Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Japh moved.

  Kel collided with Lucifer.

  The shock of that impact would have knocked us both sprawling if Japh wasn’t already down, his body folded over mine, my scream lost in the noise and his own tearing more blood from my ear as we tumbled, the world turning upside down and inside out. Streaks of rancid light tumbled past, and a warm wall of displaced air shoved us even further.

  Crunch. Japh let out another short cry, a flying needle of debris stinging my cheek. The breath knocked out of me but I struggled up, my left hand still weighed down with my sword, singing a thin note of distress inside its sheath. Dust scorched the back of my throat, a fume like the kick of hoverscorch while slicboarding through fast traffic, and the most amazing thing happened.

  I realized I’d survived seeing the Devil again.

  So far.

  Japhrimel gained his feet in a leap that might have surprised me once. His eyes blazed, casting shadows down his gaunt cheeks, and his hair was caked with dust. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear whatever he might have said. I was deaf from the noise of the world ending. He grabbed my arm again, the prickle of his claws sinking in through tough fabric, and pulled.

  I went willingly. He didn’t bother to slow down, just dragged me over a pile of broken house-sized stones jittering in place like marbles tossed by an angry giant. It was a good thing, too, because the snarling mass that was two demons in combat hit the pile right behind us, stone grinding into powder and flying aside, another shockwave hitting me in the back with an impact so massive it was almost painless. Japh’s boots touched down and he leapt, his wings coming free with a convulsive fluid tearing, and the world turned over again because he’d tossed me, my arm almost pulling free of the socket, tendons screaming savagely as they stretched and I had to gasp in air flavored with heat, dust, and the sweet rotten-fruit smell of demon blood.

  I tumbled weightless for what seemed like eternity. He’d flung me free of the blast zone, just like tossing a gravball for the hoop. Awful nice of him.

  This is going to hurt. Body twisting on instinct, my legs might shatter if I landed on them, there was not time to look for a landing no time and I hit, hard, shoulder driving into stone and my head hitting something that might have cracked it like a melon if the hard shell of Power over me hadn’t deflected most of the force. It still rang my chimes pretty good. I blinked, laying dazed and pinned to the floor of a nightmare, before being jerked to my feet once more.

  A new vibration poured through the overstressed fabric of reality. I reached up, trying to smear the blood out of my eyes, and my hand hit Japh’s shoulder. He pulled me down a narrow alley floored with quaking white stones, earth shifting below our feet as the city moved again. Not like an animal turning over in its sleep—no, this time it shook itself like someone had just poked that animal with a big sharp stick.

  Danny, how do you get yourself into these things?

  Don’t answer that, Jace’s voice whispered in my ear. I was too busy to care, for once. Just run. You’re running for your life, sunshine.

  As if I didn’t know.

  The alley twisted like it wanted to throw us off its back. I caught flashes of gates made of sculpted rosy metal, crimson light gouting from stab wounds in the walls, courts behind screens of carved stone full of blasted trees slowly turning to dust.

  The dead tree gave no shelter. Panicked hilarity ran through my head in time with our blurring footsteps. And no bird sang.

  I still could not stop screaming, though I needed all my air. My lips moved, soundless because I was still temporarily deafened. Light ran and blurred because my eyes watered, trying to cope with the caustic dust blowing everywhere.

  Japhrimel dragged me aside, and we ran down a long avenue receding into infinity, rows of fantastical statues marching down either side. The shapes were hybrid—cats with wings, serpents with paws and manes—and each one was faceless, the features clawed off. It was like running in a bad dream, feeling the monster’s hot breath on your back, the air turning to quicksand.

  One of the statues uncoiled, streaking across the avenue and leaping for us. It was a long black sinuous shape, its eyes glowing green, and I was still screaming breathlessly when Japhrimel struck the hellhound down, the heat of its obsidian hide exploding around us. He shot it twice without breaking stride, shouting something sharp and heated in the demons’ unlovely language, and runnels of decay poured through its body before it finished its leap. He yanked me past so quickly my head snapped back, and the bloody dust-choke light filled my streaming eyes.

