Her eyes were round, disbelieving. “Why didn’t anyone—”
“He paid off the Hegemony proctors. Had a profitable little sexwitch stable going on the side, could afford to hand out cash… and other bribes. And if any of the kids really pissed him off, he signed the forms to turn you into a breeder.” I shivered again, rubbed at my left shoulder, my eyes blinded with memory.
Gods. If there was any justice in the world, the memories would have faded. They hadn’t.
Once, my roommate had tried to tell her social worker what was going on inside Rigger Hall’s hallowed walls. She’d paid for it with her life. It was ruled a suicide, of course—but sometimes even a kid has the guts to take her own life rather than be pushed into the breeder program.
Roanna’s body hung tangled on the wires, jerking as the electricity zapped her dying nerves, smoke rising from her pale skin, her long beautiful hair burning, stinking. The streak of the soul leaving her body, as if it couldn’t wait to be finally free—and the sick-sweet smell of flesh roasted from the inside. The Headmaster’s fingers dug into my shoulder and knotted in my hair, squeezing, pulling, as he forced me to watch. I did not struggle; I did not want to look away.
No. This I would remember. And I swore to myself that one day, somehow, I would get my revenge.
The spike of pain from my shoulder brought me back to myself. Phones rang, people spoke in low voices. It was a normal world going on outside the cubicle—or as normal as the parapsych squad of the Saint City police ever got, I supposed. I reached for the brandy bottle, uncapped it, and inhaled the smell since the booze would do me no good. The liquid slopped against the sides of the bottle. I didn’t even try to hold my hand steady.
Of course, the kids who went to Rigger didn’t have anyone to fight for them. We were the orphans and the poor; most of our parents had given us up to the Hegemony foster program as soon as we tested high enough on the Matheson index. The rich kids and the kids with families went to Stryker, with the middle-class families receiving subsidies to defray the costs of a psion’s schooling. And of course, you could run up a hell of a debt after your primary schooling taking accreditation at the Academy up north, but that was different. If you didn’t have a family or a trust fund, your primary school was the closest Hegemony boarding school to your place of birth. Period, end of story, full stop.
I took another deep inhale. I am an adult now. I am all grown up. I can tell this story. “The story I heard goes like this: Finally some of the students banded together. Mirovitch was eerie, he could always tell who was making trouble… But some of them got together and… I heard they cracked the shields and the school security codes, slipped their collars, and caught him in his bedroom fucking a nine-year-old Magi girl. I heard later—now this is all rumor, mind you—that one of the Ceremonial students had turned herself into a Feeder and killed him that way, in a predator’s duel.” My teeth chattered. Chilly sweat seemed to film my entire body, gray mist threatening my vision. The sound of everything outside Gabe’s cubicle seemed very far away. If you go into shock there’s nobody to bring you out. You are stronger than this, you are all grown up now. Focus, dammit!
The chattering shakes receded. “You can’t imagine the fear.” I stared at the drift of gray ash on her desk. “Or the things that went on. Some of the students stooged for him. Those were the worst. They would avoid punishment by ratting on the others, and they were sometimes worse than he was. The beatings… They would turn up the collars and administer plasgun shocks…” I’d had scars, before I’d been turned into a hedaira. Three thick welts across my back, and a welted burn scar along the crease of my lower left buttock. No more. I didn’t have the scars anymore. I had perfect, scarless golden skin.
Then why are they aching? Three stripes of fire down my back, the red-hot metal pressed against my skin, my own frantic screams, the leather cutting into my wrists, the trickle of blood and semen down my inner thighs…
I am all grown up. I set my jaw, shook the memories away. They didn’t want to go, but I was stronger.
For now. When I tried to sleep, we’d see how far I’d gotten.
“Why would Moorcock write that down?” Gabe stubbed the cigarette out in a pocked scar on top of her desk. Her face was caught between disgust and pity for a moment, and I felt the old tired rage rise up in me. If there is anything in the world I hate, it’s pity.
