Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

“Thanks.” Impulsive, I went up on tiptoe and kissed his dirty cheek. What else can you do for the man that just dug you up out of your grave?

  He scooped up his sword. When he was gone the entire cellar seemed to close around me. The darkness seemed full of exhaled danger, my nape prickling, my breath coming short and harsh.

  I picked up the shovel, considered it, set it down. The hole mocked me. The dirty, rusty footlocker mocked me. My sword, riding my back, mocked me.

  I lifted my right hand. It was actually doing pretty well, not cramping or seizing up. Maybe holding a sword was all it needed.

  Instead of using the shovel, I started pushing at the pile of dirt with my bare hands, like an animal. I pushed and pushed, scooping great armloads of sterile earth, shoving it, kicking it. My lips pulled back from my teeth. The dress’s bodice, never meant for this sort of treatment, tore. One of the laces snapped, and it took me a few moments to undo my rig and shuck myself out of the dress. Piling my weapons to one side, I tossed the fall of silk and velvet into the hole and continued to fill it in. My new golden skin didn’t bruise, but I felt as if it had, all the way down to my bones. My hands shook again, so badly dirt spilled between them, dry pebbles clinking and grinding together. It wasn’t until I stamped the earth down with my booted feet that I realized I was making a low throaty noise of rage. My left shoulder throbbed dully and the vanished scars on my back felt as if they’d broken open, bleeding phantom blood. A collage of scars. An art statement made of suffering.

  And I laughed.

  I had, after all, survived everything I’d buried. I had fought so long and so hard, I had taken bounty after bounty, taken on the Prince of Hell himself. What was down here that I needed to be afraid of?

  I collapsed on top of the disturbed mound of lifeless dry dirt, laughing until I choked, my knees grating against small pebbles. My teeth clicked together painfully. I hugged myself, bare breasts pressed together, hunching over until I presented a small target. Naked except for my boots, I hugged myself and shook like a rabbit, tasting shock bitter and flat against my tongue as I screamed with dark hilarity.

  After all, it was a child’s fears I was feeling. There was no longer any need for me to huddle in the corners sobbing, like I used to.

  Rigger Hall. Goddamn.

  How old did I have to be before the name itself didn’t make me shiver? Who did I have to be grateful for—Doreen, who had taught me how to be vulnerable again? Japhrimel, who had taught me that love was not strictly a human phenomenon? Gabe, whose friendship had never wavered? Or Jace, who was still teaching me about who I could trust?

  I was grown-up now. Rigger Hall could no longer hurt me.

  Then why was the child inside me still screaming? Hadn’t I grown past that, fought past it?

  It was a long time before I heard footsteps again, Jace’s stiff knee giving his gait a familiar hitch. He didn’t say a word, I pushed myself up, and thankfully he didn’t try to help me, just waited until I got to my feet and offered me a robe I dragged on with shaking hands as I shuddered with tired laughter. I felt like I’d just run through five sparring matches and fought in all three theaters of the Seventy Days War without a break as well.

  He’d scrounged a ladder and pushed me up it, then dragged me upstairs. I wasn’t unwilling, I just let him lead me. He didn’t bother trying to get me in the shower. He just slid the robe off my shoulders and pushed me into bed, worked my boots off, then shucked his clothes, dropped down and held me.

  He was not Japhrimel, but he was warm and he was human. I took what comfort he offered gratefully, his naked skin against mine, while every tear I had swallowed during eight years of Rigger Hall broke out of its black box and leaked out of my eyes, shaking me as if an animal made of grief had me in its teeth yet again.

  CHAPTER 18

  He slept heavily, lying on his side, his face relaxed without its shield of good humor. Dirt smudged his cheekbones and his forehead. His hair was stiff with dry sweat and dust. Grime worked into the small, thin wrinkles that were beginning to etch his flesh, the lines that would grow deeper soon. He was getting older. So was Gabe.

  I lay on my side, my leg hitched up over his hip. He was sweating, grime clinging to both of us even though I never seemed to sweat; I traced his cheekbone with a gentle fingertip. Black molecule-drip polish glinted in the dim light from the hall.

  The curve of his lower lip unreeled below my touch. His breathing didn’t alter. He was out cold, it had been a long day. And whatever else he was, Jace was no longer young.

