Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Goddammit—” Horman began, but I was already gone. I knew what I needed to know.

  Half the cops on the Saint City force might well think I’d killed Gabe. But the other half didn’t think so, and Horman had been allowed to stand quietly out in his smoking alcove, taking nips off the bottle of Chivas brought to him by his partner. Someone else knew that a normal was the officer on record for a psion’s murder, maybe someone had even figured out from the scene of Gabe’s homicide that everything wasn’t quite kosher. Despite Horman’s shambling exterior, he was well-respected among Saint City cops—one of the good old boys. If he dropped a quiet word, it would get around.

  I had just bought myself some breathing room. Or more precisely, Gabe had bought it for me, by telling a fat foulmouth cop who reeked of soy whiskey in no uncertain terms that I was to be trusted no matter what the brass said.

  Still looking out for me, Gabriele. Mighty nice of you. Even my mental voice caught on a choking sob.

  My chest hurt. My eyes were full of unshed tears, the pavement blurring in front of me.

  I needed a place to go to ground. I didn’t have one. My shoulder twinged sharply, the pain slicing through my misery. Pay attention, Dante. Wake up. Just a little longer, then you can rest.

  Four blocks away from the precinct house, instinct poked me hard between the ribs. I stepped aside into an alley. Managed to get all the way to the dead end, brick walls rising up in three directions. I turned around, leaning my back against the blind corner; even if anyone started shooting from the roof I was sure I could make it up the handy fire-escape and away. I braced my legs as the freezing rain started in earnest, tapping the roofs, mouthing the pavement. The peculiar whine of streetside hover traffic during rainfall bounced through the alley and rattled my teeth.

  I squeezed the scabbard in my left hand, checked the cuff. No green light, it was back to dead-cold and dull against my golden skin. There was no way to get it off, I couldn’t even get a fingernail under its curve. It had welded itself to my skin.

  Lovely.

  I slid my right hand under my shirt, touched the knobs of the baculum; slid my fingertips up my collarbone. Took a deep, slamming breath. The decision was instant, I’d just reached the end of my tether.

  I don’t care what else is going on, Japhrimel. I need you. You lying bastard of a demon, I need to see where you are and if you can help me.

  I touched the ropes of scarring, my fingertips delicate as if I caressed his naked shoulder. Or his cheek. Heat jolted up my arm, smashed through my shoulder.

  I saw—

  —darkness. The single point of light was a candle, its blood-red flame in a curious stasis. Arms stretched overhead, head hanging, hair curtaining face. The chalked lines of the diagram writhed, fluid with demon Power, Magi script altered subtly to make it more effective. Urgency growing in the bones, spreading outward. The bracelet of cold metal around his wrists softened under the lash of his attention.

  Circle holding square holding pentacle, the diagram spun lazily against a smooth glassine floor. A hellhound paced at its periphery, red eyes glowing and massive shoulders writhing under its obsidian pelt. A laugh sharp as a razor cut the air, shivered as the candleflame bent in a nonphysical direction and returned to its stasis, standing straight up. The candle itself was a thick parchment-colored pillar set in a barbarously clawed iron stand.

  Head, lifting. Eyes beginning to burn as they wrenched away from the flame.

  “I will give you one chance,” he said, in a chill hurtful voice.

  “At last. She’s calling,” another replied, high and awful as tinkling bells made of frozen blood. “And he’s compelled to answer.”

  “It was only a matter of time. I wonder who caught her, perhaps Arkhamiel?” Wait. Was this voice like the first? Identical. But the shading was a touch deeper, a slightly more masculine tone. “ ’Twas a fool’s move to let us take you, Elder Brother. We will soon have the lai’arak and your compliance anyway.”

  “I have warned you,” he said quietly. The chill had not left the words, a sharp jagged blade drawn over numb flesh. “Your time is almost done.”

  I tore my fingers away. Bent over, shook my head, hair swinging as I tried to clear away the sudden disorientation of seeing through his eyes as if through a sheet of wavering glass, each object freighted with different light and perspective. I choked, my stomach revolving. Black demon blood dripped from my nose and mouth, I’d driven my teeth almost clean through my lower lip.

