Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  She nodded. “The Prince’s Eldest killed more A’nankhimel and hedaira than Kel could hope to. He is not called Kinslayer for nothing.”

  My skin chilled. No wonder Japhrimel didn’t talk about the Fallen, if he’d killed so many of them. He must have never expected to end up as one of them.

  Oh, gods. Japhrimel. Did you know about this? About her?

  I licked my numb lips. “I can’t say for sure. But if it’s possible, if can do it, I’ll help you.” Then I spoke the words. “I promise.”

  If she did manage to break Lucifer’s hold on Hell, what would happen? Would there be uncontrolled demons roaming the earth? I was no Magi, but I knew enough about Hell’s citizens that the prospect filled me with an uncomfortable feeling very close to terror.

  But what else could I do? What the hell else could I do?

  Eve opened her mouth to reply, but a thin growl rose through the air. I looked past her shoulder. The hellhound’s head was up, its teeth bared. It didn’t look at me, it looked at the door.

  Velokel spoke, a single word, sharp and weighted with the consonants of the demons’ strange, unlovely language. He was suddenly tense, his broad shoulders corded with muscle. He reminded me of a bull, powerful and slow, but I was willing to bet he had the same spooky, blurring speed as other demons.

  “Time to go,” Lucas said. “Come on, chica.”

  I made it to my feet like an old woman. One shock after another, I was starting to feel like a punch-drunk cagefighter. My hand fastened on my swordhilt as I stared at the hound. Oddly enough, I was more scared of the hellhound than of Velokel.

  Eve stepped close to me. Her smell, the smell of an Androgyne, a scent that threatened to unloose my knees and spill me to the floor, caressed me. My head filled with heat, my lips parted. I’d never responded like this to Lucifer—I’d been too terrified to feel anything close to desire for him, even though he was beautiful and lethal. I had never had a sexual response to pure Power before, but she was heir to all Lucifer’s crackling force and she wore Doreen’s face like a sexwitch wears submission, like a perfume. The face of my sedayeen lover, the person who had taught me the prison of my body could be a source of joy as well as pain.

  You feel everything, don’t you? Doreen had asked me once. But you don’t like to show it. You keep that mask of a face up, and people think you don’t care. But you do, Danny. You care.

  She had been the only person, ever, who understood that about me. She had been the only lover who hadn’t asked more of me than I could give.

  I had given her all I had.

  What wouldn’t I do, if only for Doreen’s memory, if only to expunge the guilt of my failure to protect her?

  “Don’t decide yet. I’ll contact you when I can.” Eve’s breath touched my cheek, warm and forgiving.

  I nodded, beyond words. Was it true?

  Did my blood mix with Doreen’s? Was my genetic material part of Eve’s?

  Was she my child as well? My daughter, the only daughter I would ever have. I couldn’t see myself breeding with Japhrimel. Sekhmet sa’es, no. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  He refused to kill me. He turned Lucifer down. Gods. I stood frozen as she stepped away, beckoning to the hellhound. It got up, shook itself, and paced after her as she walked to the nivron fireplace. Then, wonder of wonders, she stepped into the fire, flame lifting to caress her body like a lover, and promptly vanished. A high squealing note of Power split the air, my rings spat and the wristcuff rang with green light. Velokel gave me one narrow-eyed, lip-curling look and followed. The hellhound looped on itself and leapt through the fire after them. Vanished.

  What the hell, were we supposed to hunt her when she can walk through fucking walls? Why didn’t Lucifer mention that?

  Of course he hadn’t told me. I would never have agreed to hunt Eve, no matter what he threatened me with.

  Japhrimel. Had he known?

  He refused to kill me to go back home to Hell, and he’ll at least keep me alive. I’m feeling pretty fucking charitable toward him right now. Except for the little matter of him possibly keeping this to himself.

  Lucas was at my shoulder. “Don’t stand around, Valentine. Somethin’ tells me we better get out of here. We got a transport to catch.”

  “Gods,” I said. “Gods. Did you believe a word of that?”

  “Analyze later,” he said, just as the mood of the building underneath—sex and feeding and music blurring together—tipped strangely. A single thrill of fear slid up my spine. “Move now.” He flung the door open and began down the stairs.

  “We’re not going out the window?”