  We burst out onto the fringes of a long field of dry black crumbling dirt, and my hearing began to come back. Echoes ran and dripped like water, running feet, screeches, howls, and the great glassy snarls of more hellhounds. There was a streak of flame lifting to our right—one of the bridges, twisting like taffy and bouncing in ways nothing that looked so fragile should.

  I stumbled and might have sprawled headlong if Japh hadn’t given my arm another terrific yank, and my shoulder gave way with a crunch of agony. The field flashed underfoot and I let out a small hurt cry. My lungs burned, a live nuclear core dropped into my stomach, my dislocated shoulder crunching with furious agony each time Japh pulled, and he ran right off the edge of the world, carrying me with him. We fell, and the last thing I heard before a brief moment of merciful unconsciousness was the liquid sound his wings made as he spread them, his fingers slipping through mine as my abused shoulder suddenly gave way again. I fell free, cartwheeling through space, and a brief starry moment of darkness flashed over my eyes.

  CHAPTER 19

  He was cursing. At least, it sounded like cursing, between steady thudding sounds, like a heartbeat. Gravity returned, and with it, the live fire in my shoulder.

  I opened my eyes.

  For a moment I thought I was flying. The vast cavern wheeled away underneath me, lit with bloody light.

  Then there was a bump, fiery pain spilling through several parts of my body, and I saw with a great scalding wash of relief that my numb left hand was locked around Fudoshin. My right arm flopped uselessly, and I swallowed something hot and acidic as I jolted again, staring down past my dangling sword into a sea of waxy, directionless crimson.

  The cavern went down for what looked like miles. But rising up underneath us was a thin thread of shadow. We hit the bridge hard and almost tumbled off, Japhrimel making a low sound of lung-tearing effort, and I found myself clinging to him, one of his hands tangled in my rig, my messenger bag’s strap cutting into my shoulder, caught in his claws. His other hand flashed down, driving a silver-bladed knife—one of the short, slightly curved blades he sometimes used for sparring—into the bridge’s surface. The sudden deceleration brought up a painless retch, and I started to feel a little pale. My legs hung out into space, the hard stony edge of the bridge right at my hips, and I would have thrashed if I could have moved, trying to get back up onto solidity.

  Japh’s eyes closed. His lips moved, still shaping words in his native tongue that hurt to hear. If I’d had a free hand I would have tried to stop my ringing, aching ears so I didn’t have to hear that language spoken again.

  He pulled, my dead weight sliding back from the abyss.

  How the hell did he do that? We ran off the edge.

  We lay there for a moment, tangled together, and I was mildly surprised to find myself still alive. Heart beating. Lungs mostly working. All original appendages mostly still there.

  Hallelujah. I’d’ve shared my joy, but I was still shuddering with great gouts of unholy, uncontrollable panic. I’ve gone mad. Wonderful. Marvelous. Great.

  The most horrible thing was that it didn’t feel abnormal anymore. Insanity seemed the order of the day.

  The bridge flexed underneath us. Japhrimel’s eyes snapped open, their greenness a sudden relief in all that red. He pulled me into his chest, his other hand still on the knife, driven hilt-deep into stone. His lips pressed my forehead, once, so hard I felt the shape of his teet
h behind them.

  I’m happy we’re alive too. Now can we go home and forget about all this?

  His ribs heaved. He was gasping for air, too. I suddenly didn’t feel too happy about that. Get up, we have to get up. Come on, sunshine. Move your ass.

  I twitched.

  He seemed to understand, because his entire body tensed and he rolled to his feet. I struggled up to my knees, my dislocated arm flapping bonelessly, and he pulled on my rig. I barely managed, even with that help, and when I was finally set on my boots, I leaned against him, burying my face in his coat.

  My ears buzzed. I realized it wasn’t because I was deaf. It was an actual sound. The bridge flexed again, and if Japh hadn’t moved we would have been pitched overboard.

  “Can you walk?” He didn’t quite shout, but his voice cut through the chaos. I heard hellhound snarls, their low coughing roars, and shuddered. Kel had sent hellhounds to chase me, and so had Lucifer. Maybe they were busy fighting each other now, and they would forget all about me.

