"You been played like a fuckin' holoboard." Lucas didn't sugarcoat the pill. "What would you say if'n I told you we had Massadie in the next room?"
I swallowed. My voice was as raspy as his now-I was sounding less and less human all the time, even to myself. "I'd say I'd love to talk to him. Who the hell's the furboy? I haven't had a good time with 'cain lately."
"You've been hanging out with the wrong type," the 'caln said pleasantly, with only the tinge of a growl beneath his wards. His fur shirt rippled, and the classic lines of his face changed, becoming more austere. His chin jutted a little further now too, and his teeth shone white and sharp. "You're Danny Valentine. I'm Asa Tanner, Head of the Tanner Family. Nice to meet you."
My sword leapt partially free of the sheath. Lucas was suddenly next to me, grabbing my hand, his breath hot and sour on my cheek. "Fuckdammittall, listen!" he snarled in my ear.
'I'm listening," I said calmly enough, ignoring the way my knuckles stood out white against the hilt and my entire body tensed against Lucas's hold. He was strong, in a wiry way, I didn't precisely strain against him but both of us were breathing hard by the time he felt safe enough to relax a little. This was the closest I'd ever been to him, his hip pressed against mine and his foot between mine, his hand locking my sword arm down and away.
I was surprised by a flare of relief. It was Lucas, dammit, and I was scared of him-wasn't I?
He used to scare me more than anything. Now, the strength in his skinny hands and his body pressed against mine was pleasant. Here was someone I wouldn't have to hold back with, wouldn't have to be so goddamn careful not to hurt.
It's Lucas, goddammit! Stop it! He scares you! You're human!
But I wasn't, was I. Not completely. Not anymore.
Asa Tanner made a low coughing sound. It was suspiciously close to amusement. "I didn't kill Thornton or Spacarelli."
"Liar." I strained forward, Lucas pressed against me as if we were lovers, twisting my right wrist until it felt almost bruised. I finally subsided, pushing away the flush rising to my cheeks. Hedaira don't blush, I thought. Then,It's Lucas, Anubis et'her ka, it's Lucas, I don't have to hold back.
But I did. It cost me, but I did.
Asa Tanner shrugged, a marvel of coordinated fluidity. Forget my sudden acceptance of Lucas, I had a better question.
What is a werecain doing as head of a Mob Family? "What's a 'cain doing as head of a Family?"
"You think humans are the only ones who should make a little profit?" His laugh resembled a pained bark. His eyes glowed, not like a Nichtvren's but with an animal heat, like old-fashioned gas flame. "Just like a skin. You're all the same."
"You didn't show up," Lucas hissed in my ear, his dry stasis-cabinet breath brushing my cheek and sending a shiver down my spine. "Sloppy, Valentine."
"I was chased by four fucking police cruisers and…" I trailed off, staring at Tanner. Hold on.Hold everything. "So what percentage of your Family is human, furboy?"
His upper lip lifted in a snarl. "Only about thirty. Those that can keep up. We're a mongrel bunch."
But they were all human. The shock troops I'd thought were Mob were all human, every stinking one, and carrying very expensive gear as well as being legally augmented. I'd assumed the Tanner Family, as the dominant cartel around here, could afford that type of gear; but it hadn't made sense for them to be only legally augmented, especially when they were chasing a half-demon. They should have been spliced and loaded to within an inch of their motherfucking lives.
It also made no sense for a Mob Family with a 'cain at its head to be cooperating with the police for anything. As dim a view as most psions take of the cops, a werecain's view is even dimmer. Back before theParapsychic Act, some police forces had special, secret cadres to hunt 'cain. That's why werecain only work as freelancers when it comes to paranormal-species bounties; they don't cooperate with Hegemony police like kobolding or dracolt do.
It's whispered that some police stations still have hunting cadres, secret fraternities fighting a war against the furred and fanged of the Hegemony citizenry. Not to mention the feathered, winged, and clawed. I didn't know if it was true… but the rumor was enough.
So the shock troops weren't Tanner Family goons. But they hadn't been police troops either, had they? No badges, no insignia.
And there had been no psions among them, if they'd been Saint City PD or Hegemony marshals they'd have had psionic support teams.
