Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

The northern half of the city is the Demilitarized Zone itself, where most nonhuman species have their enclaves; the southern half is patrolled by werecain whose only boss is the Master of the territory, a Nichtvren named Leonidas who was the final winner of the scramble for power. It’s one of the four nonhuman Freetown territories in the world, a zone from the Adriatic to the forward border of Putchkin Austrio-Hungaro, bordered on the south by Hegemony Graecia. The last humans fled after the final Serbian uprising was put down by Leonidas and a werecain alpha named Masud about a century after the War, and the Hegemony and Putchkin negotiated absorbing the ethnic minorities and resettling them in the cultural areas that most closely resembled their former home. Linguists and culture-historians were busy for years sorting the tangles out.

  Leonidas, probably understanding that even a Nichtvren can’t argue with joint Hegemony-Putchkin thermonuclear attack, made sure most of the surviving humans were released unscathed.

  A few humans tried to go back, but nobody ever heard from them again. For a while there was a movement to reclaim the territory, especially the psychic whirlpool of the Blackbird Fields, but in the end the Nichtvren paid off whoever they had to and the whole issue became a moot point. Any human dumb enough to go into DMZ Sarajevo was either dead or Turned within twenty-four hours—and that went for psions too. Even accredited psions with combat training and bounties under their belt don’t go there.

  There are rumors, of course, of people desperate enough to go into Sarajevo and bargain to be Turned. There are also rumors of indentured servants and slave trading—but those are only whispered in dark corners. The Hegemony and Putchkin largely paid very little attention as long as Leonidas kept order and nothing thermonuclear was smuggled out of the territory.

  I’m actually in Sarajevo, I thought with dazed wonder, looking out the hover window.

  “We’ve got clearance.” McKinley looked back over his shoulder. “They’ll meet us at the dock.”

  Japhrimel merely nodded. He had sat there the entire flight, watching me. After a while I had dropped all pretense of sleeping and instead had studied the darkness outside slowly falling under the hover. A faint grayness had begun in the east, the herald of dawn. I saw fewer lights than most cities, slices of complete darkness in certain districts north of the river, lots of neon as we banked over the DMZ, McKinley piloting the hover with a sure, deft touch.

  “My lord?” McKinley asked.

  Japhrimel finally stirred, swinging the seat to look toward the front of the hover. “Yes?”

  “Is she….” It sounded like he couldn’t find a polite way to phrase it. What was he asking? If I’d been taught my place yet? If I was all right? If I was still alive? Why the fuck should he care?

  “That is not your concern.” Nothing shaded Japhrimel’s voice except perhaps a faint weariness.

  “Yessir.” McKinley turned back to the front. After a few moments, I saw the console begin to flash as a hoverdock AI took over. McKinley eased himself out of the seat and stretched, joints popping. The metallic coating on his left hand shone dully with reflected light.

  He didn’t look at me. I was happy about that.

  Japhrimel turned back to me. “Your cooperation, Dante. I want your word on it.”

  That managed to wring a laugh out of me, a jagged sound that made the air shiver. “You sure you want to trust my word, demon?”

  “You will give me little else.” The mark burned on my shoulder, velvet flame coating my nerves. The sensation had once been pleasant. Comforting.

  Now I hated it. The feeling of my skin crawling with loathing under the Power was new, interesting, and awful. It was the way I imagined an indentured servant would feel, helpless impotent loathing and rage. My sternum still throbbed with raw pain, maybe because I’d kept rubbing it, scrubbing it with my knuckles, trying to scour away the helpless feeling of being trapped and betrayed at once.

  “I will make you pay for this,” I whispered. My throat was full, my eyes hot and grainy. You shouldn’t have done that, Japhrimel.

  “No doubt. Your cooperation, Dante. Full and complete cooperation. Your word on it.”

  “Or what, you’ll kill me?” I tried to make it sound like a challenge. “Hold me up against a wall again? Maybe you’ll beat me up a little. Slap me around. Teach me my place.”

  A muscle in his sleek golden cheek twitched, but his voice was still soft and even. “I can think of more pleasant things to do with you, my curious. Your word.”

