Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Not since Jace.

  I remembered Jace’s hands on my waist, sweat dripping down my neck and spine, a short silken skirt swinging against my thighs as I raised my arms, the music slamming through my bones as I lost myself in one of the oldest communal ecstasies known to humanity.

  I shook the memory away. I’d never asked Japhrimel if he liked to dance. Probably not—but he was so graceful. It would have been nice to dance with him.

  Will you just quit thinking about him? You’ll need all your wits for whatever’s going to happen in the next ten minutes.

  We reached a dark corner, and Lucas tilted his head at the hulking orange-eyed werecain on its hindlegs in full huntform, a fringe of hair around its genitals. It didn’t move as we went past. Lucas’s pale hand spread against a door. It opened, disclosing a set of stairs. The reek of werecain faded as the receptors in my nose shut down. He pushed me in, and I went gratefully. The door swung closed behind us, shutting out the wall of music.

  I sighed. “How’d you find me?”

  “I squeezed the agent—Vann—until he gave up that McKinley had sent a communiqué, said he was headed to Sarajevo. Then I called in a favor and caught a smuggler transport out here. Listen, Valentine, your demon had orders in place that you were supposed to be kept out of the action once we ID’d the first demon. Leander’s spittin’ mad. He’s recruiting in Cairo Giza. We’re gonna catch a transport out of here in three hours, but you better hear this first.”

  “Hear what first?”

  “I said Abra put me on your trail.” He pushed me, the stairs were rickety and groaning under the bassbeat. “I lied. She only told me when to be in New Prague to find you. I was contracted to look after you before you showed up in that bar.”

  What? I pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and stepped into a dimly lit room with a blue Old Perasiano rug, a nivron fireplace full of crackling flame, two heavy mahogany chairs set across from each other—and a dozing hellhound lying against the wall under a small window half-hid behind a blue velvet drape.

  My heart slammed into my mouth. Next to the hellhound, his shoulders broad and his catslit eyes glittering icy gray, the demon Velokel stood. His face was round and heavy, square teeth that still looked sharp, and those eyes glowing blue around the vertical slits deep and dark enough to swallow the scream struggling up through my throat. The cuff was quiescent on my left wrist, no dappled green light flaring.

  A slim female shape standing by the fireplace half-turned. A flash of dark-blue eyes under a sleek cap of pale blond hair, and a glimmering emerald ringing a soft greeting from her forehead. Power blazed through her; the power of an Androgyne. She smelled like fresh bread, like spiced Power and musk, like….

  Like Lucifer.

  Anubis, my Lord, my god, watch over me. The prayer rose unbidden, and the thought after that was almost as intense in its supplication.

  Japhrimel.

  Why was I thinking of him? Couldn’t I stop thinking of him?

  Might as well ask yourself to stop breathing, Danny.

  “Don’t be afraid, Dante,” she said softly. “I won’t hurt you, and neither will the hound. Come in, sit down.”

  CHAPTER 37

  I swallowed bile as I eyed the hellhound. And the motionless Velokel, who all but thrummed with lethal power. I found myself absurdly comforted by a single thought, an instinctive weighing of every erg of Power this being possessed. He isn’t as strong as Japhrimel. The comfort was short-lived. He can still kill me. He can still easily kill me.

  “Relax, Valentine,” Lucas said from behind me, pushing me none too gently. “I was contracted to keep your skin whole.”

  She wore a loose blue cable-knit turtleneck, khakis with a sharp crease, and a pair of expensive black Verano heels. Her breasts moved slightly underneath the sweater. Velokel didn’t move. If he wanted to kill me, he’d had more than enough time. He’d had more than enough time as soon as I opened the door.

  My hand dropped away from the swordhilt. Lucas closed the door behind us, leaned against it with his head cocked. “You’re too old,” I whispered. I sounded choked. My cheek burned, my emerald answering the green gem that flashed on her forehead. “Too old.” She should still be a child.

  She looked just like Doreen. Just like my sedayeen lover, dead on the floor of a warehouse while Santino giggled and snuffled happily to himself, collecting his “samples.” My beautiful, gentle, wonderful Doreen, the lover who had given me my soul back. Who had given me myself back.