  “Nope,” Lucas flung over his shoulder. “Sheer brick wall straight down to a blind alley, we’ll be trapped like rats. Come on, chica. I’m s’posed to keep you alive.”

  CHAPTER 38

  We jolted down the stairs and burst out into the music. The werecain guard at the door was gone. I checked my datband, lifting my left hand, weighted with my sword.

  Quarter to midnight. I was beginning to think I might still be alive and not dead of shock. Power spiking in the air cleared my head, and I noticed the crotch of my panties was uncomfortably damp. I had never responded like that before. Never.

  She was Doreen’s child, and maybe mine. That I reacted to her was a shameful secret, nothing more. She did, after all, wear my dead lover’s face. I wasn’t attracted to her, I told myself. No, I was simply determined to keep Doreen’s daughter from being dragged back into Hell or killed to salve Lucifer’s fucking pride.

  I’ve had just about enough of the Devil. My eyes found the wristcuff snugged above my datband.

  The cuff ran with fluid lines of green fire, settling into a frozen, scratched rune, a backwards-leaning spiked H.

  Danger.

  Yeah, like I don’t already know that. I was beginning to feel like myself again. If Japhrimel had known it was Eve instead of Lucifer here… had he guessed? Why had he thought Lucifer wanted a little chat with me again? Leonidas hadn’t named the demon wanting to see me, and I wondered about that too.

  Forget it, Dante. Now it’s time to move.

  The dance floor still pulsed with writhing bodies. My awareness swept through the interior, and found the swanhild gone. That was interesting. Something feral stalked closer, if I could feel it the ’hilds certainly could, with their exquisite sensitivity to predators.

  I took a deep breath tainted with synth-hash and followed Lucas’s rigid, bandolier-crossed back through the press of Nichtvren flesh, was jostled by a werecain who snarled at me. The mark on my shoulder heated up again, a live brand pressed into my flesh. It hurt, scorching through the layers of gray numbness threatening me.

  I almost welcomed the pain. I wished Japhrimel was behind me. Sure, he was a lying bastard—but right now I was feeling very much like I might not get out of this tangled web without him.

  I can’t believe I just thought that. He refused to kill me to go back to Hell. He gave up his home for me.

  Yeah, and he just “forgot” to mention Eve was out of Hell and giving the Devil a run for his money. Sure he did.

  We were halfway across the dance floor when Lucas veered, taking a course that would bring us out near the stage and a glowing green sign in Cyrillic that probably said exit. I kept my sword in both hands, left on the scabbard, right on the hilt. The back of my neck prickled, running chills sliding down the shallow channel of my spine. I felt cold even in the middle of the heat and flux of Power, desire draining away and leaving me aching, unsatisfied. A roar went up from the bar—some kobolding playing a drinking game. The kobolding bartender, however, had his back to the mirrored wall holding glass shelves of bottles and stasis cabinets for cloned blood and other things. His yellow eyes glittered as he sniffed. He scanned the place suspiciously, lifting his gray lumpen head.

  The shadows thickened near the bar, and I caught sight of a familiar shape. Broad shoulders under a black T-shirt, a black leather Mob assassin’s rig, a shock of wheat-gold
hair. Recognition slammed through me, and instant denial.

  It couldn’t be.

  I stopped dead on the dance floor, buffeted by moving Nichtvren on all sides. I stared, going up on my toes to get a clearer view.

  The man—was it a man? Not in DMZ Sarajevo. But he reached out with one hand and touched a staff leaning against the bar. The staff stood taller then his head, and small bones tied to it with raffia twine clacked as his fingers touched it. That small sound cut through the music and welter of Power, spilling prickles through my veins. My nipples tightened, I gasped.

  He swung around. Blue eyes flashed.

  Jace Monroe regarded me across a throng of thrashing Nichtvren. He lifted his sword, and I realized I could see through him, as if he was made of colored smoke.

  I am a Necromance, death is my trade. But I had never seen anything like this. Most ghostflits are pale gray smoke, not colorfully lifelike. And this was not where he had died. This was not where his ashes were, the cremains a Necromance could use to bring his apparition through to ask questions—if she was powerful enough. This was not a place Jace had haunted in life.

  He should not be haunting it now.

