Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Noooooo… I swallowed the moan, locked my teeth, refused to let it out. Still, a low hurt sound came, whether from me or from Eddie I couldn’t tell. Didn’t want to know. Gabriele’s aura flashed, and for a moment I seemed to see blue flame crawling up her arm. The knife flicked, steel glittering in the weak autumn sunlight, and a sigh echoed through the room. The machines stopped their beeping and booping. Silence rang like a bell through the room, a silence I had heard so many times but never like this, never when I was the one trying to scream and utterly unable to do so.

  “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” Gabe whispered softly, tenderly. His eyes were closed, but she laid her hand over them anyway, as if closing them. Her aura faded back to its usual sparkles, her shielding humming as it settled into place. Tears glittered on her pale cheeks. The blood had drained from her face, and fresh shame bit me. What had it cost her to do this for me, something I was too weak to do for myself?

  Jace. Jason…

  I managed to find my balance, slowly. Eddie let me go as soon as I pulled away from him. I took the deepest breath of my life, seemingly endless, my ribs crackling as I inhaled, and inhaled, and inhaled. My aura throbbed.

  I stepped up to the side of the bed. Gabe didn’t look at me. She studied Jace’s sleeping face as if the secrets of the universe were printed there. For all I know, they might have been.

  Two fingers, tipped with black molecule-drip polish, I touched the back of his hand. Nothing there, not even the low glow of nerves slowly dying out, what Necromances call foxfire. She had done a good job. Her knife sang as it slid back into its sheath, softly, gently, clicking home.

  It was too hard to look up. I stared at his hand. “Thank you.” Amazingly, the words didn’t stick in my throat. My broken voice sounded like sandpaper honey. The plain beige curtains ruffled uneasily.

  Her free hand found my arm and squeezed once, hard. “You’re my friend, Danny.” She sounded tired. “You understand? There’s no debt between friends.”

  Maybe it’s just that the debt gets so high you stop counting it. I freed her fingers from my arm gently, delicately. “Thank you.” It sounded more natural now, more like myself. More like Danny Valentine.

  Who the hell was she, though? I no longer knew.

  “Danny—”

  I turned, digging my heel in, my boot scraping on the plasfloor. Then I headed for the door. Two long strides. I heard Eddie move and tensed, but his hand didn’t close on me.

  The words sent a chill up my spine. “Let her go,” he told Gabe. “Gods above and below, just let her go.”

  It was too late. The door was closed. I was already gone.

  CHAPTER 28

  It was child’s play to slip back into my house without the reporters seeing. I came over the wall again, twisting to land lightly on my feet, and brushed my hands off. My lungs burned from running for so long, literally blurring through the streets, moving with a speed close to the eerie darting quickness of a demon. Close, but not close enough.

  The god of Death did not bar me from using my strength now.

  The sun was sinking, high dark clouds massing in the north. The first of the winter storms, not coming in from over the bay but sliding down the coast. I took a lungful of Saint City air, chill with approaching winter. My garden was ragged, unkempt; I had been too busy running bounties to keep up with the weeding.

  I stopped a good twenty paces from my house, eyeing it critically. Bought with Doreen, as an abandoned dump when cheap property was the rule in this neighborhood because of the gang wars and derelicts, paid off completely with blood money, my haven and sanctuary rose above me, glowing with some freak ray of evening light.

  I kicked my front door open, the doorframe shattering and spraying little splinters into my front hall. Choked, had to swallow cold iron. Tears, and grief. And something so huge I was afraid it would choke me.

  The shields shivered, each layer of energy vibrating. The layers of shielding Jace had applied were fading; it would take a long time for them to fully vanish without his reinforcing. Months, maybe, if I didn’t put a shuntline in and take them down myself. But I didn’t have that sort of time, did I?

  I stalked into the front hall, into my living room.

  The candles on Jace’s altar were out, the smell of burned wax filling the air. The dove’s blood had splashed up out of the brass bowl, the painting of Saint Barbara rent and tattered.

  So Jace’s loa knew. Of course they knew. The spirits always know.

  I looked at the tapestry on the west wall. Isis’s face was turned away, and Horus’s wings rustled uneasily, threads shifting against each other with soft, whispering, grieving sounds.

