Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I clapped my hands over my ears and bolted for the bathroom. Japhrimel watched this, expressionless.

  The vision that confronted me in the bathroom mirror made my stomach revolve. Or do I even have a stomach now? I thought. I looked… different. My tattoo was still there, quiescent against my cheek, the emerald glittering slightly. But otherwise… my face wasn’t my own. Golden skin stretched over a face I didn’t recognize—but there were my dark eyes, now liquid and beautiful. I looked like a holovid model, sculpted cheekbones, a sinful mouth, winged eyebrows. I touched my face with one wondering fingertip, saw the beautiful woman in the mirror touch her exquisite cheekbone, trace her pretty lips.

  I looked like a demon. There was only a ghost of the person I used to be left in my face. Japhrimel’s mark remained on my left shoulder, but it was a decoration instead of a scar, etched into my newly perfect golden skin. And my hair, Japhrimel’s inky black—but long, falling over my shoulders in choreographed strands.

  My flat stomach, lightly ridged with muscle, showed no more marks from Santino’s claws. I twisted around, pulling my hair up, and strained my neck to examine my back in the mirror. No ridged thick whip scars. I couldn’t see my ass in the mirror, but I felt along the lower curve of my left buttock and found no scarring there either.

  Gone. They were gone. All except Japhrimel’s mark on my shoulder. I dropped my hair over my back, shuddering.

  The disorientation made me grab at the counter. I tried not to do it too hard, but my nails drove into the tiles. My hair fell over my face, tangling, tempting. I still clutched the piece of green cotton sheet in my other fist.

  “Anubis,” I breathed out, and closed my eyes, shutting out the vision. I sank down to my knees, sick and shaking, banged my head softly against the cabinet under the countertop. My breath shivered out of me. “Anubis et’her ka…” The prayer shivered away from my lips, a more terrible fear rising out of my panic-darkened mind. What if the god no longer answered me? What if the emerald on my face went dark, what if the god no longer accepted my offerings?

  I choked on a dark, silty howl that filled my throat. I felt the inked lines of my tattoo shift slightly, and tried to breathe. If I could breathe, if I could just breathe, I could find a quiet space inside myself and see if the god allowed me back.

  Japhrimel gently freed my fingers from the tile. “Hush,” he said, and knelt down. He took me in his arms. “Hush, Dante. Breathe. You must breathe. Shhh, hush, it is not so bad, you must breathe.” He stroked my hair and kept whispering, soothingly, until my shallow gasps evened out and I could open my eyes. I clung to him, the material of his coat soft against my fingers.

  Now that I knew what it was, it made me slightly sick to think about touching it. But he pressed his lips to my forehead, and the warmth of that touch slid through me, exploding like liquor behind my ribs. “You must be careful,” he said. “You will damage yourself if you try hard enough. That will be unpleasant for both of us.”

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  “That is only natural,” he whispered back. “I am yours now, Dante. I am A’nankimel. I have Fallen.”

  “I hate you,” I repeated. “Change me back. I don’t want this. Change me back.”

  “I cannot.” He stroked my hair. “You have a demon to hunt, Dante.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I started to giggle. Then chuckle, then roar with panicked laughter.

  You have a demon to hunt, Dante.

  I was still laughing like an idiot when Gabe kicked the door to the bedroom in, Eddie right behind her.

  CHAPTER 42

  I crouched in the bathroom, a towel haphazardly wrapped around me. My throat burned from laughing until I screamed, and screaming until my voice broke.

  Outside, raised voices. Japhrimel had driven them back into the room and stood guard, not allowing any of them to come near the bathroom.

  GABE: I don’t care what

  you think, that’s Danny in there. You can’t—

  EDDIE: Used to be Danny. That goddamn thing did something to her!

  GABE: What the fuck did you do? Answer me, or I’ll—

  JAPHRIMEL: Injuring me, if it is possible at all, will harm her. You don’t want that. I can calm her, if you leave. Leave now.

  EDDIE: Shoot the fucker, Gabe, shoot him!

  JAPHRIMEL: Shooting me might possibly harm her. And if she is harmed I will kill you both. This was the price I demanded of her, and she has paid. It is a private matter.

