Working for the Devil

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I was faintly surprised to find Japhrimel knew Portogueso, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Demons like languages as much as they like technology, and have fiddled with both for a long time.

  He finally looked back over his shoulder at me. “Carmen says we’re welcome to stay up over the shop,” he said. “Come. You need rest.”

  I shrugged. “How likely is it that we’ll be tracked here?”

  He showed his teeth. “Not likely at all,” he replied, and I didn’t press him for details. He probably wouldn’t give them anyway. “She is of the Hellesvront—our agents,” he continued, immediately proving me wrong.

  “You have agents? Hell has human agents?”

  “Of course. Human and others.”

  Then why didn’t they track down Santino? I decided not to ask. The bodega felt like Abra’s store—dusty, old, the same smell of chilis and beef. Yet the babalawao wasn’t like Abra—she was powerful, true, but human. Only human. She swept her hair back over her shoulder and regarded me coolly, her eyes moving over my disheveled hair, dusty sweat-stained clothes, and white-knuckled grip on my katana. She asked one question, and Japhrimel shook his head. His inky hair lay still against his skull. He didn’t seem to sweat even in this malicious wet heat.

  Hell was hotter, anyway.

  The woman led us to the back of her store, sweeping aside a curtain woven into bright geometrics that writhed with Power. A narrow staircase threaded up into darkness.

  Japhrimel touched the woman’s forehead. She nodded, her brown skin moving under his hand, and grinned at me, her teeth flashing sharp and white. “Gracias, filho,” he said quietly.

  “De nada,” she said, and returned to perch on her barstool behind the glassed-in counter. Glass jars of herbs twinkled behind her, and a rack of novena candles threw back the gleam.

  I climbed the creaking stairs, the demon’s soundless step behind me. We reached a low, indifferently lit hall, and a single door. I opened it, and found myself looking at a small, plain bedroom. An iron mission-style bed with white sheets and a dun comforter, a single chair by the empty fireplace, a full-length mirror next to a flimsy door leading to the Nuevo Rio version of a bathroom. I heaved a sigh. “I like this much better,” I said shakily.

  “No doubt.” Japhrimel crowded past me into the room. It suddenly seemed far too small to contain him. The window looked out onto the street. I shut the door while he made one circuit of the walls, Power blending seamlessly to hide us. I dropped my bag on the bed, wishing I’d had room for more than one change of clothes. It won’t be the first hunt I’ve finished dirty, I thought, and flipped open the messenger bag’s top flap. I had to dig a bit to retrieve my datpilot. “What’s that?”

  “I need contacts,” I said, waiting while the plug-in and the H-DOC established a linkup with the hand-held device. “Since we can’t use Jace’s, I’m going to have to look for anyone who has dual warrants in Saint City and in Nuevo Rio. That should give me a place to start. If nobody I know is in town we’ll have to buy information, and that could get expensive.”

  “What information are we pursuing, then?” he asked, finishing his circuit of the room and making a brief gesture in front of the door. The whole building groaned a little, subliminally, and I felt a flutter in my stomach as the Power crested, ebbed. The room was now shielded—and if what I Saw was any indication, also invisible to prying eyes.

  I took a deep breath. The medicinal effects of the brandy I’d taken down were beginning to wear off. My knees felt suspiciously weak. “I need to know two things: first of all, if Santino’s running the Corvin Family from behind. And second—” I tapped into the datpilot, setting the parameters for the search, “I need to know what Jace has been doing these past three years.”

  CHAPTER 31

  The next day was hot and breathless, thunder rumbling off and on, the light taking on a weird gray-green cast. I spent most of the day trying to sleep, sprawled on the small bed. Japhrimel dragged his chair up to the side of the bed and watched me, his green eyes veiled. I didn’t speak much. I slept thinly, tossing and turning, waking with my katana still clenched in my hands and the same muggy heat lying over the city.

  And Japhrimel’s green eyes resting on me, oddly dark. Glazed.

