Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I followed him, cautiously. Don’t trust him, Dante! Kill him now! Kill him or run!

  It was a nursery. Slices of dim light fell through iron bars on the windows. Toys scattered across the hardwood floor, and plush rugs too. I saw a rocking horse, and a set of chairs around a table low enough for a little person. Wooden blocks lay scattered near a fireplace. And on the other side of the room, Santino stalked toward a low queen-sized bedstead wreathed in mosquito netting.

  I followed, my boots occasionally kicking a small plush animal. Dear gods, I thought, he has children here? What kind of kids are raised by a demon?

  “Lucifer rules because he is powerful,” Santino whispered, his voice buzzing with secrecy. “But not only that—he rules because he is Androgyne, almost like a queen bee, capable of reproducing. It took me forty-five human years, but I finally found out how to birth another demon Androgyne. All it takes is the proper genetic material and engineering, Dante.” He paused, maybe for effect. “Engineering by the scientist Lucifer used to create humanity in the first place—and material taken from a sedayeen, perhaps. A human psionic with the ability to heal, an almost-direct descendant of the A’nankimel— the demons that loved human women, and raised families with them eons ago. Until Lucifer, fearing the birth of an Androgyne on earth, destroyed them.”

  It made a twisted kind of sense. I approached the bed slowly, step by step. Needing to see.

  “Demon genes don’t lose their potency as human genes do,” he whispered. “Witness the growth of human psychic powers, the fantastic blossoming of those powers during the Awakening—”

  “Shut up.” I sounded choked.

  In the bed, under the smooth expensive sheet, was a pale-haired little girl about five years old sleeping the sleep of childhood innocence. Her long hair tangled over the pillow; I heard the faint whistle of her breathing. I tasted salt, and bitter ash. I knew that face—I had seen it before.

  She lay on her back, one chubby arm upflung. Her forehead was odd, because there was a mark that glittered softly green on the smooth skin. My cheek started to burn. An emerald. I wondered why Lucifer had one. I could tell this emerald wasn’t implanted—it was too smoothly and sheerly a part of her skin. Almost like a jeweled growth. It made me deeply, unsteadily sick to think that maybe my own emerald was an echo.

  “There are two branches of human psionics that are almost directly descended from the A’nankimel, with the necessary recessive genes for my purposes. One branch is the sedayeen, who hold the mystery of Life. The other…” He paused again as I stared at the child on the bed.

  The child that wore Doreen’s young face.

  “The other,” Santino said, “is the Necromance.”

  “This is—” My voice was a dry husk. “This is why you—”

  “This is why I took samples,” he said softly, persuasively. “Who do you think rules both worlds, Dante? Who do you think is the king of all you survey? It’s him. We are all his slaves. And I have the Egg, and the child that can topple him from his throne.”

  I swallowed, heard the dry click of my throat. “You killed her for this?” I rasped, and my eyes tore away from her sleeping face to Santino’s grinning mask.

  “Yes,” he said. “I made a mistake, though. I shouldn’t have killed her. I needed a human incubator, once I harvested the marrow and discovered she had all the requisite characteristics. It took all the cash and illegal gene-splicing that the Corvin Family could supply me with to bring this little one to pass. The human governments are too slow. But I did it. I found the shining path of genes that even Lucifer couldn’t find with all his bloody tinkering. Now that I know how, I don’t have to kill. All I need are female sedayeen— and Necromances—of certain Power, to blend with the codex in the Egg. I can make as many Androgynes as I want, capable of reproducing—”

  “You killed her for this?” My voice rose. The child on the bed didn’t stir. I heard her even breathing, slightly whistling through the nose. She slept like a human child, with deep complete trust.

  “Think of it, Dante,” he said. Softly, persuasively as Lucifer himself. “You can be the mother of a new race that will topple Lucifer from his throne. You’ll be the new Madonna. Your every need—”

  I backed up, kicking a small stuffed toy. “You killed her for this.” I could say nothing else.

  “What is one small human life compared to freedom, Dante?” He stepped forward. I raised my sword yet again. The blue glow from the blade intensified, and Santino flinched. It was only a small twitch, but I saw it.

