Chapter 4

Jack blinked once and shook his head. He was usually pretty good at pinning an alien on sight. At the very least, after speaking to it. How had he missed this?

The position Paul had settled in was not a fighter's stance. It was the stance of a terrified, cornered animal, more interested in escape than fighting. A gash had opened on his forehead, and the blood ran dangerously close to his right eye.

Crest took a menacing step toward him, but shouting from the alley stopped him cold. The fight between the girls and the clawed aliens was winding down from the sound of it. With a last snarl, Crest disappeared down the street.

Jack seized Ianto's and Gwen's sleeves and nodded Rhys toward the far end of the street.

"I thought you wanted answers," Gwen said.

"Call it a hunch, but I doubt we'll get any from those girls. Or with them around." As they jogged away from the alley, he checked to make sure no one followed. Paul was watching them, and Jack realized what it was about his eyes that had made him uneasy.

He had to be losing his touch, or maybe it was an effect of traveling through the rift. There was no other way he could have missed that the young man had slitted pupils.

Paul didn't breath until the strangers' auras faded from his sight. He found his knit cap near his feet and jammed it back onto his head with a little more force than was necessary, making sure to cover the scrape he'd earned when Dimitri threw him. He wanted to leave. He wanted to be at home, sinking into his bathtub and pretending the world didn't exist.

But running out on a team of slayers was never recommended. Especially when green scales made up seventy percent of your skin.

The last of the Skavish demons died with a wail, and Paul suppressed a shudder. He'd grown up among Skavish demons. One had been his nanny. Why did life have to be so damn complicated?

Cecilia charged out of the alley and seized Paul by the collar. He grabbed onto her wrist to avoid having his shirt ripped when she lifted him into the air. "I want the truth, you slimeball. What was this about?"

"You forgot, I'm the one who called you in."

He needed to watch his tone around slayers. That thought occurred to him when he felt the point of a blade poke into his stomach. Cecilia sneered. "Get cold feet, you little coward."

It was all Paul could do not to piss himself. As if he needed any other reminders of how pathetic he was. "I saw two people headed for trouble, I gave you a head's up. Maybe next time I won't bother." His chattering teeth made the statement less confident than he'd intended.

Cecilia pressed the knife a little harder, and Paul flinched and twisted. "It's an awfully big coincidence" Cecilia hissed. "That Dimitri happened to be the one involved, don't you think."

"I try not to think. It leads to problems like this." Paul gave up trying to avoid the knife, despite feeling its tip pierce his skin. Blood seeped into his shirt. "I'm not with Dimitri anymore," he whispered.

"Once demon scum, always demon scum." Cecilia's arm tensed, and Paul cringed, expecting to feel the blade sink all the way in.

"Cecilia! Let him go!" Mirka's soft voice sounded odd raised to such volume.

Paul hit the dirt road on his backside, and his hand went straight to the wound in his side. It would heal quickly, but the fear would cling to him for days.

Mirka appeared over him like an avenging angel, staring down Cecilia with a confidence Paul wished he had. "Go deal with clean up." Mirka knelt beside Paul without waiting to see what Cecilia did.

The other slayer only rolled her eyes and walked away.

"Are you okay?"

Paul nodded. "Never better. Remember my resolve to mind my own business. Why does that go out the window the same minute I see a couple out of towners about to stumble into a death trap?"

"Because you have a good heart." With a glance over her shoulder, Mirka switched to Russian. "Do you know what Dimitri is planning? If he's planning anything?"

Paul shook his head and answered in the same language. "He's always got something on the boil, but he doesn't share with me."

She made a face. "Badness to the nth degree."

Paul laughed. "You've been around Mr. Harris too much."

She touched his cheek, and went back to English. "You used to call him Xander."

Paul didn't move away from the casual gesture, because he knew it would hurt her feelings. "I lost that right." He pushed himself to his feet, waving off her effort to help him. "I'll see you around, Misha."

"Wait." She rested a hand on his shoulder, the tension in her muscles screaming how much she wanted to pull him into an embrace. "Come stay at the house. You shouldn't be alone with Dimitri pissed off at you."

"Dimitri doesn't care about me." He glanced toward the alley, where Cecilia had taken command of the body disposal. "And I feel safer at my apartment."

She nodded. "Be safe, bratishka. Call me." She put a note of force behind the last words, and poked him in the shoulder for emphasis. Then she was gone, in the alley joking with her sister slayers.

Paul swallowed the bitter taste that had risen in his mouth and headed back to his car.

Jack made his way down the now empty street, alert for the slightest movement or hint of a threat. He knew he was being watched. The eyes crawled across his skin like Deluvian sucker worms. The owners of those eyes were content to simply watch, which suited Jack fine.

He reached the spot on the road where Paul had landed, and crouched to examine the concrete with his torch.

There. A smear of blood. He dipped the sample strip into the stain and loaded it into his comm. unit. The thing still worked, at least as a GPS, and within the hour, it would lead them to a weak link.

And, hopefully, the answers Jack wanted.