Dead Man Rising

by Lilith Saintcrow

Polyamour, tilting her head so slightly. "You learn early that your body betrays you—it's your mind that has to stay impregnable. Your soul. To have that filthy old maggot fingering inside your head..."

  It howled with rage, this thing bent on rape and destruction, and tore into me all the more savagely, battering down even more mental doors, tearing great gaping holes in my psyche.

  And I fought back.

  Two dark eyes, the last flaring of emerald light in them. Green eyes in a saturnine face, the demon's mouth warm as he mouthed my neck, my shudder against him, spent, his murmur in my ear.

  Memory, twisting and whirling, Putchkin Roulette with the inside of my head, the burning as he forced his way in, battering down doors, bursting locks, trying to find… what?

  "Even the loa can't force a woman's heart…" If I hadn't been part-demon, I would never have heard his murmur. "I had to give it up, Danny. I had to. For you."

  It screamed, recoiling from that memory too. Of course, the memory of Jace was underlaid with a clean pure well of emotion, shame and love and guilt twisted together but still mine, still a source of strength, inimical to the unholy thing. I had weapons, if I could just reach them, find them, use them. Good things, anything.

  Smoke belched up, the unholy sick blue light forcing its way into me, lesions cracking on my skin, demon blood boiling, trying to heal me.

  A convulsive effort. I was winning, if I could only remember.

  Remember, Christabel keened. Remember everything.

  Remember Jace's face, sleeping and peaceful in the bed you shared with him so long ago. Remember Doreen's soft touch, the light in her eyes. Remember Lewis's hand in yours, so strong, so sure. Remember the books he gave you, each one telling you that you were precious because he trusted you. Remember Japhrimel's last sigh as he sank down on your body. Remember reading under the covers with your heart in your mouth and your breath stale in your throat. Remember Gabe, doing for you what you could not do for yourself. Remember Eddie, holding your shoulders, remember Japhrimel throwing himself between you and Santino, determined to protect you. Remember, Dante.

  Remember everything.

  My fingers tightened on the fléchette. I gagged. Black spots over my vision. Passing out. Oxygen… even a demon needed some kind of air. And then what he did to my mind would be done to my body.

  —fucker flayed her alive—

  Christabel's raw scream, the shattering of tiles as she lunged for me. No wonder—even Death might not take this agony from me.

  But I would win. As long as I could remember.

  Remember, Dante. Remember everything.

  I flung the fléchette as I fell backward, the thing that was Mirovitch forcing its way into my mouth and nose, ramming its way into my mind. I struggled, the memories fading as I tried desperately to keep them, to keep them and to stand, to endure.

  The splinter of metal and Power pierced the wall of blue glow, shone like a shard of ice, and glowed as it bulleted in a perfect arc—

  —and buried itself in Kellerman Lourdes' neck. Kill the mule and the Feeder should die, please, Anubis, please…

  It was the only way I knew of to kill a ka. I would win, if I could just hold on.

  If I could just remember what mattered.

  Falling, then. Falling, falling, fell, concrete smacking my head and back, its claws twisting in my belly but I could not scream, it was in my throat, pushed past my gag reflex, forcing its way in, my nose burning and stretching, it was tearing at my jeans with one probing finger of ectoplasm, it'll get in any way it can, convulsing, darkness not just spots but a glaucous sheet closing over my vision.

  Remember, Dante. Remember. Christabel's voice, not insane with an apparition's flat terrible finality, but as if she stood next to me, a skinny girl with bruised knees and folded arms, terrible knowledge in her childlike dark eyes. Remember. Remember.

  I could remember nothing but one last despairing cry. The name that beat behind my heart, inside my head, the prayer I had left when all else failed.

  Japhri—

  My left shoulder suddenly crunched with an agony even greater, as if my left arm was being torn out of its socket one hard millimeter at a time. I managed a strangled noise past the suffocating thing stuffing itself down my throat, black demon blood pattering on concrete, and then the world exploded.

  Fire. Red fire.

  I heard a sound like thunder smashing the jars of the universe, every star exploding and raining fiery destruction, the grinding of an earthquake and the crackle of ice calving on every mountainside at once. Then blessed cold air seared my throat.