  A blessed blade will hurt him, at least, I thought. I heard Japhrimel’s voice—she believes. Of course I believed—I saw the gods, I saw the Lord of Death up close. I had no choice but to believe. And that belief itself could be a weapon.

  Maybe a blessed blade can even kill him, I thought.

  “You didn’t just kill Doreen. You slaughtered her while you laughed,” I said. “You’re no more a scientist than any other lunatic. You’re just a different species of psycho, that’s all.” There’s a window behind me. Oh, gods. Oh dear gods.

  He waved his long elegant fingers, as if I were bothering him with trifles. Just like a fucking demon. “They were the mothers of the future, they died for a reason. Don’t you understand? Freedom, Dante. For demon and human alike. No more Prince of Lies behind the scenes, everyone bowing and scraping to his whim—”

  I was about to break for the window when the air pressure changed. Thunder boomed. The mark on my shoulder gave another screaming twinge.

  Japhrimel.My heart leapt.

  Santino’s face twisted into a mask of rage. He lunged for me so quickly I barely saw him move. My sword jerked, blurring down as I threw myself sideways and back, toward the open window. His claws clanged off the blade. There was another shuddering impact, and I heard the unmistakable sound of Japhrimel’s roar. The sound tore the air and left it bleeding. Santino snarled, whirling with balletic grace. He bolted for the bed and I scrambled forward, thinking of his claws and the little girl. I was too slow. Shock and the recent loss of Power and the swimming weakness dragged me down.

  He scooped up an armful of bedding and the child’s slight form, and his clawed hand came up. Metal flashed. The impact caught me high in the chest, the coughing roar of a projectile weapon splitting the air, my boots dragging along the floor in slow motion, my katana clanging on hardwood. I fell, my head cracking against something unforgiving—maybe one of the blocks.

  How strange, I thought. He shot me. Why did he shoot me? You’d think a demon would be more creative.

  I lay there, stunned, for what seemed like a long muffled eternity. Then I tried to roll onto my side. A bubble of something warm burst on my lips. I heard footsteps. Plasbolts. And Japhrimel’s scream of agony. Pain bloomed in my chest, a hideous flower.

  More footsteps. I tried to roll onto my side again. No dice. Just more pain. Bubbling on my lips—

  —blood it’s blood I’m dying, I’m dying—

  “Oh, my God. Oh, God. He shot her, he shot her—” Jace’s voice, high and breathless. “Goddammit, do something!”

  A growled curse in a language I didn’t know. But I knew the voice. A gigantic grinding shock against my chest.

  “—leave me,” Japhrimel snarled. “You will not leave me to wander the earth alone—breathe, damn you, breathe!”

  Another shock, smashing through my bones. My left shoulder, torn from its socket, liquid fire in my veins. I gasped. Darkness tingled on the edges of my vision. I smelled flowers, and blood, and the musky smell of demon, drenching and absolute.

  “You will not leave me,” Japhrimel said. “You will not.”

  I tried to tell him to chase Santino, to kill him, to save the little girl—but before I could, Death chewed me with diamond teeth and swallowed me just as I hitched in breath to scream.

  CHAPTER 37

  A voice, reaching into the darkness.

  I stood on the bridge, irresolute, my feet bare against cold stone. I felt
the familiar chill creeping up my fingers, up my arms.

  My emerald flashed as the souls fluttered past me, streaming over the bridge. The cocoon of light holding me safely on the bridge dimmed.

  Why was I here? I wasn’t pulling a soul back. Was I? I could not remember.

  I looked at the other side of the bridge, the other side of the great Hall. The blue crystal walls rang softly, whispering a song I almost understood. I could feel it pressing in upon me, that great comprehension of Death’s secret, the mother language from which all Necromance chants derived. The current of souls pushed at me, the emerald’s light weakening, my cocoon of safety shrinking.

  Yet that voice cajoled, pressed, demanded. I saw the god, His form shimmering between a slender Egyptian dog and some other form, a shape of darkness that seemed to run like ink on wet paper even as I looked at it.

  My lips shaped the god’s name, but the syllables sounded alien. The crystal walls shuddered, and for a moment I saw stone, a great grim drafty stone hall, with a dour-faced King upon a throne at the far end. The throne was crusted with gems, glittering madly, and at the King’s side sat a Queen with a face like springtime. I felt my mouth shaping alien words, desperation beating in my throat. I wanted so badly to understand the secret language, to feel the clasp of the god’s arms around me as I laid my head on His chest and let the weight of living slip from me—

  BOOM.

