Dante Valentine

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I never thought I’d be happy about that. I knew I could pull Power through the mark. Could I pull enough to strike at Sephrimel before he opened me up like a sodaflo can?

  “The first of us to Fall knew it would not be long before the Prince moved to strike us down. In secrecy, with his hedaira, he created a weapon.”

  This part I could help out with. Just call me a mentaflo genius. “The Knife.” The words eased past my lips. I couldn’t stand looking in his eyes anymore. I dropped my eyelids, every fiber of my body screaming at me to look at him look at him how will you know what he’s going to do if you don’t LOOK at him?

  “Exactly. The Knife of Sorrow.” Tension bled out of the air like heat. Stone creaked, and I realized something fantastic, something utterly wonderful.

  I could calculate this demon down to the last erg of Power he possessed. And it was conceivable, with a whole lot of luck and some fast thinking, that I could somehow hurt him.

  Which led me inexorably, logically, on to a different thought. Bleeding out through the wound. He’s been slowly losing bits of himself, or his Power, since… when? Before Stamboul was built? That’s a long time. Since Japh killed his hedaira.

  Just how long ago was that? Is he even “demon” anymore?

  The only thing worse than having to ask a question like that is the possibility of having it answered for you.

  “The Knife rests in two parts,” Sephrimel whispered. He leaned so close the wiry snakes of his dreadlocked hair swung forward to touch me, and a fainting horror swam up through my head, rising like bad gas from the memory locked behind its reinforced door. Backed up against the wall. Again. “The Kinslayer took one half from the body of the first Fallen’s hedaira. The other half, kept in the great temple in the White-Walled City, I stole, and have been glad of it ever since. I thought the Kinslayer did not know, since my portion would be swift death, no matter how much Lucifer wishes to keep me as an example.”

  Two parts? What the hell? “Wait a second.” I forgot myself and looked up, just as quickly averted my gaze as it glanced across the edge of his. “Two parts?”

  “The Knife is twain as the A’nankhimel are.” Sephrimel’s claws squeaked against stone and plasilica dust as his hand flexed. “Either shard will wound beyond measure a demon, even one of the Greater Flight. Together, there is no demon they cannot kill.” He paused. Repeated it slowly, insistently. “No demon they cannot kill, no matter how powerful.”

  A shock went through me like lightning striking, and the thunder behind it was a familiar feeling. It was the first arc of intuition that told me a hunt was underway, the same feeling I got working bounties for Hegemony law enforcement. The first click of instinct always takes the longest.

  After that, everything speeds up.

  It’s just a hunt like any other, Danny. Only now you’re hunting the thing that can kill Lucifer. That’s what you’re doing here. So quit flinching and do what you have to.

  I raised my eyes again. Stared at his almost-lipless mouth, drawn tight over those strong yellow teeth. He’d probably been beautiful, once. To her.

  The same way Japh was beautiful to me.

  “Where’s the other half?” I whispered. And what do you want from me in return?

  “It was given to our cousins the Anhelikos to hide, for they brought more than one hedaira to grief. Sneaks and spies, with their gardens and pretty faces.” His lips curled in a bitter sneer. “The Kinslayer probably knows its route, and will collect it. If Lucifer does not do so first.”

  A shiver slid from my crown to my soles. I remembered the Anhelikos in DMZ Sarajevo, with its pretty sexless face and sticky, clinging web of euphoria. I wouldn’t put it past that thing to eat someone whole, if they wandered into its nest. “But he figured he had a better chance of getting one half from you, rather than chasing after something Lucifer already knew about. Because Lucifer thinks the Anhelikos have both halves.” And so does Eve, I guess, or why was she in Sarajevo? Or did she even know there were parts to the thing?

  Does Lucifer?

