Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I flinched at the thought.

  She had Doreen’s triangular face, Doreen’s mouth, and a wary little half-smile that was all mine, under the supple carapace of demon beauty.

  On Lucifer, beauty looked deadly. On Japh it was purely functional. On Eve, it was… magick. And under it, I saw the shadow of the child I had rescued from Santino’s lair, the child Lucifer had taken as I watched helplessly under the bright hammerblow of Nuevo Rio sunlight.

  The only child I might ever have.

  Behind her, resolving around a pair of bright blue gasflame eyes, was Velokel the Hunter, broad and powerful as a bull, his large square teeth closed away behind lips that thinned as they took me in.

  I twitched. But Eve’s eyes met mine, and she smiled. It was a genuine smile, not the little half-grimace we shared, the armored expression I faced the world with. “You’ve come so very far.” Her voice was soft and restful, and the smell of her—bread baking and demon musk, a powerfully comforting scent—boiled out from behind a screen of dust and age.

  “How…” I had to clear my throat. “How did you get here?”

  “Kel has tracked more tricksome beasts than the Anhelikos, Dante. It was not quite child’s play to follow the Knife, but it was close—and still, so much depends on you.” Her smile widened. “Now here we are, and we have little time. Stay where you are, Kinslayer.”

  Japhrimel halted midway across the sea of dust. Both his guns were trained on Eve. “If you touch her—”

  Eve shrugged. She wore black, a merino sweater and loose elegant slacks, a pair of what looked like handmade Taliano boots. Kel made do with buff-colored canvas slacks and a blouse under a leather doublet, something like a Renascence illustration of a woodsman, complete with a pouch and a curved horn hanging from his broad leather belt.

  They called Velokel the Hunter, and I wondered if he’d seen this city before. When he was hunting hedaira.

  That’s exactly the least comforting thought in the world.

  “There is no need for threats, Eldest.” Eve took a step toward me, measured Japhrimel with a single glance, and took another. “We are not at cross-purposes here.”

  There were two slight clicks—Japh, pulling the hammers back on both silver guns. It was an absurd bit of theater, since I wasn’t sure what they fired, but it was at least effective. The city screeched again as it wobbled in its setting, but his voice sliced through the low basso grumbling. “I will not serve you.”

  “I have not asked for your service.” Eve’s voice, soft and restful, stroked the air. I stared at her face, transfixed. She looked so much like Doreen. “I have offered myself to my mother.” Her smile was wide, white, and so forgiving I could have bathed in it.

  My mother. She said it like it meant nothing, like she was talking about the weather. My heart leapt inside its cage of ribs, pounding high and hard until it settled in my throat. A worm of unease turned inside my battered brain.

  Danny, something’s very wrong here. Grab the box and let’s go.

  I hesitated, my sword dipping just a little. If Japhrimel moved on Eve, I would have to try to protect her. He was too damnably quick, and I was tired, starving, my head full of broken connections and even my shields incapable of protecting me from a direct hit. Maybe I could slow him down enough for her to escape.

  Why was she here? I was supposed to meet her in Hegemony Franje, in Paradisse. Uneasiness bloomed into full-blown suspicion. What game was being played now?

  I didn’t care. She was safe, Lucifer hadn’t caught her yet. Relief scored through my chest. At least I hadn’t betrayed her. I’d taken the worst the Devil had to dish out, but she was safe.

  Thank you, gods. If there are still gods who want to hear my prayers. Thank you.

  “What nonsense you speak, even for one so young,” Japhrimel replied. “Stay back. Dante, move away.”

  It wasn’t a request. It was an order. I swallowed, my dry throat clicking in the charged silence. Fury turned sharp and cold in my veins, rising with the low keening of a swordblade cleaving air. “No.”

  I didn’t have a free hand to pick the box up with. My eyes flicked to Velokel. His lip lifted as he caught me looking at him. He wasn’t as powerful as Japhrimel; I could calculate him down to the last erg of energy.

  I was getting good at doing that to demons. They could all kick my ass, but Japh was another thing entirely. Still, Kel might be able to buy Eve enough time to escape if my Fallen moved on her. Which left me with getting the other half of the Knife and helping hold Japh, if I could.

