Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Did you mean any of it?” I asked him. “What you said?”

  He nodded. “Of course, Dante. Every word.”

  His eyes glittered feverishly, and a faint, almost-human flush crept up his cheeks.

  I believed him. Gods help me, but I believed him.

  “You’re going to have to tell me what all this means and what exactly I am now,” I said finally. “After I kill Santino.” There’s a whole lot about my life that I’m going to sort out once that motherfucker’s dead. The thought was welcome—it sounded like me. At least I sounded like myself inside my own head.

  “When he is dead, I will explain everything,” Japhrimel agreed. “My apologies, Dante. But I am not sorry.”

  I licked my dry lips. “Neither am I,” I said harshly. He deserved the truth. “I… I just… it’s a shock, that’s all.” It took more courage than I thought it would, but I reached up and rested my fingertips on his cheek. “I never thought I’d even consider dating a demon.” I was still searching for levity and failing miserably.

  His shoulders sagged. He closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. We stood there for a few moments before I took my hand away, and his green gaze met mine. His eyes seemed strangely dark now.

  “Now come on,” I said. “We’ve got a demon to kill, and the Egg to get back, and Doreen’s little girl to save. We’ll do some planning.”

  CHAPTER 44

  They ate dinner in the ornate dining room while I examined the map and checked my gear. I’d lost my scabbard, but Jace had an antique katana hanging on his study wall, so I took its scabbard. It was better than nothing.

  We weren’t anywhere near ready yet, but I felt a whole lot better about the deal.

  I settled cross-legged in front of the fireplace, the chill of climate control playing over my face, staring at the map. It unrolled in front of me, Hegemony territories in blue, Freetowns in red, Putchkin in purple, and the wastelands where nobody lived in white. There was precious little white—mostly around the poles and one spot in Hegemony territory, the Vegas Waste where the first and only nuclear bomb of the Seventy Day War had dropped.

  Why do all these rooms have fireplaces? I thought. It’s Nuevo Rio, it never gets cold here.

  Gabe and Eddie held a fierce whispered conference, silverware clinking against plates. Jace said nothing, staring at his plate as if it held the secrets of the universe. Japhrimel stood by the French doors leading out into the courtyard-garden, slim and dark and utterly impenetrable.

  I held my hand over the map, trying to feel anything. Nothing. Nothing at all.

  I sighed. Then I drew one of my main knives out of my coat.

  Silence fell.

  I set the blade against my hand.

  “Dante?” Japhrimel’s tone was cool, but the snarl below his voice warned me.

  “Calm down,” I said. “Easy. Blood’s what I’m tracking, let me work.”

  He said nothing else, but I felt the weight of his eyes on me.

  I drew the blade against my palm, willing the blood to come out. The new golden skin was a lot tougher than human skin; I almost had to force my flesh open. A thin line of smoky-black blood welled up.

  My breath hissed out between my teeth. The slash began to close almost immediately.

  I closed my eyes and my hand, slippery hot blood burning in my palm. Held my hand over the map.

  “Doreen,” I whispered. Doreen.

  I had found her while on the Brewster job, the one that had made my reputation as a hunter, not just a Necromance. I’d taken the contract and tracked down Michael Brewster, psychopath and serial killer; brought him back from the Freetowns to the Hegemony justice system, getting shot at, knifed, almost gang-raped by a Circle of Magi, and nearly burned alive in the process. It had been Doreen’s distraction at the warehouse that had bought me enough time to escape the Magi and go to ground, and I’d hunted Brewster down with increasing panic after that. The day after he was processed into lockdown, I flew back on the red-eye hover transport and sprung her from that whorehouse in Old Singapore, using most of the bounty credit to pay off her tag fee and threatening the pimp into letting her go.

  She’d been in bad shape. I guess that when the rogue Circle couldn’t have me, they went for her. One psion almost as good as another, and a sedayeen couldn’t even fight back like I would have. Might have, if I hadn’t been spell-tied and chained.

  Who was I kidding? I knew I wouldn’t have been able to escape that without her help. Leaving her there was a shoddy fucking way to repay her for that, but I’d had no choice.