  I slid down to my knees. It was not the best place to have a nervous breakdown, in an alley less than four blocks from the South precinct house, exposed to the stinging pellets of frozen rain and drifted with garbage. I hunched over, hugging myself, my weapons digging into various places, and started to shake.

  Someone had Japhrimel in a demon-inscribed circle, with a hellhound pacing its borders. The other voices were demons—nothing human could sound that tinkling and cold. Two voices, sounding almost identical. The Twins. Eve’s allies.

  That answered two questions. Eve’s allies had Japhrimel, and some other faction not loyal to Lucifer was in town too. That meant two groups of demons that had a vested interest in either keeping me alive or simply catching me to make Japh behave. Add that to whoever else Lucifer had sent to catch Eve if she came out of hiding, and there were at least three groups of demons double-dealing and jostling each other in Saint City. And here I was, caught in the middle. It would be a miracle if I could solve the mystery of Gabe’s death without getting interrupted by whatever trouble was boiling out of Hell now.

  I wiped tears away with the blade-edge of one hand, but more came, welling out my burning eyes and slicking my cheeks. Japhrimel.

  Why did he have to go and get himself in trouble just as I had a Mob Family to take down? It was bad fucking timing in the worst way.

  What would they do to him? If he could be caught, even if he would eventually escape—which everyone seemed to take for granted—they might be able to hurt him before he did. I didn’t think Eve would hurt him willingly, but he might leave her with no choice if he tried to break free and drag her back to Hell. After all, there was Velokel, her lover, who had hunted Fallen and hedaira before. Even if Japh had a demon’s Power he was still… vulnerable.

  That thought sent wriggling cold panic all the way through me.

  Goddammit, Danny! The voice was familiar, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. You’re goin’ into shock. Get your ass movin’. Find somewhere to sit down and breathe. And for God’s sake stop cryin’.

  It was Eddie’s sotto voce growl, the one he used for sarcasm. Why was I hearing dead men? Didn’t I have enough trouble? Maybe it was my subconscious interfering, dangerous for a Magi-trained psion. My control of Power depended on my having a clean psychic house, so to speak; you can’t corral and contain magickal force with a scattered mind. Broken concentration sucks away the sorcerous Will.

  I scrubbed at the mark on my shoulder through my shirt. Stop it. Stop right this second. No crying, no weakness allowed!

  Bit by bit, the unsteady trembling feeling went away. I sniffed and smelled rain, garbage, and demon musk. I’d flooded the alley with my scent, glands working overtime. Had to rein it in. Would another demon be able to track me? My rings swirled with uneasy light, my shields trembling on the edge of crystallizing.

  Japhrimel was taken, I was on my own. Things did not look good.

  That was how they found me, crouched in the alley and sobbing. But my hand was still closed around the hilt of my sword, and I felt them coming bare seconds before they arrived—enough time for me to make it halfway up the fire escape. Plasbolts raked past me, splashing against standard-magshielded walls, plasglass shattered.

  Even the toughest bounty hunter around will run when faced with four police cruisers and a cadre of what appears to be augmented Mob shocktroops. And all for one tired almost-demon.

  CHAPTER 23

  I finally lost the last of the police cruisers by
plunging into the old Bowery section of the Tank District. It’s possible to find almost anything in the Tank, though not as much as you can find in the Great Souk or the Freetowns. The Tank population doesn’t take kindly to police. It’s a good place to hide, as both Abracadabra and Anwen Carlyle knew.

  The Bowery is the very worst part, the cancerous heart of Chill-fed urban blight, and when I was human I hadn’t braved it very often. The Tank, yes. The Bowery, no. Not unless I was desperate.

  Two of the cruisers had tangled together as they pursued me through the labyrinth of what used to be the National District. I had another piece of good luck when the third misjudged a lane of slicboard traffic and a slic courier shot in front of the bristling cruiser. The cruiser’s AI yanked it into a barrel roll to avoid the collision—Hegemony cop cars are all fitted with that sort of control to make high-speed chases less dangerous for civvies. The courier would get dinged with a ticket, but she was still on her board instead of spread over the pavement. And I was long gone.

  The last cruiser lost me in the Hole.