  EDDIE: Shoot the fucker, Gabe! Shoot him!

  GABE: Shut up both of you. Or I’ll shoot you both. What the hell happened to Danny? What did you do to her? You’d better start talking.

  Long tense silence. Whine of an active, unholstered plasgun. Then another sound, footsteps. Drawing closer. Feet in boots, a familiar tread.

  JAPHRIMEL: Don’t, human. She is dangerous.

  JACE: Fuck you.

  The door slid open, a slice of light spearing the darkness. I put my head on my knees, curling even more tightly into myself.

  He didn’t turn the light on. I smelled him, rank with dying cells. Human, a smell I had never noticed before. Would I smell it everywhere, this effluvia of decay? How did Japhrimel stand it? How could I stand it?

  He didn’t walk into the bathroom. Instead, he stood in the door for a moment, looking. Then he slowly bent his knees, knelt down, and crawled into the bathroom on all fours.

  The darkness wasn’t helping. Neither was the electric light that poured through the door. Nothing was helping. Nothing would ever help again.

  He stopped just inside the door. I huddled against the antique iron bathtub, making a small breathless mewling sound. The sound wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard I drove my sharp new teeth into my perfect new lips. My datband was blinking. It had to be reset—I didn’t scan as human now. I scanned like a genesplice, like an aberration… like something other. He told me I wasn’t a demon, I was hedaira— but what the fuck did that mean?

  Jace eased himself to the side, sitting with his back against the wall. He sat for a few moments, and then, slowly, he reached up into his linen jacket and pulled out—of all things—a pack of cigarettes.

  He never used to smoke, I wonder if he got those from Gabe, I thought, and my breath hitched. The small wounded sound I was making quit, too.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he said, quietly.

  My breath sobbed in.

  He lit up. The brief flare of the lighter seared my eyes. I huddled back even further, the soft helpless sound rising to my lips again. But he didn’t do anything, just inhaled some synth hash smoke and blew it out. “It’s a nasty fucking habit,” he said, his tone pitched low and intimate. “But you’ve always got to have a pack, in case some petty thug you’re trying to ease needs one. You know?”

  I said nothing. Squeezed my eyes shut. Patterns of Power shifted in the darkness under my eyelids, patterns I had never seen before. Part of a demon’s Power. Shaking at the edge of my control, straining to leap free.

  He tapped the ash onto the tiled floor next to him. The tiles were dark-green, with lighter green ones scattered every fourth or fifth tile. It was pretty, and kind of soothing.

  He took another drag. “I must have seen thousands of these in my time,” he said. “Smoked a few, too. Have to take detox every six months, but it’s worth it to see someone relax when you offer them a stick. You know they used to call these fags? Used to make them out of tobacco ’stead of synth hash. Nicotiana. Eddie still grows some of that shit.”

  My breathing eased out a little. His tone was so normal, so familiar. I opened my eyes, resting my cheek on my naked knees. Watching him.

  He finished the smoke and ground it out on the floor. I heard low shuffling sounds out in the bedroom. Gabe’s hiss, the slow static of Japhrimel’s attention. Japhrimel was trembling, too, a fine thin tremor racing through his bones. I could feel it in my own body, the demon’s need of me.

  Like an addiction.

  “I rem
ember one time I was talking to this guy,” Jace continued, lacing his fingers over his knee and leaning back into the wall, “and I had to find out what he knew. He was uncooperative… they’d already put him through the wringer by the time I got there. I took a look at the situation, and settled down in a chair. Then I offered him a cigarette. I had the information in five minutes. Useful things.”

  More silence. Jace tilted his head against the wall. I caught the gleam of his blue eyes.

  “You remember that little slicboard shop we always used to get our boards tuned at? You still ride a Valkyrie?” He waited.

  I was surprised to hear my own voice. “After jobs, sometimes.” I sounded flat and bored. My breath hitched; my beautiful new voice was ruined and husky—but still lovely. It still made the broken glass on the floor shiver slightly; I felt Japhrimel listening intently.

  “You always loved Valkyries,” he said. “I think what you liked best about riding a board was the flying. The adrenaline. Made you feel alive, right?”

  A tear trickled down my cheek, touched my knee.

