Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Do not doubt me, no matter what. I was busy doubting with all my little heart, now.

  I considered him, sitting there with his eyes closed. My hand tightened on the swordhilt. I could draw and strike in a little under a second and a half while I was human; I was faster now. I wasn’t fast enough to hit him. But what would he do? What could I get away with doing as long as I still had value as bait?

  He could tie me up and leave me with McKinley. I shuddered at the thought. He might, too, if I make any trouble. I was fairly sure I could break my way out of pretty much any human bonds, given enough time and concentration. But a demon probably knew how to tie a hedaira up so she didn’t escape. It was probably one of the things they learned in demon nursery school.

  The thought of being tied up and having something like the hellhound attack was chilling, to say the least. McKinley’s footsteps continued their even tread. My rings crackled uneasily, golden sparks pulsing in the air above them and winking out.

  There was another problem, too. A green-gemmed demon wanting to see me at the Haunt Tais-toi, which from the name was probably a Nichtvren haunt. I’d been inside one—the House of Pain in Saint City—and I never wanted to see another.

  So Lucifer wanted to see me again. What the hell for? To finish me off, now that I’d served my purpose?

  Had I served my purpose?

  The sense of some missing puzzle piece returned. Gods above, how I hate that missing-piece feeling. It always means I’m about to get deeper into trouble than even I can handle.

  Between one moment and the next, Japhrimel’s eyes flicked open. He studied me for a long moment, then stretched, the movement turning into a graceful rising to his feet. He offered me his hand. “Dinner first,” he said. “An audience has been requested with you, hedaira.”

  How did he sound so bloody calm? Was Lucifer planning to kill me or subject me to some incredible new form of torture? Fury rose in me again, was throttled. I wanted to sound at least as calm as he did. McKinley halted. It was a good thing—the pacing was really starting to irritate me.

  I made it to my feet on my own, bracing my left hand with my sword against the floor and levering myself up, my legs tingling briefly from forced immobility. I still felt a little shaky, but overall I seemed to have bounced back from the awful draining sensation. “I’m not hungry. I’ll go to this meeting, though.” My voice shook perceptibly. Congratulations, Dante. You sound about as calm as a Necromance before her Trial.

  “It could be a trap.” Japh’s eyebrows drew together.

  It’s almost certainly a trap. But for who? “I doubt Lucifer wants to kill me. We haven’t caught even one of the four demons he wants dragged in yet.” At least, not that I can tell. Though if he has other hunters out there, that might be inaccurate. I took a deep breath, carried the thought to its logical extension. I was beginning to wish my brain and my imagination didn’t work so blasted well. “If he does want me dead, he’ll get me one way or another.”

  A swift snarl crossed Japhrimel’s face, green eyes laser-burning. “He will not.”

  I shrugged. Not until he’s done playing with me and I’ve outlived my usefulness. If I’m bait, I don’t have long to live. “I’m a Necromance, demon. I’m not going to live forever.” I brushed past him, intending to stalk for the bathroom. If I was going to meet the Devil again, I wanted to at least wash my face.

  He caught my arm, his fingers gentle but inexorable. Was his hand shaking? Impossible. “Do not say such things to me, hedaira.”

  “Don’t call me that.” I tugged my arm away from him. He didn’t let me go, I set my heels and pulled, not caring if it hurt. “It’s Valentine to you, demon. Let go of me. I’ve got a meeting with the Devil to get ready for.”

  Japhrimel shook me, gently, as if to bring home just how much stronger he was. How much more, even though he’d changed me. I tried to yank away from him again, almost feeling tiled wall against my back. Hearing a sudden roaring in my ears, the devouring feeling of helplessness as he held me still.

  His voice turned cold. “Why must everything be a battle, with you?”

  “Stop it.” My breath caught in my throat. “Stop it. Let go.”

  He did, and I stumbled, righted myself. My rings swirled steadily. I stalked away from him, past McKinley, who was staring at me again. I was getting tired of being stared at. All my adult life as an accredited Necromance I’ve been stared at. Too much of anything gets old.

