Saint City Sinners dv-4

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Chapter 8

  Leander didn't ask any questions. I chalked it up to tact and was grateful, at least.

  The «accommodations» were the Brewster Hotel on Ninth Street, cozy, expensive, and vulnerable enough to attack that I should have protested. I, however, did nothing of the sort. I merely banged through the hall and into the room Japhrimel indicated, dropped my bag containing its horrid new cargo, and fell onto the bed with my sword clutched in my hands, staring at the awful pale blue wallpaper with its tasteful pattern worked in gold spongy paint. Night had fallen over Saint City, a night I would have felt comfortable in years ago.

  Now the night here had knives, all of them pointed at me.

  Japhrimel exchanged some words with a mystified Leander; I heard McKinley, too. "I'll get him settled," the agent said, and the door to the suite closed softly.

  Japhrimel's soundless step reverberated as the humming intensity of demon magick rose around the walls of the room, wards and layers of shielding that would make this space psychically almost-invisible.

  He stood for a little while in the doorway. Then he paced quietly over the plush carpet and the bed sighed as he lowered himself down on the side my back was presented to.

  Don't touch me. Don't fucking touch me, and for the sake of every god that ever was, if you try to manipulate or hurt me now I swear I will try to kill you, I don't care what it takes. Please, Anubis, don't let him push me now.

  Another long pause. He moved, stretching out and lying down. Power smoothed down my body, a soft velvet caress.

  His fingers touched my hair, stroking evenly. Soothing. He found a knot in the silky strands, worked patiently at it until it was gone, untangled with infinite care. He continued, pulling his fingers expertly through, massaging my scalp. Little rills of pleasure slid down my spine, fighting with the trembling that had me locked in its teeth.

  Tears leaked out between my squeezed-shut eyelids. Just when I thought he was going to act like a bastard, he turned around and did something like this. I needed his quiet, even touch. I needed the feel of his fingers in my hair, of his arms around me. For just one goddamn minute I wanted to let down my defenses and let go of some of the awful, crushing, terrible burden of being myself.

  But that would leave me vulnerable, wouldn't it.

  Gods, please. Please. I know how to suffer through a beating, but I can't take this. Don't let him be gentle. Please.

  The mark on my shoulder went hot, sustained heat like a candleflame held close to the skin. Power poured into me, stroking along my flesh, sparkling like impulses between the gaps of dendrites and axons, an electricity that would have been painful and prickling if not for the fact that my body cried out for it. Craved it.

  My fingers, tipped with chipped black molecule-drip polish, shook. The sword, inside its indigo lacquer sheath, hummed.

  Bit by bit, Japhrimel slid one arm under me. His other hand worked down to my neck, slid over my shoulder, skimmed down my tense, shaking arm. His fingers, blunter than mine but with unerring delicacy, slid between mine, loosened the grip on my sword. After a short struggle, he pushed the blade over the side of the bed and I made a small moaning sound like a rabbit in a trap.

  I needed my sword. It was the only thing that made me feel safe.

  His arms tensed, drew me back into him. Still he said nothing, his breath warm against myhair, his arms closed around me like chains. Like a support.

  He simply held me.

  The sobs came. Not slow ceaseless trickling from my eyes, not the smothered sounds I'd tried to keep to myself all the way to the hotel while Japhrimel's silence grew more and more obdurate and Leander's puzzlement and curiosity more obvious and restrained. No, there was no secrecy left in these. They tore out of me in deep hurtful gasps, each one worse than the one before. Shaking all the way up from the deepest blackest pit inside me, I convulsed with agonized guilt and grief.

  It took a long time for the sobs to judder into little hitching broken gasps, my eyes streaming and my nose full, the mark on my shoulder hot through the ice creeping up my veins from my fingertips and toes. The heat fought for me, pushed back the ice of numbness, Japhrimel's arms tightening until I could barely breathe. It made little difference-I could not breathe through the gasps anyway.

  He murmured something I didn't catch. Probably in his damnable demon language, the one he wouldn't teach me because he said it wasn't fit for my mouth.

  The one he'd used to bargain with Lucifer, without my understanding, getting me involved in this whole damn clusterfuck in the first place.