  Searing. It hurt almost as much as what Mirovitch had done, my body blindly scrabbling for survival, every demon-tainted, demon-strong cell fighting to live. The wet tearing sound as my battered viscera spilled back into my stomach cavity, bones crackling as the scream bubbled past ectoplasm in my throat, a burst of Power forcing its way along my skin.

  Something had happened.

  Remember, Dante. Remember. Christabel's voice, grown huge, a bell filling the world, as she stared at me with her dark eyes. Remember. Remember.

  I rolled weakly onto my side, coughing, choking the smell of dust, chalk, and aftershave out of my mouth, blowing out through my nose, slick egg-white gobbets of ectoplasm streaming away and rotting in seconds. I retched again, but didn't throw up.

  —do part-demons throw up? The thought made me laugh. I giggled, a high, thin sound of insanity, and made it to hands and knees. My belly ran with fire, tender tissues stretched and straining. Grabbed for my swordhilt.

  Found it, my right hand curling around wrapped metal slick with noisome fluids, Power jolting up my arm with a force that made me cry out weakly. Then I collapsed again, my sword solid in my cramping right hand, my shattered shields trying to close over me, Power bleeding out into the night air. Another convulsion, my forehead smacking concrete, a grinding pain flared in my middle as my abused insides rebelled again.

  "Dante." The voice was soft and full of fire, smooth like old brandy going down to ignite in the belly. "What have you done?"

  I screamed again, weakly, scrabbling against the floor. Yet another convulsion racked me. I vomited a long jet of shuddering, writhing ectoplasm ringed with black, smoking demon's blood and immediately felt much better—only three-quarters dead and burning instead of all the way dead and insane to boot.

  Warm fingers closed over the back of my neck, under my tangled hair. "Be still." And then an amazing bolt of Power lanced through me. My shields mended in one explosive flare, but the ragged bleeding wounds in my mind still smoked raw and deep.

  On my side. Arms around me, the stroking of a warm hand on the side of my face. "Truly you are foolhardy, hedaira," he said softly. "I suppose you have your reasons. Be still, now."

  But I struggled up, my body obeying me now, the tearing pain inside my chest now soothed. The whistling empty hole in my chest left by his absence, the hole I had stopped noticing, was gone. My left shoulder didn't hurt. Instead, the mark sent waves of hot, soft Power down my body, each a little warmer and deeper than the last. "No," I whispered, my voice a pained croak. Then I coughed and spat another amazing gob of ectoplasm to the side. It hit the floor with a dull splat, and my stomach turned violently again. "No. You burned."

  I raised my head.

  His dark eyes met mine, just the same. A lean, saturnine face, his cheekbones balanced, his mouth a straight unforgiving line. The demon Tierce Japhrimel touched my cheek, his knuckles brushing my skin. The contact sent a shudder through me, my body recognizing him before the rest of me could dare to. "You burned," I managed, before another fit of retching and gagging shook me. "You burned—you were ash—"

  "While you live, I live." The corners of his mouth turned down, an expressive movement that managed to give the impression of a grim smile. "I suppose nobody told you."

  I shook my head weakly. His smell—the scent of a demon, cinnamon incense, amber musk—wrapped around me, filled my lungs. I fel
t like I could breathe again, without every breath being tainted by the stench of dying cells. The smell of him seemed to coat my abused insides with peace, and flow down into the middle of my body to spread through my veins. "I tried," I whispered. "Books—Magi." I filled my lungs again. While I could, before what was undoubtedly a hallucination vanished. Gasped again, a great rasping breath blessedly free of the stink of dying human cells.

  Human. Human cells. The thought of humans reminded me of where I was.

  I tried to scramble to my feet but he caught me, his strength embarrassingly more than mine, especially at the moment "Be still. There is no danger."

  "But… the… Mirovitch—"

  "Is that his name?" Japhrimel moved aside slightly.

  Spread-eagled on the floor, coated with ectoplasm, was Kellerman Lourdes. He looked dazed, his eyes rolled back into his head, his body limp. I could see one leg was twisted the wrong way, it looked like a fracture of the lower femur. I flinched. The pool of goo coating him pulsed, and as I looked Kellerman opened his mouth to scream. The cracked bone started to mend itself, creaking and snapping.

  Christabel's voice still echoed in my head like a gong, like the circuit of Fate completing itself.