  A cream-colored flash on my fieldstone altar caught my eye. I approached it slowly, each footstep seeming to take an eon, my boots making hard clicking sounds against hardwood and muffled thuds on my meditation-rug.

  Propped against the inlaid wooden box holding holostills of Lewis and Doreen, the envelope crouched. Vellum, with its proud screaming seal of red crimson wax, it grinned at me. I resisted the urge to turn in a tight circle—there was nobody in my house. Not now.

  The sound surprised me. A low keening hum vibrated in my chest, my back teeth clicking together as my throat swelled with the effort of keeping the scream in.

  Lucifer. Dipping his elegant little fingers in my life again. Taunting me. Polluting even my grief. He couldn’t stand to leave me alone. Japhrimel was dead, Jace was dead, and the Prince of Hell had just poked me one goddamn time too many.

  This has gone too far. This voice was new, a stiletto of steely-cold fury turning in the center of my brain. I stared at the crimson seal, hearing the creaks and flutters of my house as my rage communicated itself through the air, pressing against the walls, touching the tapestries, ruffling the paper. From the kitchen came a dim crash as cupboard doors chattered open and closed, I heard smashing from the dining room and the tinkle of broken glass upstairs. My throat swelled, a stone caught in its center, my eyes hot and staring as I struggled to contain the fury.

  There was no containing it. An almost-audible snap resonated in the middle of my chest, a locked door shattering open and sterile light flooding out. The circuit of rage snapped closed, and a humming filled my brain.

  I. Have. Had. Enough.

  The choking wrath eased, turning into sharp clarity. There were things to do. Places to go.

  People—and not-people—to kill.

  I turned on my heel, stalked upstairs. My fingernails had turned to demon claws. I tore the borrowed clothes off as I went, shreds of fabric falling away. I ripped my shirt into pieces, sliced the tough denim of my jeans. I tripped halfway up, my jeans tangling around my ankles. My head hit the balustrade with stunning force, shattering the wood. The sounds that came out of me smashed the plaster from my walls, scorched the paint, made the glass of each picture I’d hung shatter. The noise of plasglass breaking almost managed to cover my wrenching sobs.

  I tore the covers from my bed; they still held Jace’s scent and mine. I threw them across the room. Then I punched my computer deck. Plasilica broke, my tough golden skin sliced but closing almost immediately, the black blood welling up and sealing away the hurt. Sparks popped, a spray of them from the deck’s monitor, little squealing sounds as my rage smashed the circuits.

  My demon-callused feet ground in shards of plasglass, since I’d broken the shower door and the mirrors. I got dressed—a microfiber shirt, another pair of jeans, dry socks, my boots were still damp but I pulled them on anyway. I slid the strap of my messenger bag over my head. The necklace I’d worn to the House of Pain went over my head, settled humming against my breastbone.

  I dug the two spade necklaces out of my bloody coat. My hair streamed over my shoulders, heavy and soft, the braid had unraveled. The necklaces went into my bag.

  Then I strode down the hall to the end. The holostill of Doreen to my right, smiling her gentle smile, fell. The plasglass of the frame shattered in a tinkl
ing burst. I hit the door at the end of the hall open with the flat of my hand; a hollow sound thudding through me.

  Jace’s room blazed with the last dying rays of sunlight. A golden square from the window lay over his bed with Doreen’s blue comforter. I smelled the lingering sweetness of a psion metabolizing alcohol wedded to the smell of human male, and my heart twisted. The lamp by the bed—a Merican Era antique with a base made of amber glass—rattled as I stood in the doorway. I could go no further.

  Neatly-made twin bed, plain pine dresser with empty Chivas Red bottles making a collage of mellow glowing plasglass, each tightly capped and with a small lightcharm wedded to each one. At night the bottles would glow softly, each limned in gold or blue; it was a trick most often seen in Academy dorm rooms, where drinking was a hobby raised to an art form. The closet door was half-open, showing neatly hung dark clothes, the long low bench where he made his own bullets and prepared his charms and amulets rested along the wall, organized with amulets in different stages of completion, as well as jars of dried herbs and interesting bits of bone and fur and feather. A threadbare red velvet cushion sat precisely placed in front of the bench. His nightstand held a stack of music discs and a personal player, the headphones stowed out of the way; a short wickedly curved knife; and a Glockstryke R4 projectile gun gleaming mellowly in the thick golden light. No pictures or holostills on the walls. His spare rig hung neatly on a peg near the door, as did his old coat, with its several pockets and leather patches against the tough canvas.

