I looked up at Gabe's worried face. I had no choice. It had been too late the moment Gabe picked up her phone and dialed my number. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Do?" I shrugged. "I'm going to go visit Hollin Sukerow. You try to find out more about this Bryce Smith." Good luck, if he was a tech advisor you can't break the blind trust; it's standard for Hegemony-Putchkin work trades.
"Do you think he was Keller?" she asked.
It was an idea. It would have been nice and neat, except for the fact that it made no sense at all. Keller was a psion, or he wouldn't have been at the Hall. "I don't know. We don't even know for sure who Bryce Smith was, only that his body scanned normal and had some genelocking they checked to verify identity. Until we find out more, it'd be useless to assume everything. You know what they say about assumptions."
That earned me a sniggering laugh. She was looking better by the moment. Give Gabe a clear-cut string of probabilities to work, and she was just dandy. Uncertainty and blank dead ends bugged the hell out of her. "All right. You ever thought of working for the cops?"
I rolled my head back, stretching out my neck. "I'm not too good at playing politics and taking orders. I like being a freelancer."
Gabe laughed. It was a low, brittle sound, but better than nothing. "Actually, my ass is gold right now. The Nichtvren are putting pressure on the mayor and City Hall to give me anything I need. Whatever you did when you visited the Prime Power must have impressed him."
"I killed a couple werecain." I rocked up to my feet. And I'm planning on paying the Prime and his Consort another visit and raiding their library soon. "I'm going to go visit Sukerow. Can you give me a copy of the list?"
She grinned. "It's already on your datpilot. Hey, Danny?"
I paused, looking up at Jace, who started scraping himself off the wall. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked like he needed about twenty-four hours of sleep. I had to remember his limits. "What?"
"Thanks. For talking to Eddie. He came home last night."
I winced inwardly. "No problem, Gabe. After all, you're my friend."
That being said, I paced out of her office, Jace following me. "We heading to Sukerow's?"
I glanced down the hall, unease prickling at my neck. "No. Home. I need to pick some stuff up, and you need some sleep. I'll visit Sukerow, and hook up with you in twelve hours or so. Then we'll—"
"Goddammit, Danny. I can handle it." He sounded irritated. We took the stairs down to the parking level again.
Our boots rang on the linoleum steps, the sound bouncing off concrete walls. I was breathing easier now, but the prickling on my nape meant bad trouble coming.
"I know you can handle it, Jace." I wondered if the excessive patience in my tone was going to piss him off even more. It was damn likely. "I just don't want you to if there's no need. In twelve hours or so I'm going to need you big-time."
"Why?" Faint tone of challenge in his voice. I could sense the tension in him as he slammed down the steps behind me, his staff thwocked the wall with a hollow sound. Dammit, Jace, let up on me, all right? I'm not having a good fucking day here.
"Because when I finish with Sukerow and the others on the list, I'm going to Rigger Hall. And I'm going to need you there." My voice was at least as brittle as his. And when this is all over I also have something I need to do, something that doesn't concern you. Something you wouldn't understand. Something that concerns a blood vat and a demon's ashes, and me praying a whole hell of a lot that Lucifer just isn't yanking my chain again. You can't waste your life on someone who can't give you what you need, Jace. As soon as this is all finished, all over, I have to tell you that. Make you understand.
"At least let me go to Sukerow's with you. My 'pilot says it's right near here."
I stopped on the stairs and looked up at him. He carried his staff, his sword was thrust through a loop in his belt, and he'd been silent about us for far too long. I'd guessed it couldn't last—it had been long enough to strain anyone's patience. Even Jason Monroe's.
He shoved his datpilot back into the inner pocket of his coat, his blue eyes meeting mine. There was a time when I would have sworn that I knew every thought crossing through those blue eyes. He'd come after me, and dealt with me being generally unsociable and rude, never losing his temper, not even pushing me for sex. He had simply been there, a comfort and support.
Why? Especially when the Danny Valentine he knew would never have forgiven him, no matter how much penance he performed. I was no longer the terrified, swaggering, half-cracked Necromance he'd fallen in love with. I was someone else, and so was he.