  Remember, Dante. Remember for us.

  My stomach rose in revolt again, was ordered back down, and subsided. Japhrimel's hands were at my shoulders. "Dante? I suppose you would not care to explain." He sounded mild, but the fractional lift of one eyebrow told me he was very close to violence.

  My eyes drank him in. If he was a hallucination, I wanted to store every detail. But there was no time—Lourdes gurgled, a sound of choked agony.

  "Up. Help me up."

  My hallucination of my dead demon lover stared at me, his dark eyes thoughtful. Once they had been a brilliant piercing green, like Lucifer's eyes. But when he had made me into whatever I was now, his eyes had gone dark. Without the incandescent light behind them, they looked like ageless human eyes, infinite in their depth and as familiar to me as my own. Hot tears rose, I pushed them down.

  Lourdes curled into a fetal position, some inhuman effort pushing him over, up on his hands and knees. Then he collapsed, broken as a rag doll, his half-mended leg twisted impossibly to one side. He rasped out something indecipherable. The blue glow pulsed. Lourdes screamed with a human voice, the end of the scream trailing off into a writhing gurgle.

  "Explain later" I said, every word an effort. "Help me up now."

  As usual, Japhrimel wasted little time with human questions. Instead, he hauled me up effortlessly. The long, high-collared black coat he wore was the same, wings masquerading as clothing, but instead of black jeans he wore a very dark blue denim and worker's boots, new and unscarred. It was the same, yet different.

  Flakes of the ectoplasm drifted to the floor, cracking and crackling on my skin and clothes. "You found me." The words broke on a sob. I had thought I'd destroyed any chance of his resurrection. That was my penance. What was I going to do now?

  "Of course. You bear my mark. Did you think me dead, Dante?"

  Yeah, for almost a year you looked pretty damn dead, you looked like a pile of fucking ash and Lucifer kept sending me letters. "You're going to have to explain this," I muttered, as if I believed he was real. He moved gracefully aside, I started limping toward Kellerman. My right leg dragged a little, not quite obeying me. I was in a sorry state. Hallucination-Japhrimel stayed on my left side, out of the way of my swordhand, his hand weightless on my shoulder, those soft intense waves of Power pulsing down my body. Repairing. Mending.

  I wondered if Power alone could heal my mind.

  I didn't allow myself to look up at Japhrimel. If I looked, would I find out he wasn't there, and this just another hallucination, my starved brain dreaming in color and holo before dying? Even demons needed air, I wondered if a strangled and mindraped almost-demon would have a deathdream.

  Was I still alive? Or were starbursts of blood rising to the surface of my brain, so that when they autopsied me Caine would say, A classic example of psychic assault resulting in death in his dry disdainful voice?

  Caine would probably enjoy cutting me open.

  I looked down at Kellerman Lourdes. He convulsed again, his leg straightening, the bone sounding as if it was shattering to tie itself back together. My right hand twitched, bringing the tip of my sword up. Blue light ran down the blade, a healthier shade of blue than Mirovitch's diseased glow.

  His eyes rolled back down, and it was Lourdes, craning his head up and to the side, looking at me with human eyes. He stared up at me. His lips tried to shape the word, who?

  Oh, gods. "Danny Valentine," I husked. "Couple years behind you, Keller. We never talked."

  Comprehension lit his eyes. He dropped his head. "Pi-please," he rasped. "Before he comes back…"

  "You're a Feeder, and a mule," I said. "There's no cure. Not at this stage."

  Weariness settled over his face. Weariness, and a bravery that hurt me a little to see. "Do… it. Are… any… left?"

  "Polyamour—Bastion. And three more." I lifted my sword a little, paused. "One question. Why?"

  I had to know.

  "Revenge…" His eyes fluttered again. "I… Took him. The others… couldn't, I took… the last… piece. Should have… killed myself. Couldn't…"

  Of course not. By the time Keller knew what he carried, knew that Mirovitch wasn't dead, the ka would have had its hooks in deep. Keller could not destroy himself once the ka reawakened.

