Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I’m not going to cry. It doesn’t hurt. I am not going to cry. It doesn’t hurt.

  Number one rule for anyone who practices magick, don’t ever lie to yourself. I knew, with miserable clarity, that I was breaking that rule. “You bastard. Are you going back to Hell? For how long? What’s going on? At least say it out loud if you’re not coming back, at least tell me, the least you could do is tell me—” Instead of sounding angry, I only sounded tired. Curious numbness spread through my chest. Numbness like metal must feel when a blowtorch kisses it.

  Japhrimel stopped. He caught my shoulders, and before I could back up he pressed a hard, closed kiss on my mouth. I would have struggled, would have tried to break free, but his hands were like steel claws.

  “Listen to me.” His voice held none of the plasgun-charge of Power he’d used inside. Instead, he sounded carefully restrained, almost human. His eyes were full of green sparks, dancing in their depths like fireflies. “I will come for you. I will always come for you. Wait for me at home, do not open the door to anyone. I will be with you soon. Now go.”

  What could I say to that? I simply stared at him, my fingers nerveless-tight around my sword.

  He shoved me up the steps and into the hover. “Go, and wait for me,” he repeated, then leapt back down from the steps. I collapsed on the pleather seat, all the strength running out of my legs. The door closed, I heard the whine-rattle of the hovercells beginning to take on flight frequency.

  What just happened in there? If he goes back to Hell and leaves me alone, how long will I last against four Greater Flight demons? What did he really ask Lucifer for? I thought he couldn’t go back! The thought rose like bad gas in a reactive-painted shaft. I let out a choked sound that rattled the glasses in the rack over the wet bar.

  The driver didn’t speak. I wondered for a lunatic moment if it was one of Hell’s human agents or just autopilot.

  He’s going back to Hell. For how long? When will he come back? Soon, he said. What’s a demon’s idea of soon?

  Abandoned. Again. All my life I’ve been left behind—by parents, lovers, friends. I’d thought this time was different. Would I ever learn?

  I scooted over as the hover rose, pressed my forehead to the window. I had one glimpse of Japhrimel, his face upturned like a golden dish, standing on the cathedral steps and watching as the hover rose into the night sky. His black coat fell down, melded with the shadow lying over the steps, then he was gone.

  Vanished. Back into the cathedral.

  Back to Lucifer.

  Back to Hell.

  I collapsed back against the seat. The trembling got worse, running through my bones like hoverwhine.

  “Gods,” I breathed, and closed my eyes.

  It wasn’t numbness burning cold inside my chest.

  It was a pain so immense I immediately drove my fingernails of my left hand into my palm, squeezing my hand with every erg of demon-given strength. My rings popped and snapped, a shower of golden sparks filling the air. Panic. I was panicking. Stop it. Ride the pain, Dante; come back, get a grip on yourself. Get a goddamn grip. You’re alive. You’re still alive.

  For how long? The smell of my own black blood rose to assault my nose. I opened my eyes, lifted my blood-slick hand, dragged it back over my hair to wipe it clean. The nasty ragged half-moon marks from my claws sealed themselves away, closed seamlessly.

  The hover banked, turning to go over land. So I wasn’t going to be dumped in the sea.

  Good to know.

  As soon as I realized the thin keening sound was coming from me, I swallowed it. The hole in my chest got bigger. The mark on my shoulder flared with heat, one last caress burning all the way down my body. I’d lived without Japh for a little under a year last time, when he was ash in a black lacquer urn, waiting for me to figure out how to resurrect him. I never wanted to do that again. It hurt too goddamn much.

  I moved again on the seat, and paper rustled.

  What the hell?

  I looked down. There was a brown-paper package on the seat I was sure hadn’t been there before.

  “Well,” I said out loud. “That was interesting.” My voice broke.

  I will always come for you. Don’t open the door.

  “Gods.” Seven years, was that what I’d agreed to? Seven years of working for the Devil. Not just a hunt like last time. Lucifer was probably sitting in Hell right now laughing his immortal ass off. Seven years of working for the Devil, and if Japhrimel went back to being in Hell where did that leave me? Was I going to turn back into a human, without him around? Would I like it? I hoped the process wasn’t too painful.