“I don’t know.” I was miserably aware that phantom gooseflesh was trying to rise through my skin. My right hand twisted even tighter, straining against itself, shaped into a knotted claw. Black molecule-drip polish gleamed on my nails. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Danny.” She pushed herself up to stand behind the desk, her palms braced, bending over slightly to look me in the face. Her sleek dark hair was mussed, and her eyes were dilated, probably catching my own fear. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you. I wouldn’t—”
“But you did.” I rose, my chair legs thocking solidly into the peeling linoleum floor. “And I owe you. You’ve done your duty, Gabe. Now it’s time for me to do mine.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but Gabe turned pale. The color spilled out of her cheeks as if tipped from a cup. “It wasn’t duty, Danny. You’re my friend.”
“Likewise.” And I meant it. She had her own scars—four of them, on her belly, where Santino’s claws had ripped through flesh and inflicted a wound even a Necromance couldn’t heal, though we who walked in Death were second only to the sedayeen in healing mortal wounds. I was willing to bet Gabe had her own nightmares too, even if she was a very rich woman who played at being a cop. “Why do you think I came down here?”
No, she didn’t play. Gabe was good at what she did, working on homicides for the Spook Squad, tickling the dead victims into telling her who killed them. She had a gift. She was the best detective they’d had in a good two decades, ever since her grandmother retired.
“Danny—”
No. Please, gods, no. Don’t let her go all soft on me. I can’t take that.
“I gotta go.” If I stayed here much longer I’d start telling her other things, things she didn’t need to know. Things about Rigger Hall, and things about me. “Call me if anything breaks, I’m going to go start looking around. Can you courier copies of the files to my house?”
“You know I can,” she said. “Danny, I’m sorry.”
Me too, Gabe. Me too. “See you soon, Spooky.” I got the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 9
Jace was waiting for me downstairs. “You okay?” he asked, as I pushed open the door to the ancient parking garage. There was an auxiliary exit here to the other side of the block, and holovid reporters wouldn’t be able to catch us. There was already a swarm of them drifting across the front steps of the station house. I didn’t envy Gabe having to give a press conference, but the holovids probably loved her.
“No,” I said shortly.
“Rigger Hall.” He scowled, stripping his hair back from his forehead with stiff fingers. “Danny.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I glanced around the concrete tomb, police hovercruisers sitting dark and silent on their landing legs. They didn’t have the roof space to host all the hovers on the top of the building, and they’d had to widen both the main entrance and the auxiliary, but it was good enough. A lighted booth crouched at the far end, with a whey-faced duty officer sipping coffee and pointedly ignoring us inside.
“I’m sure you don’t.” He caught my arm. “Danny.”
Oh, please, gods, not now. “Don’t, Jace. I need to go to Jado’s. And I need to drink.”
“It won’t affect you.” Why did he have to state the obvious?
Never mind that he was right—my changed metabolism simply shunted alcohol aside. It had no more effect on me than water. I was still too much of a coward to try some of the more illegal options for disorientation and sweet oblivion.
If this kept up I might get a little braver.
“I can try.”
My face crumpled, matching his.
“Ogoun,” he breathed, and took me in his arms.
I was a little taller than I had been, but still able to rest my head on his shoulder, my face in the hollow between his throat and collarbones. I had to lean carefully—I was much heavier and stronger than I used to be. I always took point on the bounties, always worried about him catching a stray strike or bullet.
All the same, I let him hold me for a little while, listening to the echoing sounds of the garage around us. Sounds overlapped, straining and splashing against concrete, a cruiser hummed in with its cargo of a dusted-down Chillfreak for processing.
I sighed and stepped away from him, scrubbing at my left shoulder. It throbbed persistently and I wondered why. It had been cold before, a spiked mass of ice pressed into my flesh—now it was warm, a live fire twisting against my skin. The flash of heat hadn’t gone away like it always did.
