The Devil s Right Hand

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Anubis knew I was His. Even a demon could not change that. I am Necromance. I belong to Death first, and to my own life second.

  The god spoke, the not-sound like a bell brushing around me. Yet I am the bell, the god puts His hand on me and makes me sing.

  Anubis bent, His black infinity-starred eyes fixed on me. He spoke again. This time the sound was like worlds colliding, blowing my hair back, the edges of my emerald’s glow shivering so for a moment I felt the awful pull of the abyss beneath me. My fingers loosened on the hilt, then clutched, the sword socking back into my grip.

  —a task is set for you, my child—

  Comprehension bloomed through me. The god had called; I was asked to do something. This was warning and question both, a choice lay before me. Would I do as He asked, when the time arrived?

  Why did He ask? I was His. For the god that had held me, protected me, comforted me all my life, it was unnecessary to ask. All You must do is tell me Your will, I whispered soundlessly.

  The god nodded again, His arms crossed. He did not have the ceremonial flail and hook, nor did He wear the form of a slim black dog as He usually did. Instead, His hand lifted, palm-out, and I felt a terrible wind whistle as my skin chilled and my ears popped.

  Then She behind him spoke, rushing flame like a river, the dance of unmaking the world taking another stamping step. I fell backward, my knuckles white on the sword’s hilt, a long slow descent into nothingness, waiting for the stone to hit my back or the abyss to take me, the words printed inside my head, not really words but layers of meaning, each burning deeper than the last, a whisper of a geas laid on me. A binding I could and would forget until the time was right.

  3

  I surfaced, lying on my side against chill, slick marble. Warm sunlight striped my cheek. I’d been out a long time.

  Hot iron bands clamped around my shoulders, lifted me. “Dante.” Japhrimel’s voice, ragged and rough as it had only been once or twice before. “Are you hurt? Dante?”

  I made a shapeless sound, limp in his hands. My head lolled. Power flooded me, roaring through my veins like wine, flushing my fingers with heat and chasing away the awful, sluggish cold. I cried out, my hand coming up reflexively. Steel fell chiming as Japhrimel twisted my wrist. He was so much stronger than me, I could feel the gentleness in his fingers as well. So restrained, careful not to hurt me. “Easy, hedaira. I am with you.”

  “They called to me.” My teeth began to chatter. The chill of Death had worked its way up past my elbows, past my knees, turning flesh into insensate marble. How long had I been away, on the bridge between here and the well of souls? “Japhrimel?” My voice cracked, a child’s whisper instead of a woman’s.

  “Who did this?” He pulled me into his arms, heat closing around me, his bare chest against mine. My back was brushed with softness—he had opened his wings and pulled me in. I shivered, my teeth chattering, more Power burned down my spine from his touch, warmth pulsing out from the mark on my shoulder. “What were you doing?” He didn’t shout—it was merely a murmur—but the furniture in the room groaned slightly as his voice stroked the air. It didn’t sound like my voice, the tone of throaty invitation. No, Japhrimel’s voice loaded itself with razorblades, the cold numbness of a sharp cut on deadened skin.

  “The g-g-gods c-c-called—” My teeth eased their chattering. He was warm, scorching, and he was here. “Down for a long time. Gods. Where were you?”

  He surged to his feet, carrying me. I felt the harsh material of his jeans against my hip, heard the clicking of bootheels as he carried me to the bed and sank down, cradling me. My sword rang softly, lying on the floor.

  Japhrimel held me curled against him like a child, warmth soaking into my skin. “What were you thinking? What did you do?”

  It had been a long time since I’d felt the cold of Death creeping up fingers and toes, sinking into my bones. “You were gone.” I couldn’t keep the petulant tone out of my voice, like a spoiled child with a hoarse, grown-up voice. “Where were you?”

  “You’re cold.” He sounded thoughtful, rubbing his chin against my temple, golden skin sliding against mine, a hot trickle of delight spilling up my back. “It seems I cannot leave for even a moment without you doing yourself some mischief. Stay still.”

  But I was struggling free of him. “You left me. Where were you? What did you do? Where were you?”

