Dead Man Rising

by Lilith Saintcrow

  "Jace—" This was not the conversation I wanted to have with him right now. Why does he always pick the worst goddamn time to throw his little hissy fits?

  "Maybe I'm not a demon," he said quietly, "but I used to be good enough for you once. And I've kept up my end of the bounties, haven't I?"

  He did not just say that to me. My stomach turned into a stone fist, heat rising to my cheeks. The windows bowed slightly, rattling, and I took a deep breath. If I blew my own fucking house down it would be even more fodder for the vultures outside. Instead, I pushed past him, gently enough not to hurt him, only sending him backward a few steps. My teeth buried in my lower lip, I stalked through the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs.

  Halfway up the stairs, Anubis's statue stood nine inches tall, slim and black, glowing with Power inside the altar-niche. Two unlit black novenas stood on either side; I had scattered rose petals and poured a shallow black bowl of wine for him. The wine's surface trembled as I stopped, looking into the niche.

  Set to one side, a black lacquer urn glowed. No dust lay against its slick wet surface. No dust ever touched it, and no whisper of the ashes it held ever reached me. I'd spent hours staring at it, I knew every curve of the smooth surface. I had even once or twice caught myself opening my mouth to say something to the urn. I'd drawn chalk circles and tried solitary Magi conjurings out of shadow-journals; altering the runes and circles, trying to find my key to weaken the fabric of reality and call him to me. I'd tried to use my tarot cards and runes—but the answers I got were always fuzzy, slippery, fading. Nothingness, emptiness, dissolution. My own desperate hope managed to make any information I could get from divination useless.

  My shoulder burned. But my right hand, clamped around the swordhilt, did not hurt.

  Japhrimel. I didn't say it. My lips shaped the word, that was all.

  He isn't there, Danny. Stop torturing yourself.

  But had he waited for me there before slipping into the abyss?

  Don't think about that, Danny. Sekhmet sa'es, he's gone. He's not in Death. You've seen he's not there. Stop it.

  I just couldn't help myself.

  Who would ask the questions for me if I managed to make an apparition of my dead demon lover appear? Certainly not Jace. It was too much to ask even Gabe for, and she was the only Necromance who might conceivably do such a thing for me.

  I heard Jace's short plosive curse downstairs. Was he listening? He could probably tell from any slight sound where I was in the house. That is, if he didn't simply extend his senses and See me. He could tell I was in front of the niche. I'd caught him standing here once or twice too, usually after I'd spent my days between bounties in the living room staring at the urn's smooth sides, reluctantly replacing it every time. When I wasn't feverishly researching demons, searching for any clue about the Fallen, that is. I didn't know what Jace would say to Japhrimel's ashes. I didn't even want to guess.

  Jace could certainly tell I was standing here.

  Well, Anubis is my patron, I thought, my fingers tightening. I never asked Jace to come here.

  You never sent him away either, the pitiless voice of my conscience replied. Was it me, or did it sound like Japhrimel's? Not the level, robotic voice he'd used when I first met him, no. Instead, it was the deep almost-human voice he'd used to whisper to me while I shuddered, wrapped in barbed-wire pleasure and his arms.

  I sighed. The fingers of my left hand hovered centimeters from the urn's surface. What would I feel if I touched it now, my senses raw from pulling Christabel Moorcock's screaming, insane ghost out of Death, my body loose from sparring with Jado and sweating out the chill touch of that dry country where Anubis stood, endlessly waiting for me?

  I let out a soft curse of my own and continued up the stairs. It was useless to waste time. I had to get ready. If I was going to the House of Pain, I wanted to be dressed appropriately.

  Oh, damn. I'm going to have to take the whip.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jace stood in the living room, his arms folded, the portable holovid player bathing the room in its spectral pink glow. He hit the mute button as soon as I appeared. I held the cloak over my arm, a long fall of sable velvet; I'd managed a tolerable French twist with my recalcitrant hair. The earrings brushed my cheeks as I tossed my head impatiently, making sure the long, thin stilettos holding the twist steady were not likely to fall out. It would be highly embarrassing to meet the prime paranormal Power in the city and have weapons fall out of my hair.