  Yeah. And wild hoverbunnies will fly out your ass. Get moving!

  I tilted my head back. Tilted my chin back down to approximate a nod.

  He wasted no more time, but set off down the snaking gallop of the bridge. It was hard going, trying to negotiate a road that either dropped out from under us or slammed up to shake us off with no discernable rhyme or reason. My head dropped forward, chin resting almost on my chest, and I concentrated on one foot in front of the other.

  Lucifer. That was Lucifer back there.

  I should have been screaming in utter panic. Instead, I felt only weary amazement to still be actually breathing, however short the time remaining for that miracle was.

  Go figure. I must be stronger than I thought. Then I wondered if that would be a challenge to the gods to prove it.

  When we finally reached a broad shelf of rock anchored to the cavern wall, the sudden cessation of movement was shocking. Just as my feet landed on relatively solid ground, there was a cry unlike any of the previous hellish noise. It was a high keening ending on a throat-cut gurgle, and ice filled my veins.

  That sounds like someone’s dead. I hope it’s him. If there’s any justice in the world—

  “Not much time.” Japhrimel pulled me into his side. “Only a little farther, hedaira. Stay with me.”

  Not going anywhere. Sticking like glue. I wanted to nod, to tell him so, to make some sort of response. All that came out was a half-choked garble cut short by a longing gasp for air that wasn’t full of dust. I sounded like I’d lost my mind.

  Maybe I have. I hope I have. This would be so much easier to handle if I did.

  “Not so far,” he whispered. “Just stay with me, beloved. Only a little farther, I swear. I have not brought you this far to lose you now.”

  I would like to say I remember how we got out of the cavern, but I don’t. Patches of darkness and the immense shock of the cold, the mark on my shoulder sending pulses of warm oil down my skin that couldn’t touch the frozen inner core of me. I do remember the hover looming up out of the crystalline air and thinking, How did he manage to get us back here? I remember snow drifting up against the leafsprings holding the landing legs, icicles blooming on the moorings. The stairs were too much for me; Japh had to drag me up one by one, and he pushed me through the seals and into the blessed smells of humanity, oil, metal, and hover. I fetched up against a stack of ammo crates, my skin twitching with exhaustion and my dislocated shoulder settling into a deep unhappy throb.

  I do not ever want to do that again.

  The cargo hatch closed. A faint whine filled the stillness. I knew that sound, and it filled me with fuzzy alarm.

  I looked up.

  Leander Beaudry stood in the low orange glow of orandflu strips, the plasrifle socked to his shoulder and pointed right at me. A little in front of him and out of his fire angle stood a tall, slim demon with ice for hair and burning blue eyes.

  The demon I’d known as Eve was still smiling, a rather gentle, childlike expression.

  Japhrimel stood by the hatch control, dust ground into his hair and his eyes volcanoes of green. Metal popped and pinged, responding to the sudden flush of heat as his aura flared.

  “Your agents have been overpowered, and the Prince will not long be delayed.” The Androgyne’s voice stroked soothingly, calming. The emerald in her forehead glowed, casting triangular shadows under her pretty, inhuman eyes. “I think it best we parley quickly, Eldest.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Japhrimel stared at her for a few long seconds, as if a new and interesting insect had crawled out of the drain. The laserifle whined, unholstered and primed. Even if Japh went for Leander, he’d still have to deal with Eve, or whoever the hell she was. Demons couldn’t outrun a plasbolt.

  I sure as hell didn’t feel up to outrunning one either. The laserifle was pointed right at me, and I wasn’t sure what a plasbolt would do to me if it was set to kill instead of stun.

  I was Japhrimel’s weak point. If I ended up dead, would he turn into another Sephrimel, bleeding away through centuries and obsessively recreating me in whatever he could get his hands on? Which brought up an interesting, chilling little question—just how would he go crazy? Did he ever think about it while I was sleeping? When he looked at me?

  How did it make him feel?

  I found my voice. Amazingly, I even sounded halfway coherent. “Beaudry. What the fuck?”

