Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Don’t change the subject.” I kept my temper by a thin margin. “Please.”

  “Even if it is for your own good, hedaira?”

  I scowled at my sword. Even then, Japh. I’d rather be scared than have you hide something from me. “Who are you to decide that?”

  “Your A’nankhimel, Dante. The one who Fell through love of you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.” I didn’t make you Fall. I just treated you like a person. Was that so wrong?

  He moved again, still leaning toward me. “And yet, it happened. Enough. I will tell you truth, but I will not bother you with trifles or distract you unnecessarily.”

  It was no use. He wasn’t going to budge. It’s going to be goddamn hard to get through this if you don’t tell me little things like “Oh, Dante, the Devil keeps calling and wants to talk to you.” That kind of sounds like need-to-know information to me, Japhrimel. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the words from spilling out. I was already in a hell of a bad mood.

  Not the best way to meet the Devil at all.

  CHAPTER 8

  Venizia lay atop its lagoon, shimmering gilt and pearl. Once, long ago, the city had been at the mercy of a rising sea. Climate control, antigrav, and reactive had changed all that. Now the entire city was mythically beautiful, its buildings arching over canals gleaming crimson as the sun died its daily, fiery, bloody death.

  After the failure of the celebrated Gibraltar Locks Project, the Hegemony had funded a massive retrofit to keep Venizia afloat. Everyone was mildly surprised when the Locks architect (an Academy Magi dropout-turned-engineer named Todao Shikai) was assigned to the task, and slightly more surprised when he actually pulled it off. He collapsed and died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage six months after the retrofit was finished. Rumor was he had called up a particular imp after the Locks project failed and bargained away his life for a career success. I’d always discounted the old story—but I was on my way to my second official meeting with the Prince of Hell.

  Meeting the Devil does tend to change the way one looks at gruesome old legends—the more gruesome, the more thought-provoking.

  The transport floated down, hovercells whining as it held steady above the water for a few moments before gliding onto the dock and landing with barely a thump. Whoever the pilot was, he or she was highly capable. AI decks can’t land without jolting everyone aboard; it takes a human touch.

  I sat looking out the window, as everyone coughed and shuffled off the transport. Japhrimel, his fingers warm against mine, said nothing. There was a time when I would have fought tooth and nail to get out of the damned transport as quickly as possible, but for now I was content to let everyone else go their merry way first. Well, maybe not content. Maybe I just didn’t want to get out of the hover.

  “We must go, Dante,” Japhrimel said quietly. His thumb touched the underside of my wrist again, the heat flushing through me and washing away sharp cold fear. The man was dangerous to my pulse. “I would ask you something.”

  “Hold that thought.” I blew out between my teeth and stood up. He moved too, without relinquishing my hand. We went down the central aisle, my bag bumping against my hip. He had to bend slightly, a little too tall for a human transport. His coat rustled, sounding like soft cloth-leather; he must have been agitated for all his face was calm and his aura perfectly controlled.

  We stepped off onto the dock washed with sunset light. I glanced into the sky, looked across the dock to where water glittered and foamed under the antigrav. Shikai had done a good job—the retrofit was seamless; Venizia was now truly a floating city. Unfortunately, that much antigrav meant that the whole city whined with a sound inaudible to most normals. Most psions can’t stand the sound of hovers for long, it settles in the back teeth and rattles the bones. I sighed. My shields swirled, taking in the quality of the Power here—people and stone and reactive, a taste like sour oily water on the back of the throat, overlaid with coffee fumes and synth-hash smoke. What would have taken me hours before I met Japhrimel—acclimatizing to a new city’s Power well—was done in seconds, my almost-demon metabolism shifting through the necessary adjustments. “I bet there aren’t a lot of psis here,” I muttered, then looked up at him. “What is it you’re going to ask me?”

  Japhrimel finished scanning the dock, his eyes glittering and that look on him again—the look of listening to something I couldn’t hear. His jaw was set, golden skin drawn tight over his bones. I wondered what it felt like to him, to be going back into Hell. Then again, he’d gone last night, right?