  His left hand, fingers threaded through mine of both hands, squeezed. Reassuring, not hurtful.

  I don't know how long it took. Finally, I lay hot-eyed and limp in his arms, staring at the wallpaper and the edge of a chunky antique table that held plasticine-wrapped information sheets about how to call for room service and what to do in case of a fire or general catastrophe.

  I wished one of them had a guide to deal with being a part-demon whose loved ones were going to die; or maybe a few words about how to live with the utter shame of knowing you'd failed your few friends when they needed you most. I wished one of the plasticine sheets could have told me what to do about the sudden feeling of empty loneliness, so intense my entire body felt like a stranger's.

  And why not? It wasn't my body; it was the body Japhrimel had given me, altered, made into a hedaira's. He wouldn't even tell me what that was. He was hiding things from me even now. I was a fool if I thought otherwise.

  Japhrimel pressed his lips against my hair. Said something else, too low for even my demon-acute senses to hear. The drilling heat from his mark on my shoulder finally flushed the last of the ice out of my fingers and toes. I closed my eyes, squeezing out hot tears. Opened them again. His arm curled under me, wrapped around me, his flattened hand pressing into my belly.

  "I'm all right," I whispered finally, raw and uncertain. Did I feel his mouth move with a smile? "I do not think so, beloved." Soft, the tone he used in the dead regions of night or the laziness of a hot Toscano afternoon.

  It made me giggle, a forlorn broken sound. "You never used to call me that." I heard the note of tired hurt in my voice, wished I hadn't said it. Exhaustion pulled at my arms and legs, as if I was human again.

  I wish I was. Oh, gods, how I wish I was human again. "What do you think hedaira means?" He hugged me again, the soft pulsing of the mark on my left shoulder turning into a golden spike for a moment.

  "You won't teach me anything." My eyes drifted closed. The weariness swamped me, made my arms and legs turn to lead.

  "Have you ever considered that perhaps I cherish you as you are?" He sighed, a very human sound. "Were I to teach you too quickly, my curious one, you might well decide to fear me unreasonably. I prefer your anger. You will learn soon enough, in your own time. And I will wait, as long as I must, and with more patience than I have shown so far." Another kiss, pressed onto the top of my head. "What does your friend want of you?"

  I swallowed several times, dryly, and told him. The darkness behind my eyelids was comforting again. I couldn't fight him when he was like this. Gods, all he had to do was be gentle with me, and I wouldn't be able to stop him from doing anything he wanted. I would even help him.

  If he was gentle. If he could just remember to tell me the truth.

  For a long few moments he was silent. Could I feel the thoughts moving through his alien brain? He'd been alive far longer than me, far longer than anyone, even Lucas or the Nichtvren I infrequently met. How could I possibly deal with something that old, that essentially different?

  Never mind that I had thought it possible, never mind that I'd trusted him with my life, slept with him, told him things I'd never told anyone else. I'd treated him as if he was human, and he'd responded by becoming A'nankhimel. Fallen.

  Whatever that was. I doubted I knew even a quarter of it. If I ever thought I did, in the future, all I would have to do is touch my shoulder, feeling the scar twist on
the surface of my skin. Or remember being held up against the tiled wall of a New Prague subway stop, shaken like a disobedient puppy while his knuckles dug into the thin skin over my breastbone.

  "She's my friend," I went on, barely pausing to take a breath. "Fuck Lucifer, I owe Gabe, I owe her everything. I don't care what you think, I'm-"

  "Your debts are mine," he interrupted. "Rest, Dante. Shock is still a danger for you."

  "You'll help me?" I sounded amazed even to myself. Ask him about the treasure, Danny. He seems to be in a talkative mood, ask him what the Key is and why all of a sudden everything's so different. Use this.

  Another hot helping of shame boiled up under my breastbone. Even in the middle of a crisis I was still trying to figure out how to manipulate him back, trying to play his game.

  He made a small sound, as if annoyed. "The sooner this is over, the sooner I may return to the task of seeing you alive through the demands the Prince has placed on us. I worry it may be too much of a task even for my skill." There was a curious inflection to the words, as if he had chosen them with finicky care. I was too tired to think about it, too warm, and too grateful for him.

