Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  But if he wanted her dead or captured, the other hunters he’d sent after her—and her cohorts—would be more than enough, wouldn’t they? To christen me his new Right Hand, wind me up, and send me after her fellow rebels while simultaneously throwing noisy obstacles in my way and showing up to capture or kill her himself… what game was that part of? It wasn’t like the Devil to crawl out of his hole personally before everything was all neatly wrapped up.

  Bait. And some other game is being played here. Lucky me.

  Japhrimel had to know I wouldn’t agree to take Eve down or return her to Lucifer. And last but definitely not least, what the hell did it have to do with this treasure, the Key, and me?

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “I can’t hunt down Doreen’s daughter, Lucas. Santino killed Doreen, and I killed Santino.” Boy, is that ever an understatement. For a moment my right hand cramped, but I spread my fingers under the table and it passed. My good mood was fading even more. “Lucifer took Eve. She….”

  She said I was her mother too, that the sample Vardimal took from Doreen was contaminated with my genetic material. I hadn’t told Japhrimel, it was too private. Too personal. It was different from the omissions he’d made to me, I told myself.

  Wasn’t it?

  “You contracted me for four demons,” Lucas reminded me.

  And she’s one of them. The remainder of the funny, light feeling under my breastbone disappeared, returning me to sour anticipation and a faint headache. I looked away from the table, out toward the garden, steaming sweet green under the glaring hammerblow of desert sun. “I know.”

  Maybe I would have said more, but the datband flashed on my left wrist. I looked down, my eyes snagging on the silvery wristcuff above my dat, carved with its fluid lines. The Gauntlet, Lucifer’s little calling-card, marking me as his extra-special deputy. My skin crawled at the thought of wearing it, but there hadn’t been a chance to take it off. Getting chased around by hellhounds and half-strangled by demons will cut into any girl’s accessorizing schedule.

  My datband flashed again. I had a message. I dug in my bag for my datpilot, wrinkling my nose a little. The heavy black canvas bag had gone through hell with me—literally. Both to the home of demons when Japhrimel had been sent to fetch me the first time and the other hell of my return to Rigger Hall.

  My skin prickled with phantom gooseflesh. I took a deep breath, dispelling the feeling. The bag was singed and smelled of hard use and gun oil, its strap frayed but still tough. I fished my ’pilot out, flipped it open, and tapped at the screen while it genescanned me and decided I was, after all, Dante Valentine.

  I was glad the electronics recognized me. Some days I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. Ever since that rainy Monday when my front door resounded with shattering knocks, my life had taken a definite turn into “gigantic mess.”

  The screen flashed, cleared. Then the message came up, priority-marked urgent, I knew who it was from. There was only one person it could be from, only one person whose messages would go straight to my datband.

  Gabe. Gabriele Spocarelli.

  I blew out between my teeth. The icon flashed, waiting for me to tap it to bring the message up. The waitress came with thick aromatic coffee you can get in Hegemony Afrike or Putchkin Near Asiano, syrupy-sweet and fragrant. She also set down my synthprotein shake and gave me a bright smile, her dark eyes passing over my tat with nary a hitch. I looked up at Lucas, who studied his shotglass with apparent interest before lifting it slowly to his mouth with the air of a man embarking on a sensual experience.

  I tapped the icon. I’d spoken to Gabe a couple months ago, one of our semi-regular calls. Like most psions, I wasn’t good with a regular schedule unless I had a datpilot and a messenger service to keep my life straight; I would sometimes think only a few days had gone by before my ’pilot would beep and tell me it had been a month or three and Gabe was due for another call. Time had taken on a funny elasticity, maybe because I was hanging out with a creature older than even I had any idea of.

  Usually I dialed, she picked up, and we both did our best to sound like the things we couldn’t say to each other weren’t crowding the telephone line like apparitions pulled from fresh bodies, shimmering and seeming-solid. We talked about old cases and bounties, told a few jokes, and generally said nothing of any real importance whatsoever.

