Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Black blood whipped from my blade as I shuffled back, bringing the shining length up between us. Took the high-guard, right hand over left holding the hilt almost at my right shoulder, instinct screaming under my skin.

  The hellhound shook itself, snarling. I snarled back, lips skinned away from my teeth and fury scorching the inside of my throat. Then I did another thing I shouldn’t have—I leapt for it, on the attack, driven past rage to fey courage. My shoulder smashed and rang, torn apart with pain as my right side tore too, the cuff singing a thin high smoking tone of cold Power. Blood burst and sprayed as thunder toppled the sky overhead and I fell, seeking vainly to get up get up, gravel crunching into my hair and mouth and eyes as I rammed against the hilt of my blade, driving it through smoking demon flesh.

  We fell together, the hellhound and I, the bright length of my sword buried in its chest, its claws flexing and tangling with my ribs. I heard faint and faraway yells as the rain spattered on both me and the hellhound and the sky lit up with white-hot whips of lightning.

  CHAPTER 25

  I sank on my back into a carpet of grass, blinking up at the endless blue depths of the sky. Sunlight touched my bare wrist with warm gold, I pushed myself up on my elbows, blinking. Each blade of grass was detailed, glowing juicy green. The field rolled, bounded only by a broken stone wall, with the purple shadows of mountains in the distance. An oak tree lifted proudly in full summer leaf. At any moment I expected to see a troop of old Christer Amish in their wide-brimmed hats on their way to one of their meetings. Or a coven of witches, carrying their baskets of food for the feast after the magick was done… or a group of Evangelicals of Gilead, the women veiled and the men in suits and bowties, hair parted in the center and held down with pomade under small circular embroidered skullcaps.

  I like this better, he said beside me, braced on his elbows and so close I could smell him again, spiced Shaman, pepper and honey. And the clean healthy smell of male, a smell with no taint or tang of demon.

  Jace lounged next to me in jeans and a white cotton button-down shirt. The sun made his hair a furnace of gold, lit his eyes with incandescence. Same expensive haircut, same Bolgari glittering on his wrist. Grass pricked at my hands as I sat up and looked down at myself—black T-shirt, jeans. Bare feet, my toes human-pale and painted wicked crimson with molecule-drip polish.

  You again. My lips shaped the dim whisper. Jason.

  One elegant golden eyebrow arched. He had a long blade of grass in his mouth, lazy, like a cigarette. I could see the smattering of freckles across his nose, ones that never showed unless he was in full sun. Even the golden tint to his shaved cheeks was there.

  And oh, my heart hurt to see him in such detail.

  Muscle moved under his shirt as he sat up straight, crossing his legs tailor-fashion. His knee bumped me. The strand of grass dropped from his lip, vanished into the thick mat of greenery. Absolutely, baby. Miss me?

  What are you doing here? I could do no more than whisper, the breath stolen from me by sunlight, the brush of breeze against my skin, the prickle of sweat under my arms and at the small of my back. I smelled grass, and the richness of air with no hoverwash or biolab exhalation, no sour fullness of human decay. I even smelled the faint woodsy odor of the oak tree and the rich loam of drifted leaves scattered around it.

  He shrugged. Other people get loa. You get me.

  But you’re dead! My eyes prickled with tears. Was I having my deathdream at last? Where was the blue light and my god? Where was the hall of eternity and the well of souls? Am I dead? I tried not to sound pathetically hopeful, failed miserably.

  Jace’s face fell slightly, turned solemn. I heard a hawk cry far away, saw the thin white traceries of cirrus clouds and the haze of distance over the faraway mountains.

  Love’s eternal, Danny. You mean you been dealing with Death all this time and you don’t know that? His mouth curled up in a half-smile, a tender expression. A butterfly meandered past, its wings a blue reflecting the sky’s wheeling vault. You always were stubborn.

  He leaned over, reaching out and bridging the gap between us. He stroked my cheek, his callused fingertips gentle. Neither of us carried a weapon here, but his hands were still rough with practice. Then he pushed a strand of my hair back, delicately, and I found myself leaning forward.

