Dante Valentine Book 5 - To Hell and Back

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Power: 1. Vital energy produced by living things: prana, mana, orgone, etc. 2. 5orcerous power accumulated by celibacy, bloodletting, fasting, pain, or meditation. 3. Ambient energy produced by ley lines and geocurrents, a field of energy surrounding the planet. 4. The discipline of raising and channeling vital energy, sorcerous power, or ambient energy. 5. Any form of energy that fuels sorcerous or psionic ability. 6. A paranormal community or paranormal individual who holds territory.

  Prime Power: l. The highest-ranked paranormal Power in a city or territory, capable of negotiating treaties and enforcing order. Note: usually Nichtvren in most cities and werecain in rural areas. 2. (technical) The source from which all Power derives. 3. (archaic) Any nonhuman paranormal being with more than two vassals in the feudal structure of pre-Awakening paranormal society.

  Psion: l . An accredited, trained, or apprentice human with psionic abilities. 2. Any human with psionic abilities.

  Putchkin: 1. The official language of the Putchkin Alliance, though other dialects are in common use. 2. A Putchkin Alliance citizen.

  Putchkin Alliance: One of the two world superpowers, comprising Russia, most of China (except Freetown Tibet and Singapore), some of Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Note: After the Seventy Days War, the two superpowers settled into peace and are often said to be one world government with two divisions.

  Republic of Gilead: Theocratic Old Merican empire based on fundamentalist Novo Christer and Judic messianic principles, lasting from the latter half of the twenty-first century (after the Vatican Bank scandal) to the end of the Seventy Days War. Note: In the early days, before Kochba bar Gilead's practical assumption of power in the Western Hemisphere, the Evangelicals of Gilead were defined as a cult, not as a Republic. Political infighting in the Republic-and the signing of the Charter with its implicit acceptance of the High Council's sovereignty-brought about both the War and the only tactical nuclear strike of the War (in the Vegas Waste).

  Revised Matheson Score: The index for quantifying an individual's level of psionic ability. Note: Like the Richter scale, it is exponential; five is the lowest score necessary for a psionic child to receive Hegemony funding and schooling. Forty is the terminus of the scale; anything above forty is defined as "superlative" and the psion is tipped into special Hegemony or Putchkin secret-services training.

  Runewitch: A psion whose secondary or primary talent includes the ability to handle the runes of the Nine Canons with special ease.

  Sedayeen: l. An accredited psion whose talent is healing. 2. (archaic) An old Nichtvren word meaning "blue hand." Note: Sedayeen are incapable of aggression even in self-defense, being allergic to violence and prone to feeling the pain they inflict. This makes them incredible healers, but also incredibly vulnerable.

  Sekhmet sa'es: Egyptianica term, often used as profanity; translated: "Sekhmet stamp it," a request for the Egyptos goddess of destruction to strike some object or thing, much like the antique "God damn it."

  Seventy Days War: The conflict that brought about the end of the Republic of Gilead and the rise of the Hegemony and Putchkin Alliance.

  Sexwitch: (archaic: tantraiiken) An accredited psion who works with Power raised from the act of sex; pain also produces an endorphin and energy rush for sexwitches.

  Shaman: 1. The most common and catch-all term for a psion who has psionic ability but does not fall into any other specialty, ranging from vaudun Shamans (who traffic with loa or etrigandi) to generic psions. 2. (archaic) A normal human with borderline psionic ability.

  Shavarak'itzan beliak: (demon term) A demon obscenity, exact meaning obscure.

  Sk8: Member of a slicboard tribe.

  Skinlin: (slang: dirtwitch) An accredited psion whose talent has to do with plants and plant DNA. Note: Skinlin use their voices, holding sustained tones, wedded to Power to alter plant DNA and structure. Their training makes them susceptible to berserker rages.

  Slagfever: Sickness caused by exposure to chemicalwaste cocktails commonly occurring near hover transport depots in less urban areas.

