Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Night had fallen.

  And it was going to be a long one.

  CHAPTER 29

  Four hours later I stopped in a coffeeshop in midtown, ordered five shots of their best espresso, and stood at a table. My sword tucked into a loop on my belt while I tapped at my datpilot. The shop’s holovid feed was on, and I saw without much surprise that my house had made the evening news.

  I didn’t look after seeing the first few moments of scrambled footage: the column of flame going up an impressive couple of thousand feet, making a mushroom cloud of smoke that led some hysterical people to think that there had been a nuclear attack on Saint City. There had been no hovertraffic overhead, since my house was outside the main lanes, and the force of the explosion had been channeled up instead of outward, so apart from some broken windows and traumatized holovid reporters, there was precious little damage to anything other than my house.

  Which was, of course, what I’d wanted. Something I’d done right, for once.

  I took down the five shots of espresso at once. The mark on my shoulder had settled back to a satisfied glow, spreading over my body like warm oil. I looked at my datpilot. The information Gabe had sent was interesting, to say the least: a summary of all the bodies so far, dates of death, and thumbnail digitals of the crime scenes. She’d also had an analysis done of the glyphs, and it was this that I studied, going from one to the next while my datpilot glowed. It took a couple of hours of standing there, my eyes glued to the screen, to really get a sense of how the Feeder glyphs altered from the regular Ceremonial alphabet of the Nine Canons, and how twisting each rune in a particular fashion would serve the purpose of strengthening a psychic vampire. My secondary talent as a runewitch helped.

  I felt the gnaw of hunger just under my breastbone. For the first time, I had truly extended my powers, and I found I was starving. I ignored it, for now.

  My eyes felt dry and grainy. I locked my jaw against the slight moaning sound I wanted to make. Grieve later, I told myself. Work now. Grieve later.

  The door to the coffeehouse opened, and I glanced over. Nothing impressive, just a slicboard kid, his hair done in wild spikes of blue and green, wearing three torn, layered Fizzwhackers T-shirts and loose plasleather shorts with a chain for a belt, along with the newest and most expensive gleaming white Aeroflot sneakers. He looked at me with the supreme unconcern of the very young, and my blood turned to ice when I thought I recognized his face. Then the moment passed. He was too young to have been at Rigger Hall. Far too young, and normal besides. Not a psion.

  I noticed for the first time that the shop was very quiet, and glanced up. The three employees were trying not to stare at me, and uneasiness roiled in the air. I set my jaw, put my datpilot away, and left, no doubt to their great relief.

  Walking through Saint City at night is always interesting, due to the fact that the city rarely sleeps. In some districts, it never sleeps at all except during daylight. I wandered, head down and hands more often than not clasped around the katana’s scabbard. I wasn’t quite thinking. It was more like a sort of haze, shot through with different crystal-clear images.

  Like the corner of Thirtieth and Pole, a hooker leaning against a streetlamp opening her mouth to proposition me but retreating rapidly as soon as she saw my tat, the call dying on her lips as streetlamp light kissed and slid over her tired human face.

  Or a neon-lit alley, where I paid the entrance fee and went into a screaming shuddering nightclub, going to the bar and paying also for a shot of vodka I didn’t drink; the atmosphere of synth-hash smoke, sex, and frantic clinging as painful as the loud screeching noise that passed for music. Then, turning away from the bar, wandering aimlessly through the dancers and the occasional ghostflit riding the waves of sound and sensation, and finally going out the front door again onto the black streets.

  Or a deserted street, wet because rain had started to fall, patterns of street light swimming against the gleaming concrete. Shapes I almost knew flickered through the gleam of the falling droplets as the storm moved in, washing the air clean.

  I penetrated the tangle of alleys in the Bowery, the deepest part of the Tank District. They led to the Rathole, and I spent a little while standing on an abandoned shelf looking down into the huge sinkhole that used to be a transport well, watching the little firefly flickers that were the sk8 tribes getting ready for their nightly cohesion of slicboard deviltry and community-building. Each young slictribe kid down there whirling on a slicboard through the ramps and jumpoffs was a star, reactive paint glittering as they swooped and yelled with joy; I felt the meaning of the patterns of their chaotic dance tremble at the edge of my understanding.

