
Cat had seen Raz survive a broken neck. But she didn’t know his limits, and did not want to test them now.
Seize her, the silver sang. Hold her. Bring her to Justice.
She forced the Suit aside, and fell from heaven’s gates. Silver seeped away and she was only Cat again.
The knife pressed into his skin.
She held out her hand—pink, weak, shaking with aftershocks of ecstasy. Varg could break her now, if she wanted. “Let him go. You can’t run.”
“I can run forever,” Maura Varg said.
Her glyphs guttered like 3:00 A.M. coals.
Raz smiled, though maybe he was just gritting his teeth.
Then he hit Varg hard in the face with the back of his head.
Varg’s nose shattered. Her knife tore into his neck. He fell, limp. Varg staggered, and in that second Cat leapt on her, threw her into the wall, hit her in the face, the jaw, doubled her over her knee. Varg crumpled and lay still, though breathing.
Cat ran to Raz.
Blood poured down his collar, a red scarf over his bleach-white shirt. His hand rose, trembling, to his neck, but could not reach.
She knelt beside him, took his wrist, felt the direction he wanted it to go, and pressed his hand against his wound. His teeth were white and sharp.
She shed her jacket, unbuttoned her shirt cuff, and pushed it up. Scars marked on her forearm, paired pinpricks, long gashes, faded, yes, but there was only so much a year could heal. If she was younger, they might have healed completely.
She raised her wrist to his mouth. His nostrils flared. There was a need in her—gods, such a need—hunger for the fullness she’d abandoned a year ago, but she found herself here anyway, in the alley, so weak.
His fangs bared.
She shivered in anticipation.
He pressed his lips together, shook his head.
She slumped beside him. “You really.” She was breathing hard, and not from the run. “You really should let me know what can kill you.”
“I’m.” His first try was wet and windy at once. He spit blood onto the pavement. “I’m not exactly sure. Extended sunlight, probably. Decapitation. It’s not like there’s a manual. And only dumb kids go around trying to off themselves.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s an existentialist thing.”
“Never did trust philosophy.” A pause, in which she failed again to find her breath. “You didn’t know you’d survive that?”
“I’ve had my throat slit before. I don’t experiment, but other people always seem happy to oblige.”
“Pirate.”
“Cop.”
She shrugged. “Thanks.”
“Hells. Now we have her, you have an excuse to take her ship. That’s the real prize. Rescue the people she’s smuggling, save the day. And I needed to work on my tan.”
She punched him in the arm. He winced.
Inside her, the pit still yawned, and beneath that pit, another, deeper.
7
The goddess addressed Cat in the shower, in her mother’s voice.
Catherine, why do you turn from me?
Oh, I don’t know if I turn from you as such, she replied as she shampooed. We have a close working relationship.
You live inside my body, yet we don’t talk like I do with my children.
I barely had my life figured out working with Justice. Then you came along.
You visited back alley bloodsucker dens for the thrill of being drunk. Does that constitute having your life figured out?
I didn’t say I had it figured well. Just figured. She soaped down, rinsed off, turned into the shower spray. I was raised to think you were dead, and a traitor. Your children were my childhood ghosts.
That isn’t my fault.
She shut off the water, reached blind for her towel, and rubbed herself dry.
I can help you. We can be closer than the structure of Justice allows. You are a priestess. You have made a vow. You could perform miracles.
Miracles aren’t my job.