  Goddammit, Dante, wake up. You saw the Devil again and lived through it. You should throw a party. A big one. With lots of booze. Fireworks. And a goddamn military marching band.

  Only who would show up? Who would even care?

  I reached down with shaking fingers and touched the package. It was tied with twine, wrapped in brown paper, bigger than my clenched fist. I picked it up as if dreaming.

  The twine and paper fell away.

  It was a wristcuff made out of oddly heavy silver metal. Etched into its surface was a complicated pattern that reminded me of a Shaman’s accreditation tattoo, thorns and flowing lines twisting through each other. The inside was smooth and blank except for two daggered marks that looked like fangs. It had the slightly alien geometry of something demon-made.

  Great. A party favor? An afterthought? What was this?

  I touched the cuff with one finger, feeling smooth silver. I traced one etched line.

  Oh, what the hell. Nothing can get any worse. I winced at the thought—thinking that was the surest way for some new and interesting twist of awfulness to show up. Any Magi-trained psion knows better than to tempt Fate, even if only inside one’s own head.

  I picked it up, slid it around my left wrist, twisting so the open part of the cuff lay upward, the flat demon-carved surface along the underside of my arm. It settled against my skin as if it belonged there, a little higher than my datband. It looked barbaric—I’ve never been one for jewelry, despite my rings. I like all my accessories to have lethal capability.

  He knew I wanted Eve free. He knew it. Why did he back away from pressing for Eve? What did he really say to Lucifer? Why did he ask to go back to Hell? Does that mean he’s tired of me? He said he would come back. Even told me to lock the doors at home.

  Home. Like it’s home without him.

  Had he wanted to be free of me? Had all the presents just been a way to tell me so?

  Sekhmet sa’es. I was even disgusting myself. If he wanted to break up with me, there were better ways of doing it. He’d given me presents because he wanted to. You know him, Danny. He’ll come back.

  But what then? I hadn’t the faintest.

  “Gods,” I whispered. “Anubis. Anubis et’her ka. Se ta’uk’fhet sa te vapu kuraph.” The prayer rose out of me with the ease of long repetition. Anubis et’her ka. Anubis, Lord of the Dead, Faithful Companion, protect me, for I am Your child. Protect me, Anubis, weigh my heart upon the scale; watch over me, Lord, for I am Your child. Do not let evil distress me, but turn Your fierceness upon my enemies. Cover me with Your gaze, let Your hand be upon me, now and all the days of my life, until You take me into Your embrace.

  I crumpled the paper in my fist and tossed it across the hover, a passionlessly accurate throw. Sparks popped from my rings again.

  Japhrimel gone back into Hell, to return as gods-only-knew-what, gods-only-knew-when. And me, sent home to wait for further orders, and working for the Devil again.

  To hell with tempting Fate. “It can’t get any worse,” I said out loud, and curled up, bracing my heels against the edge of the soft cushioned seat. My bag shifted and clinked against my side. I wrapped my arms around my legs, buried my face in my knees, and struggled to stop hyperventilating.

  It took a while.

  CHAPTER 11

  The house was still, dark, and silent. The hoverlimo let me
off on the landing pad; clearly it was on autopilot. As soon as I jumped down from the side hatch, my boots thudding on concrete treated to look like flat white marble, the whine of hovercells crested and the sleek black gleaming vehicle rose, circled the house once, and drifted away very slowly, far more slowly than it had carried me home.

  I stood, and shut my eyes. A Toscano summer night folded around me, warm and soft, the kind of night I could spend in the library, my eyes glued to the page. Or a night I could spend curled against Japhrimel’s side in the comfort of our bed, listening to his quiet voice as he told me stories of demons and history, sometimes true, sometimes only rumors. My own voice would answer his, a lighter counterpoint, and sometimes a soft laugh would break the silence.

  No more. Lucifer had stopped all that.

  I set my shoulders, walked down the steps between the masses of fragrant rosemary growing on either side. The flagstone path to the front door was there, dark and inviting. Stay inside, don’t answer the door, wait for me. But for how long?

  I was grateful none of the servants were there, especially Emilio. Japhrimel must have quietly and efficiently taken care of sending them away, maybe guessing he wouldn’t be back tonight.