  The idea swam just under the surface of my mind. I always thought best while moving, and this aimless back and forth did qualify as moving. I had read once that sharks in the ocean’s cold depths couldn’t stop swimming or they would drown.

  I understood.

  Dawn came up in a glow of rose and gold, the storm passing to the south after having dropped its cargo of water. I found myself up on a rooftop in the University District, the spell of night wearing off and the furnace of the sun breaking free of Earth’s darkness. I saw dripping trees in Tasmoor Park below me, heard the hovertraffic overhead take on a new urgency to begin the day, felt my dry burning eyes wanting to close.

  When the sun had been up for a while, I got up from lying on the wet, cold concrete of the rooftop and climbed down the rusty fire escape to the alley below, and went in search of a callbox. It took some doing—on this edge of the U District the last riots had destroyed a few callboxes, and phone companies were loath to put more in when everyone had datpilots with voice capability—but I finally found one on the fringe of the Tank District on the edge of an abandoned lot. I stepped into the lighted box, my wet clothes sticking to my steaming skin, and dialed a familiar number.

  “Spocarelli, Saint City Parapsych.” She sounded hassled and tired. Behind her, frantically ringing phones and raised voices, shuffling papers. It sounded busy.

  “Gabe.” My voice was a husk of its former self. “It’s me. Any news?”

  One lone second of silence was all I got. Then, “Holy fuck,” Gabe whisper-screamed into the phone. “Where the fucking hell are you, Danny? Eddie and I been looking everywhere for you! What the fuck are you doing? We thought Lourdes had taken you out too! What are you doing?”

  This struck me as an excellent question. What was I doing? “Thinking. Been thinking. Look, the other four on the list—”

  “Three,” she said grimly. “It was a busy night. He got a Shaman named Alyson Brady last night and killed four cops to do it. It’s like he has some sort of link with them, he’s hunting them down like a bloodhound. We had all of them in safehouses. Now we’re moving them every two hours. The holovids are having a field day. They’re calling him the Psychic Ripper. Chief just got finished chewing my ass out over this. I sure hope you have a good fucking idea in that steel box you call a head, I have been worried sick about you, goddammit! Why didn’t you call me? Goddamn you and your theatrics, Valentine!”

  I closed my eyes. Four Spook Squad cops down, and Brady. I’d known Brady, even worked on a mercenary job or two with her. I might have even seen her wearing that spade necklace. We’d never discussed Rigger Hall at all, not even when we were crouched behind a pile of wreckage with three desperate bounties shooting at us, me bleeding from my head and her bleeding just about everywhere else. That had been the Gibrowitz job; the bounties were wanted for the rape and murder of the Hegemony senator’s daughter. We’d brought them in a little worse for wear. Brady, in particular, did not like rapists.

  The necklaces.

  Instinct clicked under my skin. I actually gasped, cutting off Gabe’s frustrated swearing.

  If I hadn’t been so tired, so physically and emotionally exhausted, I might not have seen it. “Gabe.” My voice took on a new urgency. “Look. Do they still have the spade necklaces?”

  “I don’t… I kno
w Brady had one.” Gabe’s tone sharpened suspiciously. “Danny, what are you thinking?”

  “Get those necklaces from them. Do it now. Take ’em to the station, and don’t touch them if you can help it. Leave them on your desk for me and clear out. I think that’s how he’s tracking them. Get all the necklaces together. I’ll be there in an hour to get them. Draw him off.”

  “Danny, we still don’t know what we’re dealing with!” The high edge of panic colored her voice. “If it’s a ka—”

  “I think I know what’s going on. And he killed Jace because he couldn’t kill me, Gabe. I’m the best equipped to track him down, goddammit, if it’s a ka I’ll take my goddamn motherfucking chances.” My voice was infused with a certainty I didn’t feel. Then something else occurred to me. “Why did you think Lourdes had taken me out?”

  “Your house, you idiot! Didn’t you see the footage?” Phones beeped and buzzed behind her. I heard someone shouting about a Ceremonial trace. More shuffling papers. Click of a lighter and a long inhale—she was smoking again.

