A slight smile touched his lips. "If you know so much about me, then likely you'll also know who sent me."
"I suspect I do, but I nevertheless want it confirmed."
"And if I tell you that, you'll let me run?"
"If you can still run, then yes." Even if he escaped the arriving police, he'd still have to face Hunter. She'd know in an instant I'd questioned her killer, but what she wouldn't expect was me recording it. "But only if you're honest with me. And I will know, trust me on that."
He smiled, but it held little amusement. "The truth will do you no good, because my employer is beyond anyone's reach. Even the Directorate's."
"She may be beyond the Directorate's reach, but no one is beyond the reach of death."
"Madeline Hunter is."
He'd finally named her, but I felt no elation. I'd need a whole lot more than this confession alone to protect me from her. But it might go a ways toward convincing both her brother and the Directorate that there were extenuating circumstances if – god forbid – she and I ever came to blows and I managed to survive the encounter and she did not.
If you and Hunter came to blows, Azriel said, voice grim, she would not survive. And no one – not the Directorate, and certainly not her brother – would ever know of her death. Valdis would consume body and soul. There would be nothing left to find, and nothing left to move on.
Good. Even hell was too nice a place for the bitch. I once again returned my attention to the vampire. "Madeline Hunter? The woman in charge of the Directorate?"
"The same one." He coughed. Bloody spittle lined his lips.
"Did she say why?"
"No. And I didn't ask. I'm paid to do a job, end of story."
It was the end, all right, for Jak and for him. Hunter wouldn't let him live, and we both knew it. Amaya, I said, and reached out a hand.
She didn't want to leave without a kill, and she hissed noisily, the sound rebounding through my brain. But she nevertheless withdrew, her hilt hitting my palm with a heavy thump. Letting me know she was unhappy by action as well as voice, I thought, amused.