Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “The Prince wants me.” The blue-eyed demon’s expression matched his, an eerily perfect mimicry. “I have become the bait that will lead him to the killing field. You are the hand that will strike. And she is the Key. We should not linger here.”

  That’s three votes for getting the fuck out of here now. I consider the motion carried. “Japh.” My knees almost gave way. I propped myself against the crates. Prickles raced up my arms, the cold in my bones spreading out. Soon I would be made of ice. It seemed a wonderful thing. “We need to go now.”

  “Very soon, beloved.” How could he sound so coldly murderous one moment, and so tender the next? I blinked, trying to figure it out, and the scar on my shoulder sent a hot torrent of Power through me, driving back the cold.

  Still, even pure Power wasn’t enough. I was too tired, too hurt, and the broken places in my head were too raw. I’d seen Lucifer again. Well, not seen him, because Japh had kept himself between us. But I had heard the bastard’s voice again. I had survived.

  I heard a noise that didn’t belong. A slight, definite click. I froze.

  Everything happened at once. The hover woke into humming life, acceleration pressing down on everything in the hold as Japhrimel moved. He did not so much blink through space as reappear, knocking aside the other demon’s hands as she spat at him, his fingers sinking into her throat. The laserifle crackled, and McKinley’s arm was across Leander’s throat, dragging him backward. The Hellesvront agent’s black hair was wildly mussed, his clothing singed and torn, and his aura flared with violet light that fumed like homicidal rage.

  I spilled over, my muscles suddenly unable to cope with the task of keeping me upright. My sword clattered against the metal grating, my bag clinking and clacking as I curled over it, my wounded right arm twisting uselessly.

  Chaos. My eyelids were terrifically heavy. As soon as I got one to peel up a little bit the other one would fall down.

  Japhrimel? Will you please explain what’s going on?

  I got no answer, just the feeling of gravity pressing along my body as the hover pressed up, my consciousness lifting away, disconnected.

  Gone.

  CHAPTER 21

  There was a sickening crunch, and I let out a short, half-chopped yell. My eyes flew open, and Japhrimel caught my fist, the punch stopped as if by a brick wall. My right shoulder was back in its socket, throbbing with a high note of yellow pain before another warm bath of Power slid down my weary flesh.

  He slid his arm under my shoulders and lifted me just a bit, held something to my lips. “Drink.”

  It was a sign of how confused and miserably tired I was that I didn’t even think to question it. I simply filled my mouth with whatever was in the cup and swallowed. It was warm, thick, and gelid, and the spice of it coated the back of my throat, touching off a chain of memory like flashbulbs inside my aching head.

  For a moment I thought I was back in Nuevo Rio, golden sunlight striping the bed as a demon held me in his arms, Power burning inside the channels of my bones just as his blood burned in my throat, reshaping me from the inside out while barb-wire pleasure slammed through each changing atom of my flesh. Since I’d awakened with a new body and a seriously screwed-up life, he had been the only constant.

  Even dead and ground to cinnamon dust in a black lacquer urn, he had been my guiding star. The taste of his blood in my mouth brought it all back, memory strong as a lasecannon ricocheting through my aching head.

  I gagged, but it was already down. “Avayin, hedaira,” he murmured. “Peace. All is well.”

  The lunacy of his assurance hit me sideways, and I almost choked again. He tipped the cup, and I had to swallow. I took it down in three long gulps. Japhrimel made a small sound of approval and set the cup aside. He sat next to me on the bed, his solidity comforting. His eyes were still glowing green, casting small shadows under his high gaunt cheekbones. He didn’t look half-starved anymore, but he didn’t look happy. The dust was still in his hair, stiffening the silk of it. A smear of something dark traced one high cheekbone, his mouth was set and thin. Still, I felt ridiculously relieved to see him. The relief was as deep and unquestioning as my trust in whatever he wanted to make me drink.

  I was spending a distressing amount of time knocked-out lately. Did half-demons get brain trauma?

  Would I live long enough to find out?