  Sephrimel stepped back, freeing his claws from the wall. I stayed where I was, shaking despite setting my jaw and internally reciting every filthy term I knew in Merican, Putchkin trade-pidgin, and any other language I’ve heard the blue words in. His hair dragged on the floor. I wondered if it had done its part to scrape the stone so smooth, the tunnel bottoms worn concave by repeated dragging footsteps. He paced back to the door and opened it with a simple push. Dappled light touched the ceiling, golden radiance reflecting off water making crazy patterns against the mosaic.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. The woman’s sad face peered back at me, the mark of Sephrimel’s claws cradling it tenderly, as if he had been trying to feel her skin again.

  I was shivering from more than the cold. But when the Fallen demon stepped down through the low door, ducking a little, I followed. Cold water lapped at my boots, ankle-deep and smelling of salt. I blinked against sudden dazzlement and found myself in a long low oval chamber, its walls blessedly free of mosaic. I didn’t think I could stand to see Inhana’s face one more time.

  CHAPTER 9

  In the middle of the chamber stood a low wet obsidian plinth, and a plain wooden box lay open on its top. The water wasn’t more than a few inches deep anywhere in the room, over a floor of rough blocks. It was clammy-cold, and steam lifted in lazy curls from my skin and his, demon metabolisms working overtime.

  “Take it,” Sephrimel said, and moved aside. He glided silently through the water, but I made wet noises every time I stepped. I hoped the boots were up for this kind of abuse. I hate wet shoeleather.

  Great beads of sweat dewed the walls. I stepped forward cautiously, feeling gingerly each time I set my foot down, not committing my weight until I was sure I was on safe ground. When I finally reached the pedestal, the lid of the box quivered like one of those plants that eats unwary flies.

  It moved because the box was rotting to bits, crumbling into a pile of slime. Velvet that had probably once been blue filled its interior. The cloth’s decay sent a sharpish-sweet note through clean salt and a thread of demon scent. And there, on the bed of soft swelling corruption, the Knife lay.

  It looked complete within itself, its geometry just slightly off like all items of demon make. The hilt was flattened and curved first toward me, then away, and the blade was the same. The guard was oddly shaped, finials reaching out for something but clasping only air. It hummed with malignant force, and now that I was close enough I saw a taint of black-diamond flame in the glow of Power it gave off. The world warped and shimmered around it, announcing here’s something that doesn’t belong.

  I stared at the thing for a long ten seconds, water lapping at my boots.

  “It’s made of wood.” I finally announced, hearing the same tone I’d use to announce it was fucking raining during a slicboard match. It was made of an old, dark wood, oiled and pristine. Its edge looked too sharp to be a tree’s flesh.

  “You are unnaturally observant,” Sephrimel piped up, dryly. “Take it in your hand, hedaira.”

  “Why is it made of wood?” I persisted. I’d cut Lucifer once—with good old-fashioned steel. This thing didn’t look like it could trim a demon’s claws, let alone kill the Devil.

  That is what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? Killing Lucifer. If it’s possible.

  “Ask your Fallen.” The demon stirred restlessly, and water lapped against the walls. “For now, simply take what is yours by right.”

  By right? I don’t think I want this thing, but thanks ever so much.

  I stared at the thing. Wood or not, it looked deadly wicked. Did it throb with its own dark glee, or was I just shell-shocked and ready to believe it after all this drama of tunnels and a dead woman’s dusky eyes? My bag clinked and rattled against my side.

  Just pick it up, Danny. You touch that thing, and you’re committed. You’ll have to kill Lucifer. There’s no way around it.

  Still… I hesitate
d. I reached out, and saw the shape of my forearm, my fragile-looking wrist, tough golden calluses on my fingertips from almost-daily fighting or training. If I was going to kill the Devil, this was the hand I’d do it with.

  My other hand rested on the thin raised scars crisscrossing my belly. I was suddenly, mortally certain Sephrimel had pulled something out of my cramping midriff.

  I had a good idea of what that something was, too. If I’d had anything in my stomach I might have heaved until I was dry.

  If I kill Lucifer, I can feel clean again. It was really that simple. Everything else, even protecting Eve, was taking a backseat to that one imperative. How shallow was that? I should have been more worried about protecting my daughter.

  If she really was my daughter. It bothered me. Would Santino have worked with a contaminated sample? Doubt circled my brain again.