  Eve smiled, one corner of her mouth quirking up. It was a familiar smile, but I couldn’t quite place it. Doreen hadn’t ever smiled like that. “A year in Hell isn’t the same as a year on earth. Far from. Please, come in, sit down. It’s good to see you.”

  I eased across the room, staring at her. Velokel might as well have been a statue. My skin crawled. “You… I… you—”

  “I hired Lucas to find you as soon as I left Hell. It was difficult, but I wanted you to have the benefit of some protection. Someone you could trust. It took him a while to find you; the Eldest had you hidden well.” She paused. “We could not locate you for a long time, and when we did, we could not approach. He was too… watchful.”

  Japhrimel, listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. Taut and ready, perhaps sensing someone looking for me. Aware that I was in danger, knowing Lucifer was calling for me. That look on his face, that sense of him listening, hadn’t been because he was dissatisfied with me. It had been vigilance, the type of protective attention I’d sometimes practiced while doing bodyguard duty but had never, ever thought I would be the subject of. So living in Toscano had been to hide me.

  To keep me safe.

  “You’re in a dangerous game, Dante.” She moved slowly, like oil, over to the chair that stood with its back to the hellhound. She sank down gracefully, crossed her legs. “Lucifer has contracted you to kill four demons.”

  I found myself lowering into the other chair, the katana across my knees. My heart beat thinly in my wrists, my ankles, my throat. In my temples. I swallowed, hearing my throat click. “Yes,” I said cautiously. One of them’s standing right over there, pretending to be a block of marble. I cast a quick nervous glance at him, wished I hadn’t. His eyes were fixed on her, he hadn’t shifted or moved a muscle but his entire being seemed to yearn toward her. I can bet you’re one of them too. No wonder Lucifer… gods. Oh, gods. Did Japhrimel know? Did he?

  She smiled again, that same half-quirk of her lips that seemed so familiar. “I suppose I’m one of them too, then. The Twins, Kel, and I have all escaped Hell.” She leaned back into the chair, looked away from me. Doreen’s eyes in her face, staring into the fire. “The fault is mine. I am… unique, it seems.”

  Then her eyes returned to me. Her gaze was so like Doreen’s I was having trouble breathing. The demon and the hellhound were utterly still, Lucas just as still. As if the only two people in the room were Eve and me.

  I was almost beginning to believe she was sitting in front of me. “Dante,” she said, “listen very carefully. I am about to tell you something nobody else knows. Varkolak Vardimal created me from two genetic samples: one taken from the Egg, Lucifer’s genetic material. The other sample was a sedayeen— your friend and lover. What Vardimal may not have known, and what the Prince of Hell certainly doesn’t know, was that the second sample was contaminated with someone else’s material.” She paused, maybe for effect. “Yours. You are my other mother, Dante. When Vardimal bled the sedayeen, he somehow got your blood in the mix.”

  Memory slammed into me, swallowed me whole.

  “Game over,” he giggled, and the awful tearing in my side turned to a burning numbness as he slashed, I threw myself backward, not fast enough, not fast enough.

  “Danny!” Doreen’s despairing cry.

  “Get out!” I screamed, but she was coming back, hands glowing blue-white, still trying to heal.

  Trying to reach me, to heal me, the link between us resonating with my pain an
d her burning hands—

  Made it to my feet, screaming at her to get the fuck out, Santino’s claws whooshing again as he tore into me, one claw sticking on a rib, my sword ringing as I slashed at him, too slow. I was too slow.

  Falling again. Something rising in me, a cold agonizing chill. Doreen’s hands clamped against my arm. Warm exploding wetness. So much blood. So much.

  Her Power roared through me, and I felt the spark of life in her dim. She held on, grimly, as Santino made little snuffling, chortling sounds of glee. The whine of a lasecutter as he took part of her femur, the slight pumping sound of the bloodvac. Blood dripped in my eyes, splattered against my cheek. Sirens howling in the distance—Doreen’s death would register on her datband, and aid hovers would be dispatched. Too late, though. Too late for both of us.