  The ghost grinned at me, raising his sheathed dotanuki, the same blade that had hung above the altar in the Toscano villa, bent and corkscrewed with the agony of his last strike and death still ringing in the metal. Only his ghost held the sword as it had been, unbent, true and familiar.

  My right hand crept up to touch the shape of the necklace under my shirt.

  He winked at me. Then his face grew grave, and his lips shaped three words.

  Run, Danny. Run.

  The strength spilled out of my legs. I would have fallen except for the press of Nichtvren flesh around me. The ghost of my dead lover shook his head, the same way he used to when I was too slow during a sparring session.

  Go. I heard the word clearly, laid in the shell of my ear, Jace’s breath on my nape. My entire body tightened, heat spilling into my lower belly again, my panties soaked as if I’d been necking like a heated Academy teenager. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I. Am. Not. A. Sexwitch.

  Lucas’s hand closed around my upper arm again. He made a spitting sound and hauled on me, and I went willingly. We forced our way through the crush of the dance floor, Lucas shouldering aside a pair of Nichtvren Acolytes poured into matching red pleather outfits. We freed ourselves from the press just as the entire building shivered.

  Lucas swore. He let go of me—I was thankfully able to walk on my own now. His hands came up with a 60-watt plasgun in each. I jammed my sword into the loop on my belt, keeping my right hand on the hilt. I drew steel, and my newly freed left hand closed around my own plasgun just as all hell broke loose. Again.

  CHAPTER 39

  I had a few seconds to decide what to do as the second hellhound crashed through the wall, bricks flying. The first hound was busy with four werecain who had unluckily been in its way, and the howling spitting mess crashed into the bar. Plasglass tinkled. Lucas grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back as the second hellhound bulleted forward.

  These two were different from the others. Their eyes were green, a fierce glowing green instead of crimson. Heat shimmered and warped away from them all the way across the dance floor.

  Lust vanished. Survival took its place, chill fury rising under my skin. The cuff on my wrist made a thin humming sound, like crystal stroked just right.

  My sword finished ringing free of the sheath as the second hellhound snarled, a low, vicious sound tearing at the air. The music had halted, but a rising crescendo of screams took its place. Three Nichtvren burned like fatty candles, screeching as the hellhound brushed past them, hair and preternatural skin igniting. Paranormal creatures scrambled for the door, the crowd acting very human for all its Power and inherent danger.

  Lucas fired at the hellhound streaking for me. A crimson streak of plasbolt clove the air, smashing into the beast, which snarled and shook its head, crashing to the floor. It literally shook the building. Dust pattered down, I heard the singing whimper of plasteel support struts flexing.

  Sekhmet sa’es. It must be dense to rock the building like that. The dragging feeling of being trapped in a nightmare, arms and legs weighted down with sleep while a beast lunges for you, paralyzed me.

  “Go!” Lucas screamed in his high whistling voice. Paralysis broke.

  I backed up, unwilling to turn away from the things. A shattering squealing roar rose from the battle near the bar. Bottles exploded, glass and plasglass flying through the air with little deadly sounds. Alcohol and other fluids ignited, bursts of blue and red flame. Stasis cabinets shattered, and the stink of frying Nichtvren and frying blood filled the air. A line of fire swiped across my forehead, flying plasglass shards, black blood dripped into my eyes. The slice sealed itself before I could even flinch.

  The mark on my left shoulder gave one livid burst of pain that almost drove me to my knees. The air was hot and still, popping sounds beginning as the wooden bar caught fire.

  Lucas backed up. “I ain’t gonna tell you again, Valen—” he began.

  Then he was flung back as the second hellhound reached its feet and launched itself at him. It moved so quickly it seemed to simply flash through the intervening space.

  “Lucas!” I screamed, and flung myself after it. My sword blazed blue-white, a rising song of bloodlust caroling out from the steel. My feet ground in broken glass, shattered brick, and other debris.

  Then things began to get really goddamn interesting.

  I reached the hellhound just as fresh screams started from the door and the air pressure changed. A wave of sickening Power roiled through the air as I chopped down, my kia taking on sharp physical weight.