  So demon-things can cry, I thought. It was the first sane thought, and I grabbed it like a shipwreck survivor.

  “I miss Saint City,” he said. “That noodle shop on Pole Street with the fishtank on the far wall. And that hash den we used to drink at—the one with the great music.”

  My throat was raw. “It closed down,” I whispered. “Two hookers ODed in a week. On T-laced Chill.”

  “Shit,” he said easily. “Damn shame. They played RetroPhunk all the time. And Therm Condor.”

  “Ann Siobhan,” I supplied finally, my voice shaking.

  “The Drew Street Tech Boys,” he said after a considering pause. “Audiovrax.”

  I seemed to be slogging through mud to think. “Blake’s Infernals.”

  “Krewe’s Control and the Hover Squad,” he said.

  “I hated them,” I whispered.

  “Did you?” Now he sounded surprised. “You never told me.”

  “You loved them.” My voice caught on a hoarse sob.

  “You bought me all eight discs,” he said, scratching at his cheek. “Damn.”

  “I incinerated them,” I admitted. “After you left.”

  “Oh.” He paused. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  It sounded like he meant it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered, my voice raw.

  “I was trying to protect you, Danny. If you’d known, you’d have come riding into Nuevo Rio with your sword out, to ‘save’ me. That goddamn honor complex of yours would have gotten you killed. Just like you’re trying to get yourself killed avenging Doreen.”

  “I have to,” I said. “I have to.” I choked on the words. Rigger Hall had taught me how to be hard—but to be hard was no use without your honor. Honor was everything. And honor demanded I avenge Doreen, even if it killed me.

  Even if it turns me into a genesplice aberration? I wondered, and my breath jagged out, a low moaning sob.

  “I know,” he answered, softly, intimately. “You can’t be anything else, Danny. I always liked that about you. Right out to your fingernails, you just can’t be anything other than what you are.”

  “Look at what he did to me,” I whispered.

  “So what?” Jace said. “You’re still you. Still my pretty Danny Valentine. And while you sit in here moaning about it, your prey is either getting away or digging into a hidey-hole.” He shrugged, his shirt moving against the tiled wall and making a little whispering sound. “We need you to finish this hunt, Danny. Gabe needs her own revenge on the Saint City Slasher. Eddie needs Gabe happy. I need Sargon Corvin dead so I can start living again and maybe prove to you I ain’t so bad. You’re letting us down, Danny. Come on.”

  I shuddered. It should have been a transparent ploy, but it needled me. I was letting Gabe down—she’d dropped everything to come with me. And Eddie loved her. It must eat at him to see her unhappy.

  A deep racking cough shook me. I wiped at my face with bladed hands—my hands weren’t even my own anymore. But they would do what I asked them to do. I finally raised my head to find Jace watching me. He didn’t look nervous, but the set of his shoulders told me he was tense.

  “I need some clothes,” I said huskily.

  “You got it,” Jace said. “Anything you need, baby.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Gabe examined my face. “Hades,” she breathed, then handed me my sword.

  I took it, cautiously. But no blue fire bloomed on the blade, and it didn’t hurt me.

  I glanced at Japhrimel, who stood expressionless by the window. Darkness pressed against the glass, the sound of rain tapering off. I wondered if the city was still burning. “Blessed weapons won’t react to you,” he said quietly. “Ease your mind, Dante. Your blade is still your own.”

  I looked at the curved length of steel, closed my eyes, and thought of Santino. Opened my eyes.

  Blue ran weakly along the slight curve of the blade. Anubis, I prayed, I beg of You, answer me. I let out a shaky breath. Felt my tattoo shift on my cheek, the emerald sparking. Relief burst inside me. It still worked. And if my blade was still blessed, I was still one of the god’s own chosen.

  “Well,” Gabe said. She wore her long black police-issue coat, a plasgun holstered under her left arm. I couldn’t see her sword. She put her fists on her hips. “Damn. Better than an augment, I guess.”

  It was her attempt at humor, and it failed miserably. I was still grateful for it, though. “And so cheap,” I said, my own failed attempt at levity.