  I glared out the window, faintly surprised when the plasilica didn’t crack. You’re going to regret this, you bastard. “Fine. You have my word. I’ll cooperate.” Cooperate with what and who, though? That’s the question.

  He studied me. I let him have my profile, kept my gaze out the window. “You will cooperate with me for as long with our bargain with the Prince lasts.”

  “You get seven years from the day I negotiated with Lucifer,” I returned tautly. The first chance I have I’m ditching you, I can “cooperate” from anywhere in the world.

  The bravado was pure reflex, and I knew it. If I left him, how long would I last on my own?

  “I have your word?” Damn him, he was pushing me. I could tell from the faint shadow of carefulness in his tone that he had probably gauged just how far he could push me without me snapping and trying to run him through.

  If I did leap at him now, what would he do? Take my sword away? Cuff me with plasteel cuffs or the shackle of a demon’s magick? I am no longer your familiar; I am your Fallen. I am not bound to obey, only to protect.

  To a demon, “protection” might not mean what it meant to me. He was being careful, but he could force me to do just about anything. I had the same chance of escaping him as a stuffed and cuffed bounty has of escaping a good hunter.

  In other words, no fucking chance at all unless I got a little creative and very lucky. But even if I managed to pull anything, what then? “I already said so.” I bit off the end of the sentence. “Don’t fucking push me.”

  McKinley didn’t look at me, but he flinched. That was interesting. I had the not-so-comforting idea that the agent thought Japhrimel was still playing nice with me. Or that I was recklessly suicidal. Welcome irritation began to flow back into me like a tonic, giving me the strength to take a deep breath and measure Japhrimel with open eyes and defiantly lifted chin. Even if you can force me to do anything you want, I’m still going to fight. I can make this difficult for you.

  Maybe he’d get tired of it after a while. I hoped so.

  The hover descended. My ears used to pop every time a transport sank. Now I just felt a funny sinking sensation in my stomach. Hedaira don’t usually throw up unless poisoned—I knew that much—but I was feeling pretty sick. It was anybody’s guess whether that was from the hover or from recent events.

  Japhrimel still wasn’t done. “Be careful what you make of me.”

  As if I was somehow responsible for him treating me like this. As if it was my fault. Just because he was stronger than me didn’t give him the right to do that to me, did it? I set my jaw, looked down at my sword. The thought—did Jado give me a blade that could kill the Devil?—circled through my brain.

  Then, like a gift, an idea began to form.

  Are you crazy? my practical, survival-oriented half screeched. It doesn’t matter if he’s a goddamn demon, he’s still your best chance of staying alive! What happens if you run across another hellhound?

  A deeper voice full of stubborn determination took shape in the middle of my chest, right under the scraped and throbbing spot between my breasts. It doesn’t matter. ’Tis better to die on your feet than live on your knees, Danny. Rigger Hall taught you that. Santino taught you that. Every goddamn thing in your life that tried to break you taught you that. If you don’t fight this, you’re going to lose all the goddamn self-respect you’ve ever earned.

  I looked up at Japhrimel. “You have no right to treat me like an indentured servant,” I said softly, shaking my head. A tendril o
f ink-black hair fell in my face, I blew it away with a short sharp whistling breath. “Just because I’m human doesn’t give you the right to manipulate me or scare me into doing what you want.”

  I rocked up to my feet and stalked toward the front of the hover, looking down at the control deck. It would have been satisfying to smash it—but instead, I simply stood there with my head down, looking out the window and scanning the dock we were headed for. Japhrimel said nothing. It was gratifying to get the last word, for once.

  Nichtvren, clustered at one end. A couple of werecain hulking behind them. I marked one Master, a large geometrical stain of Power; several Acolytes with their own shields depending on the Master’s like satellites, and a few human thralls. I suppose the thralls didn’t quite qualify as human, but still… it gave me a pause to see them there.

  McKinley glanced at me, his back set against the partition between the cockpit and the rest of the hover. I was close enough to slip a knife into him.

  The temptation was almost overwhelming.

  I said nothing while the hover docked, the AI landing us with a slight thump. I closed my eyes briefly, reaching out—

  —and retreating back behind my own demon-strong shields. The air outside was alive with creeping Power, like the House of Pain back in Saint City. No wonder they didn’t let humans in; this many paranormal species in a city that had been soaked with pain and suffering made for a charged psychic atmosphere.

