Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  She knew something. A Magi that knew something, and owed Lucas a favor.

  My sword slid back into the sheath, clicked home. “That’s right.” My pulse pounded in my throat. “I’m his latest employer. And I think we have some things to talk about, Magi.”

  She didn’t offer us anything to drink. Instead, she pointed us toward a pile of cushions on one side of the living room, then stood with her back to her altar and her gun trained on Lucas. I didn’t blame her, if I’d been human it’s what I would have done.

  Her eyes kept flickering over to me, no matter how steady the gun was. “So it’s true,” she said finally, her voice low and pleasant and reeking of terror. Her tat shifted and strained uneasily under the skin of her left cheek.

  “What’s true?” I didn’t sit on a cushion but I did try to keep my aura close and contained, not wanting to scare her more than was absolutely necessary. After all, she’d just let a part-demon, a Necromance, and Lucas in her front door. The Necromance she was probably sure she could handle—Leander was human, just like her. But still.

  Lucas gave me a slanting yellow-eyed look, pushing his lank hair back from his forehead. His breathing had evened out, and he was back to looking like every psion’s worst nightmare. “Just tell her what you told me, Carlyle.”

  She licked her lips, examined me. The gun shook just a little, her sleeve trembled, and her aura shivered right on the edge of going hard and crystalline, locking down. Her pulse throbbed under the damp mortal skin of her throat. Was that what I looked like when I met Lucas in Rio? Was that what I looked like to Japhrimel? So fragile, and so scared?

  And the even more uncomfortable thought, Do I still look that way to him? Does he smell my fear, and does it taunt him like hers taunts me?

  “This cancels the debt?” Her voice shook. There wasn’t a psion in the building, but the psychically-dense atmosphere kept her shields from being seen. She was almost perfectly hidden, like a scorpion under a rock. Not many people would brave both the Tank and the filth of the building outside to intrude on her privacy. Even if she did have to live with the psychic noise and stench of so many angry scrabbling people, it was a fair trade-off.

  I wondered what type of work she did, and I also wondered how she’d managed to turn this apartment into such a clean, luxurious nest. She was combat-trained, the way she held the gun—the way she moved— told me as much. It struck me that I was looking at someone very much like the person I had been.

  Before Rio. Before Japhrimel.

  “Mostly,” Lucas rasped. “I did you a big favor, Carlyle.”

  That made her aura turn sharp and pale. “I paid you,” she insisted. “I may not be able to kill you, but I can hurt you plenty.”

  Irritation and impatience rose under my skin, spiked and deadly. Will you two just get on with it so I can do what I have to do? I took a deep, sharp breath, kept a firm hold on my temper. The vision of Gabe’s body retreated just a little.

  Just a very little. I wasn’t going to be able to see Abra before the next sunset, so I might as well spend my time getting some information on demons and A’nankhimel.

  I was hoping like hell she knew something about hedaira too. It would be a regular Putchkin Yule down here in the Bowery if she did.

  I was suddenly aware of three pairs of eyes on me. Gray Magi eyes, Lucas’s almost-yellow, and Leander’s dark worried gaze a weight I could feel even though he was behind me. I must have been radiating, despite trying to keep my aura close and contained. “I don’t have time for petty bargaining,” I finally said, softly. “So if you two could finish up sometime this week I’d appreciate it. I’ve got a lot of business to handle.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Tell her what you told me, Carlyle. I promise I won’t make any sudden moves. Unless you get jumpy again.” His smile, stretched over his pallid thin face, was enough to send a faint shiver down even my back.

  She cleared her throat. The perfume of her fear made the mark on my shoulder throb, pleasantly. Was it because she was a Magi? I’d damn near drowned in Polyamour’s pheromones before; this was a sharper feeling, like synth-hash spiked with thyoline.

  A stimulant, like Chill.

  She cleared her throat. “There’s talk going around. There are demons boiling through the Veil to our world. Imps have been sighted in ever-growing numbers, and there’ve been some… disturbing signs, at the collegia meetings.” Her eyes flicked over me again. “Gods. It’s true,” she whispered. “It has to be. You’re… you were chosen.”