  I pressed his hair back, gently. Traced his eyebrow, drew my finger down his cheek, the rough stubble of his chin made my mouth twitch. He smelled of human, of decaying cells and honeyspiked Power, of grave dirt and sweat.

  I can’t be what he wants, I reminded myself for the thousandth time. I don’t even know what it is he wants.

  Then again, I’d never bothered to ask him, had I?

  I took my hand away and moved, slowly, infinitely slowly, until we were chest to chest, my face inches from him. His breath mingled with mine, a heady brew of demon, Necromance, and Shaman.

  My lips touched his, a feathery touch.

  He exhaled. I shuddered. It wasn’t like Japhrimel. It could never be like that again. My skin crawled, remembering the screaming, intense drowning of being clasped in a demon’s arms. The loathing wasn’t for the memory—it was as if my body revolted at the thought of another lover. Mutiny in my cells.

  I was pretty sure I could push that aside; I didn’t need to enjoy sex. I’d had plenty of sex without enjoyment; I could probably even fool Jace into believing I was having a great time. I remembered what it was like with him before: sex between us was another form of sparring. A chess match, a game, each touch a challenge, the prize in the other’s final abdication of control.

  Sex as war, as a game, hadn’t it been that way for him? Another question I had never asked.

  Would I forget he wasn’t Japhrimel once I reached a certain pitch of excitement? If I let myself go, did what I wanted to do, what would it do to Jace? I remembered the blinding pleasure, heart straining, lungs forgetting their function, ecstasy wrapped in barbed wire and rolled across exquisite nerve endings. A form of Tantra, sex magick, reaching into the deepest level of genes and psyche to remake me.

  Remake. In whose image?

  I hesitated, my lips touching Jace’s. Would it kill him? Remake him? I doubted it. I had no illusions about the amount of Power I had—not enough to rival Japhrimel even when he had Fallen. And yet the research I’d managed to do between bounties had made me no wiser about the exact limits of what I was. I probably wouldn’t change him into anything, but I didn’t know. I knew nothing.

  I knew nothing, and I couldn’t betray Japhrimel. It was an impossible situation. I needed Jace. I wanted to be kind to him, I had a debt to repay to him and one to collect, and yet…

  My shields quivered, shuddering restlessly. Someone was coming in on a slicboard, coming in fast, and the quick brush against my shields was familiar, garden dirt and the smell of beer and sweat.

  I’d expected him to drop by.

  I was up and out of the bed in one motion, grabbing a handful of neatly folded clothes as I ran for the bathroom. It was 3:00 AM, late afternoon for most of us who lived on the night side, and I felt him slide through my shields as I ducked into the shower and twisted the knob all the way over to “cold” as a penance.

  It took a little longer than I liked to scrub the grime off, but when I came downstairs, braiding my hair back the way I used to, he hadn’t come in past my front hall. I stopped at the end of the hall next to the stairs and took him in.

  Eddie slumped against the wall, fingers tapping his staff. There were only three people that could key in through my shields like that: Jace, Gabe, Eddie. Anyone else attempting entry would be denied, whether by the security system or by the cloak of Power over my house, the triple layer of shielding. I realized with an abrupt jolt that I was lucky to have three
people I could let into my home with no question. Three… friends, people who went into danger for me when they didn’t have to.

  The net of obligation and duty might trap me, but it also protected me and kept me from falling into an abyss. Which abyss I couldn’t quite say, but I had felt its cold breath enough to suddenly be very grateful for the man sleeping upstairs, the woman who had pulled me into this, and Eddie in my front hall.

  Shaggy blond Eddie of the hulking shoulders and long hair, the smell of fresh dirt hanging on him like it did on every Skinlin dirtwitch berserker. He seemed to carry a perpetual cloud of shambling earthsmell with him, his blunt fingers seeming too indelicate for any fine work. For all that, Eddie was the most dangerous dirtwitch I’d ever met in a sparring match.

  I guess he had to be, to keep up with Gabe.

  He wore a long camel-colored coat and a Boo Phish Ranx T-shirt strained on his massive hairy chest. I studied him for a moment. He stared back, meeting my eyes for once. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, tapping his staff with callused fingertips, his aura roiling, he made the house shields quiver and my own defenses go tense and crystalline. “Eddie.”