  Jace looked up, his mouth opening as if he would say something. Instead, he stopped, his jaw dropping further open. His pupils dilated, making his eyes seem dark instead of blue.

  "What?" I sounded annoyed. "Look, it's the House of Pain. I can't wear jeans and a T-shirt, much as I'd rather."

  "You would have before." But his mouth quirked up in a smile. I felt my own mouth curl in response.

  "I'd have never gotten an invitation before. They don't let humans in, especially not psis. Look, Jace—"

  He was suddenly all business. "Research. What d'ya want me to find?" He flicked the holovid off, bent down to touch his staff where it lay against the couch, then straightened, his back to me. "I'll bet you're thinking of someone instead of something, right?"

  I hate your habit of anticipating me, Jace. I always have. "I need you to find out everything you can about our normal." I rotated my shoulders back and then forward, making sure the rig sat easy. Before, I'd always carried my sword—no use having a blade if it's not to hand, Jado often said, but I'd need my hands for other things tonight. My rig, supple oiled black leather, complemented the black silk of the dress and the sword-hilt poked up over my right shoulder. The back-carry was buckled to my usual rig. Drawing a sword is quicker when the hilt is over one's shoulder instead of at the hip, and it keeps the scabbard from knocking into things too. It was a compromise, like everything else.

  Chunky dress-combat boots with silver buckles hid under the long skirt. I was unwilling to sacrifice any mobility to high heels; I'd already lose out because of the damn dress. The necklace was silver-dipped raccoon baculum strung on fine silver chain twined with black velvet ribbon and blood-marked bloodstones, powerful Shaman mojo. Jace had made the necklace for me during our first year together. He had poured his Power into it, using his own blood in the workings over the bloodstones, his skill and his affection for me as well as every defense a Shaman knew how to weave. I had locked it away when he left, unable to burn it as I'd burned everything else that reminded me of him; but now it seemed silly to go into the lion's den without all the protection I could muster. My rings shifted and spat, shimmering in the depths of each stone. "He's our first victim, there has to be a reason it started with him."

  "You got it." His eyes dropped below my chin. The dress had a low, square neckline with a laced-up slit going down almost to my bellybutton; my breasts offered like golden fruit thanks to the shape and cut. The slender silver curves of the baculum were a contrast against velvety golden skin. The sleeves were long, daggering to points over the backs of my hands. The effect was like Nocturnia on the paranormal-news reports, a sort of elegant old-fashioned campiness. The guns rode low on my hips, the knives hidden in both the dress and the rig, the bullwhip coiled and hanging by my side. I knew I'd be chafing by the end of the night, and probably missing my messenger bag too.

  "Did Gabe courier the files?" I tried to sound businesslike. His eyes dropped again, appreciatively, and then he let it go, straightening and scooping up his staff. The bones cracked and rattled—he wasn't quite as calm as he wanted me to think.

  For once, I let it go. Dante Valentine, restraining herself. I deserved a medal. Of course, as careful as I was being, he was too. Give him a gold star. Give him a medal too. Hell, give him a fucking parade.

  I told that snide little voice in my head to shut the fuck up.

  He nodded. "Of course. Over there." He tipped his head.

  I found them lying atop an untidy stack of ancient leat
her-bound demonology books. I would have to visit the Library again soon, make an offering in the Temple overhead and go down into the dark vaults full of ancient books. Maybe this time I would find a demonology text that would give me a vital clue about what I was.

  I flipped the first file open, took a few pictures; the second and then the third. Christabel's ruined face stared up from glossy laseprint paper, but there was a good shot of the twisted chalk glyphs. I would probably have to visit her apartment too; sooner rather than later to catch whatever traces of scent remained. If nothing broke loose, that was. "I'm going to have to take the hover," I muttered. "Gods."

  "Why don't you take a slicboard?" His tone was mischievous.

  "In this dress?" I hitched one shoulder up in a shrug.

  "Relax, baby. I ordered a hoverlimo." The grin he wore infected my own face, I felt the corners of my eyes crinkle and my lips tilt up. How could he go from irritating me to making me smile? Then again, he liked to think he knew me all the way down to my psychopomp. "No reason not to go in style."

