Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Her long caramel hand came up and touched the spade necklace. She curled her fingers around it, then broke the chain with a flick of Power, held the necklace up. “They made it stop.” Her eyes moved with the spade as it dangled back and forth, glittering. “Or Keller did.”

  I breathed shallowly, trying not to inhale any more of the delicious, electric, mouthwatering scent. “Keller?”

  Her mouth quirked slightly. “Our fearless leader. I…” She was trembling. Abruptly, Polyamour swung her legs off the couch, set her coffee down on the tray, and rolled up to her feet. The one quick movement told me she’d had some combat training, and that was very interesting. Sexwitches don’t normally go for combat; fear turns into desire for them, crippling their ability to respond. “You know,” she said tonelessly. “You know how bad it was.”

  I swallowed. The coffee turned to ash in my mouth, but the taste of it cut through the tantalizing scent. I wondered if that was why she’d offered it. “I was in the cage four times. But I know the sexwitches had it rough.”

  “Oh, rough.” She waved a hand, pacing away from us. I could breathe again, without her pheromones drowning me. “Rough. We were fucked every which way but loose, Valentine. That’s not rough. The rough part was having that bastard pawing away at your mind while he or one of his cronies stuck whatever they wanted in their orifice of choice. If you’re a sexwitch, you learn early that your body betrays you—it’s your mind that has to stay impregnable. Your soul. To have that filthy old maggot fingering inside your head…” Her cascade of dark curls shuddered as she turned her supple back. She was shaking.

  “Sekhmet sa’es,” I whispered. At least the few cubic inches inside my skull had been all mine. No matter how much of a smoking wasteland it became, it was still my wasteland. What was that old fable?

  Why do you eat your own heart? Because, O King, it is bitter, and because it is my heart.

  Even in the middle of my blackest moments, I’d had my books. The hard kernels of immortal stories, each one a reminder of how deeply Lewis loved me, of how strong I could strive to be. My books and my god, steady sources of strength in the impregnable fortress of my head. I had been lucky.

  Lucky. I never thought I would think that.

  Polyamour turned back to us. The beauty of her face had become harder, more brittle; her eyes were dark holes. “I learned early that I wanted to be strong. Or at least have a strong protector. And so, I built this. But would you believe I still have nightmares?”

  “I believe it.” My eyes flickered over to the mantel. Hung above it was a restrained, priceless Mobian print, the famous black-and-white of the woman’s back tattooed with a rising dragon. I would bet it was the original. The subtle shades of gray and stippled black were alive to my demon sight. I could have contemplated it for hours. “I believe it.” I had Anubis, and you had nobody. Should I feel guilty about that? Lucky? Or guilty about feeling lucky?

  “Would you believe I actually felt guilty?” Her throaty, husky voice broke on the last word. The sharp pinch of my own guilt settled in, twisted hard. The scent of her fear still lingered on me, and it took an effort of will to calm my own racing pulse.

  If I could, Poly, I’d walk out of here and let you get back to trying to forget all about it. Because as soon as I finish this, I intend to forget every-fucking-thing that has to do with Rigger Hall too. “Poly, I need to know who. I need to know what you did. And why the Feeder glyphs are supposed to protect you against it.”

  She dropped her head, stood with her carefully ringletted hair around her face. After a moment I realized the sound in the room was her. She was breathing like a horse run too hard, her fear rising in waves like heat from pavement. Her aura swirled in blue and violet, trembling, about to go nova.

  I was off the couch before I knew it, leaving my sword behind. I approached her softly, my own aura stretching; my rings swirled steadily. When the gold glow of my aura touched the edges of hers, the result was startling—her light yearned toward me, the classic response of a sexwitch. They need to feed, either on sex or the power sex raised; pure Power always raises a sexual response in them. That is what makes them so vulnerable—their bodies beg for it, slaves to the deepest urges of the body itself. The smell of her fear rose to drench me, but my own demon-scent overlaid it, a fiery, smooth kick like brandy igniting in my stomach.

  Gods above, I could get drunk on this.

