Dante Valentine Book 5 - To Hell and Back

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I pitched forward, but Japhrimel arrived, his fingers locked around my wrist. I had started to bring the Knife up, its humming in my hand a sudden siren call. Strike. Kill. Make someone bleed.

  "Lucas." Japhrimel matched his quietness. "You have a contract with me."

  "I lived up to it so far, ain't I?" Villalobos's teethbaring grimace wasn't a smile. "You an idiot too, demon. You shoulda done what had to be done when you had the chance."

  "I did not ask for your opinion of my methods." Japhrimel's hand tensed and released, his coat ruffling slightly along its wet lacquered edges. "I asked for your skill in killing Hell's citizens. Any more is not your concern."

  "Your funeral." Lucas wheeled and stalked away, the effect of his retreat ruined by the close quarters. He ended up near the cockpit, reflected desert light stippling his lean face. I wondered if the flesh between his shoulderblades was prickling because of my nearness, now.

  Japhrimel did not look at me. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood very still, gazing down into the well of the cargo hold. Eve still crouched, motionless, and my heart gave a sudden pang. She was trapped down there without even anyone to talk to, alone in a bare hold.

  Not a very human way to treat someone, is it, Danny? "Can I go down there?"

  Japhrimel appeared not to have heard, staring fixedly at the demon's pale head. I drew in breath to ask again, but he stirred. "Why?"

  Sekhmet sa'es. "Do I have to get a permit?"

  "You hold the Knife, my curious. I can hardly stop you." A single shrug, his shoulder lifting, dropping.

  It hung heavy in my hand, curved, obscenely warm wood. My rings sparked and sizzled in the uncertain air. Out here in the radiation wastes, static would build up, discharging in blue-white sparks. I could almost feel the silent killer against my skin, lethal power unleashed by the splitting of an infinitely small piece of the universe.

  Should I be worried? I'm part-demon; will I get radiation sickness? Will I care if I do? "When were you going to tell me about this prophecy thing?"

  "Meaningless gibberish." No shrug this time, but a slight tension in the straight line of his shoulders. "I suppose the Androgyne made it sound tailored to you."

  The hand that can hold the Knife has faced fire and not been consumed, has walked in Death and returned, a hand given strength beyond its ken. "It sounds pretty specific."

  "Ilvarimel's hedaira did speak before her death. She spoke her A'nankhimel's name, and cursed me. The prophecy is simply noise." Each word was so bitter it was a wonder it didn't dye the air blue. "I suppose you will not believe me."

  I don't know what to believe. My eyes snagged on the Knife's finials, clasping my hand. Revenge. Kill the bastard and stop him playing around with me.

  But what then? Could I even imagine anything past that? If the gods smiled on me and I was lucky enough to kill Lucifer - by no means certain, even with Japh's help - what the hell would happen then?

  There was Gabe's little girl in Saint City, playing in a House run by a sexwitch transvestite. I'd promised to raise her, to look after her and protect her.

  I'd also promised to protect the demon crouched in the cargo hold, the child-demon who held bits of both me and Doreen in her genetic matrix. Who set me barking at trees in a way Lucas found so fucking amusing.

  Who I would have killed for - or died for - atop that Paradisse tower. If Lucas or Vann had been human still, would I have slaughtered them in the name of keeping Eve safe?

  Who was I really trying to save? Eve, or myself?

  My teacher's voice drifted out of a cracked memory vault. Compassion is not your strongest virtue, Danyo-chan.

  I could not keep every promise I made. I'd broken my vow of vengeance on Gabe and Eddie's killers; I had left that faithless murdering sedayeen bitch alive. Because Anubis, my god, my patron, had asked.

  More than that, though. Because she was incapable of fighting back, because she was a healer. Because I could not murder an unarmed woman and retain any tattered shard of my honor. Because I had lived my life with no shortage of killing and violence - but always directed at someone who deserved to die, by any standard. Someone who had chosen to fight without honor, broken the law, or attacked me first. It was who I was.

  Or who I used to be. Who was I now? A Necromance who couldn't stand to face her god. A half-demon with a head full of reactive fumes, liquid fury in place of blood, and a weapon that could hopefully kill the Devil in my fist.

