The Devil s Right Hand

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I brushed my hair back with wet fingers, washed my face. Scrubbed my skin dry with a towel. Shrugged inside my rig a little, tested the action of each knife. Checked my bag, scorched and battered but still mine. Extra ammo. I still had my plasgun, too.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, the water still running into the bowl of the sink. I wiped the half-smile off my face, watched as the lovely woman facing me grew solemn, the tattoo on her cheek shifting slightly. The twisted caduceus ran its sharp ink lines lovingly over her skin. The emerald set high on her flawless left cheekbone flashed.

  There was another green flash, and my eyes dropped. I lifted my left wrist, the breath slamming out of me.

  The wristcuff ran with green light, fluid lines scrabbling with humming urgency. A warning.

  I drew my plasgun. Left the water running. Edged for the bathroom door. Stopped, and looked at the shower. My eyes snagged on the bathtub, too. A low stone-tiled wall between the bathtub and the shower, only about three feet high. Probably for the plumbing. The bathtub was set in the floor, but behind it was the wall the room shared with the outside hallway.

  I bet that wall isn’t stone all the way through. It likely wasn’t kobolding-made, which meant it wasn’t as tough as the exterior wall.

  The wristcuff squeezed, a bolt of pain firing its way up my arm. My breath stopped in my throat. Demons. Whether from Lucifer or escaped from Hell, they certainly didn’t mean me any good.

  You’ve got to make up your mind, Danny. Let Japhrimel push you around or strike out on your own. Even if you won’t last long without him, at least you won’t have someone owning you. Forcing you. Lying to you.

  Clear coldness settled over me. In the end, everything boiled down to one thing—what I had to do. Even if I loved Japh, I couldn’t be a slave.

  I heard McKinley’s voice, low and urgent. Then, a soft light rap on the hotel room’s door. Demons, here and knocking at the door.

  A static-laden silence smashed through the room. Then a crunching, smashing impact; the bathroom door rattled against its hinges. A low, coughing snarl—a hellhound.

  Just before all hell broke loose, I took a deep breath, stepped back, and pointed my plasgun at the wall. Power spiked under my skin, and I squeezed the trigger.

  36

  Night lay thick and heavy over Demilitarized Sarajevo. It felt strange to be in a city of paranormals, but the static in the air was enough to hide even me for once. I crouched in the lee of a dark alley, listening to the snarling as two werecain engaged in a deep philosophical discussion about something out on the pavement across the cobbled square, right in front of the Haunt Tais-toi nightclub.

  Nightclub is too kind a word. It was a Nichtvren haunt, communal feeding ground, and social gathering spot rolled into one. Instead of thick shielding to keep the hungry Power contained, this had only token barriers—after all, who would be stupid enough to attack a haunt in Sarajevo? And besides, there were no normals or psions around to keep away from the well of carnivorous Power because of the risk of Feeders.

  This particular haunt had been a temple once, a twin-towered cathedral in the café section of Sarajevo, facing out onto a wide square now eddying with every conceivable shape and size of paranormal. Species I’d only read about in school lived here in their own enclaves, and night was the time they came out to play.

  My shields shivered, demon-strong and flexible. I blinked a few times, feeling a purely human reaction uncomfortably like what any prey would feel in the presence of predators. Maybe I wasn’t fully human anymore—but I’d been born one, and something blind and old inside me recognized that to these creatures, the Danny Valentine before Japh’s alterations would be walking meat in Sarajevo.

  My head still felt tender from the plasgun-plus-Power burst. True to my guess, the wall hadn’t been pure stone, just plasteel struts and sheetrock with thin marble tiles. It had blown out nicely. I, on the other hand, had slid into the glassed-in shower. The single low stone wall between the shower and the bathtub provided perfect cover as I buttoned myself as tightly down as I could. My feet had crunched on broken glass from the shower door. The mark on my shoulder bit down with sudden pain as the demon attackers, followed by McKinley and Japhrimel, streaked out into the hotel. I heard a werecain’s howl—the guard at the top of the stairs. Everyone thought I’d busted out and was running away—or was being dragged.