  Silence stretched inside the wrecked bedroom, a thin humming silence. The bed was reduced to matchsticks and springs and strips of material, the chairs splintered. The curtains were torn, and there were a few impact-marks on the walls. I took this all in.

  “Sorry about the room, Jace,” I finally said, not meeting his eyes. My voice was indeed ruined, husky but still perfect. I sounded like a vidsex queen.

  “It’s okay.” He leaned against the door to the hall. His staff leaned next to him, the bones moving uneasily in the charged air, clacking against each other. “I wanted to redo it anyway.”

  Eddie, his arms folded, hulked behind Gabe, stealing furtive looks at me and then at Japhrimel, who looked just as he always had—except for the dark rings around his glittering eyes. He looked tired and somehow more human than I’d ever seen him. I felt his unwavering attention, his back to the window but his entire body focused on me.

  “Where are we at?” I asked, and didn’t dare look Gabe in the eyes. I didn’t think I could stand to meet her worried dark gaze.

  She cleared her throat. “I’ve managed to get a nice stockpile of munitions. Eddie can have three golem’ai ready for Manifest in two days. And he’s put together eighteen firestarters. Forty-eight hours, and we’re as ready as we can be.” She looked at Jace.

  “I’ve got Mob Circle passports for all of us,” he said quietly. “And my second is already handing out the weapons. We’ve declared war on the Corvins, they just don’t know it yet. Funny thing is, there aren’t any of the Inner Circle left in the city. They’ve vanished, probably gone with Sarg—um, Santino. I’ve given the orders to take out their holdings. As for us, we’ve got supplies, and world-class transport. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

  “You’re staying here,” I said. “You’ve got to coordinate—”

  “I’m going with you,” Jace disagreed mildly. “If you don’t like it, tough. I’ve got my own score to settle with Sargon Corvin. Or whoever the hell he is.”

  I looked at him, my fingers tightening on the hilt. Gabe stepped back. Eddie slid his arms around her, and they stood, watching me.

  A kind of black fury welled up behind my breastbone. I swallowed, looking down at my sword. Blue light glittered along the ringing blade. “Get me a map,” I said, finally. “Let’s see if I can track Doreen’s blood. If I can’t, we still have Dake’s tracker. We can hope Santino hasn’t set up countermeasures.”
<
br />   I felt rather than heard Gabe’s sigh of relief. Jace nodded, took his staff, and left the room. Gabe followed, pulling Eddie by the hand. The Skinlin sidled past me. Gabe paused at the door.

  “Danny?” she said.

  “Hm?” I steeled myself, looking at the glitter of blue fire along the steel. Power. The changes had settled into me, and I felt the same humming force that lay over Japhrimel flooding me. So much Power—I didn’t even need the city’s well of energy now. My brain shuddered away from the implications. I could tear this whole damn house apart.

  “You’re still my friend,” she said, firmly. “No matter what you are, you’re still my friend.”

  Startled, I half-turned to look at the door, but she was gone, dragging Eddie after her.

  That left me alone with Japhrimel.

  He studied me across the burning air. Finally he moved slightly, clasping his hands behind his back. “I am not sorry,” he said.

  “Of course not,” I said. “You’re a demon.”

  “A’nankimel. Not demon. Fallen.” His eyes did what his hands didn’t, touched my face, roamed over me. “I will not give you up, Dante.”

  “I don’t belong to you,” I flared.

  “No,” he agreed. “You do not.”

  I swallowed dryly. “Why? Why did you do this?”

  “If you were merely human, Vardimal might kill you.” Japhrimel cocked his head to the side. “Now you are neither human nor demon. Neither man nor demon may kill him, that was the immunity given to him by the Prince in return for his services.”

  That brought up another question. “What’s Lucifer going to think of this?”

  For a long moment, Japhrimel examined me. Then one corner of his mouth quirked slightly up. The slight smile made my heart pound. “Ask me if I care.”

  “Do you care?” My breath caught on the last word.

  “No.”

  Well, that about summed everything up. Except one thing.

  I stepped around a pile of splinters that had once been a chair. Approached him cautiously, my boots grinding against the plaster dust and small bits of wreckage on the floor. I held my katana to the side and stopped less than a foot from him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes held mine, but he didn’t move.