  Warmth exploded in the pit of my stomach, a comfortably full feeling as if I’d just eaten my way through one of our old Taliano meals. I was able to sit up, finding myself still fully clothed. I was probably still able to wear my clothes again, despite them being dusty and dirty. At least they weren’t torn to shreds and soaked with blood.

  Not much blood, anyway.

  My right shoulder throbbed before the pain vanished. The only question I could ask, the one I’d been trying to ask all along, bubbled up. “Eve?”

  He was quiet for a long few moments as the hover began a long slow descent. “That is not her Name.”

  I don’t care. “But she… is she Doreen’s? Is she?” I have to know. I don’t care about anything else.

  “She is Vardimal’s Androgyne.” The words were heavy. “You do not understand.”

  I wanted to set my jaw and shove down the sudden flare of anger. It flared anyway, the shout bursting past my lips. “Whose fault is it if I don’t understand? You won’t tell me anything!”

  He actually flinched. I don’t blame him. My voice rattled everything not bolted down and the hover shook like a nervous cat. The injustice boiled over, and I lashed out at the closest thing, the thing I could be sure of providing a good target.

  “You keep lying to me! All of it, lies! You won’t tell me what I am, you won’t tell me what’s going on, you just keep lying, lying, lying!”

  “Yes.” His voice sliced through mine.

  Whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been simple agreement. It managed to shut me up so he could get a word in edgewise.

  His eyes slid away from me, stared across the small cabin. Outside the porthole, faint dappled gray danced—clouds. Wherever we were, it was now cloudy, and still night. “I will lie to keep you safe. I will lie to save you pain. I will lie to ease your mind, and I will lie so you may be certain of me. Answer me this, my curious—if I, even I will lie to you, what might another demon who does not cherish you do?”

  I think I have an idea. More than an idea, in fact. My new rig lay tangled at the end of the bed. My sword was propped against the nightstand, but Japhrimel was between me and its comforting slender length.

  “Is she still alive?” The last thing I remembered was Japh’s fingers in its throat. Her throat. Which was the true face—the echo of Doreen with my faint iron-clad smile, or the demon with her clotted-ice hair and blue, blue eyes? I wanted, needed to know.

  “She is more useful to us alive. She is chained, and watched. The human is also alive, a gift for my hedaira. Does that please you?”

  I’m all aglow, Japh. Why, that’s just marvy. Sarcasm smoked inside my head and I restrained myself with an effort that left me shaking, my hands clasping together and biting down. “What did you do?” I barely recognized the raw, shocked whisper as my own.

  “What have I not done? I set my trap and baited it, I played the Prince of Hell for a fool and lured him into showing his hand too soon. Today I have cost him a great deal, in pride, in Power, and in peace. The knowledge that he no longer has possession of the one weapon that could kill him has reached Hell, for I made certain of it when I invited him to meet me in the White-Walled City.”

  “You did what?” Open-mouthed shock was apparently the order of the day. The hover’s nose tilted down a little more sharply. We were descending, and quickly.

  “One of the Prince’s marks of favor for his assassin was a certain item. When used, it strips the disguise from a demon, forcing him to take his true form. We are a tricksome species, and sometimes the veil of seeming must be torn. We have different weaknesses. If you know the form of a demon, you
may fight him.” A single, elegant shrug. “Using the Glaive, unfortunately, creates a disturbance that can be felt in Hell, especially in a place where the walls between our world and yours are so thin. All of Hell knows the Glaive was triggered in the city. The Prince could not afford to stay away, as that is the agreed-upon resting place for one of the decoys.”

  “Decoys.” Keep talking, Japh. This is the most you’ve ever given me, and what do you know? It’s too goddamn late. I was ashamed as soon as I thought it.

  He rose like a dark wave, the mattress creaking slightly as he did. I tasted dust and bitterness, added to the thick spice of his blood. The room was narrow and curved, squeezed under the hull and bare of anything that might be considered a personal possession—that is, if I didn’t count my new rig. My sword. And my bag, now suddenly visible on a table bolted to the wall near the porthole.

  Japhrimel crossed to the porthole and looked out. His back was perfectly straight, his shoulders drawn up. Dust streaked along the curves of his coat, revealing subtle dips and creases of musculature hidden in the liquid black. “You must understand, Dante. I have served the Prince for so long. Obedience became its own kind of trap, and I buried the rebellion in my heart. I was not free to act until you freed me. But still… I had dreams.”