  Even if he was a lying demon. "I can't imagine a job that big." I yawned and settled further into his warmth. "Hm." His arms tightened, just a little. "Besides, you obey your honor, Dante. I can do no less. I am your Fallen."

  My sudden question surprised me as much as it might have surprised him. "What does A'nankhimel mean, Japhrimel?" My voice was slurred, heavy, the sound of a woman in a nightmare that didn't stop when she opened her eyes.

  He kissed the top of my head again. "It means shield. It also means chained. Go to sleep, my curious. You are safe."

  I shouldn't have rested. But I was still tired, aching from Lucifer's last kick, and craving grateful oblivion. There wasn't enough sleep in the world to make me feel better.

  But I'd take what I could. Just for that moment, there in Japh's arms.

  Chapter 9

  Despite waking up warm under the covers-with Japhrimel sitting across from me in a chair situated so the thin rainy light of a Saint City afternoon fell over him, turning him into an icon of dark coat and golden skin with jeweled eyes-the day started out unsatisfactorily. For one thing, it was still strange to be up during daylight hours. I've been a night creature all my human life-most psions are, something about our metabolisms and a gene marker for nocturnalism. During the day I felt sluggish, not slow enough to handicap me in a fight but as if a veil of misty fatigue was drawn over the world. It was when night fell that I truly felt alive.

  I finished tugging my boots on and pushed my damp hair back. One thing I haven't grown out of is my love of hot water; even though I rarely sweat I like to have a daily shower. I've gone without on too many bounties not to appreciate being clean.

  The other unsatisfactory thing? Leander was gone. "What do you mean, gone?" I fixed McKinley with a steely glare the Hellesvront agent bore all too easily. He glanced at Japhrimel, who said nothing.

  Apparently deciding that meant I could know, the agent went on. He still wore unrelieved black to match his hair and eyes, and only two knives. McKinley didn't appear to need much in the way of weapons. I'd seen him with a gun once, on a rooftop in New Prague, never again. "Not in his room this morning. No luggage, not that he had much to begin with. I can comb the city… " He didn't sound too concerned, I realized.

  "Not necessary." Japhrimel stood slim and dark, his hands clasped behind his back. "Perhaps he had an attack of good sense."

  There it was again, that faint note of disdain. Why didn't Japhrimel like him? "Anubis et'her ka. So what if he's human? I am too, remember?" Still human where it counts, Japh. I rose to my feet, stamped to settle my boots, and slid the strap of my bag over my head, settling its weight properly against my hip. Rotated my shoulders to make sure my rig was all right. Closed my left hand over my sword. "I swear, you're as bad as a normal. Always thinking that a human can't be good enough for anything, just like normals think all psis are mindstealers." I stalked between them, toward the door of the suite, wishing the room wasn't done in pale blue with old Merican Era fustibudgets for decoration. Even in Sarajevo the rooms had been better decorated.

  Japhrimel fell into step behind me, McKinley said nothing. He was going to stay behind, thank the gods.

  I made it out the door and down the hall, pushing the door to the stairwell open. I would be damned if I'd take an elevator. My nerves were raw enough.

  My footsteps echoed on the stairs; his were soundless. I could have moved quietly, but what good would it have

  I felt Japhrimel's eyes on me as I stalked through the lobby and out through the climate control, into the familiar cold chembath of a rainy Saint City early afternoon.

  Immediately, habitually, I checked hovertraffic and reached out with all my senses to take in the mood of the city. The flux and glow of Power here was so familiar another lump rose in my throat.

  Stop it. You've barely ever cried before in your life; stop being an I diot and use those brains you're so famous for. The feeling-which I had to examine thoroughly before admitting it was relief and a sense of being home again-filled my entire body with an odd combination of lightness and a completely uncharacteristic desire to weep-angst like a holovid soap star. I swallowed the blockage in my throat, glancing down Ninth to see the familiar bulk of the skyline lifting its scallops and needles around the bay. I wanted to get to Gabe's quickly, of course; but still I walked. Japhrimel, saying nothing, walked behind me.

  Three steps behind and