Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

If my voice had been any more brittle, it would have snapped. If I was over Jace, I was over him. Right?

  Right?

  “You were not sparring with him,” the demon pointed out. He leaned on the door, his arms folded on his chest, his eyes half-lidded. There was a faint red stain on his caramel cheeks. Dear gods, was he blushing? “You were trying to kill him.”

  “I don’t see any other way to play,” I tossed over my shoulder as I headed for the bathroom. “I’m going to clean up.”

  “As you like.” He didn’t sound too pleased.

  I stopped and looked back at him, my shaking fingers pausing on the fourth button. I didn’t do anything wrong, I repeated to myself. I simply sparred with Jace and made it clear he doesn’t affect me anymore. Now everyone knows what’s going on, it’s official, it’s all aboveboard and time-stamped. I didn’t do anything wrong. “What? Go ahead and say it.”

  Japhrimel didn’t move. He might as well have been a statue, leaning against the door. Warm electric light caressed the planes of his face, sparked in his eyes. The faint reddish stain had drained from his cheeks. “You are… trifling with his affections, and using me to do so. The game is exceedingly dangerous.”

  I examined him. “What are you really trying to tell me, Tierce Japhrimel? That Jace has some sort of feeling for me? Why did he leave, then? Huh? You answer me that.”

  “If you like, I will find out.”

  I clutched my shirt together. “I don’t want to know. If it was important, he would have sent me a message or something. I’m not interested in his excuses now.”

  “Then stop needling him. Treat him as an equal.”

  “Hey, demon, I didn’t know if you noticed, but everybody gets the short end of the stick from me.”

  “Do not use me to make a human jealous, Dante. It is very unwise of you.”

  “Sekhmet sa’es,” I hissed. “I didn’t. Don’t get your girdle in a twist.”

  “You did, Dante. I would advise you not to trifle with him, and not to trifle with me either.” He didn’t move, but the air swirled uneasily. Thunder boomed outside, muted by the bulk of the house but still enough to raise the hairs on my nape. The demon’s stain on my aura moved, drawing closer to my skin, a gentle brush against the edges of my awareness.

  “Like you care,” I said, and turned on my heel, stalking for the bathroom. “Leave it alone, hellspawn. This is a human thing.”

  He said nothing. I stamped into the bathroom and slammed the door, then started peeling off my wet clothes. “Gods damn it, “ I hissed, yanking my jeans down, kicking them into the corner. I could really hate them both, couldn’t I? I sure could. Especially the gods-be-damned demon. Because?

  I found myself staring in the mirror, wet lank dead-black seaweed hair, indeterminate dark eyes, pale face, dark rings under my eyes, my mouth pulled tight in a bitter grimace, my fingernails skritching against the counter as my hands tensed. My tattoo shifted uneasily, serpents writhing against winged staff, the emerald turning dark and glittering angrily.

  Because he’s right. I want Jace to suffer. I want him to lose his temper. I want to win, goddammit. Even if it’s a hollow victory. I want him to hurt.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, looking at my eyes. Dark circles, mouth drawn tight, Power trembling at the outer edge of my control. Deep breath, Danny. Take a deep breath and get cool with the program, okay? Chill down. Chill down.

  I’m going to die.

  “Shut up,” I whispered. “If I die, I’m taking Santino with me. I owe Doreen. And I’ve lived long enough.”

  It sounded good, but the woman in the mirror didn’t believe it. I had a mortgage. I had a life I was just beginning to piece together and go on with. I didn’t want to die.

  “How much longer would you live anyway going up against Santino, Danny?” I asked myself. “Huh?”

  Not very much longer, some deep voice replied. Just long enough to make him regret it.

  “Good,” I said. “So stop fooling around.”

  I don’t want to die.

  “I don’t have a choice. If the god takes me, He takes me.”

  I still don’t want to die.

  “Too bad,” I whispered, turning away from the mirror. I couldn’t take looking at myself any longer.

  CHAPTER 28

  El diablo Santino,” Jace said, the knife pressed against the thin Hispanic’s throat. “Okay?”

  Gabe and Eddie had the mouth of the alley and the demon stood behind me. I watched the man’s eyes flicker, white rolling around their edges. He was sweating, great drops of water sliding down his face. The reek of fear warred with the smell of demon. The alley was piled with garbage, hot and rank and wet from the afternoon’s rain. It was only slightly cooler. My hair, trapped in a braid, was twisted into a knot at my nape. I looked down at my wrist, having just scanned the man in.