Gods above, Danny, you nearly killed the wrong people. I shoved that thought down. I would examine it properly later. Later, later, later. There was a lot I was going to figure out later. If I made it to a later.
But for right now… maybe, just maybe, the Tanner Family wasn't the enemy.
"Fuck me." I was too tired, too hungry, and too goddamn confused. My left arm hurt, from the mark on my shoulder all the way down to the fingertips. "Okay. Let go of me, Lucas." I shook him off. "I'm halfway convinced." To prove it, I sheathed my sword.
Silence rattled through the room. The fire popped. "You run Chill," I said finally, staring at Asa Tanner. My tone wasn't conciliatory at all, but at least I didn't want to kill him.
Yet.
Another elegant shrug, his furry shirt rippling. He could shift in less than a second and launch himself at me. I was faintly surprised I wasn't more frightened.
Danny, you're not thinking straight. You've got to get some rest, you're going to have a psych meltdown soon if you don't give yourself some slack.
But Asa Tanner was speaking. "It's going to soak the streets anyway. I make sure the distributors don't cut it with anything." He said it like it mattered if the poison was uncut when it hit the streets.
"How very generous of you." Contempt edged my tone.
His chin lifted half a millimeter, defiant. He was tense, his weight balanced between both feet; if he came for me I wondered if I could take him.
A shudder worked its way through me. I'd faced down a hellhound.
Again.
And lived, again.
I almost killed the wrong people. "There was a werecain. Said he was working for the Mob… " I wet my lips nervously. His eyes settled on my mouth, and his smile broadened. It was a show of dominance, I realized, exposing his teeth. He was one angry werecain. The reek of 'cain vanished as my nasal receptors shut down-a stunning relief.
"I wouldn't have sent a single 'cain to eye you, Valentine. I'd've sent a full pack with a Moontalker to bring you in." He folded his arms across his broad, hair-covered chest. "Not every fucking 'cain in the city answers to me. Though they should."
Oh, I'll bet you've tried. "Okay." I tore my eyes away from him, looked at Lucas. A fine thin sheen of sweat made his pale forehead glisten, strands of his lank hair sticking to pasty skin. "What the fuck is going on?"
"Question Massadie," Lucas answered grimly. He looked relieved, and for a moment I wondered about that. Lucas Villalobos wasn't scared of me, was he? "Then you can tell me what you think."
Jovan Tadeo Massadie sat in the room's single chair, staring out the window at the ripples of water on the bay. Rain lashed against the wall and the bulletproof plasglass. He was pale, and genespliced to within an inch of his life. No normal human could look that exquisitely buffed, every surface almost poreless, his face remodeled not along the lines of holovid beauty but with a strong jawed aquiline perfection seen only in classical marbles. He wore a rumpled gray linen suit, and his pale hair was sleek and shining, a little long for a corporate clone. Almond-shaped hazel eyes completed the picture, cat's eyes in a statue's face. The eyes were an artist's choice, maybe.
He didn't glance at the door as I stepped into the room. Instead, he sat, for all the world as if he was meditating. Far off thunder muttered over the city.
Silence crackled. This room was painted white too. I got the feeling this mansion was more of a stage set than a Family nerve center. Asa Tanner looked like he'd be more at home in a Tank bordello; I wondered where he really slept. Probably in
a heap of other furry dozing beasts, 'cain are pack animals.
I wondered what it was like to have a pack, to be sure of absolute loyalty from those who shared your blood and fur. Every single person whose loyalty I never doubted was dead: Lewis, Doreen, Gabe, Eddie. Jace I'd mistrusted, but he'd proved to be just as loyal as Gabe in his own way.
Japhrimel? Loyal to me in his own way, too. And not dead yet. But still.
I folded my arms, my clothing shifting and rustling. I was just glad it covered the decency bits-if this kept up I would soon be dressed in nothing but bloody rags like a zombi in the old Father Egyptos holovid.
Massadie still said nothing. He probably wanted me to sweat a little-pure corpclone strategy.
He was practicing hard-line corp psych crap on the wrong person.
My thumb caressed the katana's guard. I'd let out a little of the fury boiling under my breastbone, but there was plenty more. I could easily-oh, so easily-slip the blade free of the sheath. Press it against his throat, watch a bright line of blood well against pale human skin, hear a corporate monster begging for his life.