  I’d forgotten how much more I was. How much more Japhrimel had made me. The outer layer of my defenses dropped, and a thin, humming sonic note of Power slid through the air like oil into a glass. Her head tipped back. Even though she was taller than me I caught her nape and wrist easily, the demon-hard calluses on my golden hands from daily knife-drill rasping on her soft skin. Then my aura closed around her, the full-scale plasgun charge of power sinking into her veins. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she moaned, helpless against the riptide.

  Was that what I looked like when Japhrimel changed me? I shook the thought aside. Pleasure scraped against my nerves, sparked through my bones. It was just like alcohol, a thorny electric lassitude like the best stage of every drunk I’d ever been on. Yet I was in control, not helpless in its grip. Gently, ever so gently, I stroked down Polyamour’s spine with a feather-touch of Power. She moaned again, the silk of her dress whispering as her hips jerked forward. I kept one hand steady on her nape, my skin roughening slightly as the wave of her pleasure wrapped around me. My other hand touched her chin, her skin startlingly soft. My fingernails scraped slightly as I traced the scar on her jaw. This close, I saw that her skin was flawless; her eyelids fluttered again, eyelashes as thick and dark as a young boy’s.

  I could do anything I wanted to her. The thought shook me. I had power, more power than I’d ever had in my life. And Polyamour was helpless, as helpless as we had been under Mirovitch.

  Shock jolted me out of the haze of sensation. No. I’m not like that. I want to help her, dammit. I’m trying to help her.

  I exhaled, disengaging, the flow of Power slowing to a trickle. Waited until she stopped trembling and made sure she had her balance. She leaned toward me. I pressed a kiss onto her cheek, smelling the peculiar musk of sexwitch laid over the smell of human. It was oddly pleasing, but now the edge of fear was gone, and so was the buzzing, blurring pleasure slamming through my nerves. Do demons feel like that when they scare us?

  Had Japhrimel felt that when he frightened me?

  “There,” I murmured. “Isn’t that better?”

  She blinked. Consciousness flooded back into her eyes. She tore away from my hand; I let her go, backed up two steps, and paced back to the couch. Jace stood in the same place, studying the Mobian. He wasn’t blushing—but I could smell his arousal. It didn’t smell nearly as good as hers. My shoulder wasn’t burning—the mark had settled back into a dim glow. I picked up my cooling coffee cup, my hand stopping halfway to my mouth. My head suddenly cleared, swept clean by the jolts of sensation.

  Can it be you have not resurrected him?

  You will not leave me to wander the earth alone.

  Feed me.

  Sexwitches needed feeding. I needed feeding—but thankfully I could use human food. Japhrimel had needed blood. He had visited a slaughterhouse in Nuevo Rio.

  I would not have you see me feed. His voice, old and fiercely dark as whiskey. I stared into the coffee. Polyamour stood with her back to us for a few minutes, taking in deep ragged breaths; but her aura smoothed out. When I could talk around the lump in my throat, I repeated myself. “I need to know who. I need to know what you did. And why the Feeder glyphs are supposed to protect you against it.”

  She let out a clipped little laugh, then swung around to face us. “I’ll tell you what I know. You’ve paid for it, after all, with that little display.”

  You enjoyed it. But that was unfair. So had I. “For fuck’s sake. You could be next, Sebastiano. Quit fucking around with me and tell me what I need to know or I’ll leave you to it and track it down from
the other end.”

  Polyamour held up the spade necklace. It glittered, a venomous dart of light. “I’m dead anyway. We couldn’t kill Mirovitch, we were just kids. It was Keller’s idea that they… they each take some.” Her hand jittered. The spade danced, more barbs of light spitting. “I don’t know all of it, Valentine. My job was to get them into Mirovitch’s private rooms past the security. Keller couldn’t take him on by himself. And nobody wanted to take him on in a Feeder duel. Nobody wanted to become a Feeder, hunted down, despised even after treatment. So Keller came up with the idea. They each take a part.”

  I blinked. That’s part of why the inquiry was sealed. If word got out that a circle of psions—just kids—had slipped their collars and murdered the Headmaster of a school, especially one as experienced as Mirovitch…

  That would be even worse than the public-relations fiasco of a school with a Headmaster gone awry. It was publicly more palatable for the Headmaster to abuse the students. Psions were already hated and feared equally in some places, uneasily accepted at best. The Hegemony needed us, we were protected under the law—but publicity was another thing entirely.