  My eyebrows threatened to nest in my hairline. Imps coming through, and she’s mentioned collegia. I thought they were a myth, secret societies of Magi getting together to work collective magicks across Circle affiliations. Wow. My pulse abruptly slowed to its usual regularity. At last we’re getting somewhere. “Chosen for what?” I kept my tone absolutely dead level, reined in. Controlled. Still, the husky honey of my voice turned the air dark. Not like it needed any help—the only light was from the novenas ranked under Ganej, his eyes twinkling merrily in the flickering gloom.

  “To be a… human bride. A fleshwife.” Her pupils dilated, and the salt tang of her fear filled my mouth.

  Goddammit, none of the bounties I hunted made me feel like this, psion or normal. What’s wrong with me?

  “I believe the proper term is hedaira,” I corrected, dryly, as if I knew what the hell I was talking about. My emerald spat a single green spark, and she flinched. “Why don’t you tell me everything you know about it, and everything you know about what’s going on with the imps and these ‘disturbing signs’? I’m sure Lucas will be very satisfied with that.”

  She eyed Lucas, eyed me, her cheeks were cheesy-pale under the even caramel. Then, far braver than I would have been in her shoes, she eased the hammer of the gun back down with a small click. “I don’t know much. But what I do, I’ll tell you. And this cancels the debt, Villalobos.” Her sharp chin lifted defiantly. “If anyone, Magi or demon, knew I was talking to you like this, my life wouldn’t be worth a bag of Tank trash.”

  “You got it,” Lucas rasped. “I’ll even let you talk to her alone.” His grin was wide and chilling in its good-natured satisfaction. “Your kitchen still in the same place?”

  Her hands were shaking, but she glared at him. I was beginning to like her. “Don’t drink all the wine, you greedy bastard. Go. And don’t touch anything else. You, too, Necromance.” Her lip didn’t curl when she said it, but she still sounded disdainful. I wondered why, it wasn’t like a psion to be so dismissive of another.

  Then again, precious little about this woman was normal even for a Magi.

  Lucas shuffled out of the room, deliberately noisy with his worn-down bootheels. Leander touched my shoulder before he left, an awkward gesture that oddly enough didn’t irritate me.

  Immediately, Carlyle became a lot calmer. She holstered the gun at her hip and took a few steps away from the altar. “When did it happen? The change. You’re not Magi, how did you convince the demon to do that? Which demon was it? Can you call him anytime you want, or—”

  What the hell? “I came here for answers, not to be interrogated,” I said frostily. The smell of kyphii made me think of Gabe, and the sharp well of pain behind my breastbone made water start in my eyes. “Keep it up, and you’ll owe Lucas more.”

  She actually flinched, again. Her hair fell down over her forehead in a soft wave. Then she collected herself. “May I see it?”

  See what? “See what?”

  Was she blushing? She appeared to be blushing. “The… ah, the mark. If it’s not in a sensitive… place.”

  Huh? I reached up with my right hand, pulled the neckline of my shirt out of alignment, popping a button so she could see a slice of the twisting fluid scars that made Japhrimel’s mark in the hollow of my left shoulder. “It hurts sometimes.” I let go of my shirt. So having the mark is something that’s supposed to happen. But I got it from Lucifer when he made Japh my familiar. On the other hand, it’s the only sca
r that stayed after Japh changed me. And it seems to be a link between us. I wonder, does the link go both ways? He said he could use it to track me, to find me, and I can see through his eyes if I touch it. That qualifies as both ways. “What can you tell me about hedaira? And A’nankhimel?”

  Another flinch, as if I’d pinched her. “I only have one book that mentions this,” she said. “I got it out when Villalobos asked me. Shaunley’s Habits of the Circles of Hell, Morrigwen’s translation. The relevant passages are on here.” She sounded like she was reciting for an Academy thesis defense, her gray eyes suddenly soft and inward-looking. A Magi-trained memory is a well-trained memory; she could probably see the page in front of her right now. “I remember it because it’s so utterly unlike anything else I’ve ever read.”

  I nodded and folded my arms, the sword in my left hand bumping against my ribs. Any time now, lady. I don’t have all fucking night.