  I passed out, hearing the wet smacking sounds as Santino took what he wanted, giggling that high-pitched strange chortle of his. His face burned itself into my memory—black teardrops painted over the eyes, pointed ears, the sharp ivory fangs. Not human, I thought, he can’t be human, Doreen, Doreen, get away, run, run—

  Her soul, carried like a candle down a long dark hall, guttering. Guttering. Spark shrinking into infinity. I am a Necromance, but I couldn’t stop her rushing into Death’s arms….

  I stared at her, my nape prickling and my mouth full of copper. It could be true. We’d certainly both bled enough when he killed her. But wouldn’t Santino have known? A demon geneticist was perfectly capable of telling a contaminated sample from a pure one. There was no reason for him to even keep a contaminated sample.

  Unless he’d guessed he might find a use for it.

  She looked back at me. Her mouth curled up in that little half-smile again. “Vardimal may or may not have known. In any case, it was immaterial once he realized the value of what he had—a viable sample. A viable fetus.” Now her mouth pulled down into a soft grimace, Doreen’s little moue of distaste. It was damn hard to think with the smell of her filling the air. I shivered galvanically on the hard seat, my eyes flicking past her to the dozing hellhound and returning, compelled, to meet hers.

  Doreen’s eyes. My dead lover’s eyes.

  In someone else’s face—a face that held an echo of Lucifer. I was responding to her, unfamiliar desire rising to swamp me. A thin trickle of heat purred through my belly. Doreen. Oh, gods, Doreen.

  My heart slammed against my ribs. The mark on my shoulder was alive with heat, burrowing into my skin. “Why are you telling me this?” I still sounded choked. I’m in a room with two demons, a hellhound, and Lucas Villalobos. Anubis protect me.

  “I’m explaining.” Her voice was soft, soothing. “Vardimal failed to keep me away from him. The call the Prince is capable of exerting on an Androgyne is… immense. We are of his kind and he is the oldest, the Prime. I had very little chance of denying him access to my mind when I was a child. However… the Prince, whenever he creates an Androgyne, also implants several commands before the Androgyne is hatched. One of them is obedience. I wasn’t implanted until I was five human years old. The implant held until very recently.” The half-smile was back. I realized with a deep chill that I recognized it because I’d seen it in the mirror. It was my own expression. “It seems I have inherited your stubbornness, Dante. That is the only explanation I can arrive at for why the Prince has been unsuccessful in his attempt to break me.”

  “Break you?” My voice seemed to come from very far away. My hands felt weak and unsteady, as if they were shaking. What would Japhrimel think of this? Does he know? Did he?

  If Japhrimel had known, and hadn’t told me… there was nothing, nothing that could make that omission less than a complete and utter betrayal.

  Had he thought I wouldn’t find out? Of course not. He was certain he was stronger than me, able to force me to do whatever he wanted.

  Had he known? Would I ever get to ask him, and could I trust his answer if I did?

  My chest split, cracking. Now I know I have a heart, I thought inconsequentially. It’s breaking.

  The thought managed to shock me back into rationality. Eve. Here. In the world, free. Maybe not for very much longer, since Lucifer had contracted not only me and Japhrimel but possibly more hunters to track her down. No wonder I’d felt like bait. I was bait, a lure to draw her out. To betray her without even knowing it.

  “I am the only Androgyne to leave Hell for many mortal years, other than the Prince.” She blinked her dark blue eyes at me. Her face was clear, unlined, but mature. She looked like a woman on the cusp of twenty-five, except for the shadow of demon knowledge in her gaze.

  She couldn’t be more than seven or eight human years old. How long had she been out of Hell, if Lucifer had been asking for me all this time?

  A year in Hell is not the same as a year on earth. How old was she in Hell years? Were they like dog years? How many to a human year, how old was she, how long had she been there, suffering under the Prince of Hell?

  Bile rose in my throat, and rage under my ribs. Cold, vicious rage, of a type I’d never felt before in all my long and angry life.

  This rage was different. It was pure unalloyed hatred.

  My eyes flickered back to Velokel. Returned to Eve.

