Just like Jace.
He didn’t seem to notice I was following him, but as we walked down a long hall with columns on one side and paintings I didn’t look at on the other, he began to talk.
“Lucifer wants me destroyed because I outwitted him. He never could stand that. Yet he is himself the Prince of Lies. He may know that I’ve managed to do it, I’ve succeeded where so many others have failed.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I said numbly.
He led me into another hall, this one sloping downward. “You’re right. I should tell you from the beginning.” A pair of doors in front of him; he twisted the knobs and flung them open. “A long time ago, when Lucifer had finished twisting the genes of humans to fit his plans, the sons of his kingdom looked upon the daughters of Men, and found them fair. They came to earth and lay with them, and in those days giants roamed the earth.”
I’d heard this story before. Another hall spun under my feet. Where are all his guards and everything? I wondered. And Lucas told me Jace is a Corvin’s youngest son.
“Are you telling me you’ve bred with human women?” I said, my boots whispering over the slick marble. I was beginning to feel sick and dizzy from the backlash of Power—and terror. I was following Santino through his own lair. Close enough to kill him. I was close enough to kill the thing that had killed Doreen.
Why hadn’t I attacked him?
Something else is going on here, I thought. The premonition buzzed under my skin, the vision Japhrimel had interrupted. Would it have shown me this if he hadn’t short-circuited it?
“Of course not. Yet you’re far more intelligent than you’re given credit for. Human women are some of the most pleasant ways to pass the time. Why do you think Lucifer took an interest in your species? But no, I have not fathered a child. Not in the way you think. “
He turned down another hall, this one lit by high-end fluorescents, most of them turned off so only a faint glow showed me the marble floor and tech-locked doors, each with a handprint lock. “Have you wondered why Lucifer granted me an immunity, Dante? Because I am a scientist first and a demon second. Long ago, I did the grunt work for Lucifer’s remodeling of your species. Before demons could play with humans, humans had to be . . . well, helped along a little.”
My gorge rose again. He talked about playing with humans as if it were slightly shameful, slightly loathsome, the way a Ludder would talk about going to a sexwitch House. Santino stopped in front of a blank, anonymous door, laid his hand on the printlock. Green light glowed, and the door shushed aside. “Come inside.”
I followed him, the chill of climate control closing over my skin. It was a lab—fluorescent light flickered, computer screens glowed, and the temperature was about sixty-five degrees, shocking after the heat outside. Along one wall was something I’d seen before at the Hegemony psi clinics—a DNA map, twisting on a plasma screen, numbers and code running in the lower left corner. One whole wall was taken up with liquid-nitrogen-cooled racks of sample canisters behind glass, each neatly labeled. I had the sick feeling I would recognize the names on some of those labels. Each canister was a life, probably holding an internal organ, or a vial of blood—and a slice of human femur, with its rich big core of marrow. Just the thing for genetic research.
So many, I thought, the racks and rows of canisters gleaming softly under the bright pitiless light. So many deaths.
Santino turned to face me again, and I lifted my sword. Blue light ran over the blade. He looked thoughtful, the black teardrops over his eyes holes of darkness. “I’m sterile, Dante,” he said. “I couldn’t breed with a human woman even if I wanted to. To breed, a demon has to be one of the Greater Flight of Hell—and he must also become one of the Fallen. I can’t do that. So I escaped Hell and came here, in search of something very special.”
My throat was dry. “You weren’t taking trophies,” I whispered. “You were taking samples.”
He beamed at me, razor teeth gleaming, his high-pointed ears wriggling slightly. “Correct!” he said, like a magisterial professor talking to a gifted but sometimes-terribly-slow student. “Samples. I felt sure that the key to the puzzle lay in psionics. Humanity exhibits some rather bizarre talents as a result of demon tinkering; if I could find a certain strain of genetic code I could reach my objective. I adopted several psionics and sponsored research in the Hegemony, but they move too damnably slow, even for humans. I decided to do the work myself, and for that I needed other samples. I was running out of time. I knew that the more time passed, the greater the chance Lucifer might decide to create another demon, and find the Egg missing.” His fingers stroked the glass over the sample canisters, his claws making a slight skree against the smooth surface.