  Jeez, not too bright, I’d thought, my breath still choked in my throat. Then I’d scrambled out through the hole in the wall, Power bleeding into the air from where my strike had smashed through Japhrimel’s demon-laid wards. Any other demon’s shielding, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do so—but I wore Japh’s mark, and his wards weren’t meant to strike against or harm me.

  Or so I’d hoped, and turned out to be right. Besides, the smashing against the front door meant the shields were automatically concentrating to throw back the force of that attack and were thus more vulnerable here.

  Low and silent, I turned to the left and was around the corner in another hall before I heard the crashing chaos of a hell of a fight behind me. I didn’t wait around. Instead, I kicked in a door, and—thank Anubis—found a room with actual windows. A swanhild room, actually, with a large round nestingbed full of feathery stuff. I didn’t stop to apologize to the screaming swanhild trio that greeted me, feathers swirling around their shocked faces and narrow naked torsos. I simply dove out the plasglass window and was gone before the attacking demons had realized I’d outsmarted them. The drop hadn’t been pleasant, but it hadn’t hurt me much.

  Finding the Haunt Tais-toi had been as easy as getting to a busy street and politely asking a passing swanhild, then following her careful directions.

  The psychic interference was so intense I couldn’t scan the place. Nichtvren poured in, and I spotted a whole pack of werecain—from an alpha in a long leather coat all the way down to a few teenage pups. A few swanhild decked out in silver chains, miniskirts, and not a lot else waltzed in the front door.

  There wasn’t a lot of hover traffic. I guess the paranormals around here didn’t use them—who needed a hover when you could use the Nichtvren shimmer-trick, or when a werecain could cover ten blocks of city street in seconds? Swanhild were territorial and rarely traveled despite their messaging system, and kobolding hated to leave wherever they’d been hatched.

  At least if there aren’t a lot of hovers, I might not get hit with one.

  I checked the street again. Too many shadows. Any one of them could hold a demon, and the interference was intense enough I wouldn’t know it in time.

  I was pretty sure I’d shaken all pursuit, and the interference that would hide them would hide me a lot better, since I wasn’t as big a disturbance in the Power flow.

  Danny, what are you doing? You should be running as far away from here as you can, going as deep into cover as you can.

  I couldn’t run forever. If Lucifer wanted to kill me, he was welcome to try. I’d die fighting. Besides, why bother to schedule a meeting with me and send assassins for me? Far easier and more satisfying to do it himself.

  Besides, this was the one thing Japhrimel couldn’t force me to do. He was stronger than me, faster than me, more powerful than me. This was my chance to do something by myself.

  I finally melted out of the shadows and walked across the street. My bootheels snapped against concrete and patches of cobbles. It was odd to be in a city where the sky wasn’t dyed orange with reflected light; it was even more odd when I walked right up to the door of the Haunt Tais-toi and plunged into the red-neon thumping bass cave that was the second Nichtvren haunt I’d ever walked into in my life.

  The music folded around me, I winced as reflex compensated for the demonic acuity of my ears. One thing I can thank Japh for, he taught me how to turn the volume down.

  I’d spent so long with him in the forefront of every thought, even while he’d been dormant and I’d struggled unsuccessfully to go on with my life. I suspected I’d miss him f
or the rest of my life.

  The rest of my life might be a very short time, I thought grimly, glancing around the haunt. The dance floor was crammed, prickles of Power racing over my skin from the throng. A bar ran down one whole side of the building, a low stage held four werecain and a Nichtvren. Two ’cain had guitars, one had a bass, another one fingered a Taziba keyboard; the stick-thin, red-haired Nichtvren sang in some language I didn’t recognize. He wore leather pants and had his eyes closed, crooning, his voice cutting through the din with little effort, helped along by Power.

  The music helped with the interference. I shouldered my way through a gaggle of swanhild and headed for the bar. I was early, according to the timefunction on my datband.

  I hoped the Devil was early too. The sooner I could get this over with, the better.