  She didn’t mention Jace Monroe. I didn’t mention Japhrimel, who observed a strict silence during the phone calls when he didn’t withdraw to another room, granting me privacy. Nor did Gabe and I engage in anything even remotely resembling real conversation. Still, I called regularly, and each time I called she picked up. It was good enough for me.

  Better than I deserved.

  The screen flashed, and a chill touched my nape. The message was simple. Too simple.

  Danny,

  Mainuthsz.

  I need you. Now.

  Gabe.

  “Who is it?” Lucas’s eyes flicked over my shoulder. I looked, seeing Japhrimel. He skirted the tables, obviously intending to join us. My heart began to pound, and if I hadn’t been so hungry I might have bolted from the table. Not to avoid him, but because the need to move suddenly all but throttled me.

  I sat very still, searching for control. It came slowly, tied to the deep breathing I began. All the way down into the belly, blow the breath out softly through the lips. Anubis grant me strength. All right, Gabe. I’m on my way. “A friend.” I flipped my datpilot shut with a practiced flip of my wrist. “Let’s have breakfast. Then I’ve got a transport to catch.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I waited until after breakfast—the curry was fantastic, searing hot over fluffy rice, washed down with more of the fragrant coffee and plenty of ice water. The shake also took the edge of hunger away, leaving me feeling a bit more solid. I had the standard doses of tazapram in my bag, but my stomach had seemed to get even stronger as a hedaira. If it was edible, it mostly looked good to me; I wondered if there was anything I couldn’t eat. Most Necromances had cast-iron guts anyway, funny for a bunch of twitchy, neurotic prima donnas.

  Oddly enough, it reminded me of Emilio, the round Novo Taliano cook at our house in Toscano. He used to beg me to eat, considering it an insult if I didn’t consume as many k-cals as he deemed appropriate on a daily basis. When I thought of our house, I thought of Emilio, his pudgy hands waving; he was one of the few normals who didn’t seem to fear me at all. He seemed to view me as a pretty and pampered but not-too-bright daughter of a rich family, who had to be bullied and petted into eating properly. It should have irritated me, but damn the man could cook.

  The meal was quiet. Japhrimel drank a glass of silty red wine, probably more out of politeness than anything else. Lucas didn’t ask any more questions about my little message, and I spent the time thinking of how to break the news to Japhrimel.

  I didn’t think he’d take it calmly. Besides, there were a couple of things we still had to sort out. Like what the hell the Key was, and what the bloody blue hell was going on now.

  After breakfast—which Japhrimel paid for, as usual—Lucas excused himself to go upstairs and catch some sleep. And probably to give me a chance to talk to Japh, since I’d been monosyllabic all through the meal. I stared at my coffee glass and tried to think of the right words.

  Japhrimel waited, his eyes scorching green. Normals didn’t seem to notice he wasn’t human. Other psions could see the black-diamond flames twisting through his aura, and could call him what he was. Demon.

  Only not quite demon. A’nankhimel, Fallen.

  His fingers played with the wineglass, the long dark Chinese-collared coat as wetly black as the lacquer urn I’d once kept his ashes in. I drew in a deep breath, gathered my courage, and opened my mouth.

  “Japh, I have to go to Saint City. I just got a message from Gabe. She needs me.”

  Japhrimel absorbed this, staring into his wineglass. Said nothing.

  I took another gulp of coffee. I really wasn’t doing ser
vice to it, swilling it like cheap freeze-dried. But I was nervous. “Japhrimel?”

  “The Necromance.” Faintly dismissive, as if reminding himself. “With the dirtwitch mate.”

  I swallowed roughly. “She’s my friend. And she says she needs me, it’s an emergency. Everything else is going to have to wait.” Including Lucifer. Especially Lucifer.

  His eyes half-lidded. The look was deceptively languid, but the mark on my shoulder turned hot and aching under his attention. His hair fell over his forehead, softly, my fingers itched to brush the inky strands. Trace down his cheek like I’d done before, maybe run my fingertip across the border of his lips while he submitted to my touch, his eyes darkening for just a moment.

  Stop it. You’ve still got a few questions to answer, Japh. Like what the hell’s going on. Explanations, remember?

  But still… One day, Lucifer had said as I crouched, my throat on fire and my belly running with pain, I will kill her.

