Working for the Devil

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “A demon familiar.” My voice was edged with a hard delight that I didn’t really feel. “Jealous, Magi? I’ll have him talk to you up close, if you like.”

  The demon moved past me, almost as if reading my mind. The diamond flares of his aura spread, filling the room, closing around the unlucky Magi. I held my sword slanting across my body, the blessed steel a defense from the demon who bore down on Dacon with slow, even steps.

  “What the fuck you want?” Dake yelled, scrambling back and almost leaping on top of his desk. “Christ, Danny, what you want? Just tell me!”

  The demon paused, again as if reading my mind.

  “Information,” I said, scanning the room. Something was off here, one instrument was out of tune, screwing up the whole damn band.

  My nostrils flared.

  Salt-sweat-sweet. The odor of Chill.

  I fumbled the paper out of my bag. Silver flashed from my rings. I approached Dake carefully, brushing past the demon, who stood taut and ready. I unfolded the paper, glanced down at the twisted rune that was Vardimal’s name. The African masks Dake hung on the walls ran with wet red light through the plasglass windows. People downstairs were dancing, strung out on hash and sex, unaware of the drama going on right overhead.

  “I want you to give me a tracker keyed to this name, Dake. And if you’re a very good boy, I won’t call the Patrols in to get rid of your Chill stash.” You lousy, stupid motherfucker, I thought. Chill’s going to eat you alive. And how many lives are you going to destroy, dealing here? No wonder one of your bouncers is on that shit. Gods damn you, Dake.

  His round, brown eyes rolled. I held up the paper, ready to jump back if the green glow around his hands struck for me. He stuttered.

  “I ain’t—I’m not—Danny—” A thin thread of spittle traced down his stubbled chin. His mouth worked.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me!” I snarled, my sword whipping up, stopping just in time. Razor steel caressed his wet double-chin. “Now, are you going to do me a tracker, Dake, or do I get all catholic and burn this goddamn place down?” Where did the demon go? I wondered. Too much static, where did he go?

  The demon’s arm shot past me, fingers sinking into Dake’s throat under its slab of fat, pushing my sword aside. I resheathed my blade. “Put. It. Down,” the demon said, in a low throbbing impossible-to-ignore voice.

  Something metallic clattered on the floor. I didn’t glance down. The green glow lining the Magi’s hands drained away.

  Dake’s face crumpled. He began to sob.

  Oh, Sekhmet sa’es. If he starts to cry I’ll be here all night calming him down.

  “Let go of him,” I snapped. “He won’t be good for anything if you make him cry.”

  The demon made a low, growling sound. “As you like,” he finished. Dake whined, gibbering with fear.

  I was perilously close to losing my temper. Instead, I curled my fingers into Dake’s shoulder as the demon retreated. “Oh, c’mon, Dake, we’re just playing around, right? You don’t mean to hurt me. You like me. You want to be my friend, don’t you, Dake?” Exactly as I would talk to a four-year-old.

  Dake whined and nodded, his lank brown hair flopping forward over his sweaty forehead. Just like school. I’d interfered once when some of the bigger Magi kids had been pushing Dake around, and had to suffer his pathetic attachment for the rest of my career at Rigger Hall. The trouble with Dake was that he had no grit in him; if he hadn’t already been broken Mirovitch and Rigger Hall would have wrecked him. For a Magi to lack a magickal Will was bad news; the Power wouldn’t obey and his or her spells would go awry. I was of the private opinion that it was a good thing Dake hadn’t been able to call up more than an imp inside a chalk circle with a whole collection of more experienced Magi standing guard in case things went wrong; an unwary, cowardly Magi would be easy prey for anything larger than an imp.

  And I wondered what would have happened if something like Jaf had shown up in response to Dake’s summonings. A Greater Flight demon could kill even from within a chalked circle; that’s why they were so hard to call up. Lucky me, getting to hang out with one.

  The demon made a low grinding sound, a growl. “Good,” I said. “Good. You’ll be my good boy, Dake, and give me a tracker. Then I’ll be out of your hair and you can go back to selling Chill and waiting for it to burn out your fucking brain and your Talent as well.”