  But if I hurried her along, I might miss a critical piece of information. I couldn’t see Abra until tomorrow now, so I supposed I did have all fucking night. Impatience rose hot as bile in my throat, I swallowed it. My hair brushed my shoulders, I could almost feel the tangles breeding. Since the hover incident I hadn’t bothered fastening it back.

  “Shaunley says he came across old texts that assert the relationship between demons and human women goes back to pre-Sumerian days, back in the times when demons were seriously worshipped as gods. Of course, they were worshipped as late as the Age of Enlightenment, off and on, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, priestesses in the temples—and other women—were sometimes chosen. The term Shaunley used is fleshwife, but he also used a very old Graeco term for courtesan; it’s close to a word that means more like companion or beloved in the demon tongue. Apparently there were quite a few of the Greater Flight who bound themselves to mortal women, granting a piece of their power and receiving something in return—nobody knows quite what.” She leaned back against her altar, probably taking solace in the nearness of her god. Her hand rested on the butt of the 9 mm, the cuff of her sleeve falling gracefully down; I wondered where her other weapons were. She wasn’t carrying steel.

  I made a restless movement, stilled myself. What did Japh get from this? He said my world is his in exchange for Hell, but… I waited. This was confirming several guesses I’d made, but I needed more.

  “They were wiped out in a catastrophe that took plenty of humans with them,” she finished heavily. “There haven’t been any more.”

  Except me. Wonderful. I took a firm hold my temper. The silk drapes fluttered as Power pulsed out from the mark again. “So the hedaira is what, half-demon? A quarter?” Give me something I don’t know, anything, come on!

  “It’s not that simple.” She inhaled. “As close as I can figure, the demon and the fleshwife are literally one being. Whenever they’re written about, it’s in the singular, as if each pair is one person. The demon survives in our physical world through the fleshwife.”

  While you live, I live. Japh’s voice echoed in the bottom of my head, smooth and fiery like old dark whiskey. “So what happens if the fleshwife dies?” It was the one question I never expected to be able to answer.

  Carlyle brightened. She was into the explanation now, like a yuppie bursting to tell someone about a new techtoy. Her eyes actually sparkled. “If the fleshwife dies, the Fallen demon is sentenced to a slow fall into a mortal death, since she’s his link to our world. That’s straight from an inscription, Shaunley actually made a rubbing of the original. The demon seems to be a lot harder to kill, you hear of them almost dying and they’re fine again on the next page.”

  Comprehension swirled through me. I knew I could resurrect Japh, I’d done it once before, hadn’t I?

  What if he couldn’t resurrect me? It had never occurred to me to put things in that light. Even a Necromance doesn’t like to contemplate her own messy, imminent demise, especially when trying to stay one hop ahead of the Devil. I’d never thought of what might happen to Japh without me.

  It certainly put a different complexion on things. “Oh, boy.” My mouth went dry and I dropped my arms to my sides. The candleflames flickered, drenching Ganej’s supple curves in light. “Whoa.”

  She shrugged. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”

  It confirmed a few pleasant and unpleasant guesses, and with my grounding in magickal theory I could make a few more assumptions. Good enough, and not a bad bargain for her or for me. “What about these disturbing rumors? And the imps?” I braced myself for the worst.

  She didn’t disappoint me. “There’s a war going on in Hell, Necromance. Someone’s rebelled against the hierarchy of demons, and there’s chaos. Four Magi in the last two weeks—dead when they summoned an imp and got something else entirely. There are things riding the air, and demonic activity we haven’t seen on earth since the Awakening. They’re looking for something, I don’t know what.”

  Chills crawled up my spine. I stared at her, hoping I didn’t look like an idiot, my mouth gaped open like a fish’s.

  Looking for a treasure and a Key. Japh took me to visit the Anhelikos, who had the treasure, but who had sent it, probably along a prearranged route. So there’s something demonic bouncing around in the world, and a key to it, and all Hell will probably break loose when someone gets their hands on it. Lucifer? Or the rebellion?

  The logical extension to that line of thinking unreeled inside my skull. Or me?