  I thought of Gabe at Jace's bedside, doing what I could not. One act of bitter mercy for me, one for Keller. Even, each side of the scale balancing. I swallowed, tasted bile. Filled my lungs. The smell of rotting ectoplasm, dying human cells, and the Headmaster's cloying reek warred with the smoky fragrance of demon. Japhrimel's aura, twisting diamond flames, covered mine, the mark at my shoulder spreading and staining through my battered shielding, melding together the rips and holes. When it finished, I would have a demon's shielding again.

  Christabel's voice faded. Remember, she whispered. Remember everything.

  Was she real, or a memory? Was she here, invisible to me? And if she was, who else was with her? Every child damaged by Rigger Hall, or just one?

  Just me?

  My sword swung up, both hands locked around the hilt. I braced myself, my right leg threatening to buckle. "It's over," I whispered. "Be at peace, Kellerman Lourdes."

  How many times at hospital beds had I said those same words, now bitter in my mouth, tainted with death? Necromances were brought to the side of the dying, to offer comfort and ease the transition. And not so incidentally, to make sure the deceased didn't come back.

  He must be wielded with honor, but more important, with compassion. Compassion is not your strongest virtue, Danyo-chan. Jado's voice whispered, memory bleeding through the present like sluggish water through a filth-choked ditch.

  Compassion? For Lourdes or for me, or for both of us? Or for every damaged soul shattered by Rigger Hall?

  For all of them, then. For Roanna, for Aran Helm, for Dolores. For Christabel, who had left me the clue for whatever reason, whether adolescent hubris or nascent precognition. Whether she was haunting me or whether some other intelligence had her voice and was spurring me to finish this didn't matter. It was the mercy that mattered. Mercy for all the survivors, for Eddie and Polyamour.

  For all of them, and for me.

  And for him most of all, the invisible kid who had thrown himself in harm's way to save us all just as Jace had thrown himself forward to save me. All accounts balanced, except for the low sound of a swordblade as it clove the air and closed the circle.

  Lourdes closed his eyes. But then they popped open, the cold blue glow filling them; Mirovitch looking out through Keller's eyes.

  Compassion is not your strongest virtue, Danyo-chan.

  Yes, it is, I told myself. Gods grant I don't forget it. For all of them. For all the children. I swung my sword down. It was a clean cut, with all my force beh
ind it, gauged with perfect accuracy. My kia rose, short and sharp as a falcon's cry or the deathscream of an alley cat. Blood fountained up; arterial spray. Japhrimel pulled me back as the high-tension jet bloomed from Lourdes' neck. The sword shrieked, sparking, an intense blue-white streak of living metal. Blood flew free of steel, the blade clean and shining, muscle memory carrying it back into the sheath with a click, all in one move.

  A shattering psychic wail rose as Mirovitch scrabbled blindly for life, the ka frantically seeking something, anything to latch onto, to replicate itself, ectoplasm bubbling and burning. I sagged against Japhrimel's shoulder. He again didn't ask any useless questions, just stood watchful as the pressure behind the bloodspray lessened. The tide of blood mixed with the ectoplasm, and I smelled the reek of released bowels.

  "Japhrimel." My voice caught. "Burn him. Please. Every bit."

  I didn't have to ask twice. The Fallen demon raised his golden hand, and fire leapt to obey him. It dug into the concrete, red liquid demon flame, drops of blood spat and sizzled. A breath of sick-sweet smell like roasted pork filled the air. Shadows writhed and jabbed against the cafeteria's dark walls. Heat boiled up, making the linoleum char and the paint on the ceiling bubble and blister.

  Finally, the flame died down. I turned my face into Japhrimel's shoulder. "You're going to disappear," I said into his coat, not even caring that I knew what it was made of. "Just stay for a moment, just please just for a minute, a second—"

  "Dante." His fingers came up, tangled in my already-tangled hair. "I heard you calling me. I tried to answer."

  "Just for a few seconds." I buried my face in his coat, his other arm closed around me. I inhaled the smell of cinnamon, of amber musk, the deadly smoky nonphysical fragrance of demons. Filled my lungs with the breath of life. "Before I have to burn this whole fucking place down."

  "Be still," he answered. "I am here, I have never left your side. I told you, you will not leave me to wander the earth alone."

  I closed my eyes. The strength spilled out of my legs. Mirovitch was dead, Kellerman Lourdes was dead.

  Jace was dead. The circle, closed.