Saint City Sinners dv-4

by Lilith Saintcrow

  See what? "See what?"

  Was she blushing? She appeared to be blushing. "The… ah, the mark. If it's not in a sensitive… place."

  Huh? I reached up with my right hand, pulled the neckline of my shirt out of alignment, popping a button so she could see a slice of the twisting fluid scars that made Japhrimel's mark in the hollow of my left shoulder. "It hurts sometimes." I let go of my shirt. So having the mark is something that's supposed to happen. But I got it from Lucifer when he made Japh my familiar. On the other hand, it's the only scar that stayed after Japh changed me. And it seems to be a link between us. I wonder, does the link go both ways? He said he could use it to track me, to find me, and I can see through his eyes if I touch it. That qualifies as both ways. "What can you tell me about hedaira? And A'nankhimel?"

  Another flinch, as if I'd pinched her. "I only have one book that mentions this," she said. "I got it out when Villalobos asked me. Shaunley's Habits of the Circles of Hell, Morrigwen's translation. The relevant passages are on pages 15Cr16o." She sounded like she was reciting for an Academy thesis defense, her gray eyes suddenly soft and inward-looking. A Magi-trained memory is a well-trained memory; she could probably see the page in front of her right now. "I remember it because it's so utterly unlike anything else I've ever read."

  I nodded and folded my arms, the sword in my left hand bumping against my ribs. Any time now, lady. I don't have all fucking night.

  But if I hurried her along, I might miss a critical piece of information. I couldn't see Abra until tomorrow now, so I supposed I did have all fucking night. Impatience rose hot as bile in my throat, I swallowed it. My hair brushed my shoulders, I could almost feel the tangles breeding. Since the hover incident I hadn't bothered fastening it back. "Shaunley says he came across old texts that assert the relationship between demons and human women goes back to pre-Sumerian days, back in the times when demons were seriously worshipped as gods. Of course, they were worshipped as late as the Age of Enlightenment, off and on, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, priestesses in the temples-and other women-were sometimes chosen. The term Shaunley used is fleshwife, but he also used a very old Graeco term for courtesan; I t's close to a word that means more like companion or beloved I n the demon tongue. Apparently there were quite a few of the Greater Flight who bound themselves to mortal women, granting a piece of their power and receiving something in return-nobody knows quite what." She leaned back against her altar, probably taking solace in the nearness of her god. Her hand rested on the butt of the 9 mm, the cuff of her sleeve falling gracefully down; I wondered where her other weapons were. She wasn't carrying steel.

  I made a restless movement, stilled myself. What did Japh get from this? He said my world is his in exchange for Hell, but… I waited. This was confirming several guesses I'd made, but I needed more.

  "They were wiped out in a catastrophe that took plenty of humans with them," she finished heavily. "There haven't been any more."

  Except me. Wonderful. I took a firm hold my temper. The silk drapes fluttered as Power pulsed, out from the mark again. "So the hedaira I s what, half-demon? A quarter?" Give me something I don't know, anything, come on!

  "It's not that simple." She inhaled. "As close as I can figure, the demon and the fleshwife are literally one being. Whenever they're written about, it's in the singular, as if each pair is one person. The demon survives in our physical world through the fleshwife."

  While you live, I live. Japh's voice echoed in the bottom of my head, smooth and fiery like old dark whiskey. "So what happens if the fleshwife dies?" It was the one question I never expected to be able to answer.

  Carlyle brightened. She was into the explanation now, like a yuppie bursting to tell someone about a new techtoy. Her eyes actually sparkled. "If the fleshwife dies, the Fallen demon is sentenced to a slow fall into a mortal death, since she's his link to our world. That's straight from an inscription, Shaunley actually made a rubbing of the original. The demon seems to be a lot harder to kill, you hear of them almost dying and they're fine again on the next page."

  Comprehension swirled through me. I knew I could resurrect Japh, I'd done it once before, hadn't I?

  What if he couldn't resurrect me? It had never occurred to me to put things in that light. Even a Necromance doesn't like to contemplate her own messy, imminent demise, especially when trying to stay one hop ahead of the Devil. I'd never thought of what might happen to Japh without me.

  It certainly put a different complexion on things. "Oh, boy." My mouth went dry and I dropped my arms to my sides. The candleflames flickered, drenching Ganej's supple curves in light. "Whoa."