  Our mouths met. Kissing him had always been like a battle before, greedy and deliciously heated, a combustion. But here it was gentle, his mouth on mine like velvet, his hands cupping my face delicately. His thumb feathered over my cheekbone and he made the low humming sound he always used to after sex. My heart sped up, thundering in my ears.

  He kissed the corner of my mouth, kissed my temple, closed me in his arms. You’re hurt, he said into my hair. But you’ll be all right.

  I buried my face in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, smelled the human cleanness of him. Gabe, I said. Eddie.

  He stroked my back, kissed my hair. It felt so real. So real. Eternal, Danny. Remember? That means forever. His arms tightened. You have to go back now. It’s time.

  I don’t want to. Please. I don’t want to. Let me die, let me stay here.

  I felt him shake his head, as the sunlight beat down on us in waves. The hot simmering of a summer day, a cauldron of a field under the bright vault of heaven, all of it—I wanted to stay. I didn’t care where this was.

  That’s not the way it works, baby. Go on now. Be good. I’m watching out for you.

  A shadow drifted over the sun, and just like that I—

  —snapped into full wakefulness, my hand blurring out and sinking into vulnerable human flesh. I choked out an obscenity I’d learned hunting down a bounty in Putchkin territory, it died halfway and I made my fingers unloose. Leander stumbled back, his dark eyes wide, the emerald in his cheek flashing. My left cheek burned, I felt my tat shifting as his did, inked lines running under the skin. My emerald spat a single, glowing-green spark.

  Now I knew who he reminded me of. The knowledge hit me so hard I lost my breath, gasping and scrambling back, casting around for my swordhilt.

  He held his hands up. He had a fading bruise on his cheekbone, and moved a little stiffly. “Calm down. Calm down, Danny, goddammit!”

  I gulped down air. Looked at the room. No window, one door, a bed with a purple cotton comforter and rumpled pale-pink sheets; a stripped-pine nightstand with a pitcher of water. Leander was unarmed—but he held my sword. Gingerly, as if he was afraid it might bite him. He offered it to me as I crouched on the bed, my ribs flaring with every heaving breath.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I rasped.

  He shrugged, offered me my sword. “You’re safe. I hooked back up with Lucas. There’s some news you should hear.”

  “Where am I?” My throat was on fire, sore and scraped raw. The full-spectrum lights beat down, showed me my own hands reaching for my sword, slim and golden and beautifully graceful.

  “In a safe place. Listen, Danny, I want your word. All right? I want you to listen to what we have to say. On your honor.” His wide dark eyes met mine, I caught a faint green spark far back in his pupils. It vanished. Had I really seen it?

  Honor? Do I have any honor left? “The hellhound,” I croaked. “Did it—”

  “You killed it. I repaired the shielding. Thought we were going to lose you, but you pulled through.” He was chalky-pale under his dark hair, and his hands trembled just a little. He was afraid of me. That managed to smash the last vestiges of resemblance—Jace had never been afraid of me. Enraged at my stubbornness, driven to frustrated fury by my constant poking and prodding, gentle during my moments of weakness, and coldly lethal when we were under fire; but Jace had never been afraid of me.

  I remembered Rio, when he had crawled into the shattered bathroom where I’d taken refuge, lit a cigarette, and simply talked to me after Japhrimel’s change had worked its way through my body. It had never mattered to Jace what body I wore; he loved me, but by then it had been too late.


  I belonged to Japhrimel. No amount of trying to regain my lost humanity would overcome that one simple fact. No matter how angry or hurt he made me, Japh was the only person who truly knew me—even if he didn’t know very much about handling me. Even fighting him, being angry at him, struggling against him was better than relaxing with someone else. After all, who else did I reach for when I finally felt out of my depth, even though he’d held me up against a subway wall and bruised my arm, my heart? I hadn’t thought of calling anyone else.

  The demon and the fleshwife are literally one being. Whenever they’re written about, it’s in the singular, as if each pair is one person.

  A scream rose up in me, died at the back of my throat, cascaded back down into an endless black hole of bitterness that beat like my pulse inside my chest. My left shoulder felt heavy and full, the wristcuff was dry and powdery-pale as it rested against my arm, its cold numbness temporarily gone. I still wore the blood-drenched rags of my clothes; they crackled as I moved on the bed. The spacefoam mattress whooshed a little as I eased myself down from crouching on the bed and stood, swaying and finally making my knees lock. I snatched my sword from Leander and looked him in the eye.