  Back when I’d been human, I’d had my board tuned by Konnie Bazileus at the Heaven’s Arms. Occasionally I’d gone into the Hole, honing my skill on a board against the sk8s, couriers, skaheads, and flicsurfers. Jace and I had even done naked-blade slicboard duels, back in the first violent flush of our affair.

  Even Hegemony federal marshals don’t go into the Hole often. It isn’t worth it.

  The Hole itself is underground; it used to be a transport well until the last really huge earthquake. The quake ripped apart the central well and opened up a sinkhole underneath, so the walls were a collage of relays, eighty-five-year-old fiberoptic spikes and reactive strips, debris from the buildings overhead crumbling into the sinkhole. The slictribe had moved in and made it even more challenging, building ramps and jumpoffs, spikes protruding from the walls, deadzones and hoverpatches that made the air move in unsteady swirls just aching to rip a sk8 off a board.

  The tangled alleys leading up to the Hole are narrow and sloping, most of them covered by cobbled-together roofs of flimsy plaswood, plasticine, and other scavenged materials. Every once in a while a few teams of Hegemony federal marshals will sweep through the Hole to pick up “criminals,” but they never net much. Around the slictribes, if you don’t adhere to strict codes you’re out. It’s all too easy to flip someone off a board and let them fall into the dark well of the Hole. The worst that comes out of here is gang warfare and XTSee for vance parties, and the authorities are more than willing to let that pass as long as the slictribes only kill each other.

  I passed like a ghost through the old way into the Hole, my shoulder burning as the last bullet hole closed. The last clutch of Mob troops had actually forced me to stand and fight, peppered with projectile fire. If I’d still been human, I might be dead.

  I still wasn’t sure I was alive. My clothes were torn and wet with blood, my stomach burned with fierce hunger, and I still felt the last man’s neck crack in my hands like plasilica sticks. Only human.

  They hadn’t sent any psions after me. Only normals. Fragile, vulnerable humans, no matter if they were legally augmented with neurospeeders and muscle spanners.

  Dusk was falling. I was going to miss my date with Lucas. Then again, all he would have to do is follow the sirens and listen to whatever lie the holovids were telling, and he’d know I’d had some trouble.

  By the time I reached the Hole itself, I had to stop and lean against a sagging plywood shelter that smelled like humans living with chemshowers instead of regular bathrooms. A fair number of skas lived in shacks around the Hole itself, eking out a living on their parents’ credit lines while dealing XTSee and bitfox on the side, tuning boards and generally living as they always have.

  That was where I saw the first sign of life. A sk8 who couldn’t have been more than ten coasted up on a humming, nicely-tuned Chervoyg almost as long as he was. He brought the board to a stop and hopped onto solid ground, racking the board neatly with a kick as the powercell died down. His hair stood up in gelled acid-green spikes, and his face was streaked with blue camopaint. He glanced around, not seeing me, and pulled a pack of smokes out of his breast pocket. He wore a fluttering flannel shirt and a loose pair of black pleather shorts covered in rippling silver magtape.

  This was evidently a little-used part of the Hole, because he proceeded to sit down right at the edge and smoke, looking up as the cloak of night fell across the faraway roof and tiny hole that was the main entrance to the subterranean world. Little drops of light that were antigrav and powercells began to flock through, weaving in complicated patterns.

  I made a low noise, scraping against the plaswood shelter. Then I coughed, letting him know I was there.

  He made no move. I stepped out cautiously.

  He took one incurious glance over his shoulder, his fingers caressing his board’s powercell. I stopped, the sweet scent of synth-hash filling my nostrils. He was normal, wouldn’t be able to see the disturbance I created in the landscape of Power. But I still probably looked like I’d been run through a few hoverwashes.

  Gabe used to smoke. Panic rose under my breastbone. I swallowed, my sword shoved into the loop on my belt. My hands were loose and raised. “Hi. I’m Dante Valentine.”

  He let out a chuff of smoke and a choking sound. “Fuck. Wonton w’hini.”

  “I know how to ride a board.” I kept a firm hold on my temper. “I just don’t have one right now. You can help me with that.”

  He had wide blue eyes, clashing with his acid-green hair. “Landerfuck,” he sniffed with magnificent disdain. “Niners outa clap w’hinioo.”