  She continued, apparently thinking I was too stunned to respond. She was right. “I am in rebellion against the Prince. I am Androgyne, and I am determined to stay alive and free.” She took a deep breath. “I want your help, Dante. I’m not bargaining, I’m only asking. You’re capable of feigning to hunt me and mine, I’m asking you not to try too hard. Distract your A’nankhimel. Seven years from now your bargain with the Prince will be done, and I promise you all the protection and aid I can offer.” She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. “Freedom, Dante. I want mine, you want yours—together we can provide an alternative to the Prince and his stranglehold on both earth and Hell.”

  That was uncomfortably similar to Santino’s cant about freeing everyone from Lucifer. But Santino had wanted to implant me with other Androgyne fetuses. He had thought he could rule Eve, and through her, Hell. I looked over her shoulder at the dozing hellhound, steam rising gently from its pelt. Velokel still stared at Eve, an expression on his round face I had no trouble deciphering. It was equal parts fierce concentration and protective tenderness, he didn’t bother to disguise it. It would have been a human expression except for the blazing intensity in his catslit eyes. He looked obsessed with her. Velokel, apparently, was in love.

  If demons could love. I’d seen that look before on another demon’s face.

  “Gods above,” I rasped. “Are you serious?”

  “I swear on the waters of Lethe, this is the truth. I ask you only for time. I won’t twist your arm and try to force you like he would.” It was obvious who “he” was, every time she mentioned Lucifer her pretty face twisted.

  You know, I understand. What would it be like to live in Hell, to live with that goddamn viper that calls itself Lucifer? She’s half human. Half Doreen. What part of her is mine? I took a deep, endless breath. Let’s get this straight. “You want me to break my bargain with Lucifer. Set myself up against the Devil.”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  I blew out through my teeth. Well, nice to know we understand each other. “That’s one tall order, sunshine.”

  Velokel stirred. Eve lifted her expressive golden hand, and he stopped, subsiding against the wall. The hellhound didn’t move. I snapped a glance at Lucas, who looked supremely unconcerned, leaning against the door. His bandoliers creaked as he shifted his weight, a small sound.

  Eve lowered her hand. “Think on it, Dante. He fears you. You took the Right Hand and stood a very real chance of denying him access to me. Had you not returned to Nuevo Rio, he would have been forced to treat with you as a suppliant. Not so long ago, he tried to bargain with your Fallen to kill you. Theoretically, in return the Eldest would be restored to Hell. Such a thing is impossible, and well Lucifer knew it. Still, your Fallen refused, I heard it myself. T
he Prince was desperate to regain his Right Hand. His hold on Hell has been slipping for quite some time.”

  Wait a second. Back up. When did this happen? Maybe during the time Lucifer was asking to see me and Japhrimel was refusing? My heart leapt inside my ribs. Japhrimel had refused to kill me in order to go back to Hell. Never mind that it was “impossible.”

  How twisted was it, that I grabbed at that to feel better? But I had another question. “What about the demon who wanted to kill me in New Prague? The hellhound?”

  “Kel wished to meet the Eldest and treat with him, but retreated when he realized the Kinslayer had misunderstood his attempt. The hellhounds in New Prague were not part of Kel’s pack. Another demon might have rebelled and sought to strike before the Kinslayer could find him—after all, the Eldest is the demon most feared among those who would rebel against the Prince. There are other trackers and hunters after me as well, Dante. The world is full of peril.” She tipped her elegant head. Power stroked along my skin, as warm as Japhrimel’s nonphysical caress. I was hard put to swallow a slight, betraying sound as my body flushed with heat. “Tell your Fallen this is Kel’s pledge—he will not hunt you unless you threaten us.”

  Velokel seemed almost to leap without moving, his attention suddenly refocused on her. Eve’s eyes dropped slightly, and a faint flush rose to her cheeks. Very interesting. I had the idea that this Kel was a little more intimately involved with Eve than he should be.

  Good to know.

  “Kel.” My eyes met his for a long moment. The mark on my shoulder began to pulse, quietly. “The Hunter. The one who hunted hedaira?”

  Eve tilted her head, her pale hair moving soft and silky. “He did so at the Prince’s orders. Were you told who hunted the ones Kel could not?”

  No, nobody told me about that. I met her eyes. “Let me guess. The Right Hand.”