  The plug-in, clear plasilica smoothed over my datband, lit up with a string of code. “He’s got a warrant, Jace,” I said quietly. “Do we haul him in?”

  The omni and the first H-DOC, slim squares of plasilica with clear Hegemony military-tech flexcircuits, I’d already plastered over my datband. I’d smoothed the second H-DOC over Japhrimel’s wrist. We were officially on a hunt now, plugged into the Hegemony police nets and immune to a few laws having to do with general murder and chaos—as long as the murder and chaos served the purpose of bringing our bounty in. The night sky was choked with clouds though the downpour had stopped, and steaming heat closed us in a bubble of damp discomfort. Now I knew what the inside of a rice cooker felt like.

  The man babbled in Portogueso, sweating, his eyes rolling. He wore a loose white cotton shirt and frayed khakis, his huaraches digging into the pavement as he tried to back through the rough earth-brick wall behind him. One of his hands hit the dumpster Jace had trapped him beside, and a hollow boom punched the air.

  Jace was shaking down his contacts, and none of them looked happy to see him. Considering he was walking around with two Necromances, I didn’t blame them. Still, Jace was savage. He was in his element here. The first contact had tried to dive out a fourth-story window onto bare concrete to get away from him.

  I was beginning to think that he had a reputation.

  Jace said something very low. The man’s eyes flicked past his shoulder, fastened on me, and he gibbered something.

  Jace went very still. He asked a couple more questions, both answered in a high whine.

  Jace laid the knifeblade against the man’s cheek. He said something very low and quick, and I caught my name—Dante Valentino— and his own name, accented strangely. Then he let the man go, tossed him onto the floor of the alley, the knife disappearing.

  As soon as he turned around, his eyes thoughtful, I knew there was trouble. “What was that?” I asked incuriously, looking down at the man moaning on the pavement. He seemed to be in an ecstasy of fear. “And are we hauling him in?”

  “No, let him go, he’s wetting his pants anyway. Come on, Danny.” Jace straightened his shoulders. “We’ve got to pow-wow.”

  Gabe and Eddie drifted in from the mouth of the alley. We left Jace’s contact scrambling against the cracking pavement and moaning to himself. “Good news,” Gabe whispered. “There’s a set of heavies coming through the neighborhood, Jace. Not sure if they’re looking for you or—”

  “They aren’t,” he said grimly. “Word is the Corvin Family’s looking to capture Danny. Alive and unharmed. Someone is putting the squeeze on the Mob down here.” Jace’s eyes didn’t move from mine. He wore dark blue, shirt and jeans, blending into the night. He dropped his hand to his swordhilt, tapped blunt fingers in a pattern I recognized. “Wonder who that could be.”

  “Santino?” I asked. Why would the Mob get involved, expecially a Mob Family I hadn’t ever tangled with? Then again, the Mob didn’t want us to go after Santino last time, because they were in the same corporate bed with him when it came to illegal augments. The memory made my lip curl. Gods above and below, how I hated t
he Mob.

  Behind me, Jace’s contact monkeyed up a splitting, rotten wooden fence and dropped down on the other side.

  “Don’t think so. I’ve got enemies too, and you came in on a public transport as Saint City police irregulars. Fun. About as stealthy as a Skinlin berserker.” He grinned, lips stretching back from his teeth in a grimace I remembered. Jace was furious.

  Why? Why would that make him furious?

  “So what do we do now?” Eddie asked. “They’re gettin’ kind of close, Monroe.”

  “Do?” Jace shrugged. “I just told Jose to spread the word that Danny Valentine’s under my personal protection. As for those clumsy fuckers moving in, we either run, or we send a message that she ain’t going to come cheap. My vote goes for the latter. It will make it easier to get information, scare some people. What do you say?”

  Eddie shrugged. “I’m up for a fight.”

  “Me, too,” Gabe chimed in. “Lucky you, Danny, you’ve got an admirer or two. Or a hundred.”

  “I can’t think of why,” I grumbled. “Look at this, I just blew into town and already people want to kill me.”

  “Not kill,” Jace corrected. “Capture. Alive and unharmed.”

  “For how much?” the demon asked suddenly.

  “Five million standard credits,” Jace replied easily.