Had the Prince of Hell started sending me heat waves?
Perfect. Another thing to worry about.
“Don’t ask me about Rigger Hall,” I told him. “Okay?”
It wasn’t fair. He still looked like hell, the back-to-back bounties were hard on him. Yet he hadn’t complained. He’d shown up on my doorstep and stayed with me, watching my back as I flung myself into hunt after hunt, not wanting to think. He’d betrayed me once, certainly, not telling me he was Mob and abandoning me when his family threatened to assassinate me unless he came back and did their dirty work. At the time, I had known only the agony of that betrayal. But since Rio, Jace had always come through in a big way. It wasn’t fair to him at all. None of this was fair to him.
True to form, he dropped the subject. “You got it, baby. I’ve got something better to ask you.” He tapped his staff once against the old, dirty concrete, making a crisp sound that sliced through the humming whine of hovercells.
“Shoot.” I started off toward the exit, he fell into step beside me, his staff clicking time against the concrete. Bones clattered dryly together; the aura of his Power was sweet and heady. No other Shaman smelled like Jace—a combination of pepper and white wine, overlaid with fiery honey. If it hadn’t been a human smell, it would have been very pleasant.
“Did you love him?” To his credit, he didn’t sound angry, just curious.
My boots didn’t falter, but I felt like I staggered. “What?” Why the fuck are you asking me this now? Because I yelled his name when that thing came for me? One of the silent hovers sitting obediently on its landing gear creaked, responding to my uneasiness.
I took a deep breath.
“Did you love him? The demon. Japhrimel.” I could almost see Jace’s mouth twisting over the name, as if it was something sour.
“Jace.” I made the word clipped and harsh. “Quit it.”
“I deserve an answer. I’ve waited long enough.” Quiet. Not his usual careless, ironic tone.
“What do you deserve? You lied to me about Santino.” Predictable, Danny. Take the cheap shot. You bitch.
What else could he say? I wouldn’t let him defend himself. “I didn’t know.”
“You lied to me about the Corvin Family.” Another accusation. I couldn’t help myself. Why did we have to have this conversation now, of all times? Why?
“I didn’t have a choice. I did what I did to protect you. They would have killed you then. When you were human.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned the painful nonsecret of my changed status. How long had he been thinking it? “As opposed to an abomination? You’re turning Ludder now? Going to go march in front of a hospital with a ‘Genesplice Is Murder’ sign?” My voice bounced off the concrete, cold enough to coat my skin with ice. I could crack the pavement if I wasn’t careful. It trembled on the edge of my control. All this Power, I wondered if Japhrimel had intended to teach me how to use it, how to keep it from eating me alive.
“You’re just what you always were, Danny,” he informed me tightly. “Stubborn and bitchy and rude. And beautiful.”
“You forgot abrasive, unbending, and cruel.”
“Not to mention overachieving.” He sighed. “Fine. You win, okay? I just want to know, Danny. Haven’t I earned it? Did you love him?”
“Why? What possible difference could it make? He’s dead and he’s not coming back, Jace. Let it go.” We started up the ramp leading to the airseal that closed out dust and trash from the street, keeping the garage climate-controlled. He matched me step for step, as usual, his longer legs canceled out by my quicker stride and his stiff knee.
“When you let it go, I might be able to.” He snapped off the end of each word.
“He’s dead, Jace. Let it go.” I couldn’t say it any louder than a whisper, because my throat closed off as if a large rock had come to rest there. Dead, yes. But gone? No. Ask me if he’s the reason I can’t touch you. Ask me why I hear his voice in my head all the time. Even if I’ve finally found out it’s true, demons aren’t in Death’s country.
“Fine.” His staff pounded the concrete in time to our steps, bones now clattering with thinly-controlled anger. “What do you need me to do?”
I swallowed, hearing my throat click in the thick silence. I had called Japhrimel’s name and not his. He had a right to be angry.