  She shrugged. "That's all I know. I'm sorry."

  It confirmed a few pleasant and unpleasant guesses, and with my grounding in magickal theory I could make a few more assumptions. Good enough, and not a bad bargain for her or for me. "What about these disturbing rumors? And the imps?" I braced myself for the worst.

  She didn't disappoint me. "There's a war going on in Hell, Necromance. Someone's rebelled against the hierarchy of demons, and there's chaos. Four Magi in the last two weeks-dead when they summoned an imp and got something else entirely. There are things riding the air, and demonic activity we haven't seen on earth since the Awakening. They're looking for something, I don't know what."

  Chills crawled up my spine. I stared at her, hoping I didn't look like an idiot, my mouth gaped open like a fish's.

  Looking for a treasure and a Key. Japh took me to visit the Anhelikos, who had the treasure, but who had sent it, probably along a prearranged route. So there's something demonic bouncing around in the world, and a key to it, and all Hell will probably break loose when someone gets their hands on it. Lucifer? Or the rebellion?

  The logical extension to that line of thinking unreeled inside my skull. Or me?

  A thin finger of ice traced up my spine, remembering the Anhelikos and its wide white wings, the smell of clotted sweetness and feathers, and a predatory face once its beautiful mask slipped. If Japhrimel hadn't been there… but he had, and he'd treated the thing like it was no big deal.

  Quit it. Be logical, Danny. Eve is the rebellion, isn't she? But maybe she's not all the rebellion. They're testing Lucifer because Santino got away, and nobody knows Japhrimel was acting under orders and setting Santino free.

  My head began to hurt with complex plot and counterplot. No wonder Japhrimel hadn't told me any of this. I'd visited the Anhelikos with him and Eve afterward; if Japh thought Eve was after this treasure he probably wasn't sure what I'd told her-or what I was likely to tell her.

  I had to admit, if she'd caused a war in Hell and was making this amount of trouble for Lucifer, I was feeling more fucking charitable toward her all the time.

  I didn't give a good goddamn about most of it. The only thing I was worried about right now was getting to Abra's and starting to track down Gabe's killer. "Okay. Anything else you can tell me before I get Lucas out of your hair?"

  Carlyle sagged against the altar. "You mean it?" Her dark eyes were wide and haunted. "This cancels my debt?"

  I don't know what he did for you, sunshine, but if I was you I'd be happy to still be alive. I forced myself to shrug, my rig creaking slightly as good supple leather sometimes did. "That's between you and Lucas. He's reasonable."

  "Far more reasonable than the alternative." She tipped her head back. The perfume of her fear was stronger, taunting me, she was giving out pheromones like a sexwitch. "You… are you staying in Saint City?"

  I nodded. "I have some business to sort out." Someone to kill. And Gabe's daughter to find, wherever she is. "In a safe place." I wonder. "Why?"

  "If you want to come back." She swallowed, and I wasn't sure I liked the gleam in her rainy eyes. "I'll trade, for information. About demons."

  I had a sudden, nasty mental image of bringing Japhrimel here, quickly shoved it away. "I don't think you'd like that," I hedged. "They're worse than Lucas, Carlyle. Much worse." You should know th
at. A chill, unhappy thought surfaced. What if she smells like that because she's a demon-dealing Magi? Polyamour smelled good because she's a sexwitch, what if this Magi smells good because she's been dealing with demons and I'm somehow picking up on it?

  "I've called imps." Her eyes were definitely bright and moist. Her mouth pulled down in a grimace, the smell of kyphii tanged with the deeper brunette scent of adrenaline-laced fear. "Properly constrained in a circle, they-" Sekhmet sa'es, you have no goddamn idea, woman. "No." My right hand curled around my swordhilt. I'd taken on an imp once and gotten poisoned claws through my chest; the only reason I was still alive was because, of all things, reactive paint had turned the Low Flight demon into a bubbling greasy streak. The memory of a soft maggot-white babyface snarling as the imp came for me in the rocketing flexible tube of a hovertrain made the sensation of gooseflesh rise under my golden skin, hot and prickling. "Forget it, Magi. Just forget it." Curtains moved slightly at the closed window, and I stilled, glancing at them. I hadn't done that. The Gauntlet turned cold on my wrist, a tugging sliding against the surface of my skin.