  “Sorry, Valentine.” Even, neutral, his dark eyes never leaving my chest. If I twitched, he’d put a bolt through me. His accreditation tat twitched on his left cheek. “I’ve got orders.”

  You bastard. Laying on the “I’m so scared” act. And I fell for it, just like a green kid. Loathing coated my tongue. “Working for demons now?”

  He didn’t shrug, but the way his eyebrow lifted was just as eloquent. “Hegemony federal, actually. Field agent. Running across you in New Prague sure made my life interesting.”

  “Charming.” The blue-eyed demon’s tone shouted she found our chattering anything but. “I am ready to bargain, Eldest. Or we can let him find us here.”

  “Speak.” Japhrimel’s lips barely moved. The single word coated the air with ice, made it tremble. I slumped against the ammo crates, trying hard to come up with something brilliant.

  Nothing happened.

  The blue-eyed Androgyne folded her arms. “Where is the Knife?”

  He threw the other half at Lucifer. We’re fucked. I kept my mouth shut. So did Japhrimel.

  “Come now. I saw you. You would not have handed over the one weapon that could set you free of his games so easily. Ergo, there is something amiss.” One ice-pale eyebrow lifted, and the grin she wore turned wolfish, a trick of a few centimeters changing in the landscape of her face. I couldn’t stop staring, searching for echoes of Doreen, of the child Lucifer had taken so long ago.

  It has to be Eve. It has to be. She just looks different because of whatever Japh threw at her.

  Japhrimel’s eyes flicked to me, his attention never wavering. “It is elsewhere. The box was a decoy. I did not think it wise to trust such a weapon to the Anhelikos.”

  What? “What?” I wanted to screech the word, but the only thing that came out was a pale whisper. “What did you say?”

  “The box on the altar was one of three decoys. Meant to force both the rebellion and the Prince to show their hands.”

  Disbelief curdled in my throat, but I spit it up anyway. “A decoy? You… we… I…” You mean I went through all that for a decoy? I leaned against the crates, my right shoulder burning with deep drilling pain as it twitched. I hoped it was healing.

  “The moment the Prince opens the box, he will know I am playing a new game. He may know now. When he does, he will be angry.” He acknowledged the understatement with a slight lift of one eyebrow. “But it will also alter the playing field. He cannot afford to let me reach the Knife, but he also cannot afford to strike me down without knowing where it rests and holding it in his hand
s, to assure himself he is safe. This one—” His tone changed as he regarded Eve, or not-Eve, or whoever the hell she was, “he will slay on sight.”

  The demon shrugged. “I am his favored one, and the thing he longs to possess. He has sought to capture me, because he will not let me die unbroken.”

  “He may change his mind,” Japhrimel observed.

  I sagged against the crates. I was so tired. Even my hair hurt. Even my teeth ached, and burning dust still scorched my throat and lungs. Let’s just go. Can we just please leave? The thought of Lucifer maybe still alive back in that city full of red light, smashed things, and Hell’s cold fire was enough to make the black hole inside my head shiver like a cat shaking off unwelcome rain. The pain of my dislocated shoulder was beginning to seem very far away, and that was a bad sign.

  “Such pretty things.” The blue-eyed demon didn’t look away from Japhrimel, and her stance was just a little bit too tense. “They are so very fragile. How is her health, Eldest?”

  I’d be a lot better if people would stop dragging me around. Oh, and if demons would stop trying to kill me. I’d have a much better time. It would be a vacation.

  “How does Velokel the Hunter fare, Androgyne?” Japh flung it at her like a challenge.

  “Sometimes a piece must be sacrificed. You have played such games.”

  “I hate to interrupt,” Leander cut in, “but we’re exposed here. If there’s a pissed-off demon heading this way, we’d best conclude our business quickly.”

  “Cease your yapping, little human.” Japh’s tone could not have held more contempt.

  Where’s Lucas? And the agents? Not to mention the goddamn Nichtvren. “Japh?” My scabbard rattled against the ammo crates as I shifted. “He’s right. We should get the fuck out of here.”

  “I am waiting to hear something of consequence.” His eyes glowed, and one corner of his mouth curled up, slowly, dangerously. “I will not wait much longer.”