  Swanhild: Paranormal species characterized by hollow bones, feathery body hair, poisonous flesh, and passive and pacifistic behavior.

  Synth-hash: Legal nonaddictive stimulant and relaxant synthesized from real hash (derivative of opium) and kennabis. Note: Synth-hash replaced nicotiana leaves (beloved of the Evangelicals of Gilead for the profits reaped by tax on its use) as the smoke of choice in the late twenty-second century.

  Talent: 1. Psionic ability. 2. Magickal ability.

  Werecain: (slang: 'cain, furboy) Altered human capable of changing to a furred animal form at will. Note: There are several different subsets, including Lupercal and magewolfen. Normal humans and even psionic outsiders are generally incapable of distinguishing between different subsets of 'cain.

  Extras

  _________

  meet the author

  Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. After taking second place in a fiction-writing contest sealed her addiction to the written word, it's often been supposed that she has ink instead of blood filling her veins. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband, two small children, and a houseful of cats. Find her on the Internet at http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

  supplementary materials

  A Few Notes on Danny Valentine's World

  Hopefully, after five books I have earned enough indulgence to provide a few notes. I am at least confident that those uninterested will flip past these pages. After all, who reads these things? Besides grammar junkies like me, that is.

  I have often been asked about Danny and how she occurred to me. I've answered that question elsewhere. Another source of constant comment and query is Japhrimel and where he came from.

  To be honest, he wasn't supposed to be more than a one book character. Really, in the book I set out to write, he double-crossed Dante and left her holding the bag, infected with a demonic virus. The rest of the series he was pretty much a foil to her humanity, sort of a Mephistopheles. Then he had to go and fall in love with her, and develop wings. Which just goes to show you can't trust a demon. I realize now with twenty-twenty hindsight that Japhrimel was actually informed by the legends of the Nephilim, angels who fell in love with human women and fell (supposedly) from grace as a result, fathering huge progeny while also teaching humanity "forbidden" arts such as sorcery, city-building, and medicine. I had heard this legend for years, although my only clear memory of it is in Madeline L'Engle's Many Waters. I suppose when you study metaphysics and the occult you can hardly get away from all sorts of odd stuff. I'm only glad Japh didn't take after Cthulu or Aiwass. Or, say, old-school vampires - the type that suck your blood out through your toenails or nostrils.

  And people say mythology is boring.

  I have always been of two minds about legends and myths. One part of me looks for the psychological truth hidden inside. The other - the ravening storyteller, no doubt - likes to play the what if game, with lots of sauce. How can I invert this legend? How can I play with this story? What makes it work? How can I tinker with the engine?

  So Japhrimel dug around in a vast mass of scholarship, research, half-forgotten legends, and references from books devoured since my high school days, and came up with a coat made of whole cloth - demons instead of angels falling, and the consequences of those unions. Many Gnostic and occult traditions hold that nonhuman intelligences taught humanity "forbidden" arts against the will of a God who wanted only slaves, an act of compassion and defiance both sides paid dearly for.

  I remember calling Japh a Promethean figure once, and it amused him so much I had trouble getting any actual work out of him for weeks.

  Then I killed him, and that might have taught him a lesson if he hadn't known I would be bringing him back. Damn demon.

  So Tierce Japhrimel, like every good character, rummaged through the dustheap at the
back of my mind and came up with something wonderful, something I took as a writer takes these sorts of things - a gift not to be examined too closely in the heat of creation, for fear of the magic draining away.

  Danny's world was another fish entirely. She was very definite about what had happened historically and what was going on now in her world, and had very strong opinions about both. Some things I had often thought about what would happen if individual spiritual experience was no longer co-opted by "organized" religion, what a relatively clean hover technology would mean for transport of goods and people, what might be the likely ending point of fundamentalism in the twenty-first century - were about what I'd expected. Other things, like the fear of psions and the pop culture and day-to-day government administration of a world six hundred years in the future, were a surprise.

