Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The doors swung closed behind me. Finally, his eyes returned to mine. “Did you find what you needed?”

  The air between us was brittle and clear as thin crystal. He was trying so hard to be careful with me.

  I’m trying too, Japhrimel. I love you, and I’m trying. I shrugged. “Gods.” I gave him a smile that tried to be natural. “I’m hungry. Did you mention food?”

  CHAPTER 2

  The boarding house was a large sloping mudbrick building, stasis and containment fields glimmering over every window and door. The heat was almost as tremendous as the blowing sand. I spent a few moments on the sidewalk outside the building, basking in sunlight. Japhrimel, a blot on the tawny day with his long black coat, waited silently.

  There were spots of green, of course. Water pumped up from the brown ribbon of the Nile and local areas of climate control made for gardens, plenty of date palms, an oasis tucked in every courtyard. The technology of watermakers was in its infancy, but here it was being used to its fullest extent—which wasn’t very far, but it was nice. There would at least be enough water to bathe with, a far cry from the recent thirty-year drought that had gripped the entire northern half of Hegemony Afrike. They were still hashing out the environmental consequences of the technology, but life was beginning to spread away from the river and into the desert. There was even talk of making the desert green again, but the environmental scientists were up in arms about that.

  I’d run a few bounties down in Hegemony Afrike. There was the Magi-gone-bad I’d tracked through the back alleys of Novo Carthago and the Shaman I’d caught in Tanzania—thank the gods for antivenom and tazapram, that’s the only time I’ve ever been poisoned so bad I thought I’d die. I had almost gone into Death’s arms after being bitten six times by a collection of boomslangs the Shaman had tickled into regarding me as an enemy. I hadn’t known he was secondarily talented as an Animone.

  Then there was the gang of four normals, combat-augmented and hyped on thyoline-laced Clormen-13, who’d thought the Serengeti Historical Preserve would hide them. I’d had to dock my fee 50 percent for bringing in two of them dead and the other two in critical condition, but they shouldn’t have shot me and beat me up. And they additionally shouldn’t have left me tied up and gone to slam hypos of Chill cocktail.

  They should have killed me when they had the chance.

  My memories of Hegemony Afrike are all of heat, dust, danger, and heart-thumping adrenaline. Not to mention pain. If I got in a transport when we were finished here without getting into a fight, it would be the first damn time I ever lifted off from Hegemony Afrike soil without bleeding.

  Well, a girl could hope, couldn’t she?

  One thing I’ll say for being almost-demon, I don’t mind hot weather the way I used to. I used to hate sweating, but nowadays I like heat—the more the better, like a cat in a square of sun.

  When I followed Japhrimel in through the containment field, shuddering as it tickled and nipped at my skin, we found square brown Vann waiting for us in the cool, shaded lobby. The Hellesvront agent’s face looked better; he was healing much faster than a human but not as quickly as with a healcharm. The bruises Lucas had given him were going down and the bandage had come off his right eye, revealing a wicked slash down his forehead through his eyebrow. He was lucky he hadn’t lost that eye, and I felt a little guilty. After all, I’d hired Lucas—but he’d been squeezing Vann for information on my whereabouts so he could show up just in time to save my life.

  I was fairly sure Lucifer would have killed me if he could. Just one more time I’d tangled with the Prince of Hell and come away with my miserable life. I was beginning to feel lucky.

  Not really.

  Vann nodded at me, his brown eyes turning dark. I nodded back cautiously. The desk in the lobby was deserted, a holovid player glowing pink in the office behind it. I caught the sound of a human heartbeat, a cough, shuffling feet. The floor here was an intricate mosaic pattern in tiles of blue and yellow; a dracaena grew in a brass pot near the door, next to a rack of newspapers and cheap holomags.

  “News.” Vann’s tone held uneasy respect, as if I was a poisonous animal he wanted to avoid offending. I looked longingly at the little café tucked into the boarding house’s first floor. I was hungry.

  “Go find a table, Dante,” Japhrimel said quietly. “I will join you in a moment.”

