Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Why? You had enough to deal with.” I looked down at the body on the pavement. True death had occurred, but the nerves were still glowing with false life—what Necromances called foxfire. The soul was gone. “I hate Chillfreaks,” I muttered.

  Lewis, his beaky face splashed with blood, leered up in my memory. I’d been collared, on a rare excursion with my social worker, when a Chillfreak had killed him; I’d only been a kid. Unable to protect him—he’d told me to run, and I had. The cops had arrived too late.

  Lewis had taught me to read, left me his books and his love of the classics. I had been lucky to have such a gentle social worker, one who was so genuinely interested in me, even if I’d been unable to tell him the truth about Rigger Hall because of the collar. When he died I’d been given a social worker who could have cared less that I was in hell and helpless; she was too busy collecting her checks and getting strung out on synth hash to pay any attention to the kid she was supposed to be looking out for. When Rigger Hall had closed down and the news of what Mirovitch had done to the kids became common knowledge, I never even got an apology from the stupid bitch. After that I refused to see any social workers at all.

  I returned to the present with a jolt as Japhrimel sighed.

  “I am to protect you,” he said, slowly, as if I was a stupid third-grader.

  “Up until I face Santino,” I told him, “I’m capable of taking care of myself.” I looked up.

  Eddie held Gabe, kissing her forehead. “You okay?” he said, his blood-dotted face thunderous with worry. She nodded her assent.

  I looked hurriedly away. I didn’t want to think about why it hurt me to see them together sometimes.

  “Danny?” Jace sounded breathless. “Danny!”

  “I’m fine,” I said, my sword whipping through the air, blood splashing from its shimmer. Power smoked along the blade, a habitual cleaning of the bright steel. I slid it back into the sheath. “Dammit, Jace. You took the Shaman. He was mine.”

  “Sorry,” he said, in a tone that suggested he wasn’t sorry at all. “Let’s move, kids. My instinct tells me that was only the first wave. Leave the bodies for harvest.”

  “You mind not giving orders on my hunt?” I snapped, and looked up at the demon. His face was set, his eyes sparking with radioactive green. “Thanks, Japhrimel.”

  He nodded. “Where now?”

  “Back to Jace’s house. This kind of changes the situation a little.”

  “They were serious,” Gabe said. She’d finally stopped clinching with Eddie. “Five million credits. Holy fuck, Danny, what’d you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything; I’ve been forced into this,” I snapped, and set off down the pavement after scanning the bodies. We should have stopped to search them, but I was too shaken to pause. I wanted a drink. “Come on.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I poured a full glass of brandy, handed it to the demon, and took a long pull off the bottle. It was good stuff, silken-smooth, igniting like a thunderball in my belly.

  Jace slugged a hit of vodka. Eddie cursed as Gabe swabbed at his arm with peroxin. I waited a few moments, exhaled, took another pull from the bottle, my other hand white-knuckled on my sword. My bloody sleeve flopped.

  “Careful with that, Danny,” Jace said. “I need you sober.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “Why does the Corvin Family want me, Jace? What aren’t you telling me?” You swore you were free and clear of the Mob when you met me, and I believed you. Silly me.

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry about the Corvins, sweetheart. I’ll take them down if they so much as touch you.”

  “You still work for them, don’t you, Jace? That’s why you didn’t want to talk about it. Once Mob, always Mob. You can’t take them down.”

  Jace’s face was bloodless under a mask of sweat, grime, and a spatter of blood high on his left cheek. “I bought myself free of the Corvins, Danny. They don’t own me.” He took another slug of vodka, smacked the shotglass down on the counter. The sharp sound crackled in tense air.

  I took another hit off the bottle, turned to look at the demon. “Jaf?”

  He shrugged, too. Goddamn shrugging men.

  He’s not a man, he’s a demon. The thought struck me with almost physical force. I stopped, staring at him. When had I started thinking about him as if he was human? That didn’t bode well. I tipped the bottle up to my lips again, but Japhrimel set his untouched glass down on the bar and took the bottle from me, his fingers hot against mine. “No, Dante,” he said softly. “Please. I will not allow you to be harmed.”