  Not while I watch over her, Japhrimel had replied.

  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a declaration of war. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, except gratefulness that I was still alive.

  “I’m catching the first transport I can,” I told him. “I’m going back to Saint City. You can come with me if you want, but not before you explain everything to me. In detail. Leaving nothing out. Clear?”

  He took another sip of wine. His eyes burned. A soft weight of Power folded around me, eased against my skin as if he had wrapped me in Putchkin synthfur. “You swore allegiance to the Prince as his Right Hand. You have four demons to hunt, hedaira.”

  I winced. Well, it’s now or never, I suppose. “I won’t hunt Eve, Japhrimel.”

  A single shrug. I was beginning to hate the way demons shrug all the goddamn time. I suppose most of what humans do deserves no more than a shrug—but still.

  I struggled with a sharp bite of irritation, took another swallow of coffee. “I mean it. I promised Doreen I’d save Eve; I won’t hunt her. And I was bamboozled into this Right Hand thing, fine—but my promise to Doreen predates my promise to Lucifer. He can….” He can go to hell, I meant to say, realized how absurd it was and swallowed the rest of the sentence. “It’s not like it matters,” I continued, bitterly, forgetting to pitch my voice low and soft. The cups rattled on the table. “He’s sent others to hunt her down. I’m just another game piece.”

  Not to mention the fact that Eve asked me not to look too hard for her. Simply asked. No manipulation, no lying, no trying to twist me into a game I’m bound to lose. I had to admit she was the demon I was most likely to feel good about helping.

  He set his wineglass down and laid his hand over my left wrist. Incredibly gentle, his warm skin against mine; he could have crushed the small bones if he’d wanted to. Instead, his thumb stroked the soft underside of my wrist. Fire spilled up my arm, through my shoulder, made the mark burn again. I had to catch my breath, biting the inside of my cheek savagely. The pain reminded me again I was a Necromance, that I didn’t respond sexually to Power.

  Though I’d responded to Eve, hadn’t I? And Japhrimel knew me, we’d shared a bed for a long time. It’s hard to fight someone who knows your body that intimately.

  “You are not simply a game piece, Dante. You are my hedaira, and you must trust me to do what you cannot.”

  What the hell does that mean? “What does that mean?” I cast a quick glance around—the garden was empty, the waitress leaning in an arched doorway and exchanging soft laughter with an invisible someone I guessed was the cook. The pilot folded his newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and tapped at his datband to pay his bill.

  Japhrimel smiled. It was a sad smile, his eyes flaring with laser-green intensity; another human expression. There was a time I would have been glad to see any feeling on his face, especially his rare smiles. But this expression made cold prickles ripple down my back. I don’t get goosebumps, but it felt awfully close. The breeze from the garden filled my nose with green sweetness, overlaid with demon musk. “What you cannot do, I will. Don’t trouble yourself. It is, after all, what I am meant for.”

  After facing down the Devil, I never thought I’d be frightened of anything else again. I was wrong. I stared at him, my pulse beating thinly in my throat. When I could speak, it was no more than a strangled whisper. “You leave her alone. I swear, Japhrimel, if you—”

  “Do not.” His voice cut through mine, he shook his head. “You know better than to swear such an oath. You must live to your word, Necromance.”

  I tore my wrist out from under his hand. He let me. I rocketed to my feet, the chair scraping along tiled floor, my sword in my left hand. My fingers tightened on the scabbard. Our waitress stiffened, looking back over her shoulder, the dark sheaf of her ponytail contrasting with the cotton of her shirt.

  I leaned forward, my hair falling over my shoulders, ink-black as his. “Don’t push me on this, Japh. That’s Doreen’s daughter.” My tone, flat and cold, rattled the entire table. It might be an empty threat—he was, after all, so much stronger and faster than me, and had proved it too many times.

  But by my god and my sword, I didn’t care. She was Doreen’s daughter, most of all. But maybe she was mine too. If she was, it was my job to protect her. My duty to protect her.

  He had nothing to say to that. I straightened. My bag lay heavy against my hip, I still had my guns and my knives. And my sword, the blade that bit the Devil.