  My stomach turned sour. It was the reality of living in the modern world, but it still nauseated me. It was more acceptable for him to abuse us than for us to turn on him. Because after all, if psions could kill when they were children, where did that leave the adults? Too dangerous to be left alive, maybe. That was the logical extension to that thought, wasn’t it?

  Jace shifted slightly. I caught his meaning as if he’d laid it in my brain with a telepath’s light open touch.

  “Keller?”

  “Kellerman.” Polyamour sighed.

  The name didn’t ring a bell. “I must not have met him.”

  Her voice took on a scraping note of sarcasm, elegantly done of course. “I doubt you’d remember it even if you did. He was eminently forgettable.”

  “Kellerman?”

  Polyamour shivered, her hair trembling—I didn’t bother to speak softly, and the entire room reverberated, the tray ringing softly against the creaking table, the walls groaning slightly, the curtains over the windows blown back, throwing gauzy shadows over the walls. I wondered if her body was betraying her, if she was fighting the urge to come back and drop at my feet, fawn on me.

  I suppressed a shiver. I thanked my gods I hadn’t been born a sexwitch or been sent out as a breeder. Or indentured to a colony. Or any of the thousand other things that could have happened.

  Still… it would be so easy to scare her a little, just a very little, and feel that delicious drowning feedback again.

  “It was a nickname. Kellerman Lourdes. His parents were Novo Christer, died in a colony transport crash.” Polyamour let out a low breath. “What else do you want?”

  “Why the Feeder glyphs? And who else was in this?” The pattern was rising from the depths of coincidence like a shape breaking up through smooth glassy water, pieces falling into place. But not enough pieces, and not nearly quickly enough.

  “Only Keller knew. We’d meet him in that boathouse on the grounds—you remember that shack? Anyway, none of us knew about anything other than the person we recruited—never more than one more—and Keller. He took secrecy very seriously. I was only recruited to get Keller and the others through the security.”

  “The others?” You’d think she’d be spilling everything she ever even thought she knew about this Keller and Mirovitch, I thought sourly. But she was pale and shaking, only the flush of my power keeping her from collapsing. If memory could reopen the scars on my back and almost force me into shock, echo in Eddie’s head loud enough to make him shake even after all these years, and push the fabled Polyamour into losing her careful control, then she deserved a few seconds and all the gentleness I could muster.

  Especially since I was almost trembing with the urge to do something unforgivable, just so I could have a few moments of oblivion. I had never understood bought sex before, never.

  Not until now.

  “I think Yasrule was one of them. Maybe. I don’t know.” Tears thickened her exquisite voice, welling in her dark, haunted eyes.

  “You weren’t there? How could you short out the security and—”

  “He liked orgies.” When she mentioned Mirovitch, it was obvious; her voice took on a weight of whispery fear and utter loathing that scraped the air and made it bleed. “So I brought fresh meat, and I brought Keller. I had to get close to him and—”

  “Sekhmet sa’es,” I whispered. “Your one recruit and Keller.”

  She nodded. “Once we were inside, Keller slipped his collar and bought enough time for me to get the security circle down. Then I dragged the meat away—she was a Magi, Dolores Ancien-Ruiz, she didn’t know anything. That’s why I hate myself. He was busy with her while Keller started his… plan… and I worked on the net.” Polyamour held up her caramel hand, examining her shaking fingers as if they belonged to someone else. “I do hate myself for that.”

  I had to know. “Why?”

  Her shoulders dropped and she pulled them back taut again. “Dolores committed suicide two years later. She was eleven when she hung herself.”

  Shit. I would have wanted to question her too. The thought of an eleven-year-old girl hanging herself… I pushed it away.

  “I hauled her out of the Headmaster’s House. She was screaming. They went past me—they were all wearing sk8 masks, but I thought I recognized Yasrule. And Aran. And Hollin.”