  The sound startled me. It seemed to take forever for me to turn around. Before I could, the sound came again, as if a gong was being beaten, a brazen sound, pulling me back.

  BOOM.

  I struggled as if through syrup. I wanted to stay.

  I wanted to stay dead.

  BOOM.

  One of the souls streaming past me halted, held up a pale hand. Formless as all souls were, a crystal drapery of unique energy, still it seemed I knew it, could put a face on it.

  BOOM.

  “Go back,” it said. “Go back.”

  BOOM.

  I opened my mouth to protest. Shimmering, the soul brushed my cheek.

  BOOMBOOM.

  “Go back,” Doreen said. “Save my daughter. Go back.”

  BOOMBOOM. BOOMBOOM.

  Then I understood it was not a gong or a brass bell. It was my heart, and I was called back to the world.

  Dizziness. Cold seeping up my arms. Voices.

  “Call her back!” Eddie, yelling, the bass in his voice rattling my bones.

  My heartbeat thudded in my ears. To be forced back into a body was excruciating, even worse than being shot.

  “Dante!” Japhrimel, howling.

  “Danny! Danny!” Jace screaming at the same time. Cacophony. “Let me go—”

  Scorching pressed against the side of my face. A hand.

  Gabe’s chant stopped, the last throbbing syllable shattering inside my head. I gasped a breath like knives. My chest hurt.

  A great scalding wave of Power lashed me. I cried out, weakly, convulsing.

  “Do not leave me,” Japhrimel husked. “Do not leave me, Dante.”

  “Goddamn you, Eddie,” Jace hissed, “let me go or I will kill you.”

  Light struck my eyes like a newborn’s. I reacted the same way, screaming, raw from the lash of Japhrimel’s Power and Gabe’s Necromance. Japhrimel closed his arms around me and rested his chin on my head. I gasped, screamed again, muffled against his chest. The scream degenerated into sobbing. I cried because I had been wrong, and because I’d been right. I cried because the comfort of death was denied me. I cried because I had been dragged back into my weary body and shackled again.

  And I cried in relief, clinging to Japhrimel the demon. He was solid and warm and real, and I did not want to let go.

  CHAPTER 38

  I was weak but lucid by the time we got back to Jace’s mansion.

  Eddie covered Jace with a plasgun most of the time. Gabe, paper-pale with exhaustion and bloody all over (most of it was mine), piloted the hover. I didn’t ask where it had come from—if it was Jace’s, it was all right, if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to know. All three of them—Gabe, Eddie, Jace—looked as if they had been through the grinder. Eddie’s left arm hung limply by his side, Jace’s face was covered in blood from a scalp wound and most of his shirt was torn off, stripes criss-crossing his torso. Gabe’s clothes were tattered, filthy, smelling of smoke and blood and something suspiciously like offal.

  Japhrimel carried me. His face was shuttered, closed, his eyes dark, a smear of my blood on one cheek. Santino had shot me in the chest. Otherwise, his dark coat was pristine. He occasionally stroked my cheek, sometimes glancing at Jace while he did so.

  I didn’t want to know. I had the uncomfortable feeling I’d find out soon enough.

  I was too tired to think. My brain reeled drunkenly from one thought to the next, no logic, nothing but shock.

  The city lay under a pall of smoke. It looked as if a full-scale riot had gone down. I saw several craters, but the rain had intensified and was drowning the fires. The aroma of burning filled the air, even inside the hover. When we touched down at Jace’s, it was a relief.

  Inside, Gabe herded us all into a sitting room done in light blue and cream. Eddie shoved Jace down on a tasteful couch. I hope he searched this room, I thought, tiredly, Jace could have a weapon stashed in here.

  I shivered. It would be a while before I took another Necromance job. If I went back to the borders of the land of Death too soon I would perhaps be unable to come back, training or no training.

  “Okay,” Gabe said, stalking across the room to a walnut highboy and tossing it open to reveal liquor bottles, “I need a motherfucking drink.”

