“There.” A sidelong glance at me. “Come and see, Kiss. And tell me what a good little hellspawn I am, bringing you what belongs to you. Scratch behind my ears, who’s a good boy.” A flicker between his lips—a wet, cherry-red tongue, scaled and supple. The flash of color was obscene against his bloodless pallor.

I ran through everything he could possibly mean with that statement, came up with nothing good. “Step back. Over there.” I indicated a spot on the hardwood floor with my chin. Waited while he minced a bare foot, then two. “Further, Perry.”

His mouth turned down, but he did mince back a few more steps. “Your mistrust wounds me. It really does. Here I’ve gone to all this trouble—”

“Shut up.” I glanced down into the box, my whole body expecting him to jump me. The longer this went on, the more I expected something like that from him.

Hellbreed and Traders aren’t known for impulse control.

Inside the box were glinting shapes that refused to make sense for a moment. I exhaled, hard, as if I’d been punched.

Mikhail’s voice, from the secret space inside my head he always occupied. Sekhmet is Eye of Ra, and this is Eye of Sekhmet. Been passed down, milaya, from hunter to hunter in Jack Karma’s lineage. Before the first Karma we know little. But this is Talisman he had, for whatever reason. Is for my little snake when I am gone, no?

And then I was there in that shitty little hotel room, Mikhail’s life gurgling out through the hole in his throat and Melisande Belisa’s tinkling laugh echoing as she fled. With this Talisman clutched in her spidery little fingers. It had probably bought her up quite a few ranks in the Sorrows’ arcane and crowded hierarchy.

My shot went wide. Perry rammed into me, we slammed into the wall across the living room. Drywall dust puffed out. His fingers closed around my right wrist, squeezing. Bones ground together and the scar sent a sick wave of hot delight up to my shoulder, his fingertips plucking as if my arm was a string instrument. He pressed against me, his other hand worming at my hip, looking for my whip handle. And there was something hard in his pants, too. Shoved right up against me as if I wasn’t a hunter.