  Charged like a reaction fire. I winced, wishing I could stop thinking about reactive.

  Okay, Dante. Imagine you’re held by enemies and in DMZ Sarajevo. Keep on your toes, stay loose, and look out for opportunity. He can’t pay attention to you every single moment of the goddamn day.

  At least, I hoped he couldn’t. All it would take was a momentary lapse of attention and I’d have a chance to at least make Japh work for it, if not escape outright.

  The good news was, if I could by some miracle get away from Japhrimel, I might be able to find someplace to hide and try to come up with a half-assed plan that would leave me alive.

  The bad news was, if I ran across another demon, or even another hellhound, I might end up dead anyway.

  It was looking more and more likely all the time.

  CHAPTER 33

  The Nichtvren Master was none other than Leonidas himself, a spare, slim, blandly beautiful man only a little taller than me, with oily black hair elegantly corkscrewed and hanging down his back. He is the only person I’ve ever seen wear a microfiber toga with a broad purple stripe and sandals strapped to bare caramel-colored feet. One of his Acolytes held a parasol overhead. I was too busy checking out the lay of the land, so to speak, and so I missed most of the elegant bow he swept to Japhrimel.

  His greeting, however, smacked me into full attention.

  “Well. If it is not the Eldest Son and his beloved. Welcome to my humble city.” He spoke, of all things, passable Merican—probably more because it was the language of trade than in deference to my limited linguistic capabilities. His voice was soft, smoothly accented, and carried enough Power to set off a plasgun charge. He wasn’t as eerily, creepily Powerful as Nikolai, the Prime of Saint City.

  But he was close.

  Very close. Which was surprising, since by my guess, Leonidas was the older Nichtvren. Age usually, but not always, means power among them.

  If I’d still been completely human, I would have been frantically searching for a wall to put my back to. As it was, I didn’t reach for my swordhilt only because Japhrimel’s left hand circled my right wrist, a casual movement as effective as a spun-steel manacle. My rings rang with light, though they didn’t spark. I kept myself as tightly reined as a collared telepath, almost shaking with the urge to draw my sword.

  Japhrimel nodded. The Nichtvren’s Power was a candle flame next to the reactive glow of his, but I still felt more uneasy about the bloodsucker than I did about the demon.

  Go figure. Though Japh was rapidly catching up, wasn’t he? The raw spot on my chest twinged, the pain fading. I wanted to rub at it again, quelled the urge.

  “My thanks for your kind welcome. I am here to hunt, young one, and I am not in a mood for trifles.” Japhrimel sounded bored, but McKinley grinned on my other side, a twitchy dangerous grin. I was the shortest person on the dock. One of the Acolytes, a massive blond man, showed his fangs when he caught me looking at him. Blue lines swirled over his face, tattoos from before he was Changed. Nichtvren skin doesn’t scar.

  At least, I don’t think it does, not from what I could remember in my Paranormal Anatomy courses at the Academy. The blond wore what looked like moth-eaten wolf skins slung together in a kind of tunic. His eyes were dead pools, tarns that could suck a whole struggling human in to drown in their depths. The Power here smelled deliciously, mustily wicked, of Nichtvren with a sharp, nose-cleaning tang of werecain that faded in and out—reflecting the peculiar qualities of ‘cain pheromones in most species’ nasal receptors. Over that was the flat copper scent of blood dried in fur, an alien smell that made every human instinct in me scream like an unregistered hooker caught holding out on her pimp. This was Power that could eat a psion alive.

  But I was no longer fully human, and instead of eating me, the Power-well tickled deeper recesses in my psyche, bathed me in a chill bloody weight of seductive whispering. Get a hold on yourself, Danny. I gave myself a sharp mental slap, scanned the dock again. I couldn’t afford to sink into the atmosphere. The channels responsible for circulating Power through my body tingled, fluxing; it took me a little longer to adapt to the sheer amount of energy in the air. I shivered, and Japhrimel’s thumb caressed the underside of my wrist again. It was probably meant to be comforting.