  I locked myself into the bathroom, twisted on the cold-water tap. There was a glassed-in shower floored with granite, the entire bathroom was done in kobolding-worked stone except for the deep bathtub and the porcelain stand-alone sink. No toilet—a Nichtvren room wouldn’t need one, and I didn’t either. That had been one of the harder things to get used to about no longer being strictly human—a female bounty hunter was always looking for a decent lavatory. You learned to take bathroom breaks when you could.

  The mirrors reflected back a rumpled and tired hedaira whose black hair fell messily over her face in seemingly-choreographed strands.

  I didn’t feel a shock of nausea on seeing my own face, which must have meant I was finally getting used to it. I looked at myself critically, evaluating.

  My own dark eyes, liquid and beautiful. Sculpted cheekbones, a sinful mouth now drawn down at one corner as I frowned, winged dark eyebrows. I touched my cheek, and saw the beautiful woman in the mirror brush her exquisite cheekbone, trace her pretty lips with a black molecule-drip polished nail. Japhrimel had made me demon-beautiful, but without the air of alienness demons exuded.

  If I looked hard enough, I could still see traces of who I’d been in my face—my eyes were still mostly my own, and when I relaxed my mouth still quirked up habitually on one side as if I didn’t quite believe what I was seeing. The little half-smile had always seemed welded onto my face before, a professional defense. If I was smiling, it couldn’t hurt that bad, could it?

  I brushed my hair back with wet fingers, washed my face. Scrubbed my skin dry with a towel. Shrugged inside my rig a little, tested the action of each knife. Checked my bag, scorched and battered but still mine. Extra ammo. I still had my plasgun, too.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, the water still running into the bowl of the sink. I wiped the half-smile off my face, watched as the lovely woman facing me grew solemn, the tattoo on her cheek shifting slightly. The twisted caduceus ran its sharp ink lines lovingly over her skin. The emerald set high on her flawless left cheekbone flashed.

  There was another green flash, and my eyes dropped. I lifted my left wrist, the breath slamming out of me.

  The wristcuff ran with green light, fluid lines scrabbling with humming urgency. A warning.

  I drew my plasgun. Left the water running. Edged for the bathroom door. Stopped, and looked at the shower. My eyes snagged on the bathtub, too. A low stone-tiled wall between the bathtub and the shower, only about three feet high. Probably for the plumbing. The bathtub was set in the floor, but behind it was the wall the room shared with the outside hallway.

  I bet that wall isn’t stone all the way through. It likely wasn’t kobolding-made, which meant it wasn’t as tough as the exterior wall.

  The wristcuff squeezed, a bolt of pain firing its way up my arm. My breath stopped in my throat. Demons. Whether from Lucifer or escaped from Hell, they certainly didn’t mean me any good.

  You’ve got to make up your mind, Danny. Let Japhrimel push you around or strike out on your own. Even if you won’t last long without him, at least you won’t have someone owning you. Forcing you. Lying to you.

  Clear coldness settled over me. In the end, everything boiled down to one thing—what I had to do. Even if I loved Japh, I couldn’t be a slave.

  I heard McKinley’s voice, low and urgent. Then, a soft light rap on the hotel room’s door. Demons, here and knocking at the door.

  A static-laden silence smashed through the room. Then a crunching, smashing impact; the bathroom door rattled against its hing
es. A low, coughing snarl—a hellhound.

  Just before all hell broke loose, I took a deep breath, stepped back, and pointed my plasgun at the wall. Power spiked under my skin, and I squeezed the trigger.

  CHAPTER 36

  Night lay thick and heavy over Demilitarized Sarajevo. It felt strange to be in a city of paranormals, but the static in the air was enough to hide even me for once. I crouched in the lee of a dark alley, listening to the snarling as two werecain engaged in a deep philosophical discussion about something out on the pavement across the cobbled square, right in front of the Haunt Tais-toi nightclub.

  Nightclub is too kind a word. It was a Nichtvren haunt, communal feeding ground, and social gathering spot rolled into one. Instead of thick shielding to keep the hungry Power contained, this had only token barriers—after all, who would be stupid enough to attack a haunt in Sarajevo? And besides, there were no normals or psions around to keep away from the well of carnivorous Power because of the risk of Feeders.