  I reached out, gently took the coat down, and shrugged into it, switching my sword from one hand to the other. It still smelled like peppered honey that tingled with the memory of thorn-spiked Shaman’s aura.

  I filled my lungs with the smell of my Power and Jace’s, the mixed scent of a part-demon and a Shaman, the bitter smell of my own failure tainting every mouthful, every inch of oxygen. Then I backed away, closing the door gently, as if someone was sleeping in the room beyond.

  It was time to pay my toll to the dead.

  I turned, went down the hall and down the stairs, stopping at the niche. The statue of Anubis I wrapped in a square of black silk sitting under it, the resultant bundle went into my bag, with a quiet apology to the god. I picked up the lacquered urn, surprised again by its weight. Oh, Japhrimel. I’m sorry. Gods forgive me for what I have done. Forgive me for what I am about to do.

  My cheeks were wet again. I sniffed, spat to the side. My rings loosed a shower of golden sparks.

  Urn in one hand, my sword in the other, I continued downstairs. I looked into the kitchen, at the dining-room table, where the stack of yearbooks taunted me. I’d forgotten to turn the coffeepot off, and it had no shut-off switch. The smell of cooked coffee made my gorge rise.

  What rough beast’s hour has come at last? I almost seemed to hear Lewis’s voice, from the long-ago dim reaches of my childhood. The poem had always made my hackles rise, it had been my favorite. And where will it be born, after it slouches through my life?

  I looked at my fieldstone altar; at Jace’s altar, my couch, the plants he had watered and nursed between bounties because I’d been too busy running headlong from one thing to the next. I took another deep breath, a thin sound breaking free as I exhaled, catching sight of the vellum envelope and crimson seal.

  My bootheels clicked on the floor. I smelled smoke.

  I drew my sword.

  The blade shone blue, runes twisting on the steel, answering my will as if I’d spent months stroking it and pouring Power into it.

  Jace…

  His name choked me. I could not say it.

  Anubis had denied me entry into Death for the first time. The Lord of Death didn’t bargain, and I couldn’t have brought Jace back even with a demon’s Power—his body had been too wounded, internal organs pulled out and shredded. It had been hopeless even before I’d spent all my strength in a futile rebellion against Death’s decree. A sedayeen might have been able to do it right after the initial injury, but I was no pacifist healer. Or maybe Jace’s soul had been tired of living, finding itself freed of the body for a moment and bolting away from the cruelty of life?

  My failures rose to choke me. I hadn’t been quick enough as a human to kill Santino, and if Japhrimel hadn’t given up a large share of his demon Power for me he might have been too tough for Lucifer to kill so easily. And even with the strength and speed Japhrimel had given me, I had not been able to catch Jace when he rocketed past me to protect me from whatever twisted sorcery had dredged up Mirovitch to torture seemingly everyone who had survived Rigger Hall.

  The glyph took shape at the end of my sword, encased in a sphere of lurid crimson. It was Keihen, the Torch, one of the Greater Glyphs of Destruction, a little-used part of the Nine Canons.

  I don’t love you, I had told him after Rio. I won’t ever love you.

  And his answer? If I cared about that I’d still be in Rio with a new Mob Family and a sweet little fat-bottomed babalawao. This is my choice, Danny. And stubbornly, over and over again, he had proved his love for me in a hundred different ignored ways.

  I had never even guessed how much he meant to me.

  There was only one thing I could give up, one penance I could pay, for the mess I’d made of everything. If Japhrimel could be resurrected, it was probably too late; he had Fallen. Lucifer’s word meant nothing; hadn’t he always been called the father of lies? If a Fallen demon could be resurrected and Lucifer wanted him, he could have sent another demon to collect me and the urn, or just the urn. I was part-demon, sure, but no match for a real one.

  None of it mattered. All that mattered was that I had tortured myself with hope, when I had known all along there was no hope. Japhrimel was never coming back, and neither was Jace. If I survived taking down a Feeder’s ka, I’d live afterward with the knowledge that I had denied myself even the faintest slim chance of resurrecting Japhrimel.