  Nobody's ever tried this Knife on Lucifer. You don't know if it works or not.

  Still, I had Japhrimel, didn't I? He had declared war on Lucifer. If I could believe him. If I could trust him to hand Eve over to Lucifer in one breath and rescue her with the next.

  What then, Danny? What comes after this?

  More lies and games? What would happen in Hell with Lucifer gone?

  Kind of late to be thinking this over now, sunshine. The hover jolted a bit, steadied. Silence crackled, and when I blinked, returning to myself, I found Japhrimel had half-turned. He looked at me now, the silver threading his hair dappled with reflected light and his eyes burning holes in the artificial dusk left by the sealed portholes. The human darkness behind a screen of green fire sent another sharp bolt through me. Had he even paused before throwing himself off a high-rise after me?

  Of course not. You know he didn't. Sounding disgusted with myself was turning into a full-time career by now. I set my jaw and lifted my chin. I also lifted the Knife slightly, but he didn't look at it. "I need a sheath for this. The old one won't fit."

  He nodded. My heart ached. There was nothing else to say; I couldn't tell him a quarter of what I wanted to, and he wouldn't do a quarter of what I needed him to do. Go figure, the love of my life, and I couldn't trust a goddamn word he said. I had to trust what he would do.

  I turned away, breaking eye contact with a small sharp pain, a needle going into whatever heart I had left. There was a ladder leading down to the cargo bay, and I slid my sword into the loop on my rig, needing at least one hand free for climbing.

  "Dante." Why did he sound so ragged, as if he'd just finished some huge task? "May I ask you one thing?"

  I studied the blank hull on the other side of the open cargo well. Deathly silence even managed to quiet the whine of hover travel. Vann and McKinley had stopped their murmuring. "Ask away." All I can do is lie to you, you know. All I can do is betray you, keep things from you, manipulate you. Like you've done to me. Is turnabout fair play?

  "When Lucifer lies dying at your feet, what will you do?"

  Good question. I swallowed dryly, closed my left hand over the railing, and prepared to climb down. Let out the breath I'd been holding. "I'll find out when I get there, Japhrimel."

  I just hope that's the destination you really have in mind.

  Sand swirled. The cargo hatch opened, a thin gleam bowing out as the airseals took on the load of oven-hot, evening desert wind. A flat glass field shimmered under a pall of fierce sunny heat, and even though I knew it was invisible I shivered, thinking of the radiation soaking that reflective waste. The hover would need decontamination and a plurifreeze wash on the way back, if there was a way back.

  Eve still hadn't opened her eyes. She crouched in the very center of the thin silver circle, its taut drone an octave or so lower than the Knife's buzzing against my hip. Vann had produced yet another leather sheath, fitting the ancient weapon as if custom-made.

  Airseals bowed again as the wind picked up, moaning between struts and sending fine sand hissing against the static containment field. I imagined radiation creeping into my flesh and shuddered again. Long shadows stretched away from the hover, made tall by the westering sun. We'd spent the whole day circling the city, wastes of twisted metal and old shattered buildings heaving under the hover's metal belly.

  Vann tried again. "At least let us accompany you. For her protection.''

  Japhrimel shook his head. He checked a silvery gun, sighting down its barrel, and made it di
sappear. "I am all the protection she will require, and if I fail you could hardly succeed. No, Vann. It ends here."

  "My Lord." McKinley this time, even paler than usual. "It'll be dusk soon. Tiens - "

  "No." Japh's tone brooked no further argument.

  Lucas slung a bandolier over his shoulder, buckled it. "Goddamn sun," he muttered. "Goddamn Vegas. Goddamn everything."

  I heartily agreed. At least my clothes were still mostly in one piece and not too filthy. My hair tangled wildly, and I ran my fingers back through it, wincing as I encountered matted knots. My heart thumped, skipped, and settled into a fast high walloping run. Inside my head, the thin red ribbon of rage smoked. My shields crackled, another flush of Power reinforcing the tissue-thin energetic scabs. I was in no shape to take anyone on, let alone the Devil himself.