  Once I had the whole Knife I had a chance. If it could injure any demon…

  I felt sick at even thinking it. I didn’t want to hear its disgusting little gulping noise ever again. And how could I even think of using the thing on Japh, now that I’d seen what it could do?

  Eve. Think about her. You promised you’d save her, you couldn’t before and Lucifer took her. Now you have a second chance. You’d better use it, Dante.

  It took every scrap of courage I possessed to slide my sword back into its sheath and clutch it tight, a practiced, almost-silent movement I didn’t need my eyes for. I edged back two steps, put down my other hand, and touched the altar.

  The stone was warm, resonating under my fingertips like a plucked string. I snatched my hand back, and found all three pairs of demon eyes on me.

  The city held its breath. Its low thrum of grief and agonized shuddering stilled. The dust around Japhrimel’s boots stirred, little vortices rising as if tiny dancing feet dimpled its top layers.

  “We should go.” Velokel’s voice, low and full of restrained thunder, broke the hush. I caught a breath of his scent—musk and torn-open oranges, demon spice and blood.

  I felt behind me to my right again, searching for the box without touching the altar’s stone. Please. Sekhmet sa’es, please. This is beginning to get ridiculous. My emerald spat a green spark, my accreditation tat running under my skin with sharp little insectile feet.

  Eve folded her arms. Her emerald shot a dart of bright green, and looking at it made me feel sick all over again. “The next move is yours, Dante. When you take up the Knife, you will become the Key to the throne of Hell. He will have to come to terms with you, and so will the Eldest.”

  I’m the Key. Great. That makes so much sense now. Thanks for telling me. “When did you guess it was me?” And why didn’t you say something before? I kept feeling for the box. She doesn’t know the Knife is in pieces. So maybe Lucifer doesn’t know either. That’s either very good or very bad, depending.

  “Your coming was foretold.” She indicated the altar with a sketch of a polite gesture, stopping when Japhrimel moved forward another two steps, his boots suddenly making soft shushing sounds in the dust.

  “Nice of someone to tell me.” My questing fingers touched oiled wood. I hooked them down and pulled the box toward me, cautiously. My hip brushed the altar.

  A thrill like fire shot through my bones, blooming from my hip like an unfolding flower. The altar let out a piercing note, like plasglass right before a harmonic shatters it. I scooped up the box and whirled, faced now with carrying it and getting the hell out of here somehow.

  Japhrimel stood, his guns vanished. I blinked. The long slim iron cylinder McKinley had given him was in his narrow golden hands, and his attention was fixed on Eve. I snapped a glance in her direction, but she’d already seen my eyes widen, and her gaze flicked to my Fallen, the color draining from her face, leaving an unhealthy pallor under the even goldenness.

  “No—” she began, panic roiling under the smoothness of her voice, cutting the city’s expectant silence like a lasedrill. “No!”

  “Veritas in omni re.” Japhrimel pronounced each syllable distinctly, his fingers curving over the iron box’s lid. “Now we shall see your true face.”

  What the bloody blue hell? “Japhrimel—” I didn’t have any idea what I was going to say to stop him.

  He tore the lid off, tossing the contents of the cylin
der from him with a convulsive movement. It roared, shattering the stillness, and my body reacted without thought, crouching and bringing the box to my chest, almost braining myself with my swordhilt in the process. It was a good thing, too, or I might have been knocked across the altar instead of into it.

  The entire city woke in a cacophony so immense it was almost soundless, felt in the bones instead of heard, and hot blood gushed painlessly from my nose, rivulets of warmth sliding down my neck from my violated ears. I must have screamed, because my mouth was open, and I damn near dropped my sword.

  Combat instinct pitched me to the side, rolling, and I bumped down the stairs in a flurry of arms and legs, gaining my balance in a crouch at their foot. I lurched to my feet unsteadily, just before Japh collided with me, rib-snapping force pulled just at the last second, and both of us went sprawling as a flare of black-diamond Power tore the air apart and left it bleeding.