“You’re in?” I sounded surprised. You’ve done your duty, Jace. Nobody could say you haven’t, you’ve watched my back since Rio. What the hell does anything else matter?
“Of course I’m fucking in, Danny. What do you want me to do?” Now he sounded as irritated as he ever had, his words colored lemon yellow, acrid.
My shoulders suddenly eased a little, dropping down. I shook out my right hand, hearing the joints pop and snap. I was oddly relieved, a relief I didn’t want to examine the depth of any more closely. “I need to go see Jado, do some sparring and clear my head out if I’m starting another hunt.” I glanced over at him. His profile was straight and unforgiving. “Can you get me into the House of Pain? As soon as possible?”
If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he went pale when he heard me say that. “Chango love me, girl, you don’t ask for anything easy, do you.” He actually sounded breathless.
“I don’t smell human,” I said dryly. “I think they’ll let me in. But I need an invite or I won’t get anywhere, and you’ve got the connections to get me one.” Since you were Mob. I swallowed the words. That was history, wasn’t it? Gods, if I could just let one thing be history, what would I choose?
He didn’t even hesitate. “Fine. I’ll get you an invitation. What’ll I do while you’re talking to the suckheads?”
“You’re going to do some research.”
CHAPTER 10
Jado lived in the University District, on a quiet tree-lined street that had been eccentric years ago but was now merely deserted. There was little ambient energy in the air here, mostly because of him; his house crouched far back in a landscaped yard. His ancient hot tub stood on the deck on one side, and the meditation garden was pristine. There was even a sand plot, impeccably raked, with a few rough black rocks buried in the smoothness. The aura of peace, of stillness, was palpable.
I rang the bell, then twisted the knob and stepped in. The front hall was bare; no shoes on the cedar rack underneath the coat pegs. I caught no breath of human thought in the place.
Thank the gods.
I worked my boots off, and my socks. I hung up my coat and my black canvas bag; my guns dangling from the rig as I hung that up too. Nobody would dare to touch them here. I didn’t even bother with a keepcharm. It would have been an insult to my teacher, implying that I didn’t trust the safety of his house.
Barefoot, feeling oddly naked as usual without my weapons, I padded down the high-ceilinged hall and through the doorway into mellow light, and stepped up onto tatami mats. Their thick, rough texture prickled luxuriously against my bare soles, and I restrained myself from rubbing my feet just to feel the scratchiness.
Jado sat at the far end on the dais, his robes a bl
ot of orange underneath a scroll with two kanji painted on it. Ikebana sat on a low table underneath the scroll; three red flowers on a long slender stem reminding me of the orchids in Caine’s office. I suppressed a shiver, bowed properly before I stepped over the border from “space” to “sparring space.”
The old man’s wizened face split like a withered apple, white teeth flashing. His bald head glistened, charcoal eyes glimmering in the directionless light. His ears came to high points on either side of his head, and his callused hands lay in his lap, in the mudra of wholeness.
He looked like a relaxed little gnome, an old man with weird ears, harmless and slow. “Ai, Danyo-san. Good thing no students here.”
I bowed again. “Sensei.”
“So serious! Young one.” He shook his head, tsking slightly. “Well, what is it?”
“I need to think,” I said baldly. Not to mention that sparring was the best way to shake off the chill of death. Sparring, slicboarding, sex—anything to flush me with adrenaline and get rid of the bitter taste of death in my mouth, the lingering chill of it in my fingers and toes. “Look, Jado-sensei, can we stop the Zenmo crap and get down to business?”
His hand flickered. My right hand moved of its own volition, smacking the dart out of the air. It quivered in a ceiling beam, a wicked steel pinblade and feathered cap. “You are most impatient.”
I made no reply, watched him. He stood, slowly, pushing himself up from the floor as if his bones ached. My skin chilled instinctively, I dropped into “guard.” He clucked at me again. “What would you like? Staff? Sword?”
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