  I wondered what it was like, seeing what he’d given up for me. Hell was no place to party if you were a human—but he wasn’t, and it was his home. Was he homesick?

  Then he looked down, and that rare smile lit his face. I couldn’t help myself—I caught my breath, smelling pollution-dyed water and sunwarmed stone, and a thread of synth-hash smoke. The pilot and copilot of the transport had just come out of their cockpit access hatch, the gold braid on their uniforms twinkling. The pilot had a synth-hash cigarette dangling from her lip.

  “I ask you again to trust me, Dante. No matter what befalls us. And I ask you not to doubt me.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” I hunched my shoulders, a faint breeze off the Meditterane touching my braided hair. As usual, a lone strand had come free and fell in my face. It seemed the longer my hair got, the more of an independent consciousness it possessed.

  “You are.” The smile faded from his face. “A’tai, hetairae A’nankimel’iin. Diriin.” It might have been a prayer, the way he said it, but it wasn’t a prayer I knew. He had only taught me a little of the language demons used among themselves, saying it wasn’t fit for my tongue, and anyway we had time.

  Now I wished we had more time.

  “What does that mean?” I searched his face as the sun finished its slow slippage under the horizon. I took a deep breath—the wind off the sea was warm, but with a promise of later chill. Lights flickered in the city atop the lagoon. The antigrav made the ground feel as if it was thrumming underfoot, like the deck of an old ship or a balky slicboard.

  “Promise me. Say you will not doubt me, no matter what happens.”

  “It would be a lot easier if you would tell me exactly what’s going on,” I said irritably. “Are we going to get this over with or not?”

  “Promise me.” He wasn’t going to budge. Stubborn demon, stubborn human woman—only I wasn’t fully human anymore.

  I set my jaw and glared at him. “I promise.” After all, who do I have left, Japhrimel? Tell me that. You and Gabe, and Eddie by extension. That’s all.

  I’m damn near rich, having even that much.

  “Say you will not doubt me, no matter what.”

  And he called me persistent. “I promise I’ll trust you and I won’t doubt you,” I chanted as if I was back in primary school. “No matter what. Now can we get this over with?”

  “I will never understand your tendency to hurry.” But his face had eased. Now he looked thoughtful and almost relaxed. It was only a millimeter’s worth of difference or so in the lines around his mouth but it shouted at me. At least I knew him well enough for that.

  If I have to do this, I want to get it over with. Then you and I are going to have a little chat about our relationship. It’s high time we got a few things straight. My heart leapt into my throat, I lifted my sword slightly. “I’m armed and ready to face the Devil, Japhrimel. Let’s go.”

  I wish I could say I saw more of Venizia. The city is a treasure trove of pre-Hegemony art and artifacts; its architecture alone is worth a lifetime’s careful study. As it was, I looked down at my feet, barely marking the turns we made and fixing them into a mental map, letting Japhrimel navigate me over bridges and through darkening streets not big enough for even single-passenger hovers. The people here used narrow high-prowed transports on the canals—some of them open-air transports, which gave me a shudder—and slicboards to get around. The fourth time I got tagged by the wash
from a slicboard’s localized antigrav I made up my mind to draw my sword the next time one came near me.

  I almost did it too, but Japhrimel closed his fingers around my right wrist, a bracelet as gentle as it was inexorable. “You are out of sorts,” he murmured, making me laugh. The sound sliced through the street, rattled away against the hoverwhine pressing against my back teeth.

  “I’m going to smashtip the next kid who buzzes me right into the canal,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “No need. We’re here.” He halted in front of a soaring pile of stone, I tilted my head back—and back, and back.

  The cathedral rose in spires toward the sky just beginning to take on the look of a city at night, reactive and electrical light and freeplas all conspiring to wash the vault of heaven with orange. I saw a round window, real glass repaired with bits of plasglass, in the shape of a rose that would glow red inside when the sun hit it. “The entrance to Hell is in a temple?”

  “No.” He shook his head, his eyes flaring with runic patterns of emerald green for a moment. “This is simply where I was told to meet our guide. Though most temples are very good places to find a door into Hell.” He led me up the steps, and I ran the fingers of my right hand over the waist-high iron railing. The hand that had killed Santino—it had twisted into a claw after I had driven the shards of my other sword into the scavenger demon’s black heart.