  My knuckles drifted against the Knife's smooth warm hilt, the remainder of my left hand closed firmly around Fudoshin's hilt. A hot burnished smell of cooking glass and oven-warm sand filtered in through the seals, distant wet mirage-shimmers on the curved, receding horizon.

  The sword kills nothing, my teacher whispered inside my head. It is will, kills your enemy.

  I hoped it was true. Old Jado had given me this sword, and it had already tasted Lucifer's flesh once without breaking.

  Sekhmet sa'es. Lady, I invoke You. You answered me once. Be with me, I pray. The reflex of faith was too deeply ingrained for me to escape. I'd spent forty-odd years or more praying to the god of Death, my own personal shield against the vastness of whatever lies beyond human understanding.

  Now I was praying to someone else, and I hoped She was listening. My right hand rose to my throat and touched the knobbed end of a silver-dipped baculum, Jace's necklace quietly resting against my collarbone, its weight a comfort. All the voices in my head were silent, for once. Waiting.

  Japhrimel stepped to the edge of the silver double circle. The glyphs between the inner and outer layers responded, their dance becoming a single solid streak of light, running through the grated metal flooring without a single hitch. "It is time."

  Eve's gasflame eyes opened. She rose to her feet in a single fluid movement. She tilted her head back, the pale supple cervical curve gleaming. Demon-acute sight picked out the pulse throbbing in its secret hollow, vulnerable and strong.

  "Consort. You are a piece in this game.'' Japhrimel's tone was flat. He stood in his habitual manner, hands clasped behind his back, head slightly cocked as if the demon he regarded was an interesting specimen in a kerri jar, nothing more.

  Eve stared over his shoulder, her blue gaze finding mine. The Knife buzzed against my hip. "Merely a pawn, Eldest?" Her voice was familiar, and a thread of her scent escaped the circle. Baking bread, heavy musk, and the edge of some spice, purely demon. "Who is the queen?"

  "None of us may move as we will." Japhrimel shrugged at someone other than me for once.

  "Are you so sure?" She indicated the circle holding her captive. "I am to play the prisoner, very well. Will I be shackled?"

  "I see no need for such theatrics." Japhrimel didn't move, but the circle's hum slowed, deepening. "Though were I to return your recent hospitality, we might learn the look of your blood."

  I made a small restless movement. McKinley's shoulders came up, his metallic left hand flexing into a fist as he stared at me. No, not at me.

  At the Knife at my hip, and at Japhrimel's unprotected back, turned to me. At Eve, looking over Japh's shoulder. Did he think I was going to stab my Fallen in the back?

  Wouldn't put it past me right now, would you. Can't blame you. Instead, I looked out the hatch, the airseals shimmering as sand rasped them. The vast bowl of the blast zone shed heat like liquid, the hover's climate control working overtime. Puffs of cool air touched my cheeks.

  "It was necessary." Eve didn't sound regretful in the least. "Even your hedaira knows as much.''

  "I am not here to bandy words of what might have been. I am here for what is to be done now. Should I shackle you?"

  "You say yourself there's no need." Eve's relaxed amusement filled the air with softness.

  Impatience boiled under my breastbone. "I realize this is the usual roundabout demon way of doing things. " The scabbard creaked as my fingers clenched, lacquered wood protesting. "But can we pretty please with sugar on top get on with this?"

  "You're so anxious to see him again?" Eve spread her hands, a graceful movement expressing resignation. "I am ready, Eldest. We may as well accede to your hedaira."

  Japhrimel was silent for such a long moment I almost thought we were going to have trouble. The world slowed down, hissing sand caressing the hover's plasteel skin, a thin film of sweat covering my forehead.

  The circle's hum spiraled up and winked out of existence. Silver drained away, fading under the assault of actual daylight. The thought of radiation sickness returned again, circling my brain, and I shifted my weight back as Lucas holstered his last plasgun and sighed.

  "I'm pretty sure I got somethin' more pleasant I could be doin'," Villalobos said. "We're not meetin' el Diablo until dark."

  "I would prefer some necessary reconnaissance of the terrain, which will allow you the time to hide yourself should you so choose." Japhrimel turned away from Eve, who stood smiling at me, the tips of her white, white teeth showing. My Fallen's boots were soundless as he took three long strides away from my daughter.