  A thin finger of ice traced up my spine, remembering the Anhelikos and its wide white wings, the smell of clotted sweetness and feathers, and a predatory face once its beautiful mask slipped. If Japhrimel hadn’t been there… but he had, and he’d treated the thing like it was no big deal.

  Quit it. Be logical, Danny. Eve is the rebellion, isn’t she? But maybe she’s not all the rebellion. They’re testing Lucifer because Santino got away, and nobody knows Japhrimel was acting under orders and setting Santino free.

  My head began to hurt with complex plot and counterplot. No wonder Japhrimel hadn’t told me any of this. I’d visited the Anhelikos with him and seen Eve afterward; if Japh thought Eve was after this treasure he probably wasn’t sure what I’d told her—or what I was likely to tell her.

  I had to admit, if she’d caused a war in Hell and was making this amount of trouble for Lucifer, I was feeling more fucking charitable toward her all the time.

  I didn’t give a good goddamn about most of it. The only thing I was worried about right now was getting to Abra’s and starting to track down Gabe’s killer. “Okay. Anything else you can tell me before I get Lucas out of your hair?”

  Carlyle sagged against the altar. “You mean it?” Her dark eyes were wide and haunted. “This cancels my debt?”

  I don’t know what he did for you, sunshine, but if I was you I’d be happy to still be alive. I forced myself to shrug, my rig creaking slightly as good supple leather sometimes did. “That’s between you and Lucas. He’s reasonable.”

  “Far more reasonable than the alternative.” She tipped her head back. The perfume of her fear was stronger, taunting me, she was giving out pheromones like a sexwitch. “You… are you staying in Saint City?”

  I nodded. “I have some business to sort out.” Someone to kill. And Gabe’s daughter to find, wherever she is. “In a safe place.” I wonder. “Why?”

  “If you want to come back.” She swallowed, and I wasn’t sure I liked the gleam in her rainy eyes. “I’ll trade, for information. About demons.”

  I had a sudden, nasty mental image of bringing Japhrimel here, quickly shoved it away. “I don’t think you’d like that,” I hedged. “They’re worse than Lucas, Carlyle. Much worse.” You should know that. A chill, unhappy thought surfaced. What if she smells like that because she’s a demon-dealing Magi? Polyamour smelled good because she’s a sexwitch, what if this Magi smells good because she’s been dealing with demons and I’m somehow picking up on it?

  “I’ve called imps.” Her eyes were definitely br
ight and moist. Her mouth pulled down in a grimace, the smell of kyphii tanged with the deeper brunette scent of adrenaline-laced fear. “Properly constrained in a circle, they—”

  Sekhmet sa’es, you have no goddamn idea, woman. “No.” My right hand curled around my swordhilt. I’d taken on an imp once and gotten poisoned claws through my chest; the only reason I was still alive was because, of all things, reactive paint had turned the Low Flight demon into a bubbling greasy streak. The memory of a soft maggot-white babyface snarling as the imp came for me in the rocketing flexible tube of a hovertrain made the sensation of gooseflesh rise under my golden skin, hot and prickling. “Forget it, Magi. Just forget it.”

  Curtains moved slightly at the closed window, and I stilled, glancing at them. I hadn’t done that. The Gauntlet turned cold on my wrist, a tugging sliding against the surface of my skin.

  What the hell? What was the damn demon-thing doing now? It had warned me of attacks before, but it had never done this.

  I shook the sensation away and eyed the Magi, whose cheeks had gone back to that alarming pale shade. Her hands shook. Wait a second.

  “Lucas!” My tone was sharp, and my hand curled around my swordhilt. Three inches of steel leaped free, and I had to clamp down on my control not to draw the rest of the way.

  “You bellowed?” he said from the door, and the look he gave the trembling Magi could only be described as predatory.

  I squeezed down the temptation to voice my sudden certainty that Carlyle might be having other visitors soon, visitors who would be very interested in us. It was a faint mercy, at best.

  But no matter what side of the demon’s field she was playing, she was scared to death of Villalobos, and I remembered that feeling so well I had no desire to put her through any more of it. I wondered bleakly if she was a Hellesvront agent, or if Japhrimel was looking for me and it was just easier to find me when I hung around a demon-dealing Magi.