  Silence. I looked at Gabe. Her jaw dropped. She had her hair in two braids like a demented schoolgirl. One hung forward over her slim shoulder, the other dangled in back. Her emerald glittered in the darkness. Even in a police rig and synthwool coat in the boiling heat, she looked cool, calm, and precise.

  Eddie let out a low whistle.

  “Take her back to the house,” Jace said to the demon. “Watch her. Don’t even send her to the bathroom alone.”

  “Now just wait one goddamn second,” I objected, relieved that Japhrimel made no move to obey Jace. “This is my hunt, I’m not going to be hauled around like a piece of baggage.”

  “Give us some time to clear the street and do some recon, Danny,” Jace said reasonably. But a tic in his cheek was jumping. That meant trouble. Heavy trouble. There was something Jace wasn’t telling. “It’s best. You know it’s best.”

  “This is my hunt,” I repeated in a fierce whisper. “You are not taking over. Is that clear?”

  “This serves no purpose,” the demon said. “Dante?”

  “Let’s go kick some ass,” I answered. “Don’t fuck with me on my hunt, Jace.”

  “Danny, you should get under cover until we can sort out who’s looking for you.” Jace sounded calm and reasonable, but his hand curled around his swordhilt. He was two steps away from rage, and I’d only seen Jason Monroe in a rage twice before.

  “I’m not backing down, Jace,” I hissed. “Come on.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But after that we’re going back and hashing this out.”

  “Good enough,” I gave in. I was hungry anyway, and I wanted a quiet place to think. “Let’s go rumble.”

  “Standard form?” Gabe asked.

  “Yeah. Watch out for Danny, everyone, they’ll look to net her.” Jace didn’t look away from me, even when my lip lifted and I snarled openly at him.

  “I can take care of myself,” I said, thumbing my blade free of the scabbard with a small sound. “Japhrimel, we’re going to mix. Kill the opposition, as long as they’re not innocent bystanders. Okay?”

  “As you like,” Japhrimel said quietly. “I will watch over you, Dante. They are coming quickly; we had best go now.”

  “Oh, Sekhmet sa’es,” I hissed. “Get moving, standard form. Jace, you take point; Gabe, keep Eddie from going berserk—”

  “Danny?” Gabe turned, her right hand sliding below her left armpit. “They’re here.”

  As if to underscore her words, a plasbolt crackled past. I looked up—they’d gotten onto the roofs. Stupid, sloppy, I’m going to smack Jace hard for this. “Out!” I yelled, shoving Jace. “Take it streetside! Go!”

  We ran.

  “Twelve of them,” Japhrimel said, his voice calm and clearly audible even though the rest of us were pounding down the pavement, Eddie gasping out something that might have been the beginnings of a chant. I snapped out two words of the Fourth Canon, throwing my right hand up. My second ring—amber cabochon—sparked and crackled, and a milky shimmer in the air separated around each of us. Juggling a spell while running was bad enough, but worth the effort because a plasbolt streaked the air and splashed against the shimmershield surrounding Gabe, who let out a short sharp falcon’s scream, probably expecting to be flung on the pavement.

  My own cry rose with hers, breathless. I pumped Power into the shimmers, drawing from the city’s well, grateful I’d already suffered through the migraine of backlash—Eddie and Gabe would be crippled by their limited ability to draw on Nuevo Rio Power unless they had taken the time to acclimatize themselves.

  Gabe grabbed half the load on the shimmershields away from me, her mental touch light and deft. “Do something!” she screamed, as we plunged into the nighttime crowd. I thought she was screaming at me instead of Japhrimel, so I popped the shields down, freeing them from my conscious control; stopped short (stopping from a full head-on run is a skill, I’ll admit I stumbled) and turned, my sword sliding free of the sheath.

  “Danny!” Jace yelled.

  The crowd of Nuevo Rios exploded away from me, making signs against the evil eye. I met the first hired thug with a clash of steel—he didn’t have a sword, but he had a machete. I knocked the plasgun out of his hand with a flicker of my scabbard. Metal clashed and rang—he cut overhand, a sloppy move, expecting me to be dumb enough not to expect it—tall, thin Nuevo Rio man in an assassin’s rig, black leather straps with various knife sheaths and other things attached. I dispatched him with a short thrust and backed up as they converged on me, six dark-eyed, dark-haired men, one of them a vaudun, shaking his staff. The bits of metal and circuit-boards attached to it jingled. Neon ran on the wet street, the sound of sirens and screams of the crowd fading from my consciousness. Six against one, I thought, twisting my blade free from the body on the ground. I’m going to enjoy this. Watch that Shaman, he’s the dangerous one.