  My mind kept worrying like a dog with a single bone, over and over again.

  Jace. The Corvin Family. Jace. Santino.

  Jace.

  The afternoon was wending toward evening when I finally sat up on the bed, tired of retreading the same mental ground. “Do you think he’s betrayed me?” I asked, without even knowing I was going to open my mouth.

  “I don’t know,” the demon answered, after a long, still pause. He rose to his feet like a dark wave. Demon-smell washed over me. He’d kept the window open, but the air was so close and still that the fragrance clung to the room. “You need food.”

  “I’ll be fine. There’s hunting to do.” I stretched, my back cracking as I arched, then I swung my legs off the bed, came to my feet, and picked up my bag from the floor. A few moments divested it of everything I wouldn’t need tonight—I piled extra clothes, the spare plasgun, and some other odds and ends on the bed. Japhrimel watched expressionlessly as I clumped over to the bathroom door, and was still watching when I came out. I buckled on my holster, checked the plasgun, and slid it in. Shrugged into my coat, immediately starting to sweat again. I finally gave my hair a short, vicious combing and braided it back.

  “Do you think he’s betrayed you?” he finally asked me when I checked the action on my main knives.

  “It’s looking pretty fucking possible,” I said. “If what Abra told me is any indication, he ran with the Corvin Family even before he came to Saint City. You don’t ever escape the Mob. And if Santino’s running the Corvins from behind, they might be running Jace—or he was using me to pressure them for something. Or maybe just holding me until the Corvins reached a point in negotiations with Santino . . .” I trailed off. “It’s very possible.” I slipped my turquoise necklace on over my head, settled the pendant between my breasts. Japhrimel didn’t reply. I finally settled my bag strap across my body. “What do you think?” I asked him.

  His jaw set. “Do you truly wish to know?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  He shrugged, clasping his hands behind his back. “My opinion? He wants you far too badly to give you up to this Family,” he said. “All the same, it would be foolish to trust him.”

  “If he wants me so much, why did he leave me?” I flared, then closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  “It seems we must discover this,” he answered. “Do you care for him, then?”

  “I used to,” I said, opening my eyes and looking down at my free hand, clenched in a fist. “I’m not so sure now.”

  “Then do not decide yet,” was his equable reply. But his face was full of something dark. I didn’t want to know.

  It was my turn to shrug. “You have agents in the city, you said.”

  He nodded. “They are already searching for information. Quietly, so as not to alert our quarry.”

  “That’s good.” My conscience pricked me. But that was ridiculous. He was a demon. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t even close to human. “Hey . . . you know, I . . .” Was I blushing? I was. Why?

  I don’t have time for this.

  I approached him cautiously, laid my hand on his shoulder. His smell closed around me, vaguely comforting. “Thank you,” I said, tilting my head back to look up into his face. “Really. I really . . . well, thank you.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. It was by far the most human expression I had ever seen on him. “No thanks necessary,” he said quietly. “It is my honor.”

  “Do you really think I can kill Santino?” I asked.

  His face changed. “We have no choice, either way. I will do all I can to protect you, Dante.”

  “Good enough.” I dropped my hand. “Let’s go find our first contact.”

  CHAPTER 32 />
  The police net plug-in gave me a current map of the city and tag-locations of landmarks loaded from my datband to my datpilot; the DOC told me who was in town. It wasn’t too hard to find a familiar face. Whatever city Captain Jack was infesting, he always hung out near the prostitutes.

  We visited five bordellos before we hit paydirt. I scanned a two-story building and brushed against weak, familiar shielding. After running into Captain Jack on four bounties, one of which had almost cost me my life when he turned traitor and sold me to the criminal I was hunting, I could tell his shielding even through a building reeking of sex and desperation. It was an unpleasant skill. “Come with me,” I told the demon, pushing through the crowd. “Look dangerous. Don’t kill anyone unless I do, okay?”

