I said nothing, but my hand tensed again. Such a little squeeze, and a .45 bullet would frag his head all to pieces. And then I’d find out what the scar would do without him behind it.

“I do not threaten your apprentice.” A singsong, over a deep well of roaring Helletöng. The speech of the damned rattled the walls, made the floor groan.

“English, motherfucker.” My throat had locked up, so it was a whisper. “You speak English only to me.”

“Bigot.” A soft, hurtful laugh. He had frozen under me, waiting. “Your maternal instincts are fetching, darling.”

“Give me a reason, Perry.” A certain amount of threatening theater is necessary to work this job. You stop the threats and the bitches start getting uppity.

But I meant it. I was begging him for a reason. To give me that opening. I could not just kill him out of hand.

That would make me just like him. Just like the things I hunted.

“Two gifts in one day? Woman, thy nature is greed.” He laughed, the sound bubbling in a pool of black ichor. “Look on the table, Kiss.”

I didn’t. I looked down at the seeping mess of his head. The urge to slam him down a few more times trembled in my bones. My heel flexed down on his stretched-out wrist, and he made a squirming, uncomfortable movement.

Like a worm on a hook.

“Say it again.” This time I sounded almost normal. A huge relief threatened to descend on me. If he mouthed off one more time, it was good enough provocation to shoot him. My conscience wouldn’t raise a peep, that was the important thing.

“I do not threaten your apprentice.” Level and bland. Like he’d gotten what he wanted.

Every muscle in my body tensed. I lunged aside, my heel grinding down sharply once more. I skipped back, and he rose in a black-spattered wave, shaking out his hands and turning to face me. His wrists crackled, and he made a queer sideways movement with his head, crunching noises inside his neck as he resettled himself inside his shell of normality.