  “Stay still.” He grabbed my wrist, but I twisted and he let me go, my skin sliding free of steel-strong fingers. I arched away, but he had my other wrist locked, an instinctive movement. It didn’t hurt me—he avoided pressing on a nerve point or locking the rest of my arm, but it effectively halted me, making me gasp. “Just for a moment, be still. I will explain.”

  “I don’t want explanation,” I lied, and pushed at him with my free hand. “Let go.”

  “Not until you hear me. I did not want to leave you, but a summons from Hell is not ignored. I could not put it off any longer.”

  My heart thudded up under my collarbone, and I tasted copper. “What are you talking about? Let go!”

  “If you do not listen I will make you listen. We have no time for games, hedaira, though I would gladly play any game you could devise. But the Prince has called.”

  The words didn’t mean anything for the first few seconds, like all truly terrible news. Most of the fight went out of me. I slumped, and Japhrimel’s arm tightened. He released the wristlock and I shook my hand out, my head coming to rest on his shoulder. He pulled me closer, his wings brushing softly against my shoulder and calf. It was incredibly intimate. I knew enough, now, to know that a winged demon—those of the Greater Flight that had wings, at least—did not suffer those wings to be touched, or open them for anything other than flight or mating.

  Lucky me. Lucky, lucky me. Dear gods, did he just say what I think he said?

  “Do you hear me?” he whispered into my hair. “The Prince has called, hedaira.”

  I have been unable to contact him in the usual manner. Lucifer’s voice purred through my head. That had been during the hunt for Kellerman Lourdes and Mirovitch, the Prince of Hell sticking his elegant nose into my life again. In the mad scramble of events afterwards, I’d forgotten all about it. Psychic rape and the death of one of your closest friends can do that to you.

  Japhrimel was telling me that life was about to get very interesting again. I raised my head, hair falling in my eyes, and looked at him.

  His mouth was a tight line, shadows of strain around his dark eyes, a terrible sheen of something that could be sadness laid over the human depths I thought I knew.

  My hands shook. It had taken a long time for me to stop seeing Mirovitch’s jowly face printed against the inside of my eyelids, a long time before the aftermath of facing down my childhood demons of Rigger Hall faded to a nightmare echo.

  It still wasn’t finished. My entire body chilled, remembering the ka’s ectoplasm shoving its way down my throat and up my nose, in my ears, trying to shred through the material of my jeans while Mirovitch’s spectral fingers squirmed like maggots inside my brain, raping my memories. The only thing that saved me was my stubborn refusal to give in, my determination to strike back and end the terror for everyone else.

  That, and the Fallen demon who held me, who had stopped the ka from killing me. Who had searched until he found me, and burned my childhood nightmares to the ground simply because I asked.

  I looked at Japhrimel. The morning sunlight didn’t reach the bed, but reflected golden light was kind to his high balanced cheekbones and thin mouth. A terrible, paranoid thought surfaced, and I opened my big mouth. “You’re leaving me?” I whispered. “I . . . I thought—”

  His eyes sparked green. “You know I would not leave you.”

  It was too late. I’d already said it, already thought it. “If the Prince of Hell told you to, you might,” I shot back, struggling free of his arms, my feet smacking the floor. He let me go. I scooped up the fallen scabbard and made it to my sword, s
teel innocent and shining in the rectangle of sunlight from the window. Scooped up my blade and slid it home, seating it with a click. “What is it this time? He wants you back, you just go running like a good little demon, is that it? What does he want?”

  My shoulder flared, a tugging against the mark branded into my flesh. I ignored it.

  “You misunderstand, my curious.” Japhrimel’s voice was terribly, ironically flat. “The one the Prince seeks audience with is you.”

  4

  I turned so quickly my hair fanned out in a loose arc. Sunlight warmed my hip and knee, pouring in through the window. Japhrimel had stood up, and his long dark Chinese-collared coat was back, wings folded tightly as if armoring himself.

  As if he was the one who needed the armor.

  He watched me, his hands clasped behind his back again. “It seems that once again I am to ask you to face the Prince, Dante. There is . . . terrible news.”