  “Danny.” He lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “Guess you wanna ask me a few.”

  I shrugged. “Why, you know something?” He said nothing, and my conscience pinched me hard. “Not if you don’t want to talk,” I amended. It was the least I could give him; the gods knew I didn’t want to talk about the Hall. An act of mercy, not requiring of him what I wouldn’t want to do myself.

  But Eddie wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have vital information. And if it would stop another death, he would force himself through it.

  He was as cottage-cheese pale as I’d ever seen him. “Dunno if it’s useful, but you better hear it.”

  I nodded. “Let me get my sword.”

  “Time was you would’n answer the door without it.”

  Time was I wouldn’t have let even you or Gabe key in through my shields and use the key to my front door, Eddie m’man. Guess I’ve grown up. “Someone would have to be pretty fucking stupid to come in here and start trouble. If they could get in at all without my approval.”

  “So you got another sword?” He lifted one shaggy eyebrow. For him that passed as tact; he must have been taking lessons from Gabe.

  “Figured it was time I stopped fucking around.”

  “Amen to that,” he sniffed.

  Dear old Eddie, always dependable. I was Gabe’s friend, therefore I was—no matter how sarcastic he got—worthy. That was the thing about Eddie Thornton, if you were all right in Gabe’s book, Eddie would go to the wall for you. There was no deception in him, no subterfuge. Either you were worth his support, or he would cut you loose. He had no middle ground.

  Gods above, but that was refreshing.

  I took Fudoshin down from the peg where my old sword had hung. My bag was already slung diagonally across my body, I shrugged into my coat. “My slic’s outside with Jace’s. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 19

  We went to the old noodle shop on Pole Street. It was absurdly fitting. The place hadn’t changed a bit, from the dusty red velour hanging on the walls to the old Asiano man sitting in the back booth slurping his tea and eyeing everyone suspiciously, a curl of synth-hash smoke drifting up from his ashtray. Two bowls of beef pho later, I was beginning to feel a little less raw.

  “Okay.” I grabbed a hunk of rice noodles with plasilica chopsticks. Eddie sucked at his beer and blinked at me.

  The fishtank in the back of the store gurgled softly.

  I took the mouthful of noodles, slurped it down. Beef broth splashed. I had to suppress a small sound of delight—eating was the only thing that gave me any pleasure anymore. Thank the gods I had a hiked metabolism, or I’d be as fat as a New Vietkai whore.

  Well, I got enjoyment from hunting down bounties too. But it wasn’t a clean enjoyment. Each bounty was a brick in the wall between me and the uncomfortable thoughts that rose when I had too much time on my hands.

  Eating, however, was all mine. I didn’t have to think while I ate.

  “You’re still a goddam pig.” Eddie grimaced.

  “Says the man who eats with his fucking fingers?” I fired back. “Spill, Eddie. I left a warm bed for this.”

  “How warm?” He smirked through blond-brown stubble. “Jace finally tie you up? Or did he put on horns and a pitchfork?”

  I laid my chopsticks down. It had taken me a year to learn to eat with my left hand wielding the silverware. Now my right hand felt clumsy, as if all it wanted to do was curl around a swordhilt. “That’s one, Edward.” My tone made my teacup rattle against the table. “Now why don’t you quit being an asshole and tell me what you’ve got?”

  “I might know something.” He went even paler, if that was possible. Looked down at the table. Gulped at his beer. I suddenly longed to get drunk. This would be so much fucking easier with chemical enhancement.

  I picked up the thick, white china teacup. Said nothing.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. His hand trembled as he set his glass down. “I was there,” he mumbled. “Rigger Hall.”

  I’d known that, of course. He’d been a few classes ahead of me.

  Like Christabel.

  Great beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “There was… a secret.” His throat worked, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t know much, but…”

  Rigger Hall was full of secrets, Eddie. I felt the glowing metal pressed against my skin again, heard Mirovitch’s papery voice. Cleared my throat, set my teacup down. “Eddie…” My voice was harsh, harsher than it had to be. The glass of beer rang uneasily. I have got to get some kind of control over myself. My left shoulder burned dully as if in agreement. “Anubis et’her ka, don’t do this to yourself.”