  He sounded so easy I could have ignored the spiky, twisting darkness of his aura. Jace was furious, his anger kept barely in check. I laid the cloak down, the pictures on top of it, and for the first time crossed the room to stand next to him, silk whispering and rustling against my legs.

  His blue eyes dropped. Jace Monroe looked at the floor.

  I swallowed dryly, then reached up and laid my fingertips against his cheek. My nails, black and shiny, wet-looking as the lacquer of Japhrimel's urn, scraped slightly. The contact rilled through me. My aura enfolded him, the spice of demon magic swirling around us both.

  Why must even an apology be a battle, with you?

  Japhrimel's voice, again, stroking the deepest recesses of my mind. I had never thought it possible to be haunted by a demon. Of course, if he had truly been haunting me it might have been a relief, at least I wouldn't be torturing myself with his voice. If he was haunting me, at least I would have some proof that somewhere, somehow, he still existed.

  And was thinking of me.

  "Jace?" My voice was husky. He shivered.

  Be careful, be very careful; you don't know what it will do to him. The old voice of caution rose. Keeping him at arm's length was an old habit; I still ached to touch him even as the thought made my stomach flutter—with revulsion, or desire, or some combination of the two, in what proportion I wasn't sure.

  Oddly enough, I wanted to comfort him. He had suffered my silence and my throwing myself into bounties, playing my backup with consummate skill. He had turned into the honorable man I'd first thought he was.

  When had that happened?

  "Danny," he whispered back.

  "I…" Why did the words I'm sorry stick in my throat? "I want to know something."

  "Hm." His fingers played with his staff, bones shifting slightly but not clacking against each other. His skin was so fine, so dry… and once I looked closely I could see the beautiful arch of his cheekbone, the fine fan of his eyelashes tipped with gold. Japhrimel had studied me this intently once, as if I was a glyph he wanted to decode.

  Lovely, Danny. You're touching Jace, and all you can think of is a dead demon. "Why did you give up the Family?"

  Jace's eyes flew open, dug into mine, oceans of blue. I smelled his Power rising, twining with my own. "I don't need it, Danny," he answered softly. "What good is a whole fucking Family without you?"

  If he'd hit me in the solar plexus with a quarterstaff I might have regained my breath more quickly. My skin flushed with heat. "You…" I sounded breathless. My fingers sank into his skin, his desire rose, wrapping around me. The threads of the tapestry hung on my west wall shifted, the sound brushing against sensitive air, and for once I did not look to see what Horus and Isis, in their cloth-bound screen, would tell me.

  He tore away from me, his staff smacking once against my floor, and stalked across the room to my fieldstone altar, set against the wall between the living room and the kitchen. He'd set up his own small altar next to it, lit with novenas; set out a half-bottle of rum, a pre-Parapsychic-Act painting of Saint Barbara for his patron Chango, a dish of sticky caramel candy, and a brass bowl of dove's blood from his last devotional sacrifice. The candleflames trembled. "Even the loa can't force a woman's heart," he said quietly. "Here's your invitation." A square of thick white expensive paper, produced like a card trick, held up so I could see it over his left shoulder.

  "Jace."

  "You'd better go." His voice cut across mine. "I hear the Prime doesn't like to be kept waiting, and I had to pay to get this."

  "Jace—"

  "I'll have any dirt on your normal by tomorrow afternoon. Okay?"

  "Jason—"

  "Will you just go, Danny?"

  Irritation rasped under my breastbone. I stalked up to him, snatched the paper out of his hand, and heard the proximity-chime ring. The hoverlimo was here. Jace tapped his datband, keying it in through the house's security net. I pulled the shields apart slightly to let the big metal thing maneuver into my front yard. I took a deep breath, scooped up my cloak and the pictures, and stamped out of the living room.

  If I hadn't been part-demon, with all a demon's acuity, I would never have heard his murmur. "I had to give it up, Danny. I had to. For you."

  Oh, Jace.