  “I’m not on Chill,” he lied, his eyes shifting back and forth.

  I cursed internally. Does he have enough Talent left to do a decent tracker? I stepped back, and Dake slid down from the desk, his boots hitting the floor. I half-turned, looked at the demon. Japhrimel’s eyes were incandescent green. “Make sure he doesn’t move,” I said, and didn’t wait for the answer.

  Below conscious level, the spinning vortex of darkness that was the demon focused on a red-brown pulsing smear. Dake.

  My own aura under the demon’s shielding held the trademark glitters of a Necromance. I watched those glitters swirl, reacting to the presence of the demon and the nervous spatters of red-brown Dake was giving off. On this level, Dacon Whitaker was visibly in trouble, gaping holes in his aura, Power jittering and trembling out of his control. Dake’s Power would escape him, eat him alive as the Chill consumed his nervous system. But not yet—not yet. He had his Power—but not for very much longer.

  I snapped back into myself. The demon was absolutely still and silent, his shoulder touching mine, his eyes eating into a trembling Dake.

  I held the paper up. “I need a tracker, Dake. Get your kit, and be quick. I’ve got other shit to do tonight.”

  When it was finished, the tracker looked like a globe of spun crystal and silver wire, a crystal arrow inside it, pulsing faintly reddish as it spun. “What’s the range on this thing?” I asked, almost forgetting that Dake was a Chillfreak now. When he was motivated he did good work, and it was always nice to see another magickal discipline perform.

  “Worldwide, baby, it’s a Greater Work. Let it settle for about twenty-four hours, then give it the keyword and it’ll go live. Use sparingly.” Dake coughed into his palm, scuttling back toward his desk. The odor of burning blood in the air had bothered me for the first ten minutes, but my nose was acclimated now.

  I’ve never seen anyone grind up a frog before, I thought, and shivered. I dropped the tracker in a small leather pouch and settled it carefully around my neck. “Okay, Dake. Thanks.”

  I did not tell him I owed him one.

  He blinked at me. “You’re not going to kill me?” he whined.

  The thudding bass beat of the music downstairs made me nervous. “No,” I said. “Of course not, you idiot. Why would I kill you?”

  As if he was a goddamn normal instead of a Magi who should know better.

  “I know how you feel about Chill,” he stuttered, “and if you think I—”

  No shit you know how I feel about Chill, everyone knows how I feel about that shit. “I don’t think, Dake.” I turned on my heel and started for the door. “I know. And you’ll get yours soon enough. The Chill’s going to eat you, Dacon. There’s no detox for it. You’re a stupid motherfucker.”

  “It’s not my fault!” he yelled after me as I swung out the door. “It’s not!”

  “Yeah,” I said, and stamped down the stairs into the womblike starred dark of the club below. “Sure it’s not, Dacon. Nothing ever is.”

  Hot salt spilled down my cheeks as I pushed through the crowd of people and finally, blessedly, achieved the coolness of the street outside. One of the bouncers—probably the Chillfreak—sniggered something behind me, and for a single heartbeat I considered turning around and separating him from his liver.

  I wrestled the urge down, still striding along the cracked pavement, my shields resounding. I waited until I turned the corner to stop, head down, my ribs heaving. I had jammed my sword into the loop on my belt, not trusting myself with edged metal right now.

  “Are you injured?” the demon asked.

 
I almost flinched. The hard impenetrable darkness of his aura swirled once, counterclockwise, brushed against my aura’s sparkling. Checking for damage. I shivered, my shields thickening reflexively, pushing the touch away. It was bad enough to smell like a demon, I didn’t want him pawing at me. Even on an energetic level.

  “I’m fine,” I forced out through a hard lump in my throat. “I just wanted to . . . I’m fine.”

  He didn’t say anything else. Instead, he only stood there. Another human being might have asked me useless questions, tried to say something comforting. Apparently a demon wouldn’t.