“What objective? And what is this Egg thing?” Kill him, my conscience screamed. Revenge for Doreen, don’t listen to him, KILL him!
But if I was being used, I wanted to find out why. Lucifer had told me none of this. Japhrimel had told me none of this. Which brought up the question of what they really wanted—what deeper game was being played here? I’d wondered why they had let him roam around earth for fity years.
“Come.” He led me through the lab, out another tech-locked door, and into a hallway that was more like a colonnade, an enclosed garden lying still and steamy under the Nuevo Rio rain, an assault after the climate control of the lab room. He turned to his left and I followed numbly, the door almost clipping my bootheels.
This garden was lit with a kind of orange glow—the light pollution from the city. He stopped at a techless door, this one white and etched with a strange design of an unearthly bird done in gold leaf. Santino turned to face me, and I shuffled back quickly, raising my blade. He laughed, a high-pitched giggle that echoed my nightmares and made my heart turn to dumb ice in my chest.
“We are an old and tired race, Dante, and our children are few and far between. Almost none are born without Lucifer’s intervention, and he is most stingy in giving his help. To breed, a demon must go to the Prince as a supplicant.” The black teardrops over his eyes somehow managed to convey the impression of a wide smile. “You want to kill me, Dante, because I took those precious human lives. But those lives were taken in service to a greater good—breaking the hold the Prince of Darkness has on your world and mine. I’ve finally done it, Dante. I’ve birthed a child that can challenge the Prince himself.” He reached behind his back, twisted the doorknob, and backed into the room. “Come and see.”
I followed him, cautiously. Don’t trust him, Dante! Kill him now! Kill him or run!
It was a nursery. Slices of dim light fell through iron bars on the windows. Toys scattered across the hardwood floor, and plush rugs too. I saw a rocking horse, and a set of chairs around a table low enough for a little person. Wooden blocks lay scattered near a fireplace. And on the other side of the room, Santino stalked toward a low queen-sized bedstead wreathed in mosquito netting.
I followed, my boots occasionally kicking a small plush animal. Dear gods, I thought, he has children here? What kind of kids are raised by a demon?
“Lucifer rules because he is powerful,” Santino whispered, his voice buzzing with secrecy. “But not only that—he rules because he is Androgyne,almost like a queen bee, capable of reproducing. It took me forty-five human years, but I finally found out how to birth another demon Androgyne. All it takes is the proper genetic material and engineering, Dante.” He paused, maybe for effect. “Engineering by the scientist Lucifer used to create humanity in the first place—and material taken from a sedayeen, perhaps. A human psionic with the ability to heal, an almost-direct descendant of the A’nankimel—the demons that loved human women, and raised families with them eons ago. Until Lucifer, fearing the birth of an Androgyne on earth, destroyed them.”
It made a twisted kind of sense. I approached the bed slowly, step by step. Needing to see.
“Demon genes don’t lose their potency as human genes do,” he whispered. “Witness the growth of human psychic powers
, the fantastic blossoming of those powers during the Awakening—”
“Shut up.” I sounded choked.
In the bed, under the smooth expensive sheet, was a pale-haired little girl about five years old sleeping the sleep of childhood innocence. Her long hair tangled over the pillow; I heard the faint whistle of her breathing. I tasted salt, and bitter ash. I knew that face—I had seen it before.
She lay on her back, one chubby arm upflung. Her forehead was odd, because there was a mark that glittered softly green on the smooth skin. My cheek started to burn. An emerald. I wondered why Lucifer had one. I could tell this emerald wasn’t implanted—it was too smoothly and sheerly a part of her skin. Almost like a jeweled growth. It made me deeply, unsteadily sick to think that maybe my own emerald was an echo.
“There are two branches of human psionics that are almost directly descended from the A’nankimel, with the necessary recessive genes for my purposes. One branch is the sedayeen, who hold the mystery of Life. The other . . .” He paused again as I stared at the child on the bed.