  I tensed. Premonition tickled my nape, swam through dark water, flowered in the space behind my eyes - and sank away, showing me nothing. Nothing except the dread of something unpleasant about to happen.

  "I ain't gonna hide," Lucas said. "I want him to know I'm standin' with you. That was the deal.''

  What the hell? "What deal?"

  Lucas coughed, rolled his shoulders back, and settled his bandoliers. "The one I made with your boyfriend, chica. The one that kept me in this game. What, you thought I was workin' for you?"

  "That was my understanding, yes." But Eve hired you before I did, and Japh paid you. So I suppose you were working for me until a better offer came along.

  "If I was still workin' for you I'd've killed you. After you tried to unzip my guts, that is.'' Lucas brushed past me. McKinley and Vann, wearing identical expressions of worry, stood like statues. Eve still didn't move, watching me with that unsettling smile.

  You lying sack of shit. "I said I was sorry," I repeated, despite Japhrimel halting less than two feet from me, his head slightly bowed. The scar, softly burning against my shoulder, pulsed once. Another warm, soft coat of Power eased down my skin. Caress or last-minute bolstering, it cleared my head a bit.

  The thin red ribbon of rage smoking in the bottom of my mind shivered, uneasy. Eve finally eased forward, stepping cautiously over the now-defunct borders of the circle. My nape prickled, the skin of the world suddenly too thin and full of whispers just beyond my auditory range.

  I braced myself. Eve's smile widened, and her hands came up, elegant fingers spread. The therma-grenade bounced as she flung it, one deadly accurate throw, straight into the middle of the ammo crates Lucas had been digging in, stacked alongside the wall.

  "Oh, shi-" McKinley never got time to finish the word.

  The world turned over. Japhrimel spun aside and I dove for cover, oxygen hissing as fire bloomed, a hungry flower. I hit hard, rolling to the side, searching for something, anything, in the vast naked space of the cargo bay to hide myself behind.

  Eve landed next to me, catlike, one hand tented against the floor for balance as the other curled around my upper arm and hauled. The scar gave a flare of spiked heat, Japhrimel's aura compressing over mine, and the desert invaded the hover as an explosion so huge it was soundless tore plasteel like paper.

  What the he - This time it was me who didn't get to finish a word as my body left the grating, the shockwave and Eve's application of force conspiring to drag me through air turned hot and viscous. I went limp as a rag doll, the slim iron bar of Eve's arm now around my waist as she compressed her
self, then let loose, flinging through space, my head jolting as we cleared the huge starfish hole torn in the side of the hover.

  Bleeding. Nose and ears. Sand grinding underfoot as Eve landed hard, physics taking revenge as we both skidded. A cloud of grit rose, Power screaming, and I realized debris was raking the ground around us.

  Eve leapt again, my sword almost jolting free before my fingers clamped shut, and I searched for a way, any way, to help her instead of just bouncing along for the ride.

  Nothing came to mind. There was a brief starry moment of unconsciousness, desert heat mouthing my skin, and Eve dragged us both down a rocky incline scarred with detritus. We reached the cover of the edge of the blast zone, but even then she didn't stop, fleeing not just for escape but also for her life.

  There was no water. We sheltered in the twisted ruins of what might have once been a tallish building, one side of it black and flash-fried from the blast centuries ago. Eve propped her back against the wall, gasping, and peered out onto the wasteland of Vegas. "Are ... you ... hurt?"

  I shook my head, struggling to bring my own lungs under control. When I could talk, I still kept breathing, savoring the feel of air in my lungs. It was hellishly hot even in the shade, and something about this heat wasn't as nice as, say, the sun I'd basked in outside the boarding house in Hegemony Afrike. I'd always hated sweating before Japhrimel changed me; afterward I'd had much more tolerance of temperature variance. But this heat was something else - an oppression, helped along by the thought that thousands had died and crumbled to dust in these very buildings.

  "You're bleeding," Eve finally said. Fine thin stripes of black demon blood on her own strange face glistened before they soaked back into golden skin. "My apologies."

  "So were you." I braced my back against the wall and cast around, calculating fire angles. "Didn't know you had a grenade."