  I think that is the very first time you have ever called me an idiot, Gabe. “What footage?”

  “Hades, Danny. It’s been all over the news. Your house was wrecked and they have footage of you wandering off looking like you’d been hit on the head. Worrying the fuck out of me, I might add! I thought Lourdes was following you, I thought you might be dead!”

  A slight, shaky laugh boiled out of me. “I am dead, Gabe. I just don’t have enough sense to lie down and admit it. Get the necklaces. I’m coming to collect them, and I’ll take care of Lourdes or Mirovitch or both or whoever this is. And Gabe, if you’ve got the necklaces there in the building and you start to feel hinky, run. Don’t take him on.”

  “But—backup, Danny! For the love of Hades—”

  “No fucking backup.” My voice was flat and level. “You saw what he did to Jace, he’s already killed enough of your people. I’m part demon, Gabe. If anyone can take this on, it’s me; if I think I need backup or a goddamn thermonuclear strike I’ll call in and tell you. Don’t you fucking dare put anyone in danger by sending them after this guy. He’s mine.”

  “Danny—”

  “Your word, Gabe. I want your word.”

  Long crackling silence. If I had to worry about human psions behind me getting hurt my effectiveness would be halved, and I was, after all, stronger, faster, and able to take more damage. Gabe was in an unenviable position—throw more of her coworkers in the line of fire and hope this man, whoever he was, didn’t kill them, or send me and trust me to finish the job. Trust the lying certainty in my voice. There was only one choice she could make. Sacrifice the many, or trust me to handle it.

  “Fine. You’re on.” But Gabe’s voice shook. Another inhale, a long exhale of synth-hash smoke I could almost taste over the phone line. “I’m glad you’re alive, Danny.”

  That makes one of us. A choking laugh ripped its way free of my throat. “Thanks, Gabe. Be careful.”

  “You got it. Don’t do anything stupid.” She slammed the phone down. I rested my head against the metal and plasilica of the phone booth, laying the receiver back into its cradle. Hunger twisted under my breastbone. A wave of weakness slid over me.

  Doreen. Eve. Japhrimel. Jace. The litany kept going under my conscious thought, the sharp spurs of guilt sinking in, poisoning all they touched.

  “I need food,” I muttered.

  … feed me…

  Can it be you have not resurrected him?

  “Can’t now even if I want to, sunshine,” I said, with a kind of grim humor. “Look at this. I’m talking to myself in a phone booth. Come on, Danny. It’s time to go get some food.”

  Another thought stopped me. I keyed in another number from my datband’s clear plasilica display. It rang four times.

  “The House of Love,” a male voice purred out of the receiver. “What is your wish?”

  “This is Dante Valentine,” I said, low and fierce. “I need to speak to Polyamour. Now.”

  “Well, everyone has to—” The sound clicked off. I heard something, moving material, and then another voice. Female, dark and smooth, and raising the hair on the back of my neck.

  “Ms. Valentine. Lady Polyamour thought you’d call. Just a moment.”

  “Lady” Polyamour? I was too tired to even find that funny.

  Another click. No hold-music, just staticky silence. I looked out over the abandoned lot and felt terribly exposed. The skin on my back roughened. The dawning gold of sunrise edged even the weeds in the empty lot with gold, touched the sky with blush. Thin cirrus clouds trailed across the sky—the night’s rain was pushing eastward, inland, leaving a fresh-washed pale blue and pink in its wake.

  Then another click. “—punishment. I told you to tell me if she called.” Polyamour’s voice. I smiled slightly, my skin feeling as if it was going to crack. I needed food, lots of it, and soon. “Ms. Valentine. I thought you would call again.”

  “I hate to be predictable. Look, Poly, I need to know something. The necklaces. The spade necklaces, the reminders. Where did you get those from?”

  “Keller got them from a jeweler…” She was silent for a moment, probably trailing the name through memory. It didn’t take long—a Magi-trained memory is a well-trained memory. “Smith. Bryce Smith. His uncle.”