  I shook my head. He was right, I was going to be late. And in Santiago City, you never wanted to be late while visiting the suckheads.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the Parapsychic Act, many paranormal species got the vote and a whole new code of laws was drawn up. Advances in medical tech meant cloned blood for the Nichtvren, enzyme treatments to help control werecainism, protection against human hunters for the swanhilds, and a whole system of classification for who and what qualified for citizen's rights. Most of the night world had come out to be registered as voters, some of them reluctantly. The Nichtvren, of course, having shepherded the Act through after decades of political maneuvering and hush money, came out first of all. In more ways than one—Nichtvren Masters were the prime paranormal Powers in any city, keeping the peace and dispensing swift justice to any werecain, kobolding, or any other nonhuman that flew above the radar and made too much trouble. The Nichtvren were courted by both Hegemony and Putchkin, and if you had to deal with the paranormal in any city, a good place to start was with the suckheads. They had their long pretty fingers in every pie.

  The House of Pain was an old haunt. Feeding place and social gathering spot at once, it had been a hub of the paranormal and parapsychic community ever since its inception; after the Awakening, it had closed to humans and started catering exclusively to other species. The Nichtvren who ruled it, the prime Power of the city, was rumored to be one mean sonofabitch.

  I wouldn't know. Humans, especially psions, aren't allowed in Nichtvren haunts unless they're registered as legitimate indentured servants or thralls. I sighed, settling back against the synthleather of the limo's back seat. Several paranormal species didn't precisely like psions, but we were marginally more acceptable than normals. Psions and Magi had been trafficking with paranormals since before the Awakening, trading their own uncertain skills for protection, knowledge, and other things.

  The population growth of humanity had eaten away at the habitat of almost every paranormal species—and even the Nichtvren had reason to fear mobs of normals with pitchforks, stakes, or guns. To the other species, humans were evil at worst, psions a necessary evil at best. They have long memories, the paranormals, and they remember being squeezed out of their habitats by humanity, or being hunted when they tried to adapt. Silence, blending in, and clannishness had kept them viable as a species; the habits held even though they hadn't had to hide for a long time.

  A psion could go her whole life without really interacting with a paranormal, even if she was a Magi or an Animone. The few humans who studied paranormal physiology and culture were given Hegemony grants and worked in the academic fields, and some anthropologists even stu
died paranormals… but those were few and far between. Despite the stories of psions being taken in by swanhilds or taught by Nichtvren, it just didn't happen that often. Paranormals were more likely to view humans as food—or a disease. Given how we'd treated nonhuman species throughout most of our history, I don't blame them one bit.

  The alley off Heller Street

  was full of milling people, most with press badges. The Nichtvren paparazzi were out big-time; the gothed-out groupies clustered with them, trying to look exceptional and maybe buy a Nichtvren's notice. A faint, listless sprinkle of rain splattered down. Full night had fallen, orange cityglow staining the sky. I saw the thick pulsing of power on the brick wall at the end of the alley, an old neon sign pulsing the word Pain in fancy script over the door. A red carpet unrolled from the door down the alley, and red velvet cords on heavy brass stands kept the crowd back. Two hulking shapes I was fairly sure were werecain instead of genespliced bouncers lumped on either side of the door.

  "Ma'am?" the driver asked, almost respectfully. His voice crackled over the intercom.

  I came back to myself with a completely uncharacteristic sigh. "I'll be out in a few hours. You'll be here?"

  "I've been contracted the entire night," the staticky voice said. "Yours until sunup, Miz Valentine. Do you want to get out now?"

  Great. I've got a comedian for a driver. I sighed again. "All right. No time like the present."

  He hopped out, then the doorhatch clicked and fwished aside. The white-jacketed driver offered me his hand, and I took it, careful to place no weight on it as I stepped out of the hoverlimo, my boots grinding slightly on wet pavement. I smelled night and human excitement, and a dash of something dry and powerful over the top—I wished again I could shut down my nose.

  Laseflashes popped. They were taking pictures. I blinked, settling the cloak on my shoulders, shaking the folds of material free. The papers, tucked in a pocket I'd thoughtfully sewn into the skirt, rustled slightly. I set my chin, nodded to the driver—a short, pimple-faced young boy squeezed into a white and black uniform with gold braid—and set off down the red carpet. Behind me, the driver's footsteps echoed, then I heard the whine of hover-cells as the limo lifted up to float in a slow pattern, joining the other hoverlimos and personal hovers already threading through the parking level above the House of Pain.