  I cleared my throat. “Me, too,” I said, the first words out of my mouth since leaving Santino’s hideaway. “We need to move quickly,” I said, as Japhrimel carried me to the couch facing Jace’s. Instead of setting me down, he simply dropped gracefully down himself, still holding me. A little rearranging and I found myself in his lap, cuddled against him like a child.

  A child. I shuddered at the thought. But it was comforting, his heat, and the smell of him.

  Gabe groaned. “Give me a minute, Danny. I just found out one of my friends is a fucking traitor and yanked you out of Death’s arms. At least let me have a bourbon in peace.”

  I cleared my throat. “Pour me one,” I said, husky, my voice almost refusing to obey me. “We’ve got big-time problems.”

  “I would never have guessed,” Eddie growled. “You get into more fucking trouble, Valentine. That thing nearly burned down the entire goddamn city looking for you.”

  I barely had the courage to look up at Japhrimel’s face. “You did that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I had to find you,” he said, simply.

  I let it go. Instead, I started telling my story with the accompaniment of rain smacking the windows. Gabe knew me well enough not to interrupt, and Eddie watched Jace. Halfway through, Gabe handed me a glass of bourbon and settled down stiffly in a chair, her split lip and black eyes combining to turn her thoughtful expression into sadness. I downed the liquor, coughing as it burned the back of my throat, then continuing. By the time I got to the child sleeping in the bedroom, Japhrimel’s eyes were incandescent. He had turned slowly to stone underneath me.

  When I finished, Gabe drained the rest of her drink. Silence stretched through the room, broken by a low rattle of thunder.

  Then she leapt to her feet and hurled her glass across the room, letting out a scream as sharp as a falcon’s cry. The shattering glass didn’t make me jump, but the scream came close.

  She half-whirled, and pinned Jace with an accusing glare. “Traitor!” she hissed. “You knew!”

  “I didn’t know a goddamn thing—” he began. Eddie growled.

  “Let him talk,” I said, quietly, but with a note of finality that cut across the Skinlin’s rumbling. “And while he does that, Gabe, can you take a look at Eddie’s arm?”

  They all stared at me for a moment. Then Gabe
moved stiffly to the hedgewitch and touched his shoulder. Some unspoken agreement seemed to pass between them, and Eddie’s shoulders sagged just a little. More thunder crawled across the roof of the sky. I was so tired that for once it didn’t hurt me to see Gabe press her lips to Eddie’s forehead—but I did look away. I looked at Jace, who was paper-pale, the tic of rage flicking in his cheek.

  “Talk fast,” I told him. “Before I decide it was a bad idea to do that.”

  “I didn’t know a goddamn thing,” he said, harshly. Gabe started poking at Eddie’s arm, and I felt the vibration of her Power start. She was doing a healing. I shuddered—every time she pulled on Power, it was like another astringent stripe against my abraded psyche. She had pulled me back from Death.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were a blood Corvin?” I asked. Are you part demon, Jace? The question trembled on my lips. My skin crawled.

  “I’m not,” he said, sagging into the couch back. His hair was matted with blood and water. We were a sorry-looking group—except for Japhrimel, who was untouched except for the swipe of my blood on his cheek. “I was adopted by one of the Four Uncles—Sargon Corvin’s adopted sons—because of my psi potential. That’s what gets you into the Corvins—psi. I hated every goddamn minute of it, Danny. Once Deke Corvin died I made my escape and I ran as far as I could… and then I met you.”

  “You knew Sargon Corvin, the head of your fucking Mob Family, was Santino?” I asked, very clearly.

  “No,” he answered. “Gods, no. I swear on my staff, I had no idea. Nobody’s seen Sargon for years except the older uncles—they give all the orders, supposedly from him. I thought the great Sargon was a motherfucking myth, Danny. Nobody was allowed into the Inner Complex—where we found you. That’s where all the gene research went down, they were heavy into illegal augments and gene splices because it made money—that’s what I knew. I didn’t know. I thought Sargon was after you for revenge, since my street war with them killed all three of the surviving Uncles. They died hard, too. I’ve had my hands full while you were up in Saint City moping.” He dropped his head back, leaning against the couch, and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He would know that the only way to hurt me would be to kill you, Danny. That’s why I left you, and why I insisted you stay here during this little hunt of yours.”