  “Dreams?” I didn’t mean to sound like an idiot. I just couldn’t seem to say anything applicable or even intelligent.

  “The Prince was younger then, too; I was able to hide the fact that I had only recovered half the Knife. He told me what he wished—that the Anhelikos would hold the Knife, for they care little who rules Hell as long as their nests are not tampered with. That if a demon without the proper signs and signals came to fetch it, they would send it along a route known only to Lucifer and myself, each Anhelikos theoretically knowing only the next stage of the route. I was to create two decoy routes as well. It was my only disobedience in longer than you can imagine, to make all three routes empty games and hide the half of the Knife we possessed… elsewhere. Even today I do not know why I did so.”

  “So you…. Is that why you helped Santino escape Hell, with the Egg? Because you were being disobedient?” Don’t interrupt him, Danny. Maybe he’ll keep talking.

  “No. I was ordered to do so, by Lucifer himself.” Each word was clipped and short. “I bless the day he did, Dante. It brought me to you.” He turned away from the window, approached the table with two long steps, and opened my stained canvas messenger bag. The tough cloth made a whispering sound against his fingers.

  I scrambled up out of bed, my legs finally obeying me, a hot knot of liquid warmth behind my breastbone. “Leave that alone!”

  It was too late. He held up the book, its cover with leather too fine-grained to be animal skin shocking against the goldenness of his fingers. “What price did you pay for this, hedaira? What lies came with its presentation to you? I did not tell you of the A’nankhimel and their doom for a reason. To know that you would be hunted, sooner or later, reviled, suffering endless fear because of a crime you were innocent of—I tried to save you that! I have tried to save you from the knowledge of what you have been drawn into, what has been done to you. You hate me, and well you should.”

  I came to a halt less than five steps away from him, my hands curled into fists and shaking. “You should have told me.” Quiet venom dripped from each word. “I don’t care what you thought you were saving me from.”

  “Told you what? How could I have explained what I feared, to you? How could I burden you with this?” He tossed the book at me. It was a passionlessly accurate throw, and it landed on my feet with a tiny thud before it slid off to the side, spine-up and open, its pages pressed into the flooring.

  We faced each other over a small space of crackling, pulled-tense air. I struggled to contain the rising tide of anguish and red fire inside me.

  “Look at what I have done to you.” It was his turn to whisper. “No wonder you hate me.”

  Sheer maddening frustration rivaled the bitterness of dust in my mouth. “I don’t hate you.” The words felt foreign against my lips. “I can’t hate you. That’s my goddamn problem.” Or at least one of them. I’ve got so many others now this one seems like a walk in the holopark.

  It was hard work to bend down, keeping my eyes on him, and pick the book up. The feel of the cover against my fingers was enough to make my gorge rise. I was getting so used to nauseated disgust, I wondered if I’d ever eat again. “Nobody gave me any information with this at all. Selene only knew it was a book on the Fallen. Eve never told me what was in it. Sephrimel showed me one picture and… gods, Japhrimel, if you’re so fucking worried what I’ll think of it, why didn’t you just tell me yourself? I could have tried understanding, you know.”

  He actually shrugged, a complex eloquent movement. I hate demons shrugging at me. They do it so much, like the only thing humans are worthy of is a shrug. Or maybe we perplex them. I’d like to think it’s the latter.

  Call me an optimist.

  “Fine.” I gave up. My shoulders slumped. I was too tired to fight with him over this. I had other questions, other problems, and other things I needed to figure out before Lucifer got another crack at me. “Let’s move on to something productive, at least. Where’s the Knife?”

  “Close.” Silence stretched like taffy. “I have some other things to tell you, but not yet.”

  Great. More secrets. “I don’t want to hear it.” My fingers tensed, pressing into the leather. I struggled with the beast of pain tearing inside my chest. Tearing like glass-clawed fingers around my beating heart.

  It took every scrap of self-control I possessed to hold the book out to him. “If it means that much to you, you can have it, and all your goddamn secrets too.”