  His eyes flew open. “You don’t tell me what I do or don’t gotta do,” he growled, leaning back. “I can’t go home, I can’t fuckin sleep, and people are dying. I got to get this done.”

  I shrugged. My heart beat thinly under my ribs, hammering with impatience and adrenaline combined. Picked up my teacup again.

  He took another long gulp of beer. “ ’S a wonder anyone made it out. I wasn’t in it, not the Black Room.”

  I shuddered. His eyes flew open, as wide as I’d ever seen them. “No, not that one,” he hurriedly amended. “No, that was the name of the Secret. ’Cause they met in that old shed off the lake. You remember?”

  I nodded. Christabel’s ghostly screaming rang inside my head, I pushed it away. “I remember.” Cold sweat lay on my skin. Black Room, remember Rigger Hall. That’s what Christabel meant.

  His eyes were the eyes of a child reliving a nightmare. “You was in the cage?”

  He meant the Faraday cage in the sensory deprivation vault under the school. It had been intended to help telepaths who needed a short-term respite from their gifts. Instead, it had been turned into a punishment. Psions—especially strong ones—can only stand a cage for a very short time before their psyches begin to crack under the lack of stimulation. If you weren’t a telepath seeking relief, being in a cage was like being trapped in a black void—no light, no sound, and no access to the ambient Power that fed magickal and psychic talent. It is the closest thing to insanity I had ever known, and I still couldn’t step into an elevator without shaking and feeling the walls close in. The cage of an elevator or hoverlift was uncomfortably similar to the cage of Mirovitch’s Black Room. “Four times,” I replied, husky.

  “I had two. Two was enough.”

  “Never would have been enough,” I forced out past teeth clenched so tightly my jaw hurt. If it was before Rio, would I shatter my own teeth and swallow them? The thought of the sensory-deprivation vault and the cage, and the blackness rising through me to eat at the very foundations of my mind—“Sekhmet sa’es, Eddie…” I swallowed dryly several times, my throat clicking. Got to get control. Goddammit, Danny, get a hold on yourself!

  “The secret… Christabel was on
e a ’em. I wasn’, but I got friendly wi’ one.”

  I waited. He would come to it in his own time. The least I could do was give him a few minutes to work up to saying whatever he had to say.

  “Steve Sebastiano,” he said finally. Was he blushing?

  Now I had officially seen everything.

  My jaw dropped. “You got friendly with Polyamour?” Polyamour the transvestite, one of the most famous sexwitches in the world? The sexwitch rumored to be so fantastic in bed that Hegemony heads and even some paranormals paid just to call on her socially? Her house took a healthy chunk of cash just to be put on the waiting list. Polyamour, who used to be Steven Sebastiano, a few classes ahead of me and already the source of whispers and rumor at school. I heard she’d been tutored by Persephone Dragonfly down in Norleans at the Great Floating House, and done an internship in Paradisse as part of an exchange program.

  And one of her sexwitches had been a victim. The piece fell into place neatly, and I felt the little click of intuition inside my skull.

  The first link in the chain, the first arc of the pattern, was always the hardest. It would only get quicker from here.

  Thank the gods. I don’t think I can stand to look at another dead body.

  Eddie shrugged, looking down into his half-empty glass. “We was roommates. Bastian was one of Mirovitch’s sexwitch stable. Fucked him up royal.”

  A sexwitch in Rigger Hall? “Fucked up” would be an understatement. “I’ll bet. So what happened?”

  Eddie’s sleepy hazel eyes were haunted, no longer the eyes of a fully grown man. Instead, they were the deep wells of pain in the face of a terrified child.

  I didn’t need a mirror to tell me my own eyes were just as dark. Just as wide, and just as deep—and just as agonized.

  “Mirovitch,” I persisted, my throat dry and tight. “Who did him in?”

  The Skinlin shrugged. “I dunno. I just know Bastian was in it with Christabel. They had code words.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tig vedom deum.” Eddie took down the rest of his beer in two long drafts. He was sweating. I could smell the fear on him, rank and thick and human. Was it any consolation that my own fear now smelled like light cinnamon and musk?