  Well, that’s comforting, I thought. And oddly enough, it was. “Okay,” I answered, letting go of the bottle. The brandy settled into a warm glow behind my breastbone. “So the Corvins want me alive. What the fuck for? And—” A horrible thought struck me just as I finished turning to face Japhrimel.

  He set the bottle down beside his glass, watching my face. “Dante?”

  I stood stock-still, frozen, my entire body gone cold. Abra told me Jace is working for the Corvins… The Corvins want me alive, and they’re paying so much… someone else is leaning on them, someone big… Jace and the Corvins. He’s one of them. Once Mob, always Mob.

  “Danny?” Gabe must have caught my sudden stillness, because she was staring at me, too, her dark eyes wide. “Danny?”

  I swallowed. “I’ve got to go up to my room,” I said, hearing the queer breathlessness in my voice. I sounded like a young girl viciously embarrassed at her first party. “Excuse me.”

  I was halfway to the door before Japhrimel fell into step beside me. He said nothing.

  “Danny, what’s wrong?” Gabe called. “Danny!”

  I found the grand wide staircase and started to climb, the premonition beating under my skin. Premonition—and shock. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

  But he betrayed me once, didn’t he? Left without a word—what do you want to bet he was called down here by the Corvins and that’s why he left? Abra warned me… she knew. And now he’s so willing to help… so very hospitable, stay in my house, it’s safer there, he said he bought himself free of the Corvins but I know the Mob, you never get free. Even if he bought something from them, they can squeeze him until he hands over an ex-girlfriend, can’t they?

  My brain shied away from the cold, logical conclusion. I didn’t want to believe it.

  The demon stepped behind me, soundless, his musky aura closing me in, a shielding I ignored because I didn’t have time or concentration to spare to shake it aside. He only touched me once, a subtle push on my blood-crusted shoulder when I almost got lost in the hallways. When we reached the blue room, I shoved the door open and bolted inside, trembling. Stopped.

  The room, instead of blue, was now white. Heavy fragrance drenched the air.

  Flowers. White flowers. Lotuses, roses, lilies, scattered over the room as if a snowstorm had dropped its blossoms. Gooseflesh raced up my arm, spilled down my back; my teeth chattered and my nipples drew up hard as pebbles. The flowers lay on every flat surface, even the floor, the smell was stifling, heady, and cloying. They piled on the bed, fluttered near the window, and I could see the bathroom was full of them, too.

  Santino had sent blue flowers to Doreen. Great sprays and cascades of flowers in every shade of blue. I still couldn’t look at irises or blue roses or cornflowers without shuddering.

  “Dante?” Japhrimel definitely sounded alarmed now. He closed the door, then stepped aside, his long coat brushing his legs with a soft sound. “My shields are intact; only the house servants could have—”

  “They were probably delivered and brought up by the staff.” I sounded like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Look, I need to change. And pack my bag.” I flattened my free hand against the door to brace myself. “Can you get me out of here without Jace’s shields reacting?”

  “Of course,” he said, lifting one shoulder and dropping it. All things should be so easy, that shrug said. “What is this?” he asked. “Did your former
lover perhaps—”

  “Santino sent all his victims flowers,” I said numbly.

  The demon stilled, his eyes turning incandescent.

  “He knows,” I continued. “He knows I’m here, and looking for him. And I’m a Necromance. He’s picked me as his next victim.”

  “Dante—”

  “That means I won’t have to worry about finding him,” I said. “He’ll find me.” I laughed, but the sound was gaspy, panicky. The world roared underneath me, spinning carelessly away, almost like a slicboard but my feet slipping, slipping—

  “Dante.” He had me by the shoulders. “Stop. Breathe. Just breathe.” His fingers bit in, and he shook me slightly. My teeth clicked together. I tasted apples, and the sour smell of my own fear.

  A whooping breath tore between my lips. My left shoulder gave a livid crunching flare of pain, shocking me back into myself. I found myself shaking, my hands trembling, the demon’s chin resting atop my head, his smell enfolding me. His arms closed around me, the feverish heat of Hell flooding my entire body. I was sneakingly grateful for it—I was cold, so cold my jaw clenched, my teeth chattered, and goosebumps rose everywhere. He had my sword—had I dropped it or had he just taken it from my numb fingers? That was three times he’d taken my blade. Was I really getting sloppy? When I was younger, I never would have dropped my blade.