  It had taken a long time for either of us to get any real sleep after I brought her to Saint City—she would scream in the dark for months, nightmares torturing her until I woke her up. My bare skin on hers, her mouth meeting mine, our hair tangled together in the safety of my bed.

  You saved my life, she would often say, I owe you, Danny.

  And I’d always reply, You saved mine too, Reena. I wouldn’t have survived that job without her. Or the years that followed, while I learned how to work the mercenary field and started tracking down criminals. The house I bought with the bounties became our house: she had always wanted a garden and after Rigger Hall I had wanted a space all my own. As a Necromance I needed space and quiet, the house was the only piece of Doreen I had left.

  And Doreen had given me the greatest gift of all: she had taught me how to live again.

  Her pale hair, cut short and sleek; her dark-blue eyes. She’d worked in a Free Clinic in the Tank District and also patched up mercenaries and psis when they played too rough. Quiet and serene, her mouth always tilted into a smile, her eyes always merry. The Saint City psionic population closed around her like a protective wall. Psionic healers—sedayeen— were pacifists to a fault, they couldn’t stand to hurt anyone. The pain they inflicted would rebound on them. They were helpless. So we all watched out for her—but it had done no good.

  The flowers, blue flowers. I knew now that they were Santino’s gift to the “mothers of the future,” but back then, all I had known was the threat to Doreen’s life.

  And Gabe had been the only cop who believed me about the danger Doreen was in.

  I had moved Doreen from safehouse to safehouse, but the flowers always found her. Gabe and I had taken turns standing guard, frantically trying to dig up the murderer who seemed intent on stalking her. Once we blew his human cover—once we knew it was Modeus Santino we were looking for and his company was seized—he went underground, and we had a week of breathing room before the flowers showed up again and the last desperate endgame started. Always one bare step ahead, moving her around, hiding first in one part of the city, then another—

  —and Santino had probably known all the time, I realized. Had probably simply played cat-and-mouse with us, allowing us to spirit her away, drawing out the final coup, finally moving in for the kill—his “samples”—in that warehouse. Gabe had been called away on another case, Eddie had gone for supplies, and it was only me and Doreen, hiding in a shattered hulk of a pre-Hegemony building.

  Slippery blood in my palm. I felt the Power take shape.

  My cheek ignited, the emerald singing a faint thin crystal note. I reached into that place I had not touched since her death, the place inside me where her gentle presence had gone.

  —Slight sound, scraping, a high thin giggle in the dark. Doreen whirled, her pale hair ruffling out. I leapt to my feet, sword ringing free of the sheath, spitting blue fire. I shoved her and she fell, scraping both palms and crying out thinly. Rumbling sound—the freight hovers, rushing past the warehouse; here in the shattered part of town they ran a lot closer to the ground.

  Explosions. No—projectile fire. And the whine of plasbolts. I tracked the sounds—one gunman, firing at us both. No—Doreen was trying to get up, but he was firing at me, he wanted her alive. I pushed her toward the exit.

  “Get down, Doreen. Get down!”

  Crash of thunder. Moving, desperately, scrabbling… fingers scrap
ing against the concrete, rolling to my feet, dodging the whine of bullets and plasbolts. Skidding to a stop just as he rose out of the dark, the razor and his claws glittering in one hand, his little black bag in the other.

  “Game over,” he giggled, and the awful tearing in my side turned to a burning numbness as he slashed; I threw myself backward, not fast enough, not fast enough.

  “Danny!” Doreen’s despairing scream.

  “Get out!” I screamed, but she was coming back, hands glowing blue-white, still trying to heal.

  Trying to reach me, to heal me, the link between us resonating with my pain and her burning hands—

  Made it to my feet, screaming at her to get the fuck out, Santino’s claws whooshing again as he tore into me, one claw sticking on a rib, my sword ringing as I slashed at him, too slow, I was too slow.

  Falling again. Something rising in me—a cold agonizing chill. Doreen’s hands clamped against my arm. Warm exploding wetness. So much blood. So much.