  I swallowed dryly. “Terrible? When you say that, I suppose it means something different than when I say it.” Then the absurdity hit me—I was standing here naked, my entire body gone cold and tense with foreboding, talking to a demon. How did I get myself into these things? “Am I allowed to get dressed, or does Lucifer want to see me in the buff?”

  “If you wish to present yourself as a slave, I can hardly stop you.” The edge to his voice glittered and smoked like carbolic tossed across antigrav. “Try to rein your tongue for once. If I have meant anything to you, you must listen to me.”

  Slaves are naked in Hell? Yet another demon custom I don’t know about. The mad urge to giggle rose up inside of me and died away again. My jaw set itself like plasteel. “You have no idea what you mean to me,” I informed him, just as flatly as he’d ever spoken to me.

  “And vice versa. You are a selfish child sometimes. It could even be your particular brand of charm.”

  I lifted the sword slightly. “Do you want a sparring match, or do you want to explain to me why you left me while I was unconscious? And defenseless, I might add?”

  “I cannot imagine you defenseless.” Japhrimel stepped forward once. Twice. He approached me slowly, as if I might bolt at any moment. I stood trembling at the edge of the sunlight and let him come near, my hand with the sword dropping. “I gave up my place in the Greater Flight of Hell for you. I am of the Fallen, and I have chosen to bind my fate to yours. Remember that.”

  The mark on my shoulder sent a burning tingle all through me. His hand brushed my elbow, slid up my arm to polish the bare skin of my shoulder, then slid under my hair, curling around my nape. He didn’t have to pull me forward, I leaned into him like a plant leans toward a window. “I have fended off the polite requests Lucifer has sent for your presence, and I have parried his less-than-polite requests. He has stopped asking and started summoning, hedaira, and he is an enemy we cannot afford to make. Not if we expect to keep living, and I find I have grown fond of life with you. Even this pale world has its beauty when seen through your eyes.” He dropped his face, spoke the last sentence into my hair. He inhaled, a slight shudder passing through him. My sword dropped the rest of the way, my arm hanging slack, the scabbard resting in my hand. “At the very least, I ask you to come and listen. Will you?”

  The lump in my throat made it difficult to talk. “Fine,” I rasped. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it. I hate him, I hate him, he killed you and I hate him.”

  The tension running through him drained away. “He did not kill me. I am here.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I let him pull me back to the bed and run his fingers through my hair. I let him kiss my shoulder, my cheek, and finally my mouth. I sighed as he folded me in his arms and spoke to me the way I understood best—the language of the body, an instinctive semaphore used to tell me once again that he was real. His mouth against mine, his body against mine, and the rough hungry fire of my own desire swallowing me whole—but tears slid down my cheeks as I gave myself up to him.

  I should have known things wouldn’t stay perfect forever.

  5

  It took a long time for my heartbeat to return to normal. I lay in his arms, my eyes closed, feeling the weight of his body against mine. The Magi say that demons invented the arts of love, and after years of living with Japhrimel I didn’t just believe it—I knew it, all the way through my veins.

  It was too bad he couldn’t have been human in the first place. Would I have loved him so much if he was?

  I propped myself up on my elbow, my hair sliding over my shoulder as he threaded his fingers through and pushed it back, tucking it behind my ear. The silky strands clung to his fingers, unwilling to let go. “All right,” I said, my legs tangled with his. “Time for you to come clean. What’s going on?”

  He shrugged, his touch trailing down my arm and skipping to touch my ribs. As usual, slow fire followed, unstringing my nerves, soothing me. His eyes, half-closed, still held sparks of green circling in their depths. “You have been buried in your books, my curious. While you have done so, there has been unsettling news. The air is full of . . . disturbance. For Lucifer to request a hedaira’s presence is a thing unprecedented in the history of Hell. The Three Flights—Greater, Lesser, and Low—now know of Vardimal’s rebellion. A demon escaped Hell and lived among humans for fifty mortal years, and even created an Androgyne. Now they think it is possible to leave Hell unremarked—and they think perhaps Lucifer is weakening, or his grip on Hell is slipping. Mutters of discontent rise everywhere. The fact that Lucifer lost his assassin to a human woman does not help.”