  I let out a long, satisfied breath. The normal living in a house with excellent shields—what else does a psionic kid do for his loving uncle? I’d bet the shields were Keller’s work, after the kid left school.

  After he’d left school—and before Mirovitch had broken free of whatever deep psychic vault Kellerman Lourdes had locked him in, maybe believing him dead. “That’s what I needed, Poly. Thanks. Lock your fucking doors and stay under cover, okay?”

  “Thank you for your concern, but I’m quite well-protected. Dante?”

  “What?” I leaned my forehead against the metal again. The clear plasilica windows were starting to steam up.

  For once, she didn’t sound disdainful or controlled. Instead, her voice was tinged with something foreign—respect. And not the fawning respect of a courtesan for her callers—genuine respect. “Thank you. You’re welcome here anytime you choose to come.”

  Oh, gods above, don’t tempt me. “Thanks.” I hung up. Food. I need food.

  In the Tank District there were eateries that still served real meat instead of protein substitute. I stopped at a taqueria, bought and wolfed two huge steak burritos; then went to the burger stand next door and took down three triple-cheeseburgers in ten minutes. Next was another burger stand and three more cheeseburgers, this time with soy bacon. Then, with the edge of the blowtorch hole in my gut slightly taken off, I walked into a Novo Italiano cafe and ordered spaghetti and garlic bread, with bruschetta to start off with, stuffed mushrooms, and a double order of calamari. I barely even tasted it. I would have ordered more, but they took too long to bring it to the table.

  When I finished there, I stopped in a convenience store and bought a twelve-pack of plascanned weightlifter shakes, meant to help those with black-market augments keep their muscle mass. Ten minutes later, in an alley, I dropped the last can and wiped my mouth.

  The hunger was only blunted, but I’d told Gabe I’d be at the station in an hour and had only fifteen minutes left. Made it just in time, bolting up the stairs and reaching the third floor, whirling in through the door and finding Gabe’s office empty. On her desk were four silver necklaces, their chains tangled together.

  The entire third floor was eerily silent and empty. Of course, with a Feeder killing psionics—both cop and civilian—and the suspected trigger to his tracking on Gabe’s desk, she would have little need for persuasion to clear the place out. They were probably watching, waiting to come back after I left the building.

  I didn’t blame them.

  I scooped the necklaces up, looking around. Finding a blank piece of paper proved to be a little tricky. In the end I wrote on the backside of a laseprinted burgl
ary report.

  The first victim—the normal was Lourdes’s uncle. He made the necklaces. I know where Lourdes is. I’m going to make him fucking pay. Do NOT send anyone after me!

  I paused, then wrote, THANK YOU. Underlined and circled twice. It didn’t seem enough, so I laid my hand on the paper and let a tingle of Power down, shaping stray ink into a glyph—Mainuthsz, a Greater Glyph of the Canons, shaped like the suggestion of a rider on a horse twisted into an inky line sketch. It meant unconditional love, a partnership—something she and Eddie had, something I had always wanted.

  The swift dark stream of guilt roared under the surface of my mind for a few moments before I wrestled it down. I was going to expiate the guilt in the oldest of ways—with blood. But to do that, I needed to think clearly.

  Revenge is best served subzero, because revenge is no fucking good if you don’t think clearly. I was perfectly prepared to die, yes—but I was not prepared to waste myself. Before I was through, Keller or Mirovitch—or both—were going to be sent to Hell, with all the ferocity and cunning I could muster, and all the clinical coldness I was capable of.

  I picked up the pen. There was nothing else that could have expressed what I felt for her, or what I had to do. I hesitated, scrawled one more word.

  Goodbye.

  I ducked out of her office. The place was deserted. I made it down the stairs and out of the station, the spade necklaces dangling in my hand before I remembered what and who I was, and stuffed them in my pocket.

  Come and get me now, Mirovitch, I thought, waiting for the lash of pain down my back, waiting for the phantom wounds to reopen.

  They didn’t. Instead, an ice-cold wall of fury closed around me, impenetrable, shutting me away. My quarry was in front of me, the track clear, my revenge assured. I was going to make him pay, no matter who he was. Lourdes, Mirovitch, the fucking King of the Rats—I was going to kill him.