  I finally wiped my cheeks and scanned the street, deserted except for me and a demon. “Okay,” I said. “We’ve got our tracker. Let’s go.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?” The demon tipped his chin back, indicating the vague direction of the club with one elegant motion. His eyes were darker now, strange runic patterns slipping through the depths of green light.

  “Not any more,” I said, casting around for a callbox.

  There was one down at the end of the street, and I set out for the lighted plasteel box. The demon followed me, moving as silently as a manta ray slipping through dark water.

  I passed my hand over the credit square, flushing my palm with Power. The door clicked open, and I stepped into the callbox. It was one of the older ones without a vidshell. Thank the gods for small favors. “Hold the door,” I said, and the demon put out his golden hand, held the folding door aside.

  I picked up the handset and dialed the copshop.

  “Vice, Horman speaking,” Detective Lew Horman snarled on the other end.

  “Horman? It’s Danny.” My voice sounded normal. A little husky, but normal.

  “Aw fer Christ’s sake—”

  I didn’t know he was a Christer. “Don’t blaspheme, Detective. Look, I’ve got a word for you.”

  “What the fuck now, deadhead? I ain’t Homicide!” The high edge of fear colored his voice.

  “You know the Chill that’s been soaking the South Side? I found out a major distributor.”

  That got his attention. He literally gasped.

  I waited a beat. “Of course, if you’re not interested—”

  “Goddammit, you deadhead freak. Give it up.”

  “Dacon Whitaker, out of his club. One of his bouncers is a Chillfreak and so is he now.”

  “A fuckin magician’s a Chillfreak? I thought they didn’t—”

  “They don’t last long, but they’re nasty while they do. I’d take some para backup with you. Don’t mention my name, okay?”

  “Quiet as the grave,” Horman snorted.

  I let it pass. “You owe me one, Horman,” I said, and hung up without waiting to hear his reply.

  The demon still said nothing.

  I took my hand off the phone and looked out the wavering safety-glass at the dark street, pools of streetlamp glow shivering on wet pavement. “Fuck,” I said finally, and clenched my hand. “Fuck!”

  My fist starred the safety glass in a spreading spiderweb, I pulled back and let another one fly. This punch left a bloody print on the cracked glass.

  Then I stopped, gasping for breath, fighting for control. My pulse pounded in my ears.

  When I had swallowed the last of my rage, I opened my eyes to find the demon studying me. His eyes were even darker. “What did you do?” he asked, mildly enough.

  “I just turned Dake in to the cops,” I told him through gritted teeth.

  “Why?” It was a passionless inquiry.

  “Because he’ll kill people with that Chill shit.”

  “A drug?”

  “Yeah, a nasty drug.” A drug that makes mothers abandon their infant babies at the hospital, a drug that eats people whole, a drug that makes punk kids shoot social workers on the street in broad daylight, a drug that swallows whole families and smashes psions. A drug the Hegemony won’t get serious about outlawing because the Mob gets too much taxable income off it, a drug the cops can barely stem the tide against because half of them are on the take anyway and the other half are so choked with paperwork they can’t stop it.

  Between Chill and the Mob, it was hard to tell which I hated more.

  “Why not let those stupid enough to take it, die?”

  I considered him, my bleeding hand curled tightly in my unwounded hand. Dake had been at Rigger Hall; I suppose I couldn’t blame him for wanting some oblivion. My own nightmares were bad enough; just the thought of that place made my shields quiver.

  Valentine, D. Student Valentine is called to the headmaster’s office immediately.

  And the Headmaster’s chilly, precise, dry little voice. We’ve got something special for those who break the rules today, Miss Valentine. The smell of chalk and spoiled magick, the feel of a collar’s metal against my naked throat and collarbones . . .

  Thinking about it made the scars on my back ache again, an ache I knew was purely psychic. Three stripes, running down my back; and the other scar, the burn scar, just at the bottom crease of my left buttock. Dake probably had his own scars . . . but that was no excuse to drown them in Chill. After all, I managed to live without drowning mine, didn’t I? It was no excuse.

  Was it? Or had I just turned him in because I was having a pissy day?