  What the hell? What was the damn demon-thing doing now? It had warned me of attacks before, but it had never done this.

  I shook the sensation away and eyed the Magi, whose cheeks had gone back to that alarming pale shade. Her hands shook. Wait a second.

  «Lucas!» My tone was sharp, and my hand curled around my swordhilt. Three inches of steel leaped free, and I had to clamp down on my control not to draw the rest of the way.

  "You bellowed?" he said from the door, and the look he gave the trembling Magi could only be described as predatory.

  I squeezed down the temptation to voice my sudden certainty that Carlyle might be having other visitors soon, visitors who would be very interested in us. It was a faint mercy, at best.

  But no matter what side of the demon's field she was playing, she was scared to death of Villalobos, and I remembered that feeling so well I had no desire to put her through any more of it. I wondered bleakly if she was a Hellesvront agent, or if Japhrimel was looking for me and it was just easier to find me when I hung around a demon-dealing Magi.

  The Gauntlet chilled again, a hard frost clamped to my wrist. The feeling was like icy water closing over my head. I surfaced, blinking, and the premonition passed me by again.

  Dammit. I hate it when a precog just won't land.

  The other possibility, of course, was that it was another demon looking for me, or this Magi was working for someone other than Japhrimel. Since Japh was off doing gods-only-knew-what.

  Still, when she looked at Lucas I was reminded of being human, of feeling that gut-clenching fear I couldn't even admit to myself now.

  Be human, Danny. Prove you're still capable of it.

  "Time to go," I said shortly. "Her debt's canceled. Come on."

  Chapter 14

  I spent the daylight hours pacing the inside of a cheap Cherry Street hotel room, wishing I could get out and do something productive, shoving away the mental image of Gabe's body, the bite of frustration sharp and smelling of gun oil as I ground my teeth. Leander slept, Lucas settled in a chair by the window and contented himself with oiling and cleaning his projectile guns before falling into a healthy doze. Night was the time to go see Abra; she didn't truly open up until dusk. Darkness would also give us some cover.

  There was another component to my unease: we were near the same patch of sidewalk where the man who had raised me since infancy, had been knifed dead by a Chillfreak because his old chronograph looked pawnable. I used to visit the site every year, hadn't since the hunt for Mirovitch. I wondered about going back, maybe buying some flowers. Wondered if I would be alive for the anniversary of his death, wondered if I could make up for the recent time spent with Japhrimel, when I hadn't brought myself to the site because of distance or just plain cowardice.

  Time had become fluid while I lived with Japh. I wasn't even sure what month it was. Only that the trees had lost their leaves but the streets weren't cold enough for dead winter yet.

  Finally, after dark, Leander led us up Ninth Street and cut over on Downs, probably meaning to work down on Fiske to Klondel. I could have told him to take Avery instead-after all, Fiske would take us right through a really ugly part of the Tank District-but I was too occupied taking note of all the other changes that had happened to my city.

  I kicked at a Plasmalt Forty bottle; it clanked against the sidewalk. Downs was deserted this time of night, since all the reputable frowning businesses patronized by normals closed about seven. At Fiske and Twentieth we would start to see some nightlife, it was the edge of the hooker-patrolled part of the District. Even though Downs was deserted I could see changes-graffiti scrawled in permaspray, magbars on some windows-that warned of the Tank spreading this way. Trivisidiro was getting better; Downs was getting worse.

  Lucas and I also had other things to talk about. "A dead Necromance and my name. Lovely." Someone had linked Gabe and me. It wasn't surprising, given how often we'd worked together.

  "Yeah, you managed to stay incognito a whole twelve hours. Now everyone knows you're back, and plenty know you look like a serious genetic remodel. Abra's is getting hot, what with people coming and asking about you." Lucas scanned the rooftops, blinked like a lizard, and massaged his left shoulder. It bothered me to see his clothes stiff with dried blood, though I couldn't have said why.

  "Who's asking about me?" When did I get so fucking popular? And do any of these people want to know about me so they could figure out if Gabe had time to talk? It felt good to consign all my problems with demons to the back of my brain. Even if the image of Gabe flung over the hemlock wouldn't go away, making a strange choking sensation rise in my throat. I pushed it down.