It would feel good to kill him. It would be wonderful to smell his fear, even if he's only human.
I realized I was smiling. The smile cracked on my face, made a thin rill of fiery Power scream through the air, touching each wall and tearing along every surface. My thumb pressed against the guard.
Such a small movement would click it free.
Massadie bolted to his feet, his almond-shaped eyes wide as he scrambled, overturning the chair. He stared at me, blinking furiously, and I now saw he had been crying. Tear-tracks glittered on his planed cheeks, his mouth trembled but firmed as he faced me, drawing up his shoulders as if preparing for a fight.
The fury leaked away. Mostly. It settled back into a granite egg of coldness in my chest. I shoved my sword into the loop on my belt, shook my hands out, and looked at him.
"You're her." His voice was a pleasant baritone, now a little squeaky with fear. "Valentine."
I nodded. Found I was capable of speaking. "That's what they call me." It was a flip answer, but better than what I wanted to say. "You have-" I checked my datband, a little bit of theater to drive the point home. "Exactly two standard minutes to convince me not to kill you. Start talking."
"Eddie's dead. I suspect his wife's dead too, or you wouldn't be here." His throat worked as he swallowed dryly. "I know who killed him, and I can guess who killed her."
I folded my arms, sank my fingernails with their chipped black polish into my arms. Japhrimel's mark was warm, pulsing Power down my skin. What if he'd escaped, if he was tracking me? What if he came into the room and found me facing down this human? What would he do?
What would I do? "I'm waiting," I reminded him, my voice full of sharp edges. I saw him wince and took another look at him.
Anubis et'her ka. He's a psion.
Not enough for schooling or accreditation, but he had a little shine to his aura, and the clear edges of his personal Power field told me he meditated regularly. Whatever small psionic potential he had, he took good care of it. "That's why Eddie would work with you," I realized out loud. "You're a psion."
"A little bit. Four point three on the Revised Matheson, not even worth teaching."
I nodded. He'd just missed being taken into the Hegemony schools for training; a five on the scale gets you into the program. It wasn't quite legal to think maybe he'd been lucky. "Must be a real asset when dealing with us freakheads." My tone was still sharp and cool. I didn't sound human at all.
His cheeks flushed; a faint blush high on the arc of the bones just like a girl. "Not really."
I guess not. Normals might not trust you if they knew, and we don't trust you either since you're not trained. You're not in either world, are you?
The chilling thought that I wasn't in either world too-not a demon, not truly human, in-between, stuck-made the last few flickering vestiges of killing rage die back. They went hard, tearing at my throat and eyes, but finally left only a black aching hole in my chest. I leaned against the door and met his eyes, the tattoo on my cheek burning.
"Dante Valentine." He lingered over my last name. "Named for a saint whose day became a celebration of fertility and romantic love. Born in a Hegemony hospital, father unknown, mother's name erased under the Falrile Privacy Act. Rated thirty-eight on the Revised Matheson scale, attended primary schooling at Rigger Hall. Attended the Amadeus Academy, graduated with honors and went straight into apparitions. Made your reputation while still in school by raising Saint Crowley the Magi from dust. Also made another type of reputation when you entered the mercenary field under the direction of a Mob Shaman turned freelancer-"
"Stop it." If he said Jace's name I was going to draw my sword. Not because I was angry, but because I didn't think I could stand to hear this polished little god of a man use his mouth on Jason Monroe's name. "Stop."
He stared at me. We were even, I suppose. Maybe he wanted to kill me too, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing and burning with something too complex to be hatred and too frightened to be loathing.
"I've done my research," he said. "Eddie mentioned your name when things started to get too deep. Then I found myself with a mystery in front of me, a dead fucking Skinlin, and my name on a hit list."
I folded my arms again, dug my fingernails in. "Eddie found a cure for Chill. And the shock troops chasing me with the cops were corporate crack-squadders." I drew in a slow, soft breath, my hands squeezing. Warm blood trickled down my arms, dropped off my elbows, and plinked on the floor. "Pico-Phize troops."