  I stood my ground, letting them come to me, pavement cracking underneath me, the dark pulsing heartbeat of the city resounding, a tapline open to feed me Power from the city’s ambient energy. The shimmershields crackled as more plasbolts raked the ground. The H-DOC on my wrist flashed, reading the layout of the fight, alerted by the spike of plasgun bolts. The cops wouldn’t interfere; this was a private hunt.

  A dark shape streaked past me, silver gun flashing. Japhrimel met the six with a popping clatter of gunfire. He punched one in the face, sending him flying back. I was left facing the Shaman, who locked shields with me and proceeded to blow a few circuits in my shimmershield with a swift, nasty attack of Power.

  He was good. I held my sword level, metal gleaming, rings sparking as I countered, grabbing all available Power in my range, the mark on my shoulder crunching with sudden pain as the demon let out a shattering roar. Jace drove past me, engaging the vaudun. Dammit, Jace, he was MINE! Jace made a quick motion, and something like a tiger made of solid light and dapples of shadow, Jace’s prime fighting construct, tore itself out of the air and descended on the other vaudun.

  Where are the rest of them? I thought, and heard another one of Gabe’s short sharp cries. Engaged over there, I thought, turning on my heel, my tapline into the city’s dark heart pulsing with Power. I kept the shields steady, juggling them as I bolted back for Gabe and Eddie. Jace could handle himself.

  The Skinlin was growling as he fought with another Shaman, this one a wizened old nut-brown man with streaks and dapples of red paint on his face. Gabe, swearing and spitting, her face contorted into a mask of rage, was dueling a tall mercenary—he wasn’t a Nuevo Rio, too pale, sandy blond hair, but he wore an assassin’s rig and used a short thrusting sword. Plasbolts whined. One splashed against the edge of my tor
n shimmershield, and the resultant Power-flare nearly knocked me to my knees. I staggered, my forward momentum pushing me, just like riding a slicboard—and I threw myself on the two Nuevo Rios edging for Gabe’s back.

  One of them clipped me on the shoulder with a thrown knife before I cut him down, pain blooming along my nerves like spiked oil, the other engaged me—he was a huge hulking mass of weightlifting muscle and black-market augmentations; I smelled salt-sweat-sweet Chill on him before I made my cut and a bright jet of arterial blood splashed out of his neck. He was still trying to come for me when I took off his right hand with the plasgun still clasped in it. I finished by whirling and opening his belly with two cuts, my own battle-yell stinging my throat and dyeing the air red. Chillfreaks, I hate Chillfreaks. I thought Nuevo Rios were more into hash anyway.

  Then it was over. I stood, panting, watching the blood gurgle, hearing the last choking gasps as the Chillfreak died, his eyes dimming, the spark exiting his chemical-abused body. “Anubis et’her ka.” I breathed. That was for Lewis, you sack of Chill shit. The thought slid across my mind and was gone as soon as it came.

  The plasbolts had stopped. Eddie’s growling still sounded from behind me, and I heard Gabe taking in harsh tearing gulps of air. Clatter of steel. Running feet. A long, low howl of abused breath, snarling, a flare of familiar Power. Jace.

  I stared blankly down at the body in front of me. The street was now deserted, but eyes glittered in the shadows. If we left the bodies, they would be stripped and harvested in minutes.

  Chillfreaks, I thought, and shuddered. I hate the motherfucking Chillfreaks.

  Three things I hated: the Mob, Chillfreaks, Santino. Each one of them had stolen something from me—Santino stole Doreen, the Mob had helped steal Doreen, and Chill and the Mob had stolen Lewis and fucked up too many bounties to count.

  Japhrimel’s hand closed around my wounded shoulder. I flinched—I hadn’t even sensed him behind me. That was starting to weird me out. “You’re hurt,” he said quietly, and his hand bit down, a hot snarling mass of Power forcing its way into the wound. I gritted my teeth, feeling muscle knit itself together—I’d been so pumped on adrenaline I’d barely noticed the strike. “My apologies.”