  "Courier messages from the Tanner Family, four or five bounty hunters. A werecain-some shaggy bastard with striped fur. A Nichtvren girl; she left you an envelope. Couple slic couriers, a Shaman who works on a clinic out on Fortieth-"

  "Sekhmet sa'es," I breathed. "Fuck."

  He gave a small, whistling laugh. There he goes again, finding me funny. When did I become so amusing? "That's not all. A corpclone from Pico-PhizePharm, too. Everyone's lookin' for you; lucky me findin' you first." Lucas's steps matched mine on the sidewalk. Ahead of us, Leander turned on Fiske Avenue. His shoulders were level under his rig. He hadn't flinched once. The streetlamps painted his hair with soft darkness, and he moved with the caution all bounty hunters acquired after a few successful but hard-fought collars.

  I like him, I decided. I'm glad he didn't skip out on me. Lucas's eyes followed mine. "Good kid," he said grudgingly. "Came and found me at Abra's. Told me the demon was slipping out while you were asleep."

  I don't know what's he's doing or where he's gone. Par for the course, just when I could have used him. "Well." My fingers ached around the katana's scabbard.

  Trust me, Japhrimel kept telling me.Do not doubt me. He'd faced down Lucifer to protect me, and now he was gone hunting Eve and leaving me behind like a piece of luggage. Just when I thought I had Japh pegged as a good guy or a bad guy, he did something to confuse me all over again.

  "Beaudry also told me Boy Black warned him to stay away from you. Seems your demon's jealous." Lucas sounded far too interested and amused for my comfort.

  I shivered. Did Japhrimel think I belonged to him? Demons were possessive, everyone knew that. Way possessive. Had I put Leander in danger just by smiling at him? Enjoying his company?

  Well, let's be honest here, Danny. You like the man; he's a bounty hunter, and he's human. Human, something Japh isn't. You like hanging around him, and Japhrimel reacted the way any jealous lover would.

  I decided a subject change would be a fantastic idea. "How are we going to get in Abra's front door without anyone noticing? If so many people are looking for me, at least one of them will figure out just to stay near Abra's until I show up." It was a dumbass question, and the sidelong look Lucas gave me showed he didn't think much of it.r />
  "Abra's spread a quiet rumor that there's bad blood; you gypped her on the payment on that hush-hush Rio bounty. Said she's going to take it out of your hide if you come near. Figured that was enough to keep most of 'em away. I'm gonna take you in the back door, Leander will waltz in the front and see if we have any eyes." Lucas coughed, spat to one side. He sounded horrible, like a man dying of slaglung.

  "Good."I didn't even know Abra had a back door. "So any more word on the demon Japh's after? Other than your Magi's, I mean." Eve. Is she here? If she is, where is she hiding? Why would she come here?

  Why would so many people-and other species-be looking for me? And bounty hunters too. Goddammit, Gabe, what's going on?

  Gabe couldn't answer, but it felt good to think of her as if she was still alive.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, felt the rage rise again. Corralled it, again, with an almost-physical effort that made my rings ring with light.

  I couldn't afford to get too angry, too soon. The trouble was, my control was wearing thin. The Gauntlet was so cold against my wrist, the metal heavy and dissatisfied. I shivered again, the feeling of a precog rising, pressing maddeningly out of reach.

  "Hope you got something worthwhile out of that bitch, that was an expensive favor I did her. All I've heard is there's a demon in town and it's dug in deep, gonna take a lot to blow its bolthole. But if anyone can, it's your sweetheart." Lucas let out another wheeze of amusement. I wondered why he always sounded so choked.

  "Don't call him that." I scanned the street again, the back of my neck prickling. "Lucas, we're being watched." Or had the sensation of being examined just stayed with me all the way from Cairo Giza?

  "Probably. You gonna give the demon a niner, Valentine? Or maybe send him a datflash breakup?"

  Maybe he thought he was being funny, but irritation rasped against my skin, along with the maddening feeling of something I'd forgotten to think about. "I'll deal with Japhrimel."

  He had the great tact not to laugh. A bloody great success you've been at that so far, Danny. My bootheels clocked against the pavement. The sense of being watched faded a little. Maybe my nerves were just raw… but just to be sure, my rings swirled and sparked again, anger turned to good use, bled off so I could think clearly. Saint City was big enough that the flux of Power would confuse my trail, but a half-decent Magi might be able to find me. After all, I was linked to a demon. "Lucas, do you know any other Magi that could be induced to talk?"