Who was he in love with, who I used to be or what I'd become? And who was I trying to protect by keeping him close to me? Jason Monroe, or my own silly self?
The stairwell echoed with silence. I balanced my right hand on the round handrail covered in chipped blue paint; my left hand curled around the sword. It had quickly become natural again to have my left hand taken with the slender weight; I could almost forget everything was so different now. I could almost forget the intervening years; I could almost forget Nuevo Rio, the heat, and the ice of the island we had tracked Santino to.
I could almost forget everything when I looked up at him, the faint fans of lines coming from the corners of his eyes, the way he favored one injured knee, the familiar slope of his broad shoulders, and the way his mouth quirked at one corner even when he was being serious. I had imagined, sometimes, how he would look when he got older, back in the painfully intense days of our first love affair. I'd even toyed with the idea of having a kid with him, once the mortgage was paid off. There was still something about Jace Monroe that made my shoulders relax and my mouth want to curl up in a smile. He could irritate me the way no other human being on earth could—and the memory rose of his hand around my elbow in Polyamour's elevator, his fingernails digging in, silently giving me the pain to anchor myself.
I could almost forget everything except the one thing that stood between us, the shadow-ghost of a tall not-quite-man with his hands clasped behind his back, his long Chinese-collared coat smoking with demon power, green eyes gone dark and watching me. The one thing I could never forget, the one thing Jace would never be able to fight his way through or understand his way around.
Japhrimel. Tierce Japhrimel.
But still, my heart ached for Jace.
He's protecting me the only way he knows how. I eased up another step. My right hand closed around his shoulder, carefully, delicately. "Jace," I said quietly, "if there was anyone in the whole world I would… be with now, it would be you. The only reason I… well, I don't know what it would do to you. The last time I had… sex… with anyone, it was Japhrimel." My voice miraculously didn't break on Japhrimel's name, for once. I couldn't bring myself to tell Jace that I couldn't give him anything more. It was cowardice, plain and simple; cowardice and need, dressed up as a gentle fiction to spare his feelings. "I'm different now. I don't know what it would do to you, and I don't want you… hurt. I don't think you're less capable than you were, Jace. I just don't… I don't feel weariness like I used to. Or pain. I can go for longer without resting. That's all. It's not because I don't trust you."
Who else do I have to trust? You, Gabe, Eddie. More than I've ever had in my whole life. I loved you, Jace; I still do. The very thought was shaded orange with bitterness. Why couldn't he have stayed with me instead of disappearing? Why couldn't he have trusted that I could protect myself instead of thinking he had to return to Rio to «save» me? Why?
I would have taken on Santino, taken on Lucifer himself, for Jace; I would have counted it small potatoes. But now, with the shadow of a demon between us, I could not give Jace what he needed. Whether I could resurrect Japhrimel or not, I couldn't be what Jace wanted me to be. Who I used to be. The woman he'd fallen in love with.
Maybe it was time to let him go.
He looked down at me, his blue eyes dark and his mouth a straight line. "I've never seen you the way you were with Polyamo
ur," he managed, finally. "And I… Chango, Danny. This is all fucking wrong."
You can say that again. And I wasn't doing Poly any favors, no matter what it looked like to you. "I know." I swallowed dryly. The words I could never say to him, the silences he'd used against me, hung between us; an even bigger wall than the demon who had Fallen and altered me. I settled for giving in. "Fine. Come with me to Sukerow's. But then I want you to get some rest. If I go back into Rigger-fucking-Hall, I need you fresh. Okay?"
He nodded. Some weight he'd been carrying for a long time seemed to slip from his shoulders, and he sighed, pushing his blond hair back with stiff fingers.
It lasted only a moment, the dark caul sliding over his head. I blinked. His face turned into a deathshead, and my entire body chilled, nipples peaking, my breath catching. The stairwell seemed to go dark, the emerald on my cheek spat a single green spark—and the moment passed, my eyes opening, Jace looking just the same. His lips were moving.
"— Sukerow's, I'll catch a few winks. Sounds good."