  Please note, dear Reader, than I am in no way implying Danny's world is a utopia, dystopia, prognostication, or social commentary. I am fully aware that any imagining of the future says more about the imaginer than the imagined, so to speak. I strove for logic and a historical tone where I could, and had fun where I couldn't. Like, with slicboards. I mean, come on. Flying skateboards? Even after Back to the Future's many reruns, flying skateboards are still cool.

  However, I like to think that I've read enough history, both for schooling and for fun, to say with some certainty that people throughout the ages are largely the same. The issues that resonate with a regular-Joe type of person in my own time are largely the same issues that would resonate with a regular-Flavius Roman, or a regular Han Chinese. We all worry about those damn kids today and food and shelter, and the approbation of our social set; and where the world is going. We survive, and when we have room left over from survival we create, and we raise our kids and laugh and cry and grieve.

  Not too long ago I was in a pediatrician's waiting room. There was a Ukrainian family (at least, I think they were Ukrainian) and a Hispanic family, each chattering away in their respective languages, the kids either playing or sticking close to Mum or Dad or Grandma if they were feeling poorly. I remember a glance of total accord exchanged between two mothers from different continents - a glance I had no trouble deciphering - when one child ran around in a circle making an airplane noise. The slight smile, lifted eyebrows, and rueful love in the expression was universal.

  It is that moment I think of when I say the word "history." Often we forget, when studying other cultures or even our own, that people are pretty much the same the world over, with the same basic needs for food, shelter, love, and art. The diversity of cultures does not detract from that one glance shared between mothers - a glance no mommy, from the earliest furry human to whatever cyberpunk age comes next, would ever have trouble translating.

  But I digress. Hey, it's an appendix. I suppose I'm allowed.

  Danny's world probably says more about me and my own position as a reasonably literate middle-class citizen of America at the turn of the twenty-first century than it does about whatever future will be slouching along toward infinity six hundred years from now. The influences feeding into the world of psions and the Hegemony are many and varied-from a long list of music I've listened to, like Rob Dougan, the Cure, the Eagles, and Beethoven; movies like Blade Runner and Brazil, not to mention The Matrix and Life of Brian, and Kill Bill where Danny got her katana; books like From the Ashes of Angels and The Devil in Love, not to mention The Club Dumas and LJ Smith's The Forbidden Game series; and the history books that are my touchstone and, to some degree, Dante's as well. Her love of the classics springs from my own unrepentant and unabashed love for the same works, books that survive because they touch something deep in the soul. Livy and Shakespeare and Milton and Dumas and Gibbon and Sophocles and ...

  You realize I couldn't begin to list all the different influences that shaped Danny's world, any more than I could list every influence that shapes my own. Still, I am conscious of them, an underground river feeding whatever well I dredge up stories from. I am neverendingly grateful that I live in an age and a cultural-social position where I have access to a truly stunning array of human knowledge and the leisure time (however harried by deadlines and children and cats) to sample this great buffet largely at my own discretion. I am even more grateful that I am in a position to do the thing I love and was made for, telling stories.

  Danny and Japhrimel's story is finished now. I don't know if I'll ever go back to their world. I don't know if I told their story the best way possible, but I told it as best as I know how. I enjoyed every goddamn minute of it. (Even revisions.) I am glad I did it.

  Even if Japhrimel pulled a doublecross on me, and even if Dante is a difficult and unlikeable person sometimes, and even if I imagined a world that says more about me and my time than it ever will about the future. I had a Hell of a time.

  I can't wait to do it again.

  When I do, dear Reader, you're invited to come along. The story is in the sharing, after all. It would be right bloody useless if it wasn't.

  The only thing that remains to be said is, thank you for reading. I hope you had a good time.