The child that wore Doreen’s young face.
“The other,” Santino said, “is the Necromance.”
“This is—” My voice was a dry husk. “This is why you—”
“This is why I took samples,” he said softly, persuasively. “Who do you think rules both worlds, Dante? Who do you think is the king of all you survey? It’s him. We are all his slaves. And I have the Egg, and the child that can topple him from his throne.”
I swallowed, heard the dry click of my throat. “You killed her for this?” I rasped, and my eyes tore away from her sleeping face to Santino’s grinning mask.
“Yes,” he said. “I made a mistake, though. I shouldn’t have killed her. I needed a human incubator, once I harvested the marrow and discovered she had all the requisite characteristics. It took all the cash and illegal gene-splicing that the Corvin Family could supply me with to bring this little one to pass. The human governments are too slow. But I did it. I found the shining path of genes that even Lucifer couldn’t find with all his bloody tinkering. Now that I know how, I don’t have to kill. All I need are female sedayeen—and Necromances—of certain Power, to blend with the codex in the Egg. I can make as many Androgynes as I want, capable of reproducing—”
“You killed her for this?” My voice rose. The child on the bed didn’t stir. I heard her even breathing, slightly whistling through the nose. She slept like a human child, with deep complete trust.
“Think of it, Dante,” he said. Softly, persuasively as Lucifer himself. “You can be the mother of a new race that will topple Lucifer from his throne. You’ll be the new Madonna. Your every need—”
I backed up, kicking a small stuffed toy. “You killed her for this.” I could say nothing else.
“What is one small human life compared to freedom, Dante?” He stepped forward. I raised my sword yet again. The blue glow from the blade intensified, and Santino flinched. It was only a small twitch, but I saw it.
A blessed blade will hurt him, at least, I thought. I heard Japhrimel’s voice—she believes. Of course I believed—I saw the gods, I saw the Lord of Death up close. I had no choice but to believe. And that belief itself could be a weapon.
Maybe a blessed blade can even kill him, I thought.
“You didn’t just kill Doreen. You slaughtered her while you laughed,” I said. “You’re no more a scientist than any other lunatic. You’re just a different species of psycho, that’s all.” There’s a window behind me. Oh, gods. Oh dear gods.
He waved his long elegant fingers, as if I were bothering him with trifles. Just like a fucking demon. “They were the mothers of the future, they died for a reason. Don’t you understand? Freedom, Dante. For demon and human alike. No more Prince of Lies behind the scenes, everyone bowing and scraping to his whim—”
I was about to break for the window when the air pressure changed. Thunder boomed. The mark on my shoulder gave another screaming twinge.
Japhrimel.My heart leapt.
Santino’s face twisted into a mask of rage. He lunged for me so quickly I barely saw him move. My sword jerked, blurring down as I threw myself sideways and back, toward the open window. His claws clanged off the blade. There was another shuddering impact, and I heard the unmistakable sound of Japhrimel’s roar. The sound tore the air and left it bleeding. Santino snarled, whirling with balletic grace. He bolted for the bed and I scrambled forward, thinking of his claws and the little girl. I was too slow. Shock and the recent loss of Power and the swimming weakness dragged me down.
He scooped up an armful of bedding and the child’s slight form, and his clawed hand came up. Metal flashed. The impact caught me high in the chest, the coughing roar of a projectile weapon splitting the air, my boots dragging along the floor in slow motion, my katana clanging on hardwood. I fell, my head cracking against something unforgiving—maybe one of the blocks.
How strange, I thought. He shot me. Why did he shoot me? You’d think a demon would be more creative.
I lay there, stunned, for what seemed like a long muffled eternity. Then I tried to roll onto my side. A bubble of something warm burst on my lips. I heard footsteps. Plasbolts. And Japhrimel’s scream of agony. Pain bloomed in my chest, a hideous flower.
More footsteps. I tried to roll onto my side again. No dice. Just more pain. Bubbling on my lips—
—blood it’s blood I’m dying, I’m dying—
“Oh, my God. Oh, God. He shot her, he shot her—” Jace’s voice, high and breathless. “Goddammit, do something!”
