Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Why does she have a gun out, then?” he asked.

  “You’re not exactly kind and cuddly,” I pointed out, digging my heels into the floor as the weight of Power threatened to make me sway. “Everyone just calm down, okay? Can we do that?”

  “Make him wait outside,” Abra suggested helpfully.

  “Absolutely not—” Japhrimel began.

  “Will you both stop it?” I hissed. I’d be lucky to get anything out of Abra now. “The longer you two do this, the longer we stay here, and the more uncomfortable it’ll be for all concerned. So both of you just shut up!”

  Silence returned to the shop. The smell of beef stew, desperation, and dust warred with the musky powerful fragrance of demon. Japhrimel’s eyes didn’t leave Abra’s face, but he slowly moved aside so I could see Abra without having to peek around him.

  I dug the paper scored with Santino’s name out of my bag. “I need information on this demon,” I said quietly. “And I need to know about Dacon Whitaker. And I’m sure we’ll find other things to talk about.”

  “What you paying?” Abra asked, her dark eyes losing a little bit of their crimson sparks.

  “That’s not how things stand right now. You owe me, Abra. And if you satisfy me, I’ll owe you a favor.” She more than owed me—I had brought her choice gossip last year after that Chery Family fiasco. The information of just who was stealing from the Family had been worth a pretty penny, and I was sure she’d sold it to the highest bidder—without, of course, mentioning that I’d been the one to bring her the laseprints. After that, I’d watched the fireworks as the Owens Family lost a good chunk of their holdings from an internal power struggle. It always warmed my heart to do the Mob a bad turn.

  Her dark eyes traveled over Japhrimel. “You aren’t a Magi, Danny. What are you doing hanging out with Hell’s upper crust?”

  So she recognizes him as a demon, and what kind of demon, too. That’s interesting. “Just call me socially mobile,” I said. “Look, they came and contacted me, not the other way around. I didn’t ask for this, but I’m in it up to my eyebrows and sinking fast, and in order to collect on all my balloon payments I need to be breathing, okay? And I need information to keep breathing, Abra.” My voice was pitched deliberately low, deliberately soothing. “We’ve been colleagues for a long time now, and I made you some cash during that Chery Family thing last year, and I’d really like to get some usable information. Okay?”

  She measured me for a long moment. The demon didn’t even twitch, but I felt him tense and ready beside me. My left shoulder was steadily throbbing, the mark pressed into my flesh responding to his attention.

  “Okay,” she said. “But you’d better not ever bring that thing here again.”

  He’s not a thing. I didn’t say it, didn’t even wonder why I’d thought it. I had all I could handle right in front of me. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have brought him in the first place,” I snapped, my temper wearing thin. “Come on, Abra.”

  She made a quick movement, slipping the plasrifle off the counter. The demon didn’t move—but my shoulder gave a livid flare. It had been close. Very close. “Okay,” Abra said. “Give me whatever you’ve got.”

  I laid the paper down on the counter, face-down. I gave her everything I had—Santino/Vardimal, the Egg, being dragged into Hell, Dacon’s addiction to Chill, and the job I’d just been on. That was an extra, for her—she could sell the information that Douglas Shantern had been murdered by his son. I laid the pattern out for her, and Japhrimel drew closer during the recital until his hand was on my shoulder and his long black coat brushed my jeans. Oddly enough, I didn’t mind as much as I might have.

  Abra took it all in, one dusky finger tapping her thin lips. Then she was silent for a long moment, and put her hand down, fingers stretched, over the paper I’d laid on the counter. “Okay,” she said. “So you have a tracker, and Spocarelli’ll give you a waiver and a DOC and an omni… and you need a direction, and not only that, you need contacts and gossip.”

  I nodded. “You got it.”

  “And your tame demon there is supposed to keep you alive until you kill this Santino. Then all bets are off.”

  Japhrimel tensed again.

  “That’s my personal estimation of the situation,” I said cautiously.

  Abra chuffed out a breath between her pearly teeth. It was her version of a sarcastic laugh. “Girl, you are fucked for sure.”

  “Don’t I know it? Give me what you got, Abracadabra, I’ve got work to do tonight.”