I stayed where I was, afraid to move, staring up at Jace's face. He looked down at me, his eyes soft, and then lifted his free hand. His knuckles brushed my cheek. "You don't have to explain, Danny. 'Slong as I get to hang around you, I'm a happy man. 'Kay?" There was no hint of sarcasm or of the anger we used against each other. Just simple tenderness, a tone I'd heard Eddie use with Gabe. My heart rose into my throat, lodged there.
The stairwell was empty except for Jace and me. There was no breath of threat or magick other than my own pulsing demon-fed Power and Jace's bright thorny Shaman glow. I swallowed my heart, hearing a dry click from my throat. "Jace, I—"
"We better go get Hollin Sukerow and see what he has to say," he said. "I'll drive."
I nodded, turned on wooden feet, and led Jace down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-six
Sukerow's home was a ramshackle brownstone apartment building on Ninth. We clambered out of the hover streetside, then the AI deck took the hover up to hold in a parking-pattern. I slid my sword partly free and checked the blade, good bright steel, then blew out a long breath. Moved my head from side to side, stretching out my neck muscles.
Jace examined me, his fingers tapping his swordhilt. He'd left his staff in the hover, and he touched the butt of a plasgun. "You look like you're expecting a less-than-warm welcome."
No shit. So do you. What else could fucking go wrong today? I winced inwardly. It was tempting Fate to even think that too loudly. "I've got a bad feeling about this." I glanced up at the building. "According to my datpilot, he's up on the third…" The sentence trailed off. Hang on. What the hell's that?
The third-floor corner apartment had a fine set of shields blending with the physical structure of the building. Sukerow was a Skinlin, and his balcony was green even this late in autumn. He probably rented a plot in a co-op garden, but would grow some of the more common things at home. As I watched, some leaves fluttered on a breeze contrary to the desultory chill wind swirling anonymous trash along the sidewalk. The shields pulsed, a streamer of energy spiraling through them, and I drew my sword, the scabbard reversed along my left forearm to act as a shield. "Fuck!" I yelled. "Call Gabe! Stay here!" Then I bolted for the building.
I could have leapt for the balcony, but that would mean using an amount of Power that would react with Sukerow's torn shields, which were quivering and sending out staticky bursts of fear. Instead, I ripped the maglocked security door open with a quick snapping jerk, streaked into the lobby, and started pounding up the stairs.
Second floor. The tops of my toes barely touched every fourth step, demon speed making me blur. My sword whirled and tucked up behind my arm, the hilt pointing down in my right hand, vibrating with my uneasiness. I reached the third floor, kicked the fire door open, and dove into the hall.
Sukerow's door, apartment 305, was slightly open. Yellow electric light leaked out around its borders. I rolled up, gaining my feet, and pounded down the hall.
The next few moments take on a hazy shutter-click quality. First click—a short hallway, a spreading sticky stain of Power dyeing the air with leprous blue light. Linoleum square in front of the door, a welcome mat of twisted and knotted raffia and strands of plasilica. Each knot held a protective charm, and I shatter every single one of them, the entire rug bursting into flame.
Click. Down the short hall inside the apartment, my sword up, blue light twisting on the steel. What would have taken me months before Japhrimel altered me—months of pouring Power into the blade, shaping it, sleeping with it, breathing my life into it—is done in a few seconds, sparks popping, the steel made mine, answering to my will. At the end of the front hall, I see hardwood-looking laminate flooring and the edge of a chalk circle. The leprous blue light grows intense, a small starlike point of brilliance.
I see Hollin Sukerow on his knees in front of a thin, tall shape I had only seen in nightmares for the past two-and-a-half decades. The tall figure stands, elbows akimbo, silhouetted against the light in its hand, something pulled from the yawning mouth of the Skinlin's shattered body.
Click. Blood explodes. Footsteps behind me. Raising my sword, the kia sharp and deadly as it had ever been in Jado's dojo, blowing the glass out of the windows and stripping the light away, making it stream in twisted livid flames. My boots skidding on the laminate as I fling my weight back, trying to stop.
Click. Jace hurtles past me, his own battlecry ripping the air with thorns, a Shaman's glow suddenly streaming from him. He moves without thought, heedlessly fast, as if he's trying to protect me, place his body between me and the shadow-thing that curls in on itself like paper in a hot flamedraft. My left hand drops the scabbard, shoots forward to haul Jace back.