  “I’m missing the part where that’s my problem,” I muttered.

  He brushed my cheek with his knuckles, a gentle, careful movement. “If Lucifer loses control of Hell, do you think demons will cavil at settling old scores with me? We have notoriously long memories.” A swift snarl crossed his face. A long time ago, it would have frightened me. “Not to mention that it is the Prince’s will that keeps demon-kind from meddling further with your world. That is something you should be devoutly grateful for.” His pause sent a chill down my back. “Our kind play cruel games.”

  That makes sense. Too much sense to be comforting. I sighed and sank down into the pillow, untangling my legs from his and turning on my back. The rectangle of mellow sunlight moving across the room reminded me I should be in the library. I could only acquire shadowjournals from the estates of solitary Magi, since circles burned shadowjournals when a member passed, or kept them in heavily guarded libraries that were destroyed if the circle died out.

  Each solitary Magi had a different code, and each text required months of patient work to break that code and strip-mine whatever information the Magi let slip about demons, hoping for a word about the Fallen. It was slow, frustrating, difficult going, and now I might never finish.

  Japhrimel’s hand slid down to spread against my belly. It reminded me of claws digging into my guts, the sick leprous light of Mirovitch’s ka burning the air, my own helpless screams. My skin had healed without a scar. I had no scars left except the fluid twisted glyph on my shoulder, the mark of my bond with him. “So what does Lucifer want with me? I’m no use to him.”

  “My guesses are unpleasant, and it is better not to guess where the Prince is concerned.” Old bitterness shaded his voice. He didn’t like to talk about his life as Lucifer’s Right Hand; I might have understood more if he’d told me even a little about it.

  “So when you told me nothing was wrong, you were lying? Like when you didn’t tell me you helped Santino escape from Hell?” I closed my eyes, staring into the mothering dark behind my eyelids. Japhrimel’s aura swirled, black diamond flames sliding through the trademark sparkles of a Necromance, showing I was linked to him. Dante, for the sake of every god that ever was, don’t do this.

  “I did so under the Prince’s direction.” Was it me, or did his voice sound even more bitter? “I had no choice. Not until I Fell, and you freed me by completing your bargain with him.”

  I blew out anot
her long, frustrated breath. “So he wants to see me. Posthaste.”

  “We have until nightfall. Then I will take you to the meeting place. I was told we will meet a guide there who will take us to a door into Hell. Once we pass into Hell, you will be required to do the speaking for us.”

  Another arcane custom? “I am not ready for this.” A new thought struck me. “Lucifer wants a bargain?”

  I could feel his eyes moving over me, the weight of his gaze like amber silk and honey against my skin. “I would assume so.”

  Does this mean I have a chance of. . . . “Then I can bargain for Eve?”

  Japhrimel froze, his hand tensing. He made a slight sound, like a bitter snort of laughter. After a long pause, his fingers gentled against my abdomen. “It would be most unwise, Dante. Most unwise.”

  “He took her. She was Doreen’s. He had no right.” Plus he almost strangled me, and he killed you. The Devil owes me, and if he needs something from me I’m going to make him pay with interest. It was hollow bravado at best. I had no illusion of being able to win in any game involving the Devil. Humans just don’t win when they tangle with him.

  But I had Japh on my side, didn’t I? That had to be worth something.

  “How would you have raised her, Dante? You do not even truly understand a demon, let alone an Androgyne. He took her for a reason.” His tone was soft, reasonable, and did not mollify me in the least.

  I don’t care why he took her. “He nearly strangled me in the process, Japhrimel. Or did you forget?” If I don’t understand demons, whose fault is that? You won’t tell me anything!

  “You survived, did you not? For him, that passes as a light warning. Must I beg you to be cautious?” His hand tensed again, his thumb moving slightly, a light caress.

  “I’m plenty cautious. Especially where demons are concerned. Last time I didn’t come off too badly, did I?”