  Nothing. Nothing but a great yawning distance between me and this human Necromance I liked. Whose company had made me feel a little better. But that was all.

  “I killed it.” I should have felt happy. I’d killed something even Japhrimel and McKinley had treated cautiously. My ribs ached on the right, twinging as I moved, the flesh tender as it had been after Lucifer’s parting kick.

  I felt like shit.

  I clicked the blade free of the scabbard, examined it. Blue runes ran wetly in the steel, blazing out as soon as it left the darkness of confinement.

  Still blessed. Still mine.

  The sword kills nothing, Danyo-chan. It is will, kills your enemy.

  I’d killed a fucking hellhound. Gods above and below, I had killed a hellhound. “All right.” I must have sounded a little more together, because Leander’s shoulders eased and his hands dropped back to his sides. What sort of courage did it cost him to stand there unarmed and look at me while I had a weapon in my hands? “What is it you have to tell me?”

  “Come with me,” he answered. “I’ll take you to Lucas.”

  Down a short hall with a framed Berscardi print on one side and a priceless fluid lasecarved-marble statue tucked in a niche, Leander stepped into a circular room holding two leather couches and a fireplace roaring with a real fire, the tang of woodsmoke and a low thunderous reek filling the air. My nostrils widened as soon as we reached the hall, smelling a stasis cabinet and dried blood. When we reached the room Lucas was there, dropped down on one of the couches with his arm flung over his eyes. For once he didn’t look the worse for wear—I probably looked bad enough for both of us.

  Standing at the only other entrance to the room was a slim tall man with a thatch of chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, his feral cleanshaven face set in an ironclad smile. He wore a shirt that looked like fur until I looked closer and realized it was pelt; he wore only a pair of jeans tucked into very good boots, Taliano and handmade by the look of them. The glossy, hairy shirt was flagrant advertising of his status as a werecain. And a dominant one too, he had less of the unprotected shiver around his mental walls than a more submissive ’cain’s.

  My right hand closed around my swordhilt. I’d already almost been trapped once by a werecain. Had Lucas and Leander betrayed me?

  “Put that goddamn thing down,” Lucas said, his arm unreeling away from his eyes. He glared at me, haggard and bloodshot. He looked wearier than Death after the Seventy Days War. The flat yellow color of his eyes was accentuated by red rims. He calculated everything about me in one piercing look, and the river of scarring down the left side of his face twitched.

  I dropped my right hand to my side. Tilted my head slightly, acutely aware of Leander behind me. Human, werecain, and whatever Lucas was. Add to that the decaying-fruit and spice smell of demon blood drenching my clothes and my own fragrance over the layer of woodsmoke, and it was a heady brew. “What the motherfucking goddamn shitsucking hell is going on?” My voice stroked the bare painted walls, and the werecain made a short sharp movement. A muscle twitched in my right forearm.

  “You been played like a fuckin’ holoboard.” Lucas didn’t sugarcoat the pill. “What would you say if’n I told you we had Massadie in the next room?”

  I swallowed. My voice was as raspy as his now—I was sounding less and less human all the time, even to myself. “I’d say I’d love to talk to him. Who the hell’s the furboy? I haven’t had a good time with ’cain lately.”

  “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong type,” the ’cain said pleasantly, with only the tinge of a growl beneath his words. His fur shirt rippled, and the classic lines of his face changed, becoming more austere. His chin jutted a little further now too, and his teeth shone white and sharp. “You’re Danny Valentine. I’m Asa Tanner, Head of the Tanner Family. Nice to meet you.”

  My sword leapt partially free of the sheath. Lucas was suddenly next to me, grabbing my hand, his breath hot and sour on my cheek. “Fuckdammittall, listen!” he snarled in my ear.