"No." He shook his head. His eyes locked with mine, maybe pleading with me to believe him. "Probably Herborne Corp. They work with alkaloids, they're one of our biggest competitors in the painblocker field. We were infiltrated. I believe it was routine corporate espionage, but one of the agents happened to… find out. But there's something else. The Pico lab security was taken out by a focused EMP pulse-"
"So was Gabe," I said, but he overrode me, shouting because my voice had risen too. The room groaned under the rough lash of Power in my tone, but his next words cut through mine.
"It was Saint City Police Department tech!" he yelled, and I slumped back against the door. I don't think I've ever been reduced to speechlessness from rage so quickly before.
Say what? I replayed mental footage, decided that he had said what I thought I'd heard. Saint City Police Department tech. What the fucking hell?
Massadie knew he had my attention now. "There is a fuck of a lot of Chill money that goes to the cops, Miss Valentine." His tone was soft, reasonable, and utterly truthful. "Not just from routine payoffs but in other ways. Herborne found out what we had and leveraged every contact it had inside the police force, I'd guess. They're scrambling to keep this quiet. You're creating a lot of trouble for them, and they need to shut you up just like they needed to shut Eddie's wife up. She made it goddamn hard for them, yapping at the heels of the IA division about where the Skinlin was getting all the trouble from. It wasn't the first time they tried to kill him."
Not the first time? Oh, Gabe. Eddie. Gods forgive me. "How many?" I whispered. "How many times?"
"Six or seven." He shrugged. "He said it was no big deal. Then I came home to find my house tossed-"
"All fun and games until you get your own fucking hands dirty, right?" The contempt in my tone could have drawn blood. The picture-window shivered, and thunder tore the clouds overhead like wet paper. Six or seven times and Gabe didn't call me? The knowledge hit home. She hadn't thought I would show up. She'd known Japhrimel was alive, had she thought I wasn't interested in my human friends anymore?
What had I done? I would have dropped everything and come running for her marriage, for the birth of their daughter, for the first attempt on Eddie's life. Hadn't she known that?
Had she? Or had she not been sure I would show up, even when she sent me the datpilot message? Had she held off contacting me because she wasn't sure? How could she
have doubted me? Was I her last hope, because she wasn't sure I'd respond?
How could she have doubted even for a moment?
I lied to her about Japhrimel. She probably felt betrayed. Guilt crawled into my stomach. I tasted bile.
"That same night, Eddie's wife was attacked. She had the kid with her. It was them getting attacked that did it, Valentine. Eddie told me they were safe, but…"
"Did Eddie tell you where?" Tension spilled down my back, brought me back to myself. "Where he'd put the kid?"
"He said you'd know. She's safe." He blinked at me. "You mean you-"
You mean you didn't know? I fthere was one phrase I was beginning to hate, that was it. This time, however, I just wanted to be sure this greasy genespliced son of a bitch didn't know where Gabe's daughter was. "Who?" I interrupted. "Who is it?"
Who betrayed them?
He folded his arms in a copy of my pose. He was sweating, his crumpled suit beginning to wilt. "Are you going to kill me, Valentine? Where's the cure?"
"In a safe place." Three vials held by a demon in hock and the recipe and the murder file with Jado. A very nasty thought hit me after I finished the sentence-I'd given one vial to Horman.
I'd been so sure he could be trusted. But right after that four police cruisers had descended on me. And one vial was gone-maybe stolen by whoever Gabe had trusted, whoever had gone in her house and searched it as she lay bleeding and dying in her own backyard, stunned with a focused EMP pulse maybe triggered by a member of her own police force.
Sekhmet sa'es, I'm even suspecting Horman. He wouldn't be mixed up in this; he doesn't play like that. But the suspicion had taken root, and bloomed in my chest with a feeling uncomfortably close to panic.
I was well on my way to being paranoid. Rain slapped the window with rattling spatters of ice. Blood dripped off my elbows, I felt the blades of my claws slide out of my flesh. My eyes dropped to Massadie's chest. "Who?" My voice had dropped a whole octave, it worked its way free of my throat and I tasted the copper fruit-spice of demon blood.I am not in the mood to fuck around. Don't push me. For the love of every god there ever was, don't push me, you fucking little pile of corporate shit.
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