  Before, I’d just had to get too tired to care before I could face down the Devil. Now I was tired, hungry, missing Japhrimel, running away from Japhrimel, scared out of my mind, and heartbroken.

  I was hoping it was enough. It might almost be a relief to have everything over with.

  I got to the bar. The bartender was a rarity, a four-armed kobolding. Swanhild and kobolding like to drink, and Nichtvren occasionally take an alcohol chaser with their blood—it doesn’t affect them but they like acidic tastes. I hear the stomach cramps are a bitch, though. There were various other stimulants and depressants for other paranormals, and the smell of synth-hash smoke wreathed around me. The thunderous fading-returning odor of werecain, the dry feathery sweetness of swanhild, the deliciously wicked smell of Nichtvren, smoke and stone for the kobolding, other assorted odors.

  I let my eyes travel over the place as the Nichtvren’s voice hit a new pitch that made my shields shiver. A thread of wonder ran through me. I wouldn’t have been able to experience this if I was still human.

  There were some things to be grateful for in this new body, however short a time I had left to enjoy it.

  Danny, your imagination just works too goddamn well.

  I ordered a double shot of Crostine rum and handed the ’tender a fifty New Credit note. My roll was getting pretty thin, I’d have to score some more cash soon. If I used my datband to draw on my accounts, I could be traced. I would have to find a bank and carefully plan a run. Get in, get cash from my accounts, get out and vanish.

  Always assuming you live past tonight, sunshine. “Danny Valentine,” I said to the bartender. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  The ’cain palmed the note and nodded over my shoulder. I whirled, my hand going to my swordhilt.

  My heart leapt to my throat. Yellow eyes blazed in a scar-ruined face; Lucas Villalobos grabbed my arm, stopping only to gulp down the double shot and nod to the bartender. “You get into more trouble,” he wheezed in my ear, his breath laden with rum and the dry scent of a stasis cabinet. He smacked the shotglass down on the bar. “This way.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I considered drawing my sword, discarded the notion. I was too glad to see him.

  “I don’t like losing track of my clients. Puts me in a bad mood.” Lucas scanned the building, his oddly flat aura moving like a revolving door. No wonder he was able to get into DMZ Sarajevo, he didn’t look human at all on an energetic level. “There’s someone you should talk to.”

  My heart plummeted, then leapt to pound in my throat. Lucas? Working for Lucifer? No. Let’s hope not. “Great. Is he here?”

  “Not he,” Lucas said in my ear. He’d found a new dark-gray shirt but still wore the same bandoliers I’d always seen him in, his boots were the same rundown pair he’d always had. I wondered how often he got them resoled. “She. And you’d better hurry.”

  Lucas led me through the dance floor, press of immortal Nichtvren flesh on every side, a knot of werecain twisting in the corner, sweet synth-hash smoke wreathing in billows as a mated pair twined around each other, damn near copulating. I’d always liked dancing, shaking every thought out of my body. I hadn’t gone in years.

  Not since Jace.

  I remembered Jace’s hands on my waist, sweat dripping down my neck and spine, a short silken skirt swinging against my thighs as I raised my arms, the music slamming through my bones as I lost myself in one of the oldest communal ecstasies known to humanity.

  I shook the memory away. I’d never asked Japhrimel if he liked to dance. Probably not—but he was so graceful. It would have been nice to dance with him.

  Will you just quit thinking about him? You’ll need all your wits for whatever’s going to happen in the next ten minutes.

  We reached a dark corner, and Lucas tilted his head at the hulking orange-eyed werecain on its hindlegs in full huntform, a fringe of hair around its genitals. It didn’t move as we went past. Lucas’s pale hand spread against a door. It opened, disclosing a set of stairs. The reek of werecain faded as the receptors in my nose shut down. He pushed me in, and I went gratefully. The door swung closed behind us, shutting out the wall of music.

  I sighed. “How’d you find me?”

  “I squeezed the agent—Vann—until he gave up that McKinley had sent a communiqué, said he was headed to Sarajevo. Then I called in a favor and caught a smuggler transport out here. Listen, Valentine, your demon had orders in place that you were supposed to be kept out of the action once we ID’d the first demon. Leander’s spittin’ mad. He’s recruiting in Cairo Giza. We’re gonna catch a transport out of here in three hours, but you better hear this first.”