  She nodded, dark hair sliding forward over her shoulders. The gold hoops in her ears shivered. Then she flipped the paper over, regarded the twisting silvery glyph. “Ah…” she breathed, sounding surprised. “This… oh, Dante. Oh, no.”

  The color drained from her dark face. She spread her hand over the paper, not quite touching it, fingers trembling. “South,” she said in a queer breathless voice. “South, where it’s warm. He’s drawn to where it’s warm… hiding. He’s hiding… can’t tell why. A woman… no, a girl…”

  Japhrimel tensed next to me. I didn’t think it was possible for him to get any tighter strung. He moved a little closer, I could feel the heat breathing off him, wrapping around me. If he got any closer he would be molded to my side.

  “What about the Egg?” I breathed. Abra’s eyes were wide and white, irises a thin ring around her dilated pupils, splotches of hectic color high up on her now-pale cheeks.

  “Broken… dead… ash, ash on the wind…” Abra’s hand jerked, smacking down on the counter. I jumped, and Japhrimel’s fingers bit my shoulder. She didn’t get these flashes often, but when she did, they were invariably right—though usually not precise enough to be of any real help.

  I had an even more important question. “How do I kill the sonuvabitch, Abra? How do I kill Santino?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “Not by demon fire… neither man nor demon can kill him… water—” She took in a long gasping breath, her lips stretched back over strong white teeth. “Waves. Waves on the shore, ice, I see you, I see you, Dante… face-down, floating… you’re floating… floating—”

  I leaned over the counter, grabbed Abra’s shoulders, and shook her. When that didn’t work, I slapped her—not hard, just hard enough to shock her. Her eyes flew open, and Japhrimel yanked me back, hissing something low and sharp in what I guessed was his own language. Abra coughed, rackingly, grabbing on to the counter with white-knuckled fingers. She said something quiet and harsh that I didn’t quite catch, then looked me full in the eyes. “This is going to kill you, Danny,” she said, with no trace of her usual bullshit. “Do you understand me? This is going to kill you.”

  “As long as I take out the fucker that did Doreen I’ll be okay,” I grated out. “Information, Abra. Where the fuck is he?”

  “Where else?” Abra snapped back, but her chin trembled slightly. She was paler than I’d ever seen her. “Nuevo Rio di Janeiro, Danny Valentine. That’s where you’ll find your prey.”

  I scooped up the paper and shoved it in my bag. Abra stared at me, trembling, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. It was the first time I’d even seen her even remotely close to scared.

  She looked terrified.

  “What about Dacon and the Chill?” I asked. “How the hell did—”

  “Whitaker’s hand-in-fist with the Owens Family, has been for years now. He got hooked last year and started skimming from their shipments,” she replied shortly, reaching up to touch her cheek where the mark of my hand flushed red. “You hit me!”

  “You were getting boring,” I said before I thought about it. “Contacts in Nuevo Rio?”

  “I don’t have any,” she said. “But as soon as you get there, you might want to look up Jace Monroe. He moved down there a while ago. Doing work for the Corvin Family. He’s gone back to the Mob.”

  I hadn’t known that. Then again, I’d never asked Abra about Monroe, even though he’d introduced me to her. I knew he’d been Mob, and suspected he’
d gone back to the Mob—but hearing it out loud was something else entirely. I made a face. “I’d rather talk to a spasmoid weasel with a plasrifle,” I muttered. “Okay. So what about gossip?”

  Abra shrugged. “Word on the street is you’re into something big, and there’s a warning out there, too. Don’t mess around with Danny Valentine.”

  “I thought that was common knowledge.”

  “You’ve got a demon for a lapdog, Danny. Nobody wants that kind of static.” She grimaced, rubbing her cheek. “Not even me. Can you go away now?”

  I nodded, frustration curdling under my collarbones. “Thanks, Abra. I owe you one.”

  Her response was a bitter laugh. “You’re not going to live long enough for me to collect. Now get the fuck out of my shop, and don’t bring that thing back here.” Her hand twitched toward the plasrifle leaning obediently on her side of the counter. Japhrimel pulled me away, dragging me across the groaning wooden floor, my bootheels scraping. The temperature in the shop had risen at least ten degrees.