  “As you like.” He shadowed me as I crossed the street. We ended up on the doorstep, two Nuevo Rio prostitutes eyeing us. They made no move to stop me as I strode past them. The heavies guarding the door—two rippling masses of black-market augmentation—examined me, looked at the demon, and stepped back.

  It was kind of useful, having Japhrimel around.

  Inside, the place was done in threadbare red velvet, waves of perfume and hash smoke, naked women pressed against lace, offering their breasts and other things. One bronzed Nuevo Rio man, reclining on an overdone mahogany and black satin couch with a guitar in his supple hands, plucked out a mellow tune—an accompaniment to the girls’ blandishments. Two customers, neither of them Jack, stared at me with wide eyes. Seeing a fully clothed woman carrying a sword in a Nuevo Rio bordello must be a huge shock.

  I scanned the room—no, the Captain was up on the second floor. It figured.

  The madam came fluttering out in a pink synthsilk robe, a tall and heavily lipsticked woman, her thinning hair padded out with horsehair. She carried about fifty extra pounds, and I felt the skin on my nape prickle. The three whip scars on my back gave one remembrance of a twinge, then subsided as I took a deep breath.

  At least being a Necromance had saved me from being a sex worker.

  She fired a chattering stream of Portogueso at us, and Japhrimel answered her with a few curt words. She paled, and he held out two folded notes—Nuevo Rio paper. Currency for those without datbands.

  She snatched the notes from his hand and leered at me. I turned my cheek so my emerald sparked at her, and she almost fell over backward in her haste to get away. If the Nuevo Rios were easier with Shamans and demons and loa, they were even more frightened of Necromances. They had old legends here of the spirits that walked in Death and the humans that could talk to them—while Shamans were mostly acceptable, a Necromance definitely was not.

  I took the stairs two at a time, following the pattern of instinct, intuition, and Power. A long hall, some open doors with women standing in them, their usual catcalls dying on their lips as I came into sight; other doors were closed, the reek of sex and hash in the air thick enough to cut. I tapped in, shaping the Power deftly, and by the time I smacked the door open and came face-to-face with a half-naked and disgruntled Captain Jack I was all but humming with invisible force. Any more and I’d go nova. It alerted him to my presence, of course, but by then it was too late for him.

  “Hesu Christos—” he began, and I was on him, driving him to the floor, my sword within easy reach. I had him in an armlock. Japhrimel hushed the naked, screaming girl on the bed by the simple expedient of clapping a hand over her mouth. He dragged her to the door and tossed her out, then tossed a few more Nuevo Rio notes after her. How much money does he have? I thought, and leaned into the armlock.

  Captain Jack, weedy from hash overuse, his ribs standing out, still possessed a great deal of wiry strength. I was actively sweating by the time he finished cursing and heaving, his sweat-slick skin sliding under my fingers. He’d gotten old. His dreadlocked brown hair was streaked with gray, bits of glittering circuit-wire wrapped around dreads and twisted into runic shapes, dusty from the plank flooring. He called me something filthy. I got my knee in his back and applied a little pressure. He settled down a little.

  “What the motherfucking hell do you want?” he snarled. The demon, his face expressionless, leaned against the door, his arms folded across his chest.

  “What I always want, Jack. To see your sweet face,” I leaned over and purred in his ear. “Taking a vacation from Saint City, pirate? I’m on a legitimate hunt and you’ve got warrants. If you don’t want your ass hauled in and cored in a Nuevo Rio prison, you might want to consider being a little more polite.”

  “Bitch,” he hissed. His long thin nose pressed into the dusty planks; spittle formed on his thin lips. He’d pawned his golden earring, I saw it was missing. The tattoos on his shoulderblades—twin dragons, with no significance or Power—writhed on his skin. He was a bottom-feeder, with only enough psi to avoid being taken into wage slavery, not enough to qualify for a trade or even as a breeder. “Whafuck? Don’t got nothing on you, I ain’t seen you in years—”

  “It’s not me I’m asking about,” I said quietly. “I want to know why Jace Monroe blew into town three years ago. Give, Jack, or I’ll break your fucking arm and haul you in, I swear I will.”