  “Hear what first?”

  “I said Abra put me on your trail.” He pushed me, the stairs were rickety and groaning under the bassbeat. “I lied. She only told me when to be in New Prague to find you. I was contracted to look after you before you showed up in that bar.”

  What? I pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and stepped into a dimly lit room with a blue Old Perasiano rug, a nivron fireplace full of crackling flame, two heavy mahogany chairs set across from each other—and a dozing hellhound lying against the wall under a small window half-hid behind a blue velvet drape.

  My heart slammed into my mouth. Next to the hellhound, his shoulders broad and his catslit eyes glittering icy gray, the demon Velokel stood. His face was round and heavy, square teeth that still looked sharp, and those eyes glowing blue around the vertical slits deep and dark enough to swallow the scream struggling up through my throat. The cuff was quiescent on my left wrist, no dappled green light flaring.

  A slim female shape standing by the fireplace half-turned. A flash of dark-blue eyes under a sleek cap of pale blond hair, and a glimmering emerald ringing a soft greeting from her forehead. Power blazed through her; the power of an Androgyne. She smelled like fresh bread, like spiced Power and musk, like. . . .

  Like Lucifer.

  Anubis, my Lord, my god, watch over me. The prayer rose unbidden, and the thought after that was almost as intense in its supplication.

  Japhrimel.

  Why was I thinking of him? Couldn’t I stop thinking of him?

  Might as well ask yourself to stop breathing, Danny.

  “Don’t be afraid, Dante,” she said softly. “I won’t hurt you, and neither will the hound. Come in, sit down.”

  37

  I swallowed bile as I eyed the hellhound. And the motionless Velokel, who all but thrummed with lethal power. I found myself absurdly comforted by a single thought, an instinctive weighing of every erg of Power this being possessed. He isn’t as strong as Japhrimel. The comfort was short-lived. He can still kill me. He can still easily kill me.

  “Relax, Valentine,” Lucas said from behind me, pushing me none too gently. “I was contracted to keep your skin whole.”

  She wore a loose blue cable-knit turtleneck, khakis with a sharp crease, and a pair of expensive black Verano heels. Her breasts moved slightly underneath the sweater. Velokel didn’t move. If he wanted to kill me, he’d had more than enough time. He’d had more than enough time as soon as I opened the door.

  My hand dropped away from the swordhilt.
Lucas closed the door behind us, leaned against it with his head cocked. “You’re too old,” I whispered. I sounded choked. My cheek burned, my emerald answering the green gem that flashed on her forehead. “Too old.” She should still be a child.

  She looked just like Doreen. Just like my sedayeen lover, dead on the floor of a warehouse while Santino giggled and snuffled happily to himself, collecting his “samples.” My beautiful, gentle, wonderful Doreen, the lover who had given me my soul back. Who had given me myself back.

  Eve smiled, one corner of her mouth quirking up. It was a familiar smile, but I couldn’t quite place it. Doreen hadn’t ever smiled like that. “A year in Hell isn’t the same as a year on earth. Far from. Please, come in, sit down. It’s good to see you.”

  I eased across the room, staring at her. Velokel might as well have been a statue. My skin crawled. “You . . . I . . . you—”

  “I hired Lucas to find you as soon as I left Hell. It was difficult, but I wanted you to have the benefit of some protection. Someone you could trust. It took him a while to find you; the Eldest had you hidden well.” She paused. “We could not locate you for a long time, and when we did, we could not approach. He was too . . . watchful.”

  Japhrimel, listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. Taut and ready, perhaps sensing someone looking for me. Aware that I was in danger, knowing Lucifer was calling for me. That look on his face, that sense of him listening, hadn’t been because he was dissatisfied with me. It had been vigilance, the type of protective attention I’d sometimes practiced while doing bodyguard duty but had never, ever thought I would be the subject of. So living in Toscano had been to hide me.

  To keep me safe.