  “Innocent until proven otherwise.” I gave him a lopsided smile. Some people try to mimic slictribe lingo, I don’t. It’s enough that I can guess at 80 percent of what they mean. Even Konnie had been hard to understand at times.

  It was a long shot, but I decided to go for it. “Konnie Bazileus. Heaven’s Arms. He still around?”

  I thought his eyes couldn’t get any rounder. “Bazzmouth on’yo tribe?”

  “I’m not tribe,” I said. “I’m lander, remember?”

  He shrugged. “Bingya Bazzmouth.”

  “Thanks.” I folded myself down onto the gritty filthy floor of the ledge jutting out into the side of the hole, blood crackling as it dried on my clothes. “Bum a smoke?”

  After that it was nothing but waiting. Those of the slictribe don’t function in the same timezone as the rest of us; the less charitable say it’s because of all the hash and XTSee. He smoked his way through two more cigarettes, generously sharing with me, then stood slowly, brushed his pleather shorts off, and pressed the powercell. He tossed the board and flung himself after it, his new BooPhooze sneakers thudding on the deck’s surface. It used to be Rebotniks or Aeroflot were the popular brand, but no longer.

  I was getting old. I even felt old. Creaky, my bones dry. The synth-hash didn’t soothe me as much as I wished it would. As soon as he was gone I stubbed the last one out in the filthy greasy crud masquerading as dirt down here.

  I put my head down on my knees and tried to breathe. The blue glow of my god’s attention was comforting, hovering at the edges of my mental awareness. I’d just outrun four cruisers and what looked like Mob troops. That wasn’t a new trick, cops and Mob working together; sometimes the cops needed a little help from the extralegal side. Of course, the Mob troops had only been legally-augmented, but if they were working for the cops I didn’t blame them. Still, it bothered me. I assumed they were Mob, because they hadn’t behaved like cops, cops would have shouted at me to drop my weapons.

  If they weren’t from the Tanner Family’s war with me, maybe they were from Lucifer pulling strings behind the scenes again, using me to trap Eve. Hellesvront had all kinds of agents on earth, it stood to reason the cops might be part of that network.

  What a joy. I’ve got so many enemies, even I can’t decide between them.

  The rattling whines of slicboards began
to build as the Hole woke up. Sk8s and other slictribers, like psions, generally come out and play at night.

  I tilted my head up, watching the aerial ballai. It’s impossible to look totally graceful while riding a board—you’re always on the edge of spilling—but confidence imparts its own kind of grace. I watched the little darts of antigrav light, spinning in the figure-eight pattern slic riders use for high-traffic zones, others dipping down and peeling away to take runs around the edges. Whoops and high joyous cries echoed through the cavern. The pounding of a vance party in another part of the Hole started to throb like a heartbeat, music meant to shake dancers into a trance and keep them there for hours.

  I’d thought before of using the patterns of hover traffic for divination. Now I watched the spots of firefly light that were the slicboarders, and I felt premonition flutter under my skin. Deep, unsteady panic welled up from the pit of my belly.

  “Gabe,” I whispered, and watched the lights tremble as my eyes filled with tears. I blinked them away.

  Konnie still rode a board. And he, of all people, reminded me of just how much we’d all aged while I was letting time pass me by in Toscano. His fingernails were still clipped brutally short and painted with black molecule-drip; he probably still played in a Neoneopunk band.

  Kids like Konnie rarely ever grow up. He was still riding, still part of a tribe. That meant he was still fast and mean.

  He was still lean, and rode with hipshot ease. Still wearing flat golden plasmetal rings on his right hand; still the same dead flat dark eyes. His hair was different now, dyed magenta and long-braided, studded with ivory beads. He wore—since he was no longer a young punk fashion plate but an aging one—a black V-neck linen shirt, skintight purple viscose-velvet breeches, and supple black fake-shark boots. Fans of wrinkles spread at the corners of his eyes, and his mouth was bracketed with two curving lines. He still rode a Valkyrie—slictribers are nothing if not loyal to their decks.

  Konnie had known my old face. My human face. I’d been taking my slicboards to him for servicing since I’d left the Academy, and we’d evolved a useful acquaintanceship over the years—an acquaintanceship I was about to use for all it was worth.