  Watch. Wait. Sooner or later, Japh or McKinley would slip or be distracted. I’d given my word, true—but I’d given it under duress, I hadn’t promised to stay nailed to Japhrimel, and after what he’d done I was sure it didn’t count anyway.

  Are you really sure? Unease rippled up my back. It’s your word, Danny. Your Word. Anyone who uses magick can’t afford to break their word. Your magickal will depends on your word being truth.

  But I only promised to cooperate. I didn’t promise to stay with him. I can cooperate from a distance just fine.

  I suppose dealing with demons rubs off on you after a while. I would never have dreamed of wriggling out of my word before.

  It was also stupid. How long would I last on my own?

  “Very well. But I have a message to give you, Eldest.” Leonidas’s heavy-lidded eyes closed like a lizard’s, opened again. “There is one who wishes audience with your pretty companion. A demon with a green gem to match hers.”

  That could only mean one thing. Lucifer wants to see me? Again? The pit of my stomach was suddenly full of cold metal snakes, my heart thudding dimly in my chest.

  Japhrimel was utterly still for a full five seconds, enough time for me to nervously check the entire dock again. I was fairly sure I could take the Nichtvren and I’d killed werecain before, but McKinley was a question mark. I didn’t even know what he was. He wasn’t demon, but he wasn’t human either.

  And Japhrimel? I had no chance. So I had to find something to distract him, to throw him off-balance. But what if—

  What-ifs won’t keep you alive, woman. Focus! It was a familiar male voice, laden with impatience, Jace’s tone when he felt I wasn’t paying proper attention during a sparring match. I was getting used to hearing Jace’s voice in my head telling me to stay cool. Or maybe I was just talking to myself and using his voice. It’s an occupational hazard for psions, the voices in our heads sometimes change into the people that matter most to us—or frighten us.

  “When and where?” Japhrimel finally asked.

  “The Haunt Tais-toi. Neutral ground. Tomorrow night, midnight. Alone.” Leonidas grinned, exposing his fangs, Japhrimel’s fingers didn’t tense on my wrist but the mark on my shoulder went live again, a honeyed string of heat pressed into my flesh. “I will vouch f
or her safety, Eldest. There have been assurances given.”

  “By whom?”

  That made the Nichtvren shake his blond head, clucking his tongue. “Now, can I tell you? I suspect your business lies with another demon, though.”

  “Perhaps. I am here on another errand. I wish to speak to the Anhelikos.” Concrete groaned slightly, taking the weight of Japhrimel’s voice. Most of the Acolytes stepped back, and the Master paled under the even caramel of his skin.

  Anhelikos? What the hell is that?

  Leonidas spread his expressive, slender hands. I wasn’t fooled. Nichtvren have amazing strength, the older ones can shatter concrete with a negligent blow from a frail-looking hand. No wonder they’re pretty much the top of the heap when it comes to paranormals. “I am neutral.” But there was a definite glint in his black eyes. “Try not to destroy too much of my city, eh? I have been a good friend to you.”

  “Of course you have.” Japhrimel nodded. “Very well. My thanks, Leonidas.”

  The Nichtvren seemed to find that funny. “He thanks me! Very generous. Well, dawn is coming. You will excuse us, I hope?”

  I searched for something to say, found exactly nothing. Japhrimel stood still and silent as the Nichtvren faded into the darkness; the werecain loped away and vanished down a concourse that probably led to a hovertrain system to take visitors into the city. I glanced back over my shoulder—yes, dawn. A little more pronounced than before, a definite graying in the east.

  We were soon alone on the hoverdock, cold air soughing gently through the cavernous half-shell structure.

  “Well,” Japhrimel said. “What do you make of that?”

  “Don’t send her alone,” McKinley replied immediately, as if he’d been dying to say it. “It’s a trap.”

  “What kind of trap? That is the question.” Another shade of grim amusement to Japh’s tone. He’d never spoken to me like that.

  I was beginning to get that there was a history between these two—and another history between Japh and Leonidas. Curiosity pricked me, but I bit the inside of my cheek and studied the dock one more time, what I could see of the concourse and the half-shell roof supported with huge plasteel struts.