  “I’m listening,” I said calmly enough, ignoring the way my knuckles stood out white against the hilt and my entire body tensed against Lucas’s hold. He was strong, in a wiry way, I didn’t precisely strain against him but both of us were breathing hard by the time he felt safe enough to relax a little. This was the closest I’d ever been to him, his hip pressed against mine and his foot between mine, his hand locking my sword arm down and away.

  I was surprised by a flare of relief. It was Lucas, dammit, and I was scared of him—wasn’t I?

  He used to scare me more than anything. Now, the strength in his skinny hands and his body pressed against mine was pleasant. Here was someone I wouldn’t have to hold back with, wouldn’t have to be so goddamn careful not to hurt.

  It’s Lucas, goddammit! Stop it! He scares you! You’re human!

  But I wasn’t, was I. Not completely.

  Not anymore.

  Asa Tanner made a low coughing sound. It was suspiciously close to amusement. “I didn’t kill Thornton or Spocarelli.”

  “Liar.” I strained forward, Lucas pressed against me as if we were lovers, twisting my right wrist until it felt almost bruised. I finally subsided, pushing away the flush rising to my cheeks. Hedaira don’t blush, I thought. Then, It’s Lucas, Anubis et’her ka, it’s Lucas, I don’t have to hold back.

  But I did. It cost me, but I did.

  Asa Tanner shrugged, a marvel of coordinated fluidity. Forget my sudden acceptance of Lucas, I had a better question.

  What is a werecain doing as head of a Mob Family? “What’s a ’cain doing as head of a Family?”

  “You think humans are the only ones who should make a little profit?” His laugh resembled a pained bark. His eyes glowed, not like a Nichtvren’s but with an animal heat, like old-fashioned gas flame. “Just like a skin. You’re all the same.”

  “You didn’t show up,” Lucas hissed in my ear, his dry stasis-cabinet breath brushing my cheek and sending a shiver down my spine. “Sloppy, Valentine.”

  “I was chased by four fucking police cruisers and…” I trailed off, staring at Tanner. Hold on. Hold everything. “So what percentage of your Family is human, furboy?”

  His upper lip lifted in a snarl. “Only about thirty. Those that can keep up. We’re a mongrel bunch.”

  But they were all human. The shock troops I’d thought were Mob were all human, every stinking one, and carrying very expensive gear as well as being legally augmented. I’d assumed the Tanner Family, as the dominant cartel around here, could afford that type of gear; but it hadn’t made sense for them to be only legally augmented, especially when they were chasing a half-demon. They should have been spliced and loaded to within an inch of their motherfucking lives.

  It also made no sense for a Mob Family with a ’cai
n at its head to be cooperating with the police for anything. As dim a view as most psions take of the cops, a werecain’s view is even dimmer. Back before the Parapsychic Act, some police forces had special, secret cadres to hunt ’cain. That’s why werecain only work as freelancers when it comes to paranormal-species bounties; they don’t cooperate with Hegemony police like kobolding or dracolt do.

  It’s whispered that some police stations still have hunting cadres, secret fraternities fighting a war against the furred and fanged of the Hegemony citizenry. Not to mention the feathered, winged, and clawed. I didn’t know if it was true… but the rumor was enough.

  So the shock troops weren’t Tanner Family goons. But they hadn’t been police troops either, had they? No badges, no insignia.

  And there had been no psions among them, if they’d been Saint City PD or Hegemony marshals they’d have had psionic support teams.

  Gods above, Danny, you nearly killed the wrong people. I shoved that thought down. I would examine it properly later. Later, later, later. There was a lot I was going to figure out later. If I made it to a later.

  But for right now… maybe, just maybe, the Tanner Family wasn’t the enemy.

  “Fuck me.” I was too tired, too hungry, and too goddamn confused. My left arm hurt, from the mark on my shoulder all the way down to the fingertips. “Okay. Let go of me, Lucas.” I shook him off. “I’m halfway convinced.” To prove it, I sheathed my sword.

  Silence rattled through the room. The fire popped.

  “You run Chill,” I said finally, staring at Asa Tanner. My tone wasn’t conciliatory at all, but at least I didn’t want to kill him.

  Yet.

  Another elegant shrug, his furry shirt rippling. He could shift in less than a second and launch himself at me. I was faintly surprised I wasn’t more frightened.