  I weighed hanging around to hear what Vann would say, and decided I probably didn’t want to know. I’d find out eventually, and if there was something Japhrimel didn’t want me to be told Vann wouldn’t say it anyway. I might as well get something to eat for my trouble. “Fine.” I couldn’t resist a bad-tempered little goose. “I suppose if there was something you didn’t want me to know he would wait to mention it to you later anyway, right?”

  With that, I turned on my heel and would have stalked away, but Japh caught my arm. I knew better than to struggle—he was far stronger than me. It would do no good.

  “Stay, then. Hear everything.” His eyebrows drew together as he examined Vann. “Well?”

  “It left Sarajevo, we don’t know where for. McKinley says there’s something going on in Kalif that sounds suspicious, but I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to look there. We’re collating the reports right now. I’d bet it’s following the route with no problems.” His tone, as usual when he spoke to Japh, was utterly respectful and curiously unafraid.

  Japhrimel nodded thoughtfully. His thumb moved on my arm, a gentle absent caress, and I cast back through memory to piece this together.

  Something had been in DMZ Sarajevo, something Japhrimel had wanted to collect. The Anhelikos—a feathered thing living in an old abandoned temple—had told him it had been taken to the Roof of the World, whatever that was.

  Thinking about Sarajevo made a shiver go through me, suddenly cold in the climate-controlled interior. A town full of paranormals and Lucifer’s fingers closing around my windpipe—my belly was still a little tender from the Devil’s last kick. A parting gift.

  Japh’s thumb moved again, soothing. “The treasure is moving,” he said meditatively. “Such a thing has not happened for millennia.”

  “Millennia?” Vann didn’t sound surprised. He scratched at his bruised face with blunt fingertips, grimacing slightly. “You’re sure about the route?” It was rhetorical instead of doubting.

  Japh shrugged, a fluid lovely movement. “I was the one to leave it with Kos Rafelos, and it had just left his care when I arrived. The game has begun. Now it is the Key they will seek.”

  Key? What key? And who’s they? I didn’t say it out loud, but Japhrimel glanced at me, as if gauging how much he should say. I swallowed sudden impatience. He’d earned a little bit of slack, though I still wasn’t happy about being shaken like a naughty puppy and held up against the wall in a Sarajevo subway station. The thought of him using his superior strength to force me to do something still filled me with a combination of unsteady rage and sick anticipation, as if bracing myself for a gutshot.

  But he had kept Lucifer away long enough to give me a chance to heal my shattered psyche. He had hidden me so well other rebellious demons couldn’t find me and even lied to the Prince of Hell to protect me.

  Not only that, but he’d given up all chance of returning to his home. For me.

  He had, indeed, earned a little slack.

  I bit back impatience and simply listened, my eyes moving over the graceful curve of balustrade going upstairs. Go figure. Danny Valentine, holding her tongue for once. Let’s mark it on the calendar and call the holovid reporters; it’s a frocking miracle.

  Vann made a sudden movement, as if he couldn’t contain himself. The leather fringe on his jacket swayed, whispering. “You’re just going to let her walk around? You know what they’re after. If they take her, it could mean the end of everything.”

  That brought my eyes around in a hurry, but he stared at Japhrimel, whose gaze had gone distant, focused on the far wall of the foyer, an intricate
ly-carved screen showing the fresh green coolness of the garden beyond. His thumb moved again, caressing my upper arm.

  “My lord.” Vann gave me a nervous glance, forged ahead. “It might be better to act first and apologize later. This is dangerous. Truly dangerous.”

  “Act first, apologize later.” Japh sounded thoughtful. “What do you think of that, Dante?”

  He’s actually asking what I think? Another banner occasion. Call the holovid reporters again. “Sounds risky,” I answered, carefully. “If who takes her? And what’s the Key?” And what the bloody blue fuck are we talking about here? Me?

  Vann’s cheeks actually flushed. “My lord.” He was beginning to sound desperate. Was he sweating? “I’ve served you for years and never questioned your orders or methods. But this is dangerous. If he finds out, he’ll kill her, and possibly the rest of your vassals too.”

  Japhrimel shrugged. “At present I am too valuable for him to risk anything of the sort.”