  I touched my swordhilt, lifting the slim scabbarded blade in my left hand.

  Did Jado give me a blade that can kill the Devil?

  I hadn’t thought to ask him at the time, too busy thinking about Rigger Hall and too sick with mourning Japhrimel. Besides, how could I have known the Prince of Hell would start messing with my life again? I thought he’d had enough of me the first time around. I had certainly emphatically had enough of him.

  I looked at Japhrimel’s back as he paused at the double doors, one golden hand lifting to touch them. I’d thought him dead once.

  Dead and gone. Grieving for him had almost killed me. So he’d said nothing about Lucifer asking for me, trying to protect me. He was right, if I’d had to deal with Lucifer and the echoes of Mirovitch’s papery voice rustling in my head, I might have gone gratefully, howlingly insane.

  No extenuating circumstances, my conscience barked. What happened to the old Danny Valentine, the one nobody would dare lie to?

  I did something I’d never done before—tried to shut that voice up. It didn’t go gracefully.

  “Japhrimel.”

  He turned his head slightly, keeping both me and the door in his peripheral vision.

  “I never would, you know. Doubt you.” I’ve violated one of my biggest rules for you. I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest of it, and hoped he understood.

  His lips thinned, but the mark on my shoulder was suddenly alive with velvet flame, caressing all the way down my body. I took a deep breath, bracing myself.

  He pushed the door open, glanced inside, and his shoulders went rigid for half a breath. Then he turned back to give me one eloquent, heart-freezing look, warning me something was wrong, and stepped inside. He paused just inside the door, his attention moving in a slow arc over the church’s interior. I waited.

  He finally moved forward. A heavy fragrance boiled out of the opened door, and my heart rose to lodge in my throat again like a lump of freeplas. Smoky musk, fresh-baked bread, the indefinable smell of demon.

  Not just any demon, either. I knew that smell. Had hoped to never, ever smell it again.

  I stepped into the church, Power brushing along my skin, teasing, caressing. My mouth had gone dry. My heart fell down from my throat into my stomach, somersaulted, then started to pound in my chest, my wrists, my neck. I even felt my pulse in my ankles, my heart worked so hard.

  Well, would you look at that. The doors slid along the floor behind me, closing of their own will—or his. Ranks of pews marched all the way down the cathedral’s interior, but on the altar was a massive Hegemony sunwheel; other gods had their own niches in the halls going to either side. Candles flickered in the dimness, I smelled the faint tang of kyphii. My nose filled with the heatless scent of generations of worship, guilt, and fear, and the later tangs of Power: Shamans and Necromances and sedayeen and Ceremonials coming to make offerings, dyeing the air with energy all mixed together to make a heady charged atmosphere.

  Most old temples and later cathedrals were built on nodes, junctures of ley lines. During the Merican Era churches had stopped being built on nodes and started to spring up like mushrooms. After the Vatican Bank scandal and in the beginning of the Awakening, the old churches started turning back into temples; the process only accelerated after the Seventy Days War and the fall of the Evangelicals of Gilead. The Parapsychic Act and the codifying of psionic abilities meant that only temples and cathedrals on nodes survived, others were inelegantly torn down to make way for urban renewal.

  This place had been reverberating with Power and worship for a very long time. And there at the altar rail was a tall, black-clad figure with a shock of golden hair glowing with its own flaming light. A figure slim and beautiful even from the back, and obviously not human.

  We hadn’t needed a guide into Hell after all, despite all Japh’s careful preparations.

  Anubis et’her ka. My throat closed. For one frantic moment I wanted to scramble back for the doors, wrench them open and run, anywhere was fine as long as I could get away; the feel of Lucifer’s steely fingers sinking into my throat rose like an old enemy, taunting me. This was the last chance I had to bolt. I almost made it, too, my body straining against horrified inertia.