  But still, her face. The little half-smile she wore, so like mine it could have been my twin.

  I was doubting everything now. The world was a collage of lies and half-truths, everyone with their own agenda. Even Japhrimel.

  Even me.

  My hand hovered in midair. Who was I fooling? It had been too late the moment Japhrimel had knocked at my front door.

  Do you believe in Fate, Dante?

  My standard reply was ringing ever more hollow. No more than the next Magi-trained Necromance.

  Pretty soon I was going to have to start saying yes.

  I picked up the Knife. It was obscenely warm. Or was I just chilled by the idea of what I was about to do? The wood was silken, like warm skin. The black fire of its aura socked home against mine, for all the world as if it recognized the taint of demon in my personal cloak of energy. My shields, battered and broken, blazed with a river of wine-dark Power.

  Instinct born of bounty hunting for most of my life warned me, a prickle against my nape and the sound of water splashing suddenly married to chill certainty as the scar on my shoulder flamed into hot agonized life.

  I stepped back from the pedestal, a cry wrenching itself from my throat, and spun in time to see Sephrimel extended in the air, claws outstretched, his face contorted as he leapt for me.

  How can I say what it was like?

  The Knife rammed home in his chest, his arms flung wide at the last possible moment, claws whistling as they clove sickly, salt-filled air. We hit the pedestal with a sickening crack, and slivers of glassy obsidian exploded from the physical and psychic force of that sound.

  Flying shards of obsidian whickered through the air, peppering stone walls and pocking into thrashed salty water. I skidded, lost my footing, and went down hard, screaming until my voice broke. Sephrimel collapsed on top of me, twitching heavily, thick snakes of white hair spilling down to brush my face with woolen fingers.

  I choked on a mouthful of salt water and shoved. Black demon blood bubbled between his lips, foaming. The Knife twitched in my hands like a live thing and made a greedy keening noise. Between the thin high moans was another sound, one I didn’t understand until the first wave of energy spilled through me.

  The Knife was gulping. It slurped like a toothless man inhaling a bowl of wet noodles.

  Sephrimel made a low choked sound. “Inhana,” he whispered, black blood dripping down and dewing my left cheek. He was close as a lover, and the weight of his body against mine was enough to touch off panic in the darkest corners of my head. “A’tai, hetairae A’nankimel’iin. Diriin.”

  My back, against cold hard stone, ran with prickles. It was a phrase Japhrimel had spoken to me, one I recognized even though I couldn’t translate it. Something about a hedaira and an A’nankhimel.

  But in return you will perform me a service, and if you do not I will strike you down to revenge myself on your lover.

  He hadn’t wanted to kill me. I realized it only now, too late to pull back. He’d attacked me so I would kill him. Tit for tat. Japhrimel had killed his hedaira, and here I was, finishing up the job.

  Ogods I’ve killed him. Oh gods.

  Sephrimel’s eyelids fell. His gaunt, starving face relaxed. I heard a sobbing noise, realized it was mine, repeating the only prayer I had left.

  “Japh… Japhrimel ohgods help…”

  The gulping sound ceased. Ash trickled through veins of darkness running through the demon’s golden flesh. Like porcelain, his skin cracked and broke, larger shards crumbling into fine cinnamon-scented dust. The veins of dryness even spread to his hair, threading through the clotted white.

  The Fallen demon exploded into ash that ground itself finer and finer as a heavy silken tide of pleasure slammed through me. My heart drummed against my rib cage like a hummingbird’s wings, the space where something had been ripped from my belly throbbing in response. My hips jerked up as I tasted the remainder of ash, vanishing until no trace of spice or musk remained on the air.

  I gasped, got another mouthful of salt water, and scrambled to my feet. I wasn’t losing my balance, the dome trembled. A chunk of stone fell from the vault, landing with an ominous splash. Ohgods. Oh, dear gods.