  Her Power roared through me, and I felt the spark of life in her dim. She held on, grimly, as Santino made little snuffling, chortling sounds of glee. The whine of a lasecutter as he took part of her femur, the slight pumping sound of the bloodvac. Blood dripped in my eyes, splattered against my cheek. Sirens—Doreen’s death would register on her datband, and aid hovers would be dispatched. Too late though. Too late for both of us.

  I passed out, hearing the wet smacking sounds as Santino took what he wanted, giggling that high-pitched strange chortle of his. His face burned itself into my memory—black teardrops over the eyes, pointed ears, the sharp ivory fangs. Not human, I thought, he can’t be human, Doreen, Doreen, get away, run, run—

  Her soul, carried like a candle down a long dark hall, guttering. Guttering. Spark shrinking into infinity. I was a Necromance, but I couldn’t stop her rushing into Death’s arms…

  I came back to myself with a jolt. Tears slicked my cheeks. Japhrimel knelt on the other side of the map, his fingers clamped around my wrist. My finger rested on the map, far south of Nuevo Rio, in the middle of a field of white and the paler non-Hegemony blue of ocean.

  An island in the middle of a cold sea. Almost in Antarctica. The last place anyone would look for a demon.

  “That’s where he is,” I said, husky, my voice making the map flutter against the floor, held down by my finger. “Right there.”

  Japhrimel nodded. “Then that is where we will go,” he said. “Dante?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, wiping at my cheeks with my free hand. “Let go.”

  He did, one finger at a time. I looked over at the table.

  Gabe’s fork paused in midair. She watched me, her pretty face pale, her emerald flashing as the tat shifted against her cheek. Eddie stood, his chair flat on the floor as if he’d tipped it over. Jace had pushed his plate away and was staring at me, blue eyes wide, fever spots of color high in each pale cheek.

  “Finish your dinner,” I said. I sounded like Japhrimel, the same flat voice, loaded with a full-scale plasgun charge of Power. “Then get some rest. We’ve got work to do soon.”

  CHAPTER 45

  The house slept.

  Gabe and Eddie were asleep, and Jace had finally stumbled off to bed, rubbing his eyes. They would need their rest.

  I didn’t want to sleep. Instead, I walked slowly through the empty halls of Jace’s mansion, my footsteps echoing. I didn’t know where I was headed until the front door loomed up ahead of me, and I put my hand flat against it. The Power contained in Jace’s walls resonated, slightly uneasy, and I calmed it as I would a rattling slicboard.

  “Where would you go?” Japhrimel asked in my ear, appearing out of the darkness with only a sigh.

  I shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere, I just need some air.”

  “And?” His voice was calm, almost excessively calm.

  I didn’t answer. Twisted the doorknob, let myself out into the night.

  Outside, the plaza in front of Jace’s house stretched away, expanses of white marble. The edges dropped down, sheer rock, until the suburbs of Nuevo Rio splashed against the cliff. He’d chosen this place for security, I guessed, and metaphorical height.

  Japhrimel closed the door behind me. I paced out onto the flat white expanse, glancing up at the sky. Clouds scudded in front of a quarter-moon, I had no trouble seeing. Demon sight was far better than human eyes. I could see every tiny crack in the marble, every pebble and dust mote, if I looked for it.

  Japhrimel, silent, halted at the bottom of the steps leading to Jace’s front door.

  “So what am I?” I asked finally. The stink of human Nuevo Rio, the sharp tang of Power, vied with the night wind and the persistent smoky fragrance of demon. “What exactly am I?”

  “Hedaira,” he replied, his voice weaving into the night. “I am Fallen, Dante. And I have shared my Power with you.”

  “That tells me a lot,” I said, my hand tightening on my swordhilt.

  “Why don’t you ask what you truly wish to ask me, Dante?” He still sounded tired. And forlorn.

  “Can I kill you?” I asked, in a rush of breath.

  “Perhaps.”

  “What happens to you if Santino kills me?”

  “He will not.” Stone rang softly underfoot as Japhrimel’s voice stroked it. His voice was almost physical now, caressing my skin as nothing else ever had. It reminded me of the barbed-wire pleasure, so intense it was agony, of his body on mine.