  “Breathe,” he murmured into my hair. “Simply breathe. I am with you, Dante. Breathe.”

  I rested my forehead against the oddly soft material of his coat, filled my lungs with the musk smell of demon. Alien. It steadied me. The lunatic urge to sob retreated.

  “Calm,” the demon said. “Steady, Dante. Breathe.”

  “I’m okay,” I managed. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Very well.” But he didn’t move, and neither did I.

  “We have to find a place to stay,” I said, “and I have to… I have to…”

  “Leave it to me,” he answered quietly.

  “I’ve got to pack.” I sounded steadier now. “Anubis et’her ka. Se ta’uk’fhet sa te vapu kuraph.” The familiar invocation bolstered me.

  He didn’t move until I did. I rocked back on my heels and he let me go, his arms sliding free. His face was blank, set, his eyes burning holes. The mark on my shoulder throbbed insistently. He held my sword up, silently, and I took it from his hand. “Thanks.” I was shaky, but myself again.

  Japhrimel nodded, watching me. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he examined my face as if the Nine Canons were written there. Heat, a purely human heat, rose to my cheeks. “It is my honor,” he said quietly. “I swear to you on the waters of Lethe, Dante Valentine, I will allow no harm to come to you.”

  “Santino—” I began.

  A swift snarl crossed his face. I flinched.

  “We will find a way to kill him, you and I. Pack your bag, Dante. If you are determined to leave this place, let us go quickly.” He sounded utterly calm, the kind of calm that could draw a razor through flesh with only a slight smile.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I managed. The flowers stirred. More thunder rumbled above the city, and a slight cool breeze stole in through the open window, ruffling petals, swirling the cloying stench of dying blooms against my face. I swayed in place. Japhrimel reached out, his golden fingers resting against my cheek for a moment. The touch made my entire body glow with heat. “Japhrimel—”

  “Dante,” he replied, his glowing eyes holding mine. “Hurry.”

  I did.

  CHAPTER 30

  The bodega was deep in the stinking well of Nuevo Rio, a small storefront marked with the universal symbols of Power: signs from the Nine Canons spray-painted on the front step, a display window showing small mummified crocodiles nestled among grisgris bags and bottles of different holy waters, lit novenas crowding on the step, each keyed to a shimmer of Power. The smell of incense from the fuming sticks placed near the door threatened to give me a headache, along with the breathless sense of storm approaching that hung over the city. I adjusted the strap over my shoulder, then rubbed at my dry, aching eyes. Japhrimel leaned on the counter, bargaining with the babalawao in fluent Portogueso. The woman had liquid dark eyes and a Shaman’s thorn-spiked cruciform tattoo on her cheek; the cross shape and thorns told me she was an Eclectic Shaman—rare here in Rio for a native to be an Eclectic. She eyed me with a great deal of interest, stroking her staff at the same time. The staff thrummed with Power, as did her tiny bodega, and I counted myself lucky that I didn’t have to fight her. She was tall, and moved with a quick ferret grace that warned me she was very dangerous indeed.

  I was faintly surprised to find Japhrimel knew Portogueso, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Demons like languages as much as they like technology, and have fiddled with both for a long time.

  He finally looked back over his shoulder at me. “Carmen says we’re welcome to stay up over the shop,” he said. “Come. You need rest.”

  I shrugged. “How likely is it that we’ll be tracked here?”

  He showed his teeth. “Not likely at all,” he replied, and I didn’t press him for details. He probably wouldn’t give them anyway. “She is of the Hellesvront—our agents,” he continued, immediately proving me wrong.

  “You have agents? Hell has human agents?”

  “Of course. Human and others.”

  Then why didn’t they track down Santino? I decided not to ask. The bodega felt like Abra’s store—dusty, old, the same smell of chilis and beef. Yet the babalawao wasn’t like Abra—she was powerful, true, but human. Only human. She swept her hair back over her shoulder and regarded me coolly, her eyes moving over my disheveled hair, dusty sweat-stained clothes, and white-knuckled grip on my katana. She asked one question, and Japhrimel shook his head. His inky hair lay still against his skull. He didn’t seem to sweat even in this malicious wet heat.