  Eve! I was struggling against Japh’s hands almost before we landed, a chance twist of my torso breaking me halfway free. He caught me again, fingers digging into my nape just as a mama cat will hold an unruly kitten, and somehow he was kneeling next to me, his fingers irresistible as he forced my head up.

  Eve had gone down, but Velokel was still standing. The Hunter’s flesh blackened, running on his bones as he screamed, the cry tearing more stone loose and kicking up great gouts of choking dust. His shape changed, like ink on wet paper, and horns lifted searing-black from his forehead, curling back around his ears. He was even more squat now, corded with muscle, his legs sprouting fur and ending in massive hooves that cracked the stone steps as he leapt back to avoid whatever Japh had thrown. It was a smear of hurtful golden brilliance, rolling like an apple, with odd bounces as it leapt up the stairs in merry defiance of physics.

  Only Velokel’s eyes were the same, bright blue above a blackened ruin of a face that mutated even as I watched. I had to gasp in a scorched breath, having wasted all my air screaming.

  Eve leapt to her feet. Her shape was still the same, slender and female, but a shell of Power clung to her in tattered streamers, painting streaks of green on the air as her emerald spat spark after spark, each a point of hurtful brilliance. Her eyes lightened, a blue to match Velokel’s, and her haggard face was no longer a copy of my dead lover’s.

  I stared. Japhrimel hauled me up as the massive sound drained away into the subsonic, and the ground underfoot began to vibrate like a freight hover’s deck.

  “—go!” Japhrimel shouted. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Eve.

  Her shape changed like clay under running water, shards of illusion plainly visible to OtherSight now that it was broken. It was a glamour, a sorcery meant to feed the eyes a lie.

  She was beautiful, still, as only a demon could be. Her eyes were blue and her hair ran with snow-white flame. But there was no echo of Doreen in her face.

  And no echo of me.

  Then who the hell is she? It can’t be, she has to be Doreen’s, she has to be!

  Japhrimel hauled me up, his fingers biting into my neck. My ears twinged with pain as they healed, twin nails driven into the sides of my head. The noise was still massive, but not enough to burst tender membranes. The wooden box almost squirted out from under my arm. I clutched at it, and my bag banged against my hip as Japh dragged me aside just in time, a chunk of stone nailing the floor right where we’d been standing. He whirled aside, yanking me into a lunatic spin like a dance move, ending with us both somehow facing the door. “Run!” he yelled through the noise.

  I’d lost all my air again, screaming, adding my thin voice to the crashing and rending. Think about it later. Now run, run like hell and hope you get out of this alive.

  I got my feet under me and pelted for the door, leaping a pile of rubble and almost slipping as I landed on unsteady ground, my unruly body once again going too fast for me. Disturbed dust rose choking-thick, and behind me, Velokel roared something in the demons’ unlovely tongue that I didn’t need a dictionary to translate. The other piercing cry was from the demon who had claimed to be Doreen’s daughter, my daughter.

  The demon I was going to kill Lucifer to defend.

  Japh’s fingers closed around my left arm instead of my nape. He pulled me aside, the doorway we’d entered through crumbling. Its massive marble slabs teetered and swung before crashing down. I flinched, and the entire city shuddered again, a gigantic cracking noise like the world’s hugest egg broken against the side of a red-hot city-sized skillet echoing through both physical and psychic space.

  What the goddamn motherfucking hell is going on?

  We made it through one of the smaller doors just in time. The ground quaked, and I had nasty, uncomfortable ideas about what exactly was going on. If one of those bridges had failed and we were even now falling—

  Then, between one moment and the next, it stopped. The sudden cessation of noise was shocking in and of itself, but even more shocking was Japhrimel skidding to a halt, his fingers turning to iron and digging in mercilessly. He plucked the wooden box from me as easily as taking candy from a child.

  I’ll admit it. I screamed again. I was doing a lot of that lately. A complicated flurry of motion, his fingers lacing with mine, ended with me shoved behind him just as the one voice I never wanted to hear again broke the newborn stillness with its awful dulcet music.

  “This is unlike you, my Eldest.”

  My ribs flared with starved heaving breaths. I blinked at Japhrimel’s back, one of his hands behind his back holding my right hand with bone-crunching force, his knuckles pale under their goldenness.