  Did he want to go home? What the hell does Lucifer need me for, if Japh’s going back to Hell? I shook the thought away, it was useless. What the Devil wanted, the Devil got, and he wanted both of us for some reason.

  I pushed open the front door. The security net recognized my datband and genescan; the shields—Japhrimel’s careful demon-laid work and my own trademark Necromance shields, layers of energy rippling over the place we called home—parted to let me through.

  The mark on my shoulder was quiescent, not throbbing in time to Japh’s heartbeat or burning with his attention to me. I did not reach up to touch it. If he was in Hell, I didn’t want to see through his eyes. I just hoped the awful empty feeling in my chest would go away sometime soon.

  I made my way through silent halls and death-quiet rooms, my bootheels clicking against marble or sinking into rugs. I tried not to look at any room Japhrimel might have walked through. Gods, Danny, can’t you just calm down? Just wait for him. He’ll be back. You know he will.

  Most of me knew he would. A small, critical, half-buried part of me still wasn’t so sure. The part of me that trusted no one, believed no one; the hard, cold streak of stubborn doubt I hated myself for. I was always waiting for someone to hurt me, maybe because most of the people I’d loved or trusted—or who had power over me, especially when I was a child—had either died or misused my trust. Betrayed me. Hurt me.

  Abandoned me.

  I finally reached the double doors. Pushed them open, gently. They whispered across the floor.

  The long room, dappled with low light, looked just the same. I paced down the middle of the floor, put my palms together, and bowed slightly to Jace’s sword. Why the hell am I in here? What am I doing?

  The sword rang softly, a slow low song of distress from the death of its owner still reverberating in the steel. I wondered sometimes if the shards of my old katana, rusting in frigid ocean depths with rotting bits of Santino, sang with the same aching agony. Only I hadn’t died, just been crippled—and lost Japhrimel as well as my own humanity.

  I reached up with my free hand, touching the slim, hard shapes of silver-dipped raccoon baculum. The protections wedded to the necklace hummed and shifted, a gentle touch closing around me. Between the necklace, the cuff, and my rings, I was beginning to feel quite the fashion holoplate.

  I have been here, asking the ghost of a human man for forgiveness. And wondering why he has more of your heart than I do.

  Did he really think that? Had he really thought I was that petty or disloyal? I had loved Jace. Loved him and been unable to touch him, unable to return his own affection for me. He had been one of the last links to the person I was before Rio, before I’d ended up half-demon and tied to Lucifer’s assassin.

  I’d loved him. But I needed Japhrimel, the way I’d never needed Jace.

  “I’m doing okay with this,” I said out loud to the dim dappled half-light and the twisted, blackened sword’s moan of agony. My voice startled me, I almost jumped. My heart settled into a fast high pounding. Japhrimel. Japh. Where are you now, what are you doing? How long am I going to wait here?

  “As long as it takes.” My voice startled me again. I shook my head, the thick braided rope of my hair bumping against my back. My fingers gentled on the scabbard, losing a bit of white-knuckled panic. I took a deep breath, turned on my heel, and stopped dead.

  A shadow melded with the gloom at the other end of the room. My heart hammered, leaping wildly. I tasted copper.

  Blue eyes glittered. A shock of golden hair—gone. The dust in the air swirled, coalesced into a thorn-twisted Shaman tattoo before a stray breath of air smashed through the delicate pattern. I knew that tat as well as I knew my own, as well as I knew Gabe’s.

  “Gods,” I whispered. A breath of warm night wind blew through the room.

  Stop it. You’re imagining things. You’re in shock. You’ve just had a nasty experience and you’re wishing someone, anyone was here. Quit imagining. That’s deadly, for a Necromance to start hallucinating.

  But the air was full of the scent of tamales, and blood—and the smell of midnight ice and wet ratfur.

  Chills rilled up my spine. My right hand blurred to my swordhilt, and I drew the blade free in one fluid motion. Blue fire began to flow along the metal’s edge, dappling the floor with reflections as the sword slanted slightly up in first guard, the position so habitual and natural I barely realized I’d drawn steel.