  He’s not a thing, Abra. “I’ll leave him at home to crochet next time,” my mouth responded smartly with no direction from my brain. “Thanks, Abra.”

  “If she dies, s’darok,” Jaf tossed back over his shoulder, “I will come hunting for you.”

  “Stop it. What’s wrong with you?” I tried to extract my arm from his hand, with no luck. He didn’t let go of me until we were outside the pawnshop and a good half block away. “What the hell—”

  “She predicted your death, Dante,” he said, grudgingly letting me slip my arm away from him. I felt bruises starting where his fingers had been. I dug my heels into the pavement and jerked my arm all the way free of his grasp, irritation rasping sharp under my breastbone.

  “What the hell does it matter to you?” I snapped. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth! I could have gotten twice the information out of her if you hadn’t gone all Chillfreak! You’re fucking useless!”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I certainly hope not,” he answered calmly enough. “You walk into a s’darok’s den with no protection, you court death with no conception of the consequences, and you blame me for your own foolhardiness—”

  “I blame you? You don’t even make any sense! If you had just been a little less set on ‘psychotic’ we could have gotten twice as much information from her! But no, you had to play the demon, you had to act like you know everything! You’re so arrogant, you never even—”

  “We are wasting time,” he overrode me. “I will not let you come to harm, Dante, despite all your protests. From this moment forth, I will not allow this foolishness.”

  “Allow? What’s this ‘allow’? What the bloody blue hell is wrong with you?” It wasn’t until the streetlamp in front of us popped, its glass bulb shattering and dusting the pavement below with glittering sprinkles, that I realized I was far too upset.

  I need to fucking well calm down, I thought. Too bad it looks like that’s not going to happen soon.

  He said nothing in reply, just staring at me with those laser-green eyes, his cheek twitching. The cold wind was beginning to warm up, little crackles of static electricity in the air.

  Necromances and Ceremonials both tended to affect a whispery tone after a while. We live by enforcing our Will on the world through words wedded to Power—and a Necromance shouting in anger could cause a great deal of damage. One of the dicta of Magi training ran: A Magi’s word becomes truth. And for trained Necromances, who walked between this world and the next, discipline was all the more imperative.

  I took a deep breath, tasting ozone, my shields flushing dark-blue with irritation, annoyance, and good clean anger. “Okay,” I said, struggling for an even tone. “Look, I think we can make some progress, if you just tell me what’s wrong with you. Okay? You’re making this much harder than it has to be.”

  His jaw worked silently. If he keeps that up he might grind his teeth down to nubs, I thought, and had to bite back a nervous giggle.

  I rubbed at my arm. It hurt, and so did my left shoulder. The burning, drilling pain reminded me of how quickly my life had grown incredibly fucked-up. Even for me. “I wish I’d never seen you,” I said tonelessly. “That hurt, you asshole.” I was far too angry to care about calling a demon who could eat me for breakfast an asshole.

  He reached out for my arm again, and I flinched. His hand stopped in midair, then dropped back to his side. He looked—for the first time—actually chagrined. Or as if he was hovering between chagrin and fury. I’d seen that look before, but only on Jace.

  I didn’t want to think about Jace.

  My hand shook as I massaged my new bruise. “Look,” I said finally. “I’m going to call Gabe and set up a meet so we can get our supplies. Then I’m packing for Rio and catching a morning transport out there. I can’t be taking time to educate your dumb ass on how to catch a gods-be-damned demon in my world. Stop fucking up my hunt, okay?” My emerald spat a single spark out into the night, a brief green flash making his pupils shrink. “I am going to find Santino and kill him. It’s my revenge. When I tear his spleen out through his nose, you can have your fucking Egg and go back to your fucking Prince and stay out of my life. But until then, quit fucking up my hunt! You got it?”

  He stared at me for another ten seconds, that muscle in his cheek twitching. “As you like,” he finally grated out.

  “Good,” I said. “Now follow me. And keep your goddamn motherfucking mouth shut.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I met Gabe in a noodle shop on Pole Street. I was starving, and managed to get most of a bowl of beef pho into my stomach before Gabe and Eddie drifted in the front door, Eddie silently snarling, Gabe looking cool and impenetrable in a long black police-issue synthwool coat.