  “Because I’m human,” I informed him tightly, “and I operate by human rules. Okay?” I wasn’t about to tell him about Lewis bleeding to death on the sidewalk, dead by a Chillfreak’s hand, his antique watch and Rebotnik sneakers stolen to hawk for more Chill. It was private. And anyway, why did he care why I hated Chill? It was enough that I hated it.

  He shrugged. “Your hand.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  After a moment’s consideration, I extended my hand. He folded his fingers over it, still holding the door of the callbox open with his other elbow. My entire hand fit inside his palm, and his fingers were hard and warm.

  A spine-tingling rush of Power coated my entire body. His eyes glowed laser-green. The pain crested, drained away.

  When he let go of my hand, it was whole and unwounded under a mask of blood. I snatched it back, examined it, and looked up at him.

  “I will endeavor to remember human rules,” he said.

  “You don’t have to,” I found myself saying. “You’re a demon, you’re not one of us.”

  He shrugged. Stood aside so I could exit the callbox.

  I let the folding door accordion shut behind me. The light inside the callbox flicked off.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “What next?”

  I took a deep breath. Looked at my hand. “Next I go home and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m visiting Abracadabra—a friend. I’ll see if she can give me a direction to go in and some contacts. Better not to use the tracker until I’m sure I need it.”

  “Very well.” He still didn’t move, just stood there watching me.

  A gigantic lethargy descended on me. Why did it all have to be so hard? The pressure behind my eyes and throat and nose told me I was a few minutes away from sobbing. I set my jaw and scanned the street again.

  Empty. Of course. Just when I needed a cab.

  “Okay,” I said again. “Come on.”

  He fell into step behind me, silent as Death Himself.

  CHAPTER 14

  I lay on my back, holding my sword to my chest, looking up at the dark ceiling. My eyes burned.

  I slept with my rings on, and the shifting blue-green glow sliding against the ceiling told me I was agitated.

  As if I don’t already know, I thought, and my fingers clasped the sword more tightly.

  Downstairs the demon sat in front of my fireplace. My shields buzzed and blurred; he was adding his own layers of protection. Even my home wasn’t mine anymore. Of course, on the plus side, that meant a better shielding for my house.

  If I’d been born a Magi, I would have at least some idea of how to deal with a demon in my house. I probably would have
even been excited. Magi worked with circles and trained for years to achieve regular contact with Hell after passing their Academy test and calling up an imp. They paid the rent by working as consultants and doing shielding for corporations, like Shamans. They also ran most of the training colleges and did magickal research. Finicky eyes for detail, most Magi; but when dealing with demons you wanted to be a perfectionist when it came to your circles and protections. The Greater Demons were like loa, only more powerful—they didn’t exactly have a human idea of morals. And while the loa might mislead, it was an axiom of Magi practice that demons outright lied sometimes for the fun of it—again, because their idea of truth wasn’t the same as ours.

  I sighed, burrowed my back deeper into my bed. I was retreading the same mental ground, going over and over what I knew of demons, hoping I would somehow think of something new that would make me feel better about this.

  If I was a Christer, I’d be peeling the paint off the walls screaming, I thought sardonically. Some normals were still Christers, despite the Awakening and the backlash against the Evangelicals of Gilead; the Catholic section, of course, would have tried reading from old books and blessing water to get rid of a demon. Sometimes it might have worked—even normals were capable of belief, though they couldn’t use it like a tool as a Shaman or a Necromance could. And the Christers had even believed that demons could get inside people, not understanding the mechanics of shielding and psychic space very well.

  None of this got me anywhere.

  How the hell did this happen? How did I end up working for the fucking Devil?

  I didn’t have a clue. There had been no warning, from my cards or runes or any other divination. Just a knocking on my door in the middle of a rainy afternoon.

  So did they sneak up on me, or are my instincts getting rusty?

  Or both?

  I stared at the greenshift shadows on the ceiling, my mind ticking, sleep a million klicks away.

  Breathe, Danny. Start the circle like you were taught. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe deep, deeper, deeper—

  The ritual was comforting, born of too many sleepless nights. Outside my window a gray rainwashed dawn was coming up. I yawned, settled myself more comfortably between white sheets.