  The hellhound’s head jerked up and it screamed as my blade, livid with Power, carved deeply into its back. Black blood boiled up, steaming as the glow of my blade made the acid drops sizzle and spatter like hot oil. Oh, my gods, I actually cut it!

  It turned back on itself with a crackle of flexible bones, and I dropped flat as it flew over me, its momentum making it overshoot. It landed amid a pile of Nichtvren, who tangled and screamed as flame burst through them. Coiled itself, claws raking flesh and flooring both, and I found myself on my feet, the sword slicing down and around as I made sure I had free play in my right hand. It was a swordsman’s move, easy and habitual, and the entire world narrowed as the hellhound snarled and launched itself at me again.

  It didn’t reach me.

  A wall of huge Power crashed into my side and I flew sideways, my fingers torn from the hilt. Wha—

  The hellhound squealed, a sound of glassy frustrated rage. I hit the wall, stone and brick shattering with an almost musical crash. Before I hit the floor he was on me, elegant golden fingers sinking into my throat and the entire world thrumming with the fury of the Prince of Hell.

  “Where is she?” Lucifer demanded, his eyes glowing so brightly they cast shadows under his flawless cheekbones. His hair glowed too, a furnace of gold like the sun’s own flame.

  I couldn’t have answered even if I wanted to. His fingers tightened, curling almost all the way around my neck. I heard something crackle in my throat—it sounded like a small bone—and did the only thing I could. I kicked, hard, and smashed at him with all the Power I could reach.

  His head snapped aside, a thin line of black blood tracing up his beautiful cheek. The emerald set in his forehead spat one single, terrible spark of green so dark it was bloody.

  The air chilled as I struggled. His fingers didn’t give. Steam drifted up from his skin and mine in thin twisted coils. His hand was so tight I couldn’t even tuck my chin to look down at him, instead I saw a rapidly darkening slice of the shattered burning bar opposite. The four-armed kobolding lay twisted and broken like a rag doll in the debris, its body smoking.

  “You have meddled for the last time, Necromance,” he spat, and I could feel it gathering, breathless electricity. Pain rolled down my
skin, vicious little teeth nipping at me, darkness clouding the edges of my vision, struggling to breathe.

  Oh, gods. I’m dead, I’m dead. I struggled even harder, achieved exactly nothing, darkness closing over my vision, no blue flame though. Lungs burning, burning, heart pounding, my eyes bulging, as if I was in a depressurized cabin and thrashing, struggling, dying to breathe.

  Had Death forsaken me too?

  No. My god would never forsake me.

  Crimson light splashed against him, and he dropped me. I collapsed, too weak even to cough, my lungs burning. Whooped in a long gasping breath full of smoke and an awful crisped stench. Paranormal flesh burning: Nichtvren, kobolding, werecain. Ugh.

  “You must be the Devil,” Lucas wheezed. “Pleasetameetcha. Can you guess m’name?”

  I coughed again, hacked, made a low, wounded noise. Frantically scrabbled in the wreckage and dust. My sword, where’s my sword, gods above and below give me my sword, I need my sword—

  “Deathless.” Lucifer’s golden voice stroked the word. I heard a hellhound snarl. A massive impact against my belly—Lucifer had kicked me, an afterthought. I was flung back, hit the wall, a short gasping sound jerked out of me. More plaster and stone shattered, dust poofing out. “You may leave. I have no quarrel with you.”

  I never thought I’d feel grateful to hear Lucas’s grating laugh. There was a gritting sound—he had stepped forward, kicking something out of the way. “She’s my client, El Diablo. Can’t let you kill ’er.”

  The air chilled even more. Lucifer’s attention shifted like a shark swimming through cold water. Brick and plasteel groaned, plaster dust filled the air.

  The Devil spoke again. His voice tore the air, left it bleeding, and hurt me. “Leave now, or die.”

  Lucas seemed to find this incredibly funny. At least, he laughed—and fired at the Devil again. The world turned red and I heard the whine of a plasbolt; Lucifer’s feet made a light sound as if stroking the surface of a drum.

  I moaned. Made it up to hands and knees, coughing. My belly ran with razor fire. The sound of the rest of the world came back in a high towering wave, smashed into my sensitive ears. Crashing. Screaming, deep groaning coughs of werecain in distress. High chilling crystal screams from Nichtvren bleeding or burning.