  This particular haunt had been a temple once, a twin-towered cathedral in the café section of Sarajevo, facing out onto a wide square now eddying with every conceivable shape and size of paranormal. Species I’d only read about in school lived here in their own enclaves, and night was the time they came out to play.

  My shields shivered, demon-strong and flexible. I blinked a few times, feeling a purely human reaction uncomfortably like what any prey would feel in the presence of predators. Maybe I wasn’t fully human anymore—but I’d been born one, and something blind and old inside me recognized that to these creatures, the Danny Valentine before Japh’s alterations would be walking meat in Sarajevo.

  My head still felt tender from the plasgun-plus-Power burst. True to my guess, the wall hadn’t been pure stone, just plasteel struts and sheetrock with thin marble tiles. It had blown out nicely. I, on the other hand, had slid into the glassed-in shower. The single low stone wall between the shower and the bathtub provided perfect cover as I buttoned myself as tightly down as I could. My feet had crunched on broken glass from the shower door. The mark on my shoulder bit down with sudden pain as the demon attackers, followed by McKinley and Japhrimel, streaked out into the hotel. I heard a werecain’s howl—the guard at the top of the stairs. Everyone thought I’d busted out and was running away—or was being dragged.

  Jeez, not too bright, I’d thought, my breath still choked in my throat. Then I’d scrambled out through the hole in the wall, Power bleeding into the air from where my strike had smashed through Japhrimel’s demon-laid wards. Any other demon’s shielding, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do so—but I wore Japh’s mark, and his wards weren’t meant to strike against or harm me.

  Or so I’d hoped, and turned out to be right. Besides, the smashing against the front door meant the shields were automatically concentrating to throw back the force of that attack and were thus more vulnerable here.

  Low and silent, I turned to the left and was around the corner in another hall before I heard the crashing chaos of a hell of a fight behind me. I didn’t wait around. Instead, I kicked in a door, and—thank Anubis— found a room with actual windows. A swanhild room, actually, with a large round nestingbed full of feathery stuff. I didn’t stop to apologize to the screaming swanhild trio that greeted me, feathers swirling around their shocked faces and narrow naked torsos. I simply dove out the plasglass window and was gone before the attacking demons had realized I’d outsmarted them. The drop hadn’t been pleasant, but it hadn’t hurt me much.

  Finding the Haunt Tais-toi had been as easy as getting to a busy street and politely asking a passing swanhild, then following her careful directions.

  The psychic interference was so intense I couldn’t scan the place. Nichtvren poured in, and I spotted a whole pack of werecain—from an alpha in a long leather coat all the way down to a few teenage pups. A few swanhild decked out in silver chains, miniskirts, and not a lot else waltzed in the front door.

  There wasn’t a lot of hover traffic. I guess the paranormals around here didn’t use them—who needed a hover when you could use the Nichtvren shimmer-trick, or when a werecain could cover ten blocks of city street in seconds? Swanhild were territorial and rarely traveled despite their messaging system, and kobolding hated to leave wherever they’d been hatched.

  At least if there aren’t a lot of hovers, I might not get hit with one.

  I checked the street again. Too many shadows. Any one of them could hold a demon, and the interference was intense enough I wouldn’t know it in time.

  I was pretty sure I’d shaken all pursuit, and the interference that would hide them would hide me a lot better, since I wasn’t as big a disturbance in the Power flow.

  Danny, what are you doing? You should be running as far away from here as you can, going as deep into cover as you can.

  I couldn’t run forever. If Lucifer wanted to kill me, he was welcome to try. I’d die fighting. Besides, why bother to schedule a meeting with me and send assassins for me? Far easier and more satisfying to do it himself.

  Besides, this was the one thing Japhrimel couldn’t force me to do. He was stronger than me, faster than me, more powerful than me. This was my chance to do something by myself.

  I finally melted out of the shadows and walked across the street. My bootheels snapped against concrete and patches of cobbles. It was odd to be in a city where the sky wasn’t dyed orange with reflected light; it was even more odd when I walked right up to the door of the Haunt Tais-toi and plunged into the red-neon thumping bass cave that was the second Nichtvren haunt I’d ever walked into in my life.