  “Vassals?” My voice cut across his. “He who? Lucifer? Kill me? He’s already tried. If he finds out what?” Served Japhrimel for years? That’s news, too.

  Vann winced when I spoke the Devil’s name. I didn’t blame him, but I was too busy staring up at Japh’s profile to worry about his tender feelings. “Japhrimel?” I heard the quiet, deadly tone in my voice. “Care to shed some light on this? I’m a little lost.”

  I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he blinked, as if returning from a long and unpleasant chain of thought. “This is not the place for such a discussion,” he said, finally, slowly. Choosing his words with great care, a tone I’d rarely heard from him before. “I would prefer to see to your comfort first, and explain privately. For now, will it satisfy you if I say you have suddenly become far more important to the Prince than even he realizes, and Vann is worried because your life is so very precious?” His eyes flashed green as he turned his head slightly, looking down at me with a very faint, iron-clad smile touching his lips. “If you are taken or killed, I will be unable to protect those whose allegiance lies with me, and they may find it… worrisome.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever been struck so speechless, and that’s saying something. I am normally not the type of girl to be at a loss for words. I turned this around in my head once or twice, the mark on my shoulder pulsing softly again with velvet heat. Then I realized he hadn’t answered either of my questions.

  Still, that’s more than he’s given me since this whole mess began. I suppose it’s a step up. I thought it over, and Vann visibly braced himself.

  What does he think I’m going to do? “Okay.” I nodded, sharply, once. My hair fell over my shoulders, tumbled in my face. “I’m going to go get something to eat. Come along when you’re finished, and you can explain to me over breakfast.”

  Japhrimel shook his head. “I would prefer to explain in private, Dante.” He paused. “If it would please you to accede.”

  Well, I can’t very well argue with that, can I? We were being so very careful with each other, I might have burst out laughing if it hadn’t been so deadly serious. “Sure. After breakfast, then. We’ll head up to our room and you can explain everything.”

  Vann was crimson under his bruises. He also looked shocked. I got the idea he wasn’t used to hearing Japhrimel express a preference instead of just telling someone what to do. I was pretty surprised myself. And pleased. He was trying, at least.

  Japh nodded. “As you like.” He let go of me slowly, reluctantly, and I found myself smiling as I backed up two steps, then turned and headed for the small café, an unaccustomed light feeling under my breastbone.

  To my surprise, Lucas Villalobos sat at one of the tables, his almost-yellow eyes wide open as he looked over a menu. He’d cleaned up, gotten out of his blood-stiff rags and into a fresh microfiber shirt and jeans, bandoliers crossing his narrow chest and his lank hair lying clean and damp against his shoulders. He had his two 60-watt plasguns, and the river of scarring down the left side of his face looked pink and rough-scrubbed.

  He looked none the worse for wear despite being almost eviscerated by the Prince of Hell.

  Just how fast did the Deathless heal, anyway?

  I scuffed the floor deliberately as I threaded between tables and finally dropped into the chair opposite him, my sword resting in its scabbard across my lap. He was working for me, but still… he was Lucas. It doesn’t pay to be lazy even around people you employ. “Hey.” Gods, I’m grinning like an idiot. Japhrimel asked me, he asked me, he’s treating me like an equal. Thank the gods.

  Lucas’s eyes flicked over me once, descended back to the menu. “Valentine.” His whispering, ruined voice almost hurt my own throat. “Where’s your pet demon?”

  I suppose for him that passed as a polite greeting. “Getting news from one of his stooges.” Proving he’s one of the good guys, as far as I’m concerned.

  The café was windowless, but one whole pillared wall of graceful arched doorways gave out onto the courtyard garden, where green flowered lush under a shimmer of climate control. Linen napkins, heavy silverware, the glasses real silica instead of plasglass, a tiled floor and smooth adobe walls—if the outside of this place looked shabby, the inside at least was very nice. There was a breath of warm breeze from the garden, heavily spiced with jasmine that would fairly drench the place once night fell. “So what’s good here?”

  “Don’t know. The Necromance recommended huevos Benedictos.” Wonder of wonders, Lucas shuddered. “No matter how old I get, I ain’t gonna eat that shit.”