  He believed me. “Christos,” he moaned. “All I know’s Jace was in the Corvins . . . bought himself out six months ago, foughta running street war with them. He’s . . . big man now, lots of credit and a mean network. On the way to becoming a Family himself, he’s filed . . . agh, lay off—for incorporation.”

  “Sekhmet sa’es,” I breathed. “And? Why did he come here? There must be rumors.”

  “Corvins made him a deal: Either he come in or they ice some bitch he was seeing. Lay off, willya? You’re breakin my fuckin arm!”

  “I’ll break more than that if you keep whining. Who’s he working for now?”

  “You! Goddammit, woman, he’s working for you! That’s the word! Let up a little, come on, Valentine, don’t!”

  “Quit your bitching. Who’s leaning on the Corvins to put my ass in a blender? Huh? Who?”

  “Some big dude!” Jack moaned, his eyes rolling. “Don’t know! Five million credit and a clean slate for bringing you in. Whole city’s lookin’ for you—”

  “That makes you the lucky one, doesn’t it.” I eased up a little on the pressure. “You must have heard rumors, Jack. Who’s pushing the Corvins?”

  “Same as always, the big dick Corvin. Jace was their front man in Saint City, man. Goddammit, lay off!”

  “Jace was their front man three years ago?” That was something I hadn’t guessed.

  “Hell, he’s been working for them his whole life! Ran off about six years ago, worked mercenary, they let him go for a while and then sank their hooks in good when he started seein’ some bitch up Saint City way. I ain’t been back there for five goddamn years, Valentine, I don’t know who he was screwin’ up there! Lucas will know, go bother him!”

  That was unexpected news. “Lucas Villalobos? He’s in town? Where?”

  “Man, do I look like a fuckin’ vid directory?”

  I shoved. He screamed, the sound of a rabbit caught in a trap.

  “Las Vigrasas! He hangs out at Las Vigrasas on Puertain Viadrid, goddammit, motherfuck—”

  I looked up at the demon. He nodded slightly, understanding. It sounded like Jack was telling the truth.

  I gained my feet, scooping my sword up; watched Captain Jack struggle up to hands and knees, then haul himself into a sitting position, facing me. “Hesu Christos,” he moaned. “Look at this mess. You used to be such a nice girl, Valentine.”

  “Yeah, I had to grow up. Sucks, doesn’t it.” My lip curled. “Thanks for your time and trouble, Captain.”

  “Fuck you,” he spat, his watery brown eyes rabbiting over to the demon and halting, wide as credit discs. He crossed himself—forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder—while I watched, fascinated. I’d never seen Captain get religious before. “Nominae Patri, et Filii, et Spiritu Sancti—”

  Does he think Japhrimel’s going to
disappear in a puff of brimstone? I thought, feeling a sardonic smile tilt one corner of my mouth. “I never knew you were a Novo Christer, Jack. I thought fucking so many prostitutes would have made you irreligious.”

  He kept babbling his prayer. I sighed, backed up a few steps, eased for the door. It wasn’t wise to turn your back on Captain Jack.

  I made it to the door before he broke off long enough to glare at me. “I hate you, Valentine,” he hissed. “One of these days—”

  Japhrimel tensed. His eyes flared. I reached behind me for the doorknob. “Promises, promises,” I said, twisting the knob and opening the door. “If you go running to Monroe, tell him he’d better pray his path doesn’t cross mine.”

  “They’ll catch you!” Jack screamed. “The whole city’s lookin’ for you!”

  “Good luck to them,” I said, and ducked out of the room. Japhrimel followed me.

  “Shall I kill him?” he asked quietly as we made our way down the hall. The entire bordello was silent, waiting. “He threatened you.”

  “Leave him alone. He hates me for a good reason.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I killed his wife,” I said, checking the stairs. Looked safe enough. “Come on. Let’s go find Lucas.” My jaw set, and fortunately, Japhrimel didn’t ask me anything else.