  Gabe slid into the booth across from me, and Eddie lowered himself down with a single glance at the demon, who sat utterly straight next to me, staring into the distance, a teacup steaming gently in front of him. The tattered red velvet and black-and-white photographs of ancestors and movie stars hung on the walls made the entire place feel warmer than it was, and the sticky plastic of the booths made squealing sounds as they made themselves comfortable.

  The waitress brought coffee for Gabe, and Eddie ordered seafood soup. I slurped down another mouthful of noodles. Eddie smelled like dirt and violence, and Gabe had one hell of a black eye. Probably fresh, since she would have used a healcharm on it if she’d had time. I studied her for a long time before letting my eyebrows raise.

  “I got called in to do para backup on a Chill raid last night,” she said finally, tossing her dark hair back over her shoulder. “Some motherfucking dumbass Magi dealing Chill out of his nightclub. Wouldn’t you know.”

  I nodded. “Sorry about that.”

  She shrugged. Her sword was propped between her knees, and Eddie was probably carrying some hardware, too. “Not your fault, sweetie. You did the right thing.” She slid a bulky package wrapped in brown paper across the table. “An official bounty hunter’s license, two H-DOC and omni-license-to-carry, and a plug-in for the Net. A sanctioned plug-in.”

  My jaw dropped. Japhrimel’s lip twitched. He looked down at the table, one gold-skinned finger tracing a single symbol I wasn’t able to decipher over and over again on the Formica.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Someone’s put some pressure on the department. Apparently anything you need is okay. You’re a real golden girl right about now.” Gabe’s lips quirked up at the corners. “Knowing the Devil personally has some benefits, I’d guess.”

  I let out a gusty sigh and slurped some more noodles. “You want to get on my shit list, too?” I asked her. “ ’Cause the number of people on that hallowed list is growing rapidly tonight.”

  “Poor baby,” she laughed, while Eddie glared at me. “So where we going? What did Abra say?’

  “Abra said Nuevo Rio,” I said shortly. “And what’s this we?”

  Japhrimel stared out from the booth, his eyes m
oving over the entire restaurant in smooth arcs. I got the feeling that even the flies buzzing in loose spirals over the tables and the pattern of grease speckles and neon on the front window were receiving his full attention. Behind us, an old Asian man slurped loudly at his noodles, a curl of cigarette smoke rising slowly into the air. I’d been eating noodles here for six years, and no matter what time of the day or night, the old man was here, and he was always smoking. It was a dependable thing in a very undependable universe.

  “Well,” Gabe said finally, after studying the demon’s impassive face for a few moments, “Doreen was my friend, too, and it was my case. Eddie and I have talked it over, and we’re coming with you.”

  I put my chopsticks down and took a deep breath. “Gabe,” I said, as kindly as I could, “I work alone.”

  She jerked her chin at the demon. “What, he’s good enough to come along, but not me?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “You know it’s not like that.” The familiar tension began in my shoulders, drawing tighter and tighter.

  “I know you’re going to get yourself killed chasing Santino down, and you need backup. Have you read your cards lately?” Her elegant eyebrows raised.

  “My last divination session was kind of rudely interrupted,” I said dryly.

  “Come on, Danny.” She batted her long, coal-black eyelashes at me. “I’ve got some vacation time, and I want to bring this fucker down.”

  “Gabe—”

  “She says she’s going,” Eddie growled. “Means it too. Can’t dissuade her.”

  Since when does Eddie use the word “dissuade”? I thought. This is lunacy. “Since when do you use the word ‘dissuade,’ Eddie? You get yourself a Word-A-Day holovid pro? Come on, Gabe. I don’t want to have to watch out for Eddie on a hunt like this—”

  “Eddie’s got his own hunter’s license,” she pointed out, “and he’s perfectly capable. You’re grasping at straws, Danny. We’re coming.”

  I threw up my hands. “Oh, Sekhmet sa’es,” I snarled. “If you must, I suppose. Gods above and below damn this for a suicidal idea, and Anubis protect us all. What did I do to deserve this?”