  I turned back, saw him with his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes gleamed faintly green. The darkness of his winged coat blended with the darkness of night, a blot on the white stone. “That’s not an answer, Tierce Japhrimel.”

  Saying his name made the air shiver between us. He tensed.

  My thumb slid over the katana’s guard. His dark eyes flicked down, then back up, a glitter showing on their surface from the moon. The pale crescent slid behind clouds again, and he went back to being a shadow. If I concentrated, I could see his face, decipher his expression. “You do not want to question me,” he said. “You want to fight.”

  “It’s what I’m good at,” I said, wishing he hadn’t guessed.

  “Why must it always be a contest, with you?” I could see he was smiling, and that managed to infuriate me.

  “Why don’t you carry a sword?” I avoided the question.

  “I have no need of one.” He shrugged. “Would you like me to prove it?”

  “If you can beat me, Santino will—”

  “Santino preys on humans,” he said. “He is a scavenger. I was the Prince of Hell’s Right Hand, Dante.”

  “What did you prey on?” I tried to sound rude, only managed to sound breathless.

  “Other demons. I have killed more of the Greater Flight of Hell than you can imagine.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, one of those murderous slow grins.

  I tried to feel afraid. Every other time he’d grinned like that my skin had gone cold with terror. Not now. Now my breath caught, remembering his mouth on mine. Remembering his hands on my naked skin.

  I almost drew my katana, five inches or so of bright steel peeking out. No blue glow.

  He still smiled, watching me.

  “Did you plan this? Or did Lucifer?” I swallowed, wishing for my normal human terror with a vengeance that surprised me. I never thought my own fearlessness would be so scary; I’d lived with comfortable fear for so long.

  “Lucifer did not plan this, Dante; he will be exceedingly displeased. No demon plans to Fall. To become A’nankimel is to give up much of the power and glory of Hell.” He shrugged again, his hands still clasped behind his back.

  “You can’t go back?” I asked. “What about… what about being free?”

  He shook his head. “There are other kinds of freedom. My fate is bound to yours, Dante. I am bound to finish the Prince’s will in this matter, and then… we shall see, you and I, what compromise we can reach.”

  I closed my eyes.

  You’re so sharp and pr
ickly, aren’t you? So tough. Someday you’re going to find someone you can’t bamboozle, Danny, Doreen’s voice echoed through my memory. Someone’s going to find out what a soft touch you are, and what are you going to do then?

  I’m not soft, I had replied, and changed the subject. And Doreen had giggled, her fingertips sliding over my hip, a soft forgiving touch.

  I’d met Jace at the party we threw to christen the house, and he started coming around after Doreen died, doing repairs, showing up once or twice while I was on a job to watch my back, and going out on a limb for me during the Freemen-Tarks bounty, the one that had given me the worst case of nerves from a bounty ever. I still had nightmares about being trapped in the rain, Tarks beating me with a crowbar until Jace appeared out of nowhere and took him down. Even when Jace had started to actively court me I’d kept him at arm’s length. Everything had to be a fight between us, and he seemed to enjoy the battles as much as I did, exchanging sharp word for sharp word, finally a sparring partner I didn’t have to hold back and be careful of.

  I opened my eyes, looked down at my blade, peeking out between hilt and scabbard. Slid the blade home. It clicked back into the sheath, useless. What was I going to do, try to kill him because he’d made me stronger? If Santino couldn’t kill me now, if I was quicker and tougher because of what Japhrimel had done…

  I didn’t realize I was walking toward him until he moved down off the bottom step, opening his arms, enclosing me in the warmth of a demon’s embrace. I sighed, my shoulders dropping, the weight of uncertainty slipping away. In his arms, I could breathe. As if he carried around the only sphere of usable air on the planet.

  He kissed my forehead, gently. Fire sparked through my veins, recognizing the touch. “If you wish to fight me, Dante, fight me.” His lips moved against my new skin. “If it will ease you, I will play that game. Or we can devise new ones.”