A growled curse in a language I didn’t know. But I knew the voice. A gigantic grinding shock against my chest.
“—leave me,” Japhrimel snarled. “You will not leave me to wander the earth alone—breathe, damn you, breathe!”
Another shock, smashing through my bones. My left shoulder, torn from its socket, liquid fire in my veins. I gasped. Darkness tingled on the edges of my vision. I smelled flowers, and blood, and the musky smell of demon, drenching and absolute.
“You will not leave me,” Japhrimel said. “You will not.”
I tried to tell him to chase Santino, to kill him, to save the little girl—but before I could, Death chewed me with diamond teeth and swallowed me just as I hitched in breath to scream.
CHAPTER 37
A voice, reaching into the darkness.
I stood on the bridge, irresolute, my feet bare against cold stone. I felt the familiar chill creeping up my fingers, up my arms.
My emerald flashed as the souls fluttered past me, streaming over the bridge. The cocoon of light holding me safely on the bridge dimmed.
Why was I here? I wasn’t pulling a soul back. Was I? I could not remember.
I looked at the other side of the bridge, the other side of the great Hall. The blue crystal walls rang softly, whispering a song I almost understood. I could feel it pressing in upon me, that great comprehension of Death’s secret, the mother language from which all Necromance chants derived. The current of souls pushed at me, the emerald’s light weakening, my cocoon of safety shrinking.
Yet that voice cajoled, pressed, demanded. I saw the god, His form shimmering between a slender Egyptian dog and some other form, a shape of darkness that seemed to run like ink on wet paper even as I looked at it.
My lips shaped the god’s name, but the syllables sounded alien. The crystal walls shuddered, and for a moment I saw stone, a great grim drafty stone hall, with a dour-faced King upon a throne at the far end. The throne was crusted with gems, glittering madly, and at the King’s side sat a Queen with a face like springtime. I felt my mouth shaping alien words, desperation beating in my throat. I wanted so badly to understand the secret language, to feel the clasp of the god’s arms around me as I laid my head on His chest and let the weight of living slip from me—
BOOM.
The sound startled me. It seemed to take forever for me to turn around. Before I could, the sound came again, as if a gong was bei
ng beaten, a brazen sound, pulling me back.
BOOM.
I struggled as if through syrup. I wanted to stay.
I wanted to stay dead.
BOOM.
One of the souls streaming past me halted, held up a pale hand. Formless as all souls were, a crystal drapery of unique energy, still it seemed I knew it, could put a face on it.
BOOM.
“Go back,” it said. “Go back.”
BOOM.
I opened my mouth to protest. Shimmering, the soul brushed my cheek.
BOOMBOOM.
“Go back,” Doreen said. “Save my daughter. Go back.”
BOOMBOOM. BOOMBOOM.
Then I understood it was not a gong or a brass bell. It was my heart, and I was called back to the world.
Dizziness. Cold seeping up my arms. Voices.
“Call her back!” Eddie, yelling, the bass in his voice rattling my bones.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears. To be forced back into a body was excruciating, even worse than being shot.
“Dante!” Japhrimel, howling.
“Danny! Danny!” Jace screaming at the same time. Cacophony. “Let me go—”
Scorching pressed against the side of my face. A hand.
Gabe’s chant stopped, the last throbbing syllable shattering inside my head. I gasped a breath like knives. My chest hurt.
A great scalding wave of Power lashed me. I cried out, weakly, convulsing.
“Do not leave me,” Japhrimel husked. “Do not leave me, Dante.”
“Goddamn you, Eddie,” Jace hissed, “let me go or I will kill you.”
Light struck my eyes like a newborn’s. I reacted the same way, screaming, raw from the lash of Japhrimel’s Power and Gabe’s Necromance. Japhrimel closed his arms around me and rested his chin on my head. I gasped, screamed again, muffled against his chest. The scream degenerated into sobbing. I cried because I had been wrong, and because I’d been right. I cried because the comfort of death was denied me. I cried because I had been dragged back into my weary body and shackled again.
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