  The smell of tamales and blood and Power was Nuevo Rio, Jace’s hometown. But the other smell gagged me, made my hackles rise and a thin gleam of light jet from the emerald set in my cheek. The tattoo shifted under my skin, my cheek burning. My rings boiled with sparks for a moment, gold spangles drifting down to touch the floor and wink out.

  Ice and wet ratfur was the scent of a demon I’d indisputably killed, with a huge helping of luck and a lot of berserker rage. I’d torn through his throat, plunged the shards of my blade through his heart, and shredded what muck remained of him into the ocean, that great cleanser. Japhrimel had assured me Vardimal was completely dead.

  Of all the times to be haunted by a dead demon, it just has to happen when Japh’s not here to help.

  Rage rose up inside me, a red sheet of fury crackling along my skin, popping sparks off the edge of my blade. I lifted the scabbard in my left hand, held along my forearm with about three inches protruding from my fist for striking at an enemy’s vulnerable point. I lowered myself slightly, almost crouching, my back to the wall behind the ebony table. I slid along the wall, backed into the corner, and waited.

  The most nerve-racking part of any attack is the waiting—for both attacker and defender. Once Jado and I had held our positions across the tatami mats of his sparring room for a good half an hour, neither of us moving except to blink. I am never the most patient of fighters, preferring to attack and turn the enemy’s incipent force back on itself—but that didn’t mean I had to attack.

  Quite frankly, right now I didn’t feel in my best fighting shape. I felt like my heart had been ripped out and stabbed—my eyes blurring with tears and my chest aching with swallowed sobs. I missed him, a horrible sinking feeling of missing him boiling up inside my chest.

  I heard the whine of hovercells too. Was someone coming to visit me?

  Take a number, I’m busy with another enemy. Japh told me to stay inside, am I going to have to fight a guerilla action inside my own house?

  Cold fury dilated inside me, blue light sliding over the walls, lighting the long room clearly. I inhaled again, filled my lungs. The smell had disappeared—both the smell of Nuevo Rio and the smell of Santino/Vardimal.

  It isn’t Santino. I killed Santino. It’s something like Santino maybe, or something playing a trick on me.

  The outer edges of my shieldi
ng thinned. Nothing could get in here, could it? Not through Japhrimel’s shields. Not through mine.

  Right?

  Japh told you to come here. He insisted on it. He wouldn’t have done that unless it was safe. Right?

  Of all the times to have a thought like that, now was the worst.

  Settle down, Danny, a soft male voice I never thought I’d hear again said inside my head. Don’t second-guess yourself. You smelled it, and your body knows what’s up. Just stay put a minute, just wait.

  It was good advice, even if it came from a dead man. Fine time to think of Jace Monroe now, wasn’t it?

  I waited, my heartbeats thudding off time. Premonition itched under my skin. I wasn’t at all sure the house was a safe place to be right now. After all, someone had to know we were living here. Being where your enemy expects you is not good tactics.

  Why would he tell me to wait here, then? He was very clear about it.

  I saw it as the whine of hovercells returned more loudly; a shadow flitting along the window—outside. Too quick to track even for my demon-acute eyes, but I was already moving, even as the shields shivered under an assault that threatened to throw me to my knees with the backlash. I let out a short cry, pumping available Power from the reserves below the house and a generous portion of demon Power into a flare that knocked whatever-it-was off. Had to be physical, no magickal assault would feel quite so thumpingly real.

  Japhrimel had told me to stay inside, but if someone crashed a hover into the house I didn’t want to stick around to see it.

  No route like the short route. I gathered myself and leapt. The crash and tinkle of breaking plasglass filled the air, I landed cat-silent, cat-quick, and streaked along the wall of the house, making for the corner. It was a relief to have something to fight at last.

  I rounded the corner and saw it, a low black vaguely humanoid shape moving with blurring speed. I let out a short, sharp curse just as it twisted away from the wall of the house, which was resonating like a struck bell, stone singing with the stress of the Power wedded to it stretching. Another magickal attack, and I’d gotten out of the house just in time. The shields sang a low feedback squeal I didn’t like at all, the night suddenly alive with half-heard chittering and shrieking. I heard a terrible glassy growl float from the front of the house just as the shields shuddered from that direction, taking another massive impact and going hard and crystalline, locking down.