  I wasn’t able to hurt Japhrimel, not in a fair fight—but if he killed Doreen’s daughter or tried to return her to the Prince of Hell we were going to see just how sneaky and inventive I could get when facing down a demon.

  A Fallen demon. A man I happened to love, even if he wasn’t strictly a man. Wasn’t it less than an hour ago I’d promised myself I would give him the benefit of the doubt?

  “I swear it, Japh.” My right hand closed around my sword hilt. He was too damnably quick—I knew from sparring with him. Even though he sat at the table, looking down at his wineglass, I still felt the nervous urge to back up, get some distance in case he decided to move on me. “By all I hold holy, I will.”

  A fluid shrug. He rose slowly to his feet, his chair scraping more quietly than mine had. “What is it you want me to say?”

  I don’t know. “I’m going. With or without you, I’m going.” Goddammit, Danny, he dangled you up against a wall once before. You keep pushing him, he’s going to do it again. Or worse.

  “You will not leave my side until this matter is finished. I thought I explained as much in words even you could understand.” How could he sound so calm? As if it didn’t matter what I said or did, he had spoken and that was that. A breeze drifted through the garden outside, filled the café suddenly with the scent of growing things and the cinnamon-musk of demons; it was the psychic equivalent of static, dyeing the air around us both. I was radiating again. If I wasn’t careful I would start affecting the sloe-eyed waitress and any other human in the place, flooding them with pheromones I couldn’t fully control.

  I tensed, my left thumb ready to click the blade free of the scabbard. Eyed Japhrimel. Don’t push me. We were just doing so well; don’t push me on this.

  His gaze moved over me, from the top of my tangled black hair down to my scuffed boots, the loose easy stance I dropped into, though I didn’t draw just yet. “Ever a battle, hedaira,” he said quietly. “I will go with you, to see what has befallen your fellow Necromance.”

  Thank you, gods. Thank you. My breath came harsh and hot. I stared at him. “You mean it?”

  Did I imagine the shadow of pain that slid over his face? Probably. “I prefer you where I may see the mischief you intend. I see no reason why we may not stop in Santiago City.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Really?”

  He moved, a single step. Another. Closer, but he didn’t look at me. Instead, he looked over my shoulder. His fingers closed around my right hand, the sword kept home in the sheath. “Save your blade fo
r your enemies, hedaira.”

  I do. Oh, I do. Closed my lips over the words. “Japhrimel?”

  “What?” He still looked over my shoulder, a muscle flicked in his golden cheek. As if he expected me to yell at him, maybe. His fingers slid up my arm, cupped my shoulder, tightened but didn’t hurt me. I swallowed dryly. He was so close the heat of him blurred through my clothes, less intense than the sun outside but scorching nonetheless.

  “Explanations. Remember?” This is going too well. We’re going to hit a hitch soon.

  He still didn’t look at me. “When we are finished with your business in Santiago City, I will give you all the explanations you are ready to hear.”

  Goddammit, Japh. I knew you were being too reasonable. “You promised.” I heard the hurt in my voice, couldn’t help myself.

  “You accepted a bargain with the Prince. That is a promise too.”

  “It’s not the same thing.” It’s not. Goddammit, you know it’s not.

  He switched tactics. “What did the Androgyne tell you, Dante? She is in rebellion, she has no hope of winning. I will not allow you to be dragged down with her.” He waited for me to speak. When I didn’t, he tried again. “What did she say to make you so stubborn?”

  I set my jaw. I knew you’d ask sooner or later. Said nothing.

  His fingers tensed, hard iron against my skin. “Dante? Tell me what she said to you.”

  Silly me. I should have known. “Does it fucking matter? You aren’t going to explain anything to me. You make promises you never intend to keep.” The words were flat, final, and terribly sad. Am I really standing here in the middle of a Cairo Giza café, trying to persuade a demon to explain something to me? How do I get myself into these things?

  “Tell me what the created Androgyne said to you, Dante.” Did he sound pleading? It couldn’t be. Japhrimel had never begged me for anything. “What did she tell you? What did you believe of what she told you?”