Click. The shape spins, the light gives a glaring flash like a holovid reporter's stillcam. The iron smell of blood in the air mixes with a reek of dust, offal, magick, aftershave, chalk, and leather. The scent I know, the scent of my quarry in this hunt.
I hear a high, thin giggle that dries all the saliva in my mouth and makes the scars on my back reopen. They blaze, sharp agony making my back arch as if the lash and fléchette had just split open my skin for the first time. My fingers close on empty air. Jace dives, his dotanuki blurring upward to slash through the figure.
Click. A coughing roar. Hollin Sukerow's last despairing, choked scream. More blood explodes. Jace yells hoarsely, his sword ringing in one awful high-pitched cry of tortured and stressed metal. Backlash of Power fills the air, smacking at the walls. My boots grind long scars in the floor as I am flung back, my left elbow crumpling the edge of a wall and denting the steel strut just under the plasticine and Sheetrock.
Click. I see the face—pocked with the scars of teenage acne, dark eyes soulless and mechanical, greasy dark-blond hair and the wink of silver at his throat. A pad of fat under each jawline, the ravages of age clearly visible. He looks oddly familiar, though I don't recognize him.
Click. The leprous blue light gives one last flare. The stick-thin shadow vanishes. Another burst of that fetid stench—the rancidness of the Headmaster's Office—and footsteps run toward the window. A high, piercing giggle drives me to my knees, the gray of shock closing over my vision, the mark on my left shoulder squeezing down and sending red agony through me, shocking my heart back into beating.
I cough. Time snaps and speeds back up. I hear sirens.
It had taken only a few moments, all told. I crawled forward, my sword clattering to the ground, and took Jace in my arms. "— oh gods—" My voice sounded small after the thunderclap of demon Power.
Jace's blue eyes were glazed and thoughtful, the thorny Shaman tattoo on his cheek stock-still. His body was light—too light—even in my demon-strong arms. Too light because his throat and belly had been torn open, both in one painless gush.
I reached blindly for Power, my rings sparking, but it was too late. He was already gone. Sometimes not even a Necromance can bring back someone whose internal organs have been yanked out; w
hose throat has been slashed as well. We are the healers of mortal wounds, we who walk in Death's shadow, but this wound I could not heal.
The bathroom stench of a battlefield rose up around me. Hollin Sukerow's body lay inside a messy, uncompleted chalk circle, the Feeder glyphs wavering and a tide of quick-decaying ectoplasm covering everything in its wet slug-trail gleam, steaming as it rotted away. The glyphs tore and twisted—his hand must have been trembling.
And standing beside him had been a man whose face seemed only slightly familiar. But if I paged through my yearbook, I knew where I would find the younger version of that face.
Right next to Kellerman Lourdes's name.
And I knew what I'd seen, even if my eyes were blurred with tears. I'd seen the stick-thin figure of Headmaster Mirovitch, his hands on his hips, silhouetted against the diseased blue light. I had smelled him.
Blood and other fluids bathed my arm. "Jace," I whispered. His head lolled back obscenely far, throat slashed all the way down to the vertebrae; the wet red of muscle sliced too cleanly for a blade. The flesh had parted like water; I saw the purple of the esophagus, a glaring white chip of cervical spine.
His sword, the blade twisted into a cockeyed corkscrew, chimed against the ground as his hand released it. "Jace." My tattoo burned as I drew on all the Power available to me. The room shook and groaned. Books fell off shelves, and glass implements broken by my kia and the welter of backlashed Power from the Headmaster and Keller shivered into smaller pieces. I poured out every erg of my demon-given strength to do what a Necromance should do—bring a soul back, and seamlessly heal a hopelessly shattered body.
The light rose from him. I could still see it, the shining path made by a soul leaving the body, the foxfire of dying nerves giving a last painless flash. The blue crystal hall of Death rose around me, my emerald drenching the hall in swirling green light as I stood on the Bridge over the abyss. Jason! I howled his name, the crystal walls humming with the force of my distress, and then the God of Death came.
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