  I was startled into a laugh. If I’d still been human I would have been too terrified to enjoy any of his jokes. “I don’t blame you. How are you feeling?”

  It was a stupid question, and his yellowing eyes simply came up and dropped back down to the menu. He didn’t respond, and my good mood soured only a little. Lucas wasn’t a small-talk type of guy.

  The waitress came, a sloe-eyed Egyptiano in jeans and a blousy cassock of a shirt, traditional lasetattoos on her dark hands. The shirt, fine cotton, was embroidered with red around the cuffs and collar; her hair, long and black, pulled back in a simple ponytail. She still looked exotic, helped along by the gold nose-ring and the thin gold rings on each finger as well as the slim chiming bangles on her slender wrists, startling against dusky skin. “Would you like today sirs?” she chirped in passable Merican, taking no notice of my tat or Lucas’s scarred face—or the fact that both of us were armed.

  Most normals blanch or flinch on seeing my cheek. They think psions have nothing better to do than rummage through their messy, stinking minds. It never occurs to them that going through a normal’s psyche is like wading neck-deep in festering shit. Even corporate and legal telepaths don’t like dealing with normals and always use a filter between their own sensitive, well-ordered minds and the untrained sludge in most people’s heads.

  Besides, I was a Necromance, not a Reader or a legal telepath. The emerald on my cheek shouted what I was; there was no reason for normals to be afraid of me unless they were running from the law or attacked me first. I’ve been feared by normals most of my life, but it never gets any easier. Not even when you’re part-demon.

  I picked up a flat plascoated menu. One side was in Erabic, the other in Merican and Franje. I scanned the offerings while Lucas ordered curry, a small mountain of rice, and coffee.

  She looked at me, smiling. Her teeth were very white. I asked for the same thing—Lucas probably knew what he was about, despite his show of ignorance. I did ask for a synthprotein shake too, but just because I felt peckish.

  She accepted the menus with a smile. It was comforting to sit in a café as if I was on vacation—even though Lucas had his back to the safe spot and I had to put mine to the archway leading from the lobby. That made me nervous.

  Then again, he’d taken on the Devil for me. Like Japhrimel.

  Besides, Lucas’s reputation would suffer if one of his clients got hashed at the breakfast table with him. I was pretty sure he cared
about his reputation, if nothing else. There was a story that he’d once taken on a whole corporation’s security division when a stray shot had accidentally killed his target before he could get to it.

  The rumor further was, he’d won—after being knifed, shot, blown up, knifed again, shot five more times, and blown up the last time with a full half-ounce of C19. No, you didn’t mess with Lucas Villalobos or his reputation.

  I watched the waitress sway away. There was only one other occupied table—a normal male in a hoverpilot’s uniform buried in a huge broadsheet newspaper covered with squiggles of Erabic. It looked a little like Magi code and I narrowed my eyes, staring intently at the inked lines. My left hand was solid around my katana’s sheath.

  I finally felt as if I’d survived Sarajevo. And my last meeting with the Prince of Hell. Getting kicked around and half-strangled by the Devil was getting to be almost routine, by now.

  Not really. That sort of thing never gets routine.

  I let out a long breath, my shoulders dropping. It was going to be a long time before I could smell baking bread again without being reminded of the Anhelikos in the empty temple, its wings mantling and cloying perfume brushing through my hair as my legs turned to butter.

  It was going to be a long time before I could begin to forget Lucifer’s hand circling my neck, little things creaking and crackling in my throat. My husky broken voice bore no relation to what it had been while human. What was it with demons and strangling me?

  “What you gonna do?” Lucas asked finally.

  I found him studying me, his dark eyebrows drawn together and his thin mouth twisted down at one corner. “About what?” Dammit, I never used to wander off in the middle of conversations. Got to keep focused.

  He gave me a look that could have cut plasteel. “The Devil. And Ol’ Blue Eyes.”

  Eve. Lucifer had contracted me to kill or capture four demons, without mentioning Doreen’s genetically-altered daughter was the fourth. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like he’d been using me to draw Eve out.