  He inclined his head, and I sagged. This was it. It was over.

  Because in front of us, his very presence staining the air with black fury, was the Prince of Hell. Again. My entire body turned into a bar of tension, Japh’s fingers squeezing pitilessly at mine, small bones creaking. Pain bolted up my arm, exploded in my shoulder as I backpedaled, trying to rip my hand free and escape. The scar writhed madly against my skin, and my Fallen’s aura clamped down over me like a frozen kerri jar over an unlucky silkworm.

  I knew it was Lucifer. I didn’t have to see him and I didn’t want to. Japhrimel held me in place, my arm stretched awkwardly as I twisted, my boots scraping against stone.

  Japhrimel laughed. It wasn’t the gentle, almost-human sound of amusement I’d heard from him so many times, or even the slight ironic hm he gave when I beat him at battlechess or otherwise surprised him.

  No, this was a swelling demonic laugh, a harsh caw marrying delight to disdain, with a generous helping of pure hatred. He laughed like murder in a cold alley at midnight.

  The sudden idea that I could probably tear my own arm off and escape didn’t sound as laughable as it might otherwise have. There was a black hole in my head, dilating with terrible force, and at any moment I would remember—

  “And this is unlike you, Prince.” Japhrimel’s tone was terribly, utterly cold. I had never heard him speak so. “I thank you for your care of my hedaira. Your hospitality remains ever the same.”

  The silence changed, pressure shifting and sliding as I struggled to free myself from Japh’s iron fingers. When Lucifer spoke again, the coldness in his voice matched my Fallen’s, and everything inside my skull trembled on the edge of insanity.

  “I used her as I saw fit. What else is a Right Hand for?”

  “We are all toys for your pleasure, my Lord.” Accusation boiled under the words. Japhrimel made a small movement, and something clattered. Wood, striking the ruined stone. In the terrible hush that small noise punctured my heart.

  “Of course you are.” The Devil didn’t even give it a second thought.

  Ogods Japh let go what are you doing let GO of me— I swayed. It hurt, Japh’s hand grinding mine into powder. The pain was a silver spike nailing me to earth even as the hole in my head widened, my psyche cracking under the strain like microtears in silk hovernets.

  “That is what the rebellion was after, Prince. You should tak
e more care with such trinkets.”

  Anubis, someone, help me. I bent back, my entire body a stretched-taut bow of longing, aching for escape; I could leave the arm behind if I had to, I just wanted away.

  I have never, before or since, understood so completely an animal’s struggle to free itself from the trap that bleeds it.

  Lucifer said nothing, but the pressure of his rage was a storm front moving in, an eyepopping strain. Even the icy heat of this place between earth and Hell felt warm and fuzzy by comparison. Japhrimel drew himself up. He was a good bit taller than me, but he seemed even bigger now, and I was suddenly deeply grateful he was between me and the Devil.

  Shame boiled up hot and vicious under my breastbone. I’d always fought my own battles before, hadn’t I?

  Not against that. Not that again. I can’t.

  My aura trembled under Japhrimel’s, on the verge of locking down hard and crystalline. If that happened, if I went nova, I’d implode right before I did something stupid. I would die.

  But we’d see just what my half of the Knife would do to any demon in my way first.

  I heard the Devil take in a long breath, as if he was about to speak. The air hissed past his teeth, and I felt those teeth in my own flesh again, tearing at whatever remained of my sanity. They speared deep as I screamed, the world turning into shutterclicks as my eyelids fluttered, and Japhrimel’s fingers gave one last terrible squeeze, the scar on my shoulder burning, burning.

  Whatever Lucifer would have said was lost in a blur of hoofbeats and a cry rising from a demon’s throat.

  I slammed back home in my body, my head whipping to the side just in time to see Velokel the Hunter pound out of the Temple and across the dead plaza. He stuttered through space with the eerie graceful quickness of demons, his aura blazing. Blue fire veined his hooves and crackled between the points of his horns, and as he ran time stopped, slowed, and crystallized into a lattice of action, reaction, and sudden explosive motion.