Black Dog by Caitlin Kittredge Page A

ventilator,” the demon said. “I understand this Clint Hicks surrounds himself with shifters, and when Gary came to me to track him personally, I found he had measures in place to keep Hellspawn out of the area.”
    â€œThis hound,” I said, feeling sickness that wasn’t caused by Lilith grip my guts. “Was his name Wilson?”
    â€œHow the fuck do I know what his name was?” Lilith snapped. “For all I know, Gary calls you Sparky, Rover, and Spot. The countermeasures won’t keep me out for long, but breaking them is more effort than I’m going to put into one damned soul who thinks he’s smart, so go and fetch him.”
    There was that word again. Fetch. But since it was coming out of the mouth of a thousand-­year-­old demon, I pretended it didn’t bother me.
    I just nodded. Lilith opened the bathroom door and walked out, turning back only once.
    â€œAva, if you screw this up, do yourself a favor and walk into traffic before I find you. Because if I do, the Pit is going to be a vacation compared to what I have planned.”
    She left, and I was still curled up in the corner of the bathroom when Leo came back.
    I managed to tell him the deal, in a fairly coherent manner, while he got me off the floor and carried me to the bed. I wasn’t in the place to argue about that.
    â€œLilith?” he said as he uncapped a plastic bottle of gas station vodka and poured it over the cut on my arm. “Shit. She’s Gary’s head office?”
    â€œApparently,” I said. “Gary never talked about her except to threaten us with being her purse dogs if we got out of line.”
    â€œWell, Lilith is a big fucking deal,” Leo said. He got a needle and dental floss and positioned my arm flat. “This is going to hurt.”
    â€œWhat else is new?” I said.
    Leo threaded the needle and started sewing, tattooed fingers moving without any hesitation. “You should probably do what she says,” he said. “I don’t think we have a lot of choice.”
    â€œThe fuck is this ‘we’?” I said. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have a shark-­toothed bitch from Hell breathing down your neck.”
    â€œTrue,” Leo said. “But one of the most powerful vory v zakone slash necromancers west of the Mississippi knows I’m gunning for him, so I’m thinking heading to some country that’s inhospitable to both gangsters and deadheads might not be a bad idea.”
    â€œWhat’s the deal with you and your dad anyway?” I said, gritting my teeth. I wasn’t really interested in Leo’s sad life story, but it was better than sitting in silence watching a needle slice in and out of my skin.
    â€œWarlocks are supposed to pass on their skills to their legitimate kids,” Leo said, eyes never moving from his work. “I’m not, but none of my fuckup half ­siblings got the blood. He wasn’t happy about that, but he couldn’t kill me, so he devoted himself to keeping me under his boot. Eventually we’ll probably kill each other, but until then, I decided I was through being tied to his whipping post.”
    He bit through the floss and poured more vodka over my arm. “All done.”
    I examined the tight stitches. My arm already looked less like a flank steak. “You’re pretty good at that.”
    Leo tossed the needle and the bloody pillowcase I’d lain on into the trash. “My wife was a nurse.”
    The past tense was enough to keep my mouth shut. If Leo wanted to talk about his dead wife, he’d be talking.
    â€œIn the morning we’ll find a new set of wheels and go see what this Clint Hicks guy did to put a burr up Lilith’s ass,” Leo said. “In the meantime, I’m starving.”
    â€œI’ll go get us some grease passing for food if I can find a shirt,” I said. Leo’s lips parted in a small