  The hover evened out. We’d descended a long way. He didn’t move, staring at my hand holding the book the way a mongoose stares at a cobra.

  “Just take it,” I persisted. “Just fucking take the thing, Japhrimel.”

  He slid it from my hand gently, as if afraid I’d change my mind. The hover bounced a bit, atmospheric pressure rippling around it. His hand fell back to his side, carrying its cargo. Whatever the goddamn book said, I no longer wanted to know. He couldn’t tell me what I was.

  Nobody could.

  I was broken, I knew that much. I was a wreck in the shape of a woman, and I had something to get done. But most importantly, I was who I decided to be. Hadn’t my life taught me at least that much?

  I am Danny Valentine. Everything else was just noise.

  “Now.” I drew myself up in my dusty, bloodspotted clothes. “You’re going to answer a couple questions, and then we’re going to get this goddamn thing done. I’m tired of Lucifer fucking around with my life. Fucking around with me.” You can’t even comprehend how tired I am of that. The black hole in my head shivered and retreated under the sound of rushing flame. I pushed both things away, bottled the rage and covered over the horror. “Where’s Eve?” I almost said, where’s my daughter?

  I couldn’t let the words past my lips. I was keeping my own secrets from him. I couldn’t throw any stones on that account, could I.

  But oh, how I wanted to.

  He actually answered me directly, for once. “Chained, and watched. In the hold.”

  “Great.” I turned on my booted heel and stalked back to the bed, scooped up my rig, and began buckling it on. “Where are we flying to now?”

  “Sudro Merica. Caracaz.” In Japhrimel’s voice was something new—a hoarseness, as if there was something in his throat.

  The rig was none the worse for wear, and it creaked much less than it had. I guess that kind of hard use will take the starch out of any gear. It was all to the good as far as I was concerned.

  I scooped up my sword. The sound of fire in my head abated, a thin red thread at the bottom of my consciousness. Waiting.

  What do we do next, sunshine?

  “All right.” I rolled my shoulders habitually, settling the rig. “Let’s get this run
started.”

  I left him standing there and stamped for the door.

  CHAPTER 22

  I was getting pretty sick of the cargo hold.

  McKinley leaned against a stack of plasteel crates, his aura flushed a weird violet, matching the purplish light running over his metallic left hand. My eyes wanted to slide right over him, helped by the smooth shell of seeming that wasn’t quite a glamour, since it didn’t carry any stamp of personality like sorcery or psionic camouflage would. He was like a chameleon, blending motionlessly into his surroundings. His dark eyes met mine and flicked away, and I recognized the hair-trigger tension in him.

  Past him, in a space cleared of all gear and boxes, sat a small, slender shape with a flame of pale hair. Her arms locked around her knees, and it became apparent she’d had a hell of a fight. Her sweater was torn, her slacks singed, and she was missing a boot.

  I stepped forward. Eve’s face was buried in her knees, that pale sleek cap now subtly wrong, ropes instead of the silk of Doreen’s hair. I couldn’t even smell her, and that was wrong too.

  “Valentine.” McKinley’s voice, oddly respectful. “Don’t get too close.”

  Don’t tell me what to do. I took another step. I’d shoved my sword into the loop provided on my rig, not trusting myself with edged metal right now. “Eve.” All the things I might have said boiled through my head, and I settled for just one. “I know you’re not asleep.”

  Her face came up slowly, a pale dish on jeweled bearings. Doreen’s daughter looked at me, and there was nothing human in that blue-fire gaze.

  My eyesight was keen even before Japh changed me; thanks to genesplicing it’s hard to find anyone with bad sight anymore, except Ludders. I can’t see like a Nichtvren, in total darkness—even demon eyes need a few photons to work with. So I stared at Eve, searching the demon’s face for any shadow of what she’d looked like before.

  Running along the floor between us was a thin silver strip, humming with malignant force as it circled her. It matched the brutally thick cuffs around her ankles and wrists. The silver seemed a part of the metal grating, despite its fluid movement. It was a piece of demon sorcery I’d never seen before and should have been surprised at.