  Hell was hotter, anyway.

  The woman led us to the back of her store, sweeping aside a curtain woven into bright geometrics that writhed with Power. A narrow staircase threaded up into darkness.

  Japhrimel touched the woman’s forehead. She nodded, her brown skin moving under his hand, and grinned at me, her teeth flashing sharp and white. “Gracias, filho,” he said quietly.

  “De nada,” she said, and returned to perch on her barstool behind the glassed-in counter. Glass jars of herbs twinkled behind her, and a rack of novena candles threw back the gleam.

  I climbed the creaking stairs, the demon’s soundless step behind me. We reached a low, indifferently lit hall, and a single door. I opened it, and found myself looking at a small, plain bedroom. An iron mission-style bed with white sheets and a dun comforter, a single chair by the empty fireplace, a full-length mirror next to a flimsy door leading to the Nuevo Rio version of a bathroom. I heaved a sigh. “I like this much better,” I said shakily.

  “No doubt.” Japhrimel crowded past me into the room. It suddenly seemed far too small to contain him. The window looked out onto the street. I shut the door while he made one circuit of the walls, Power blending seamlessly to hide us. I dropped my bag on the bed, wishing I’d had room for more than one change of clothes. It won’t be the first hunt I’ve finished dirty, I thought, and flipped open the messenger bag’s top flap. I had to dig a bit to retrieve my datpilot. “What’s that?”

  “I need contacts,” I said, waiting while the plug-in and the H-DOC established a linkup with the hand-held device. “Since we can’t use Jace’s, I’m going to have to look for anyone who has dual warrants in Saint City and in Nuevo Rio. That should give me a place to start. If nobody I know is in town we’ll have to buy information, and that could get expensive.”

  “What information are we pursuing, then?” he asked, finishing his circuit of the room and making a brief gesture in front of the door. The whole building groaned a little, subliminally, and I felt a flutter in my stomach as the Power crested, ebbed. The room was now shielded—and if what I Saw was any indication, also invisible to
prying eyes.

  I took a deep breath. The medicinal effects of the brandy I’d taken down were beginning to wear off. My knees felt suspiciously weak. “I need to know two things: first of all, if Santino’s running the Corvin Family from behind. And second—” I tapped into the datpilot, setting the parameters for the search, “I need to know what Jace has been doing these past three years.”

  CHAPTER 31

  The next day was hot and breathless, thunder rumbling off and on, the light taking on a weird gray-green cast. I spent most of the day trying to sleep, sprawled on the small bed. Japhrimel dragged his chair up to the side of the bed and watched me, his green eyes veiled. I didn’t speak much. I slept thinly, tossing and turning, waking with my katana still clenched in my hands and the same muggy heat lying over the city.

  And Japhrimel’s green eyes resting on me, oddly dark. Glazed.

  My mind kept worrying like a dog with a single bone, over and over again.

  Jace. The Corvin Family. Jace. Santino.

  Jace.

  The afternoon was wending toward evening when I finally sat up on the bed, tired of retreading the same mental ground. “Do you think he’s betrayed me?” I asked, without even knowing I was going to open my mouth.

  “I don’t know,” the demon answered, after a long, still pause. He rose to his feet like a dark wave. Demon-smell washed over me. He’d kept the window open, but the air was so close and still that the fragrance clung to the room. “You need food.”

  “I’ll be fine. There’s hunting to do.” I stretched, my back cracking as I arched, then I swung my legs off the bed, came to my feet, and picked up my bag from the floor. A few moments divested it of everything I wouldn’t need tonight—I piled extra clothes, the spare plasgun, and some other odds and ends on the bed. Japhrimel watched expressionlessly as I clumped over to the bathroom door, and was still watching when I came out. I buckled on my holster, checked the plasgun, and slid it in. Shrugged into my coat, immediately starting to sweat again. I finally gave my hair a short, vicious combing and braided it back.