  Japhrimel half-turned, caught my arm, pulled me forward. He ended up walking just behind me and to my left, to protect both my blind side and my back. The mark on my shoulder flared with heat again. I choked back what I wanted to say and instead moved up the central aisle, each booted footfall echoing along stone and harsh wooden edges. Just like doing a slicboard run through Suicide Alley in North New York Jersey; the only thing you can do is hold your breath and go full throttle—and hope it doesn’t hurt too bad on the way through.

  I stopped at the front pew. Lucifer stood at the rail, his golden hands loose at his sides. My heart thudded.

  I thought we were going into Hell to meet him. The frantic idea that I might almost have preferred the trip into Hell just so I could have a few more moments before I had to face down the Devil made a gasping, breathy laugh rise up in my throat. I killed it, set my jaw so tightly I could feel my teeth squealing together. A worm of suspicion bloomed; I didn’t want to think that my gentle Fallen, the lover who had nursed me through the double blow of Mirovitch’s psychic rape and Jace’s death with more patience than anyone had ever shown me, could still be on the Devil’s side.

  It’s not possible, Danny. It’s just fear talking. Just stupid, silly fear.

  I said nothing. Japhrimel went still as a stone behind me, radiating a fierce hurtful awareness. I had rarely felt this kind of pressure and tension from him. It was the same feeling—him listening to a sound I could not hear, seeing something I could not see—only magnified to the nth degree.

  Finally—probably after he thought I’d stewed enough—Lucifer turned slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.

  He probably did.

  He was too beautiful, the kind of androgynous beauty holovid models sometimes have. If I hadn’t known he was male, I might have wondered. The mark on his forehead flashed green, an emerald like a Necromance’s only obviously not implanted, the skin smoothly turning into a gem. Lucifer’s radioactive, silken green eyes met mine, and if I hadn’t had practice at meeting Japhrimel’s green gaze—and later, his dark eyes so much older than a human’s—I might have let out a gasp.

  Instead, I stared at the emerald. He might think I was looking him in the eye if I focused on the gem. The emerald grafted in my own cheek burned. I tried to remind myself it wasn’t like his; my emerald was a mark of my bond with my personal psychopomp, the god
whose protection I carried, the mark of a Necromance.

  It didn’t work. I still felt nauseated.

  Silence stretched between us, humming. Japhrimel was tight as a coiled spring next to me, and I felt a little worm of traitorous relief inside my chest. As long as he was on my side, I might conceivably get out of this alive.

  Still, I wished I could talk to him. I wished I could turn and look at him. My curse—I was so fucking needy. I wanted constant reassurance. My big flaw when it came to relationships—questioning the loyalty of anyone crazy enough to date me. After all, I was damaged goods. Had always been damaged goods.

  You’re being ridiculous, Danny. Keep your wits about you. This is Lucifer you’re dealing with. You show any weakness, and he’ll eat you alive.

  I concentrated on staying quiet.

  Lucifer said nothing. I’ll be damned if I give the Devil the first word. I tightened my left hand around the reinforced scabbard.

  Power blurred, singing in the air, a physical weight against heart and throat and eye. The demon part of me wanted to drop to my knees; the human part of me screamed silently, resisting with every single fiber of stubbornness I could manage to dredge up from my stubborn, painful life.

  I suppose I should have been grateful I’d had practice in enduring the unendurable.

  It was close. Very close. I had no time to worry how Japhrimel was staying upright, I was too busy keeping my own knees locked, mentally digging my teeth in, resisting. My rings spat golden sparks, defiant.

  Finally, the Prince of Hell spoke.

  “First point to you, Dante Valentine.” The voice of the Devil, stroking, easing along every exposed inch of skin, a flame so cold it burned. “I have left Hell, I have come alone, and now you force me to greet you. You must be certain of yourself.”

  Irritation rasped under my breastbone, lifesaving irritation. It broke the spell of his eyes and bolstered my knees. “Goddammit,” I rasped, my voice as hoarse as if he’d just tried to strangle me again. “I don’t play your little games. I didn’t even know you wanted me until today.” I met his eyes, then, something inside my chest cracking as their deep glow burned against my face. “Just get to the point, Prince. Use small words, and can the goddamn sarcasm. What do you want?”