  My toll to the dead: my hope. It was the only penance big enough.

  I took my time with the glyph, no shuntlines, no avenues for the Power to follow except one simple undeniable course. The crimson globe spat, sizzled, and began to steam. Vapor took angular shapes, tearing at the air. I clamped my teeth in my lower lip, ignoring the pain, and stood in my front hall, Japhrimel’s urn tucked under my arm and the house shields quivering uneasily but calming when I stroked them. The glyph twisted inside its red cage, trying to escape. I flicked it off the tip of my sword, in the hall between the stairs and the living room, and held it spinning in the air with will alone, my sword sliding back into its sheath.

  I got a good grip on Japhrimel’s urn. I had to hold the glyph steady while it strained like a slippery fiery eel. I spat black blood from my cut lip, sank my teeth in again until I worried free a mouthful of acid-tasting demon blood. This I dribbled into my palm and smoothed over Japhrimel’s urn, the rising keening of the glyph inside its bubble of crimson light beginning to scorch the ceiling. The heat blew my hair back. The paint blistered on the walls, bubbling, and I smelled more smoke.

  I tossed Japhrimel’s bloodied urn straight up. My sword rang free of the sheath, a perfect draw, the sound of the cut like worlds colliding. Ash pattered down, the cleanly-broken halves of the urn smacking the floor and shattering, but I was already shuffling back, my sword held away from my body. Running with every ounce of demon speed, I reached the door before the bubble holding the glyph… burst.

  There was an immense, silent sound, felt more in the bones than heard. I spun aside at the door and leapt, but a giant warm hand pressed against the back of my body and threw me clear. I landed and rolled, instinct saving me. I came to a halt panting, my head ringing with flame, my bitten lip singing with pain until black blood coated the hurt and sealed it away.

  My left shoulder came alive with agony. I screamed, the force of my cry adding to the explosion that shook the ground. Flame bellowed up, and bits of the garden igniting and crumbling to ash. The heat was like a living thing, crawling along my body, only the
shield of my Power kept my clothes from smoking and catching fire.

  There. Both the men in my life, gone. I had read, long ago, of the Vikings sending ships out to sea alive with flame, burial barges to go with the dead into the afterlife. Now I sent my house into Death as well as Japhrimel and Jace. If I was lucky, when I died they might be waiting for me.

  The only thing left now was anger. Fury. Rage. A crimson wash so huge it shoved all other considerations aside. Easier to fight than to cry. Easier to kill than to admit to the pain.

  And oh, anger is sweet. Fury is the best fuel of all. It is so clean, so marvelous, so ruthless. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, rage against evil is better than sorrow. Sorrow can’t balance the scales.

  Vengeance could. And she would too, if I had anything to say about it.

  I was already on my feet, unsteady, walking away. I made it to my front gate as the layers of shielding on my house imploded, fueling the Power-driven flames. There would be nothing left but ash and a deep crater. My head rang and my shoulder crunched again with pain. I inhaled, staggering.

  I had always wondered what the limit of my powers was. The wall was scorching, concrete turning black and brittle on the outside. My garden was swallowed alive with flame, kissed with choking ash. I dimly heard human screams, and wondered if the shockwave would break a few windows. The gate itself was beginning to melt and warp. It almost seared my hand when I touched it, tough painted plasilica bubbling and smoking.

  I opened my front gate, stepped out.

  A few enterprising holovid reporters tried to take pictures. I no longer cared. I stalked through them like a well-fed lion through a herd of zebra. Some of them were cowering behind their bristling hovers. Fine hot flakes of ash drifted down. I heard sirens, and thought that the house was past saving. I did feel a moment’s pity for my neighbors, but it passed.

  It was three blocks before I remembered to sheathe my sword. The mark on my left shoulder settled into a steady burning that was not entirely unpleasant, except for one last flare that stopped me for a full thirty seconds, head down as I breathed heavily, ribs flickering as my lungs heaved. Then I pushed my hair—dry now from the fierce heat, and crowned with tiny flakes of ash—back, and continued on my way. The sun had sunk below the rim of the bay in the west. The column of smoke from my shattered home blazed a lurid orange, underlit by flame.