  “Hollin? Hollin Sukerow?” Him I knew, by reputation at least. I glanced up at Jace, who was pale, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. It wasn’t a comfortable story. He was vulnerable to Poly’s pheromones, too. I wondered what he smelled when she drenched the air with fear.

  “The very same.” Polyamour’s chin lifted, a faint note of challenge. “Are you almost done? I have an appointment I would rather not miss.”

  As if you have anything more important to do. But it might just have been that she wanted us gone, that she wanted to start forgetting the fear that made her helpless. I made it to my feet, this time scooping up my sword. Paced over to her, avoiding the low table. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but she dropped her eyes, her entire body shifting just a few millimeters. It was amazing how she could express complete but grudging submission with such a subtle movement. I wished I had body language that expressive.

  Less than a foot from her, I halted. My fingernails scraped her hand as I took the spade necklace from her slackening fingers. This close, with my aura blurring and wrapping around her, she sighed, leaning forward as if she would lay her head on my shoulder.

  I stuffed both spade necklaces into my pocket and caught her nape again with my free hand, holding my sword well clear. Polyamour’s forehead touched mine. Her skin was fevered, but still not as warm as mine. She exhaled, I smelled human breath, coffee, and sexwitch musk. If I kissed her, she would melt against me, and Jace would be left standing on the couch. It had been a long, long time for me; and she…

  But I want to scare her. I don’t think I could control myself. The thought frightened me, because it was so goddamn tempting, and would be oh so very easy.

  What have I become?

  Her aura turned gold as I pushed Power into her, more and more and more until she cried out hoarsely, her body shuddering and hips jerking helplessly forward again. My fingers suddenly turned to iron to brace her. “Full-up,” I whispered. “Now for a few nights, you don’t have to feed. Take a vacation. And stop beating yourself up over Dolores.” My own breath caught as I inhaled, struggling for control. Kept it. I don’t do that. I don’t use people like that. I DON’T.

  Oh yeah? For once, the snide voice of my conscience didn’t sound like Japhrimel. What about Jace?

  I drew in a deep ragged breath. “Chances are it wasn’t you, Bastian. Lots of kids killed themselves rather than handle the fallout from that place. Who knows what she suffered before she helped bring Mirovitch down?” My voice sank into its lowest registers, a
throbbing contralto husk, swirling into her skin as I tied mental strings in a complicated knot, sealing the Power into her. For a few days, Polyamour would be free; she wouldn’t have to feed. The power-charge I gave her would last longer if she didn’t attempt any spells—and if she was attacked, she now had a full charge to fight with. It was poor payment for what I’d just put her through, but all I could give.

  One thing was certain. Our killer wasn’t Polyamour. Sexwitches didn’t turn Feeder. Their capacity to hold a charge of Power was finite; they couldn’t feed from anything other than sex. Not only was our killer not Polyamour, but she wasn’t implicated in the mess. She was clean.

  She gained her balance, and I let go of her neck. “And the next time you need another few days of rest, Poly, you come see me.” I forced myself to step cautiously, then turned on my heel and tilted my head at Jace. “We’ll let ourselves out.”

  Jace turned too, preceded me to the door. His hand touched the knob.

  “Valentine!” Polyamour’s voice didn’t quiver. I halted, not looking back. If I looked back I was going to do something I shouldn’t. My left hand almost creaked, I clutched the scabbard so tightly.

  “You bitch.” Now her voice broke like a teenage boy’s. “Thank you.”

  If you only knew how close I was to scaring you, to using you, you might not thank me. “No problem.” I touched Jace’s shoulder, he pushed the door open, and led me out into the hall beyond.

  “We’re going to have to do the elevator again,” he said. I let out a sharp breath, closing my eyes. My hand dug into his shoulder. He leaned into it. If it hurt him, he gave no indication. “Don’t worry, Danny. I’m with you.”

  It was more comforting than I expected. “Good.” My voice was still low, it made a shiver run through Polyamour’s House. That was close. That was so fucking close. And I invited her to call me again. She needs it, every sexwitch needs it. Loathing crept up my spine, skin-crawling dislike. No. I can offer her some help. That’s all. Payment for what I almost did to her, for what I was tempted to do. I am not a demon. I’m human. Human.