  And flying skateboards are still cool.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed To Hell and Back look out for

  Night Shift

  Book 1 of the Jill Kismet series by Lilith Saintcraw

  Every city has people like us, those who go after things the cops can't catch. We handle nonstandard exorcisms, Traders, hellbreed, rogue Weres, silvers, Middle Way adepts ... all the fun the nightside can come up with. Normally a hunter's job is just to act as a liaison between the paranormal community and the regular police, make sure everything stays within control.

  But sometimes - often enough - it's our job to find people that have been taken by the things that go bump in the night. When I say "find" I mean their bodies, because humans don't live too long on the nightside unless they're hunters. More often than not, our mission is vengeance, to restore the unsteady balance between the denizens of the dark and regular oblivious people.

  And also, more often than not, we lay someone's soul to rest if killing them is just the beginning.

  We work pretty closely with the regular police, mostly because freelance hunters don't last long enough to have a career. Even the FBI has its Martindale Squad, hunters and Weres working on nightside fun and games at the national level. It's whispered that the CIA and NSA have their own divisions of hunters, too, but I don't know about that.

  For a hunter like me, the support given by the regular cops and the DA's office is critical. It is, after all, law enforcement we're doing. Even if it is a little unconventional.

  Okay. A lot unconventional.

  The baby I unloaded at Sisters of Mercy downtown, the granite Jesus on the roof still glaring at the financial district. They would find out who it belonged to, if at all possible. Avery came down to take possession of the prisoner, who was moaning with fear and had pissed his already none-too-clean pants.

  I must have been wearing my mad face.

  "Jesus Christ. Don't you ever sleep?" Avery's handsome mournful beagle's face under its mop of dark curly hair was sleepy and uninterested until he peered through the porthole in the door. He brightened a little, his breath making a brief mist spring up on the reinforced glass.

  "I try not to sleep. It disturbs the circles I'm growing under my eyes. This one just brushed with an arkeus, didn't get much." I leaned against the wall in the institutional hallway, listening to the sound of the man's hoarse weeping on the other side of the steel observation door. Sisters of Mercy is an old Catholic hospital, and like most old Catholic hospitals it has a room even the most terrifying nun won't enter.

  A hunter's room. Or more precisely, a room for the holding of people needing an exorcism until a hunter or a regular exorcist can get to them.

  "A standard half-rip, then. Not even worth getting out of bed for." Avery stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking up on his toes again to peer in the thick barred window. I'd kept the Trader c
uffed and dumped him in the middle of a consecrated circle scored into the crumbling concrete floor. The etheric energy running through the deep carved lines sparked, responding to the taint of hellbreed on the man's aura.

  "He was about to hand a baby over to a hellbreed. Don't be too gentle." I peeled myself upright, the silver charms tinkling in my hair. "I've got to get over to the precinct house. Montaigne just buzzed me. Maybe I'll bring in another one for you tonight."

  Avery made a face, still peering in at the Trader. "Jesus. A baby? And shouldn't you be going home? This is the fourth one you've brought in this week."

  I snorted, my fingers checking each knifehilt. "Home? What's that? Duty calls."

  "You gonna come out for a beer with me on Saturday?" You bet. I'd rescheduled twice with him so far, each time because of a Trader. "If I'm not hanging out on a rooftop waiting for a fucking arkeus to show up, I'll be there."

  He came back down onto his heels, twitching his corduroy jacket a little to get it to hang straight over the bulge of his police-issue sidearm. "You should really slack off a bit, Kiss. You're beginning to look a little. . ."

  Yeah. Slack off. Sure. "Be careful." I turned on my heel. "See you Saturday."

  "I mean it, Kismet. You should get some rest."

  If I took a pina colada by the pool, God knows what would boil up on the streets. "When the hellbreed slow down, so will I. Bye, Ave."

  He mumbled a goodbye, then bent to dig into the little black bag sitting by his feet. He was the official police exorcist, handling most of the Traders I brought in unless there was something really unusual about them. He only really seemed to come alive during a difficult exorcism, the rest of the time moving sleepily through the world with a slow smile that got him a great deal of female attention. Despite the smile, not a lot of women stayed.