  The music folded around me, I winced as reflex compensated for the demonic acuity of my ears. One thing I can thank Japh for, he taught me how to turn the volume down.

  I’d spent so long with him in the forefront of every thought, even while he’d been dormant and I’d struggled unsuccessfully to go on with my life. I suspected I’d miss him for the rest of my life.

  The rest of my life might be a very short time, I thought grimly, glancing around the haunt. The dance floor was crammed, prickles of Power racing over my skin from the throng. A bar ran down one whole side of the building, a low stage held four werecain and a Nichtvren. Two ’cain had guitars, one had a bass, another one fingered a Taziba keyboard; the stick-thin, red-haired Nichtvren sang in some language I didn’t recognize. He wore leather pants and had his eyes closed, crooning, his voice cutting through the din with little effort, helped along by Power.

  The music helped with the interference. I shouldered my way through a gaggle of swanhild and headed for the bar. I was early, according to the timefunction on my datband.

  I hoped the Devil was early too. The sooner I could get this over with, the better.

  Before, I’d just had to get too tired to care before I could face down the Devil. Now I was tired, hungry, missing Japhrimel, running away from Japhrimel, scared out of my mind, and heartbroken.

  I was hoping it was enough. It might almost be a relief to have everything over with.

  I got to the bar. The bartender was a rarity, a four-armed kobolding. Swanhild and kobolding like to drink, and Nichtvren occasionally take an alcohol chaser with their blood—it doesn’t affect them but they like acidic tastes. I hear the stomach cramps are a bitch, though. There were various other stimulants and depressants for other paranormals, and the smell of synth-hash smoke wreathed around me. The thunderous fading-returning odor of werecain, the dry feathery sweetness of swanhild, the deliciously wicked smell of Nichtvren, smoke and stone for the kobolding, other assorted odors.

  I let my eyes travel over the place as the Nichtvren’s voice hit a new pitch that made my shields shiver. A thread of wonder ran through me. I wouldn’t have been able to experience this if I was still human.

  There were some things to be grateful for in this new body, however short a time I had left to enjoy it.

  Danny, your imagination just works too goddamn well.

  I ordered a double shot o
f Crostine rum and handed the ’tender a fifty New Credit note. My roll was getting pretty thin, I’d have to score some more cash soon. If I used my datband to draw on my accounts, I could be traced. I would have to find a bank and carefully plan a run. Get in, get cash from my accounts, get out and vanish.

  Always assuming you live past tonight, sunshine. “Danny Valentine,” I said to the bartender. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  The ’cain palmed the note and nodded over my shoulder. I whirled, my hand going to my swordhilt.

  My heart leapt to my throat. Yellow eyes blazed in a scar-ruined face; Lucas Villalobos grabbed my arm, stopping only to gulp down the double shot and nod to the bartender. “You get into more trouble,” he wheezed in my ear, his breath laden with rum and the dry scent of a stasis cabinet. He smacked the shotglass down on the bar. “This way.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I considered drawing my sword, discarded the notion. I was too glad to see him.

  “I don’t like losing track of my clients. Puts me in a bad mood.” Lucas scanned the building, his oddly flat aura moving like a revolving door. No wonder he was able to get into DMZ Sarajevo, he didn’t look human at all on an energetic level. “There’s someone you should talk to.”

  My heart plummeted, then leapt to pound in my throat. Lucas? Working for Lucifer? No. Let’s hope not. “Great. Is he here?”

  “Not he,” Lucas said in my ear. He’d found a new dark-gray shirt but still wore the same bandoliers I’d always seen him in, his boots were the same rundown pair he’d always had. I wondered how often he got them resoled. “She. And you’d better hurry.”

  Lucas led me through the dance floor, press of immortal Nichtvren flesh on every side, a knot of werecain twisting in the corner, sweet synth-hash smoke wreathing in billows as a mated pair twined around each other, damn near copulating. I’d always liked dancing, shaking every thought out of my body. I hadn’t gone in years.