Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [108]
She also discovered that he had left all of her windows wide open in order to catch the breeze. Normally she’d like that. But the air was surprisingly cool, as she discovered to her shock when she pushed the covers away.
“Great. Thanks heaps, partner,” she grumbled as she moved through the apartment, shutting and locking the windows. Clad only in a pair of cutoff gray sweatpants and a boxy pink T-shirt, she used the back of her hand to cover a yawn, then continued grousing. “What, you think some kind of honor code’s gonna keep me from getting ripped off? Not a chance of tha—aiie!” She jumped back when a large, furry white arm reached in to prevent her from closing the kitchen window. “Jesus, P.B., you scared the hell out of me. What the hell are you—Oh, God. Get in here!”
She helped the demon crawl through the window with none of his usual energy. The fur on his left side was filthy and matted with blood, and he stood as though something in his gut hurt.
“I was waiting for tall dark and prissy to leave, and I guess I kinda passed out,” he said, sitting gingerly in the nearest chair. “Didn’t want to deal with the disapproving stare thing. Not today.”
Wren was already busy, wetting a dish towel with warm water and wringing it out. Sitting on the table in front of P.B., she wiped carefully at the worst of the muck around his eyes. She ignored his usual slam at her partner, having heard Sergei call P.B. much worse over the years. Some males just couldn’t get along. “What trouble did you get yourself into this time?”
“Crazy vigilantes,” he muttered, not moving under her ministrations, even when she hit a particularly sore spot. “I think you’re right, Wren. Council’s not involved in this. Or if they are, it’s way deep, so these guys don’t know they’re being played.” He shivered. “Too nasty, they’d think the Council all sons of the devil, too. And not the way we usually mean it, either. They were screaming all sorts of weird shit, slogans, like they were having a rally. Mostly folk were ignoring ’em…. Then one of them spotted me over by Eighth Avenue, minding my own damn business. Decided I’d make good doggie treats.”
“You hadn’t heard Eighth Avenue wasn’t safe anymore?” Wren said in disgust, using her fingers to comb through the fur and make sure the cut underneath was clean as well.
“I heard, yeah. But this is my city too, isn’t it? Aren’t I as much a New Yorker as they are?”
“They’re crazy, P.B. I don’t think they get the whole demons-have-rights-too gig.” They’d taken out an angel, tried to seriously damage an adult leshiy. And now they had attacked P.B., who looked pretty damn fearsome when he wanted to. They were escalating. And based on the comments the member had made during their fight, she wasn’t confident that they were going to stop with the fatae members of the Cosa.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” She took the towel away and inspected his face again. “Okay, turn.”
P.B. obligingly turned in his seat, allowing her access to his side.
“Looks like you took a slide in a gravel patch,” she said. “I’m assuming the dog looks worse?” She shook her head violently when he grinned evilly, showing all his teeth. “No, never mind, don’t want to know. It wasn’t the dog’s fault, you know.”
“You’d feel better if I ate the human?”
“I said I didn’t want to know!” she yelled. “And yes.”
“I’ll remember that next time. Speaking of which, do you know you’ve got a shadow on the house?”
“What?” She handed him the towel, now almost saturated, and stalked to the window to lean out.
“You can’t see him from here.”
Wren pulled back into the window, her momentary ire fading into a calmer consideration. A shadow was a stalker, a watcher, not someone who made direct overtures. But he would be reporting back to someone…. Before recent events, Wren would have just shrugged and ignored it. Before, it had