  My knees almost gave out on me. I backed away from the spreading fine film of ash on the water’s chopped surface. Is the whole place shaking, or just here? Great. I’m underground and I just killed my only guide. Just wonderful, Danny. I backed up, hardly caring where I stepped at this point, and my shoulders hit the wall with a thump. I stared up, only dimly aware of pleading. “Please don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall—”

  The dome shuddered once. Water trembled. Two things became apparent to me at once. The first was that something else was causing it to shake, some event communicating itself through stone like the squeal of overstressed hover dynos cuts through concrete like jelly.

  The second thing was that the water was rising, lapping at my knees instead of my shins.

  Move, Danny. Move now.

  I bolted for the door as another huge chunk of stone tore free of the dome, falling with a whistle and sending up a sheet of foaming, ash-laced seawater. My fingers clamped around the Knife’s satin-smooth, warm wooden hilt, and even in my adrenaline-laced terror I didn’t want to drop the goddamn thing. If it could kill Lucifer—or even wound him—the last place I wanted it to end up was buried under tons of rubble.

  Though it just might end up there anyway. Run, Danny. Run.

  I ran.

  CHAPTER 10

  My sense of direction underground isn’t the greatest. Fortunately, my Magi-trained memory had been busy taking in the mosaics, and Inhana’s sad, lovely face pointed me the right way.

  I hoped like hell that Sephrimel hadn’t repeated the patterns over and over again down every passage.

  That’s a thought you don’t need, sunshine. Just keep moving.

  I did, because the air was moving with me, a cold exhalation of salt brushing my hair as I pounded down stone worn concave by a demon’s dragging, grieving feet. I hit the door to the room I’d awakened in at full tilt, smashing it back against the wall, and shoved it shut with hysterical speed. Then I halted, my ribs flaring and flickering as I gasped, looking around for some clue of how to get out of here. The bookshelves looked too flimsy for anything, and the scrolls stacked on them were no help either, their smell a blind weight in my nostrils.

  Up. Got to get up. When my breathing evened out, the low groaning coming through the stone became audible again. I turned in a full circle, searching for another door, and realized my folly almost immediately. Just because I’d woken up here didn’t mean this room had an escape hatch.

  Think, Danny. Quit fucking around and think!

  I cast around again, trying desperately to force my brain to gear up and get me out of this one. Then the thing I was afraid of most happened.

  Water trickled under the door, a few innocent little streamlets sending thin questing fingers over the dry stone.

  “Shit,” I hissed between my teeth. Trust you to end up like this. Going to drown like a rat in a sewer if you don’t— “Shut up. Shut up. Think, damn you! Think!
”

  I would never have seen it if I hadn’t hunched down, clapping my hands to either side of my head and thwacking myself a good one with the Knife’s hilt against my temple. I’d almost forgotten I was carrying the damn thing.

  When my eyes cleared, smarting and stinging furiously, my attention snagged on the wall directly over the chunk of stone Sephrimel had laid me out on. The mosaic there was blues and greens, and it stretched up in a passable imitation of a door, a round wheel of yellow right where the knob should be.

  The edges of the pattern shimmered, just like a psion’s glamour once you’ve slowed down to take a really good look at it. Illusion rippled, and my heart leapt up into my throat, pounding there like it intended to tear free of my ribs and dance.

  I didn’t stop to think. I scrambled across the room, wet feet skidding in the rivulet of water coming under the door, leapt up—

  —and smashed into the wall full-tilt, knocking myself half-senseless back down onto the rectangle of stone.

  I shook the stunning impact out of my head. Dante, you idiot. And with the utter lunacy of the desperate, shell-shocked, and insane, I reached up, my claw-tips scraping against polished bits of stone, and touched the yellow circle.

  It felt round, firm, and real, under the screen of demon illusion. I used it to pull myself to my knees, hearing the soft insidious lap of water against the base of the stone chunk. It was rising fast.

  I twisted my wrist. The shell of illusion on the door—a perfect piece of demon magick, either a cruel mockery or an aesthetic utterly divorced from practicality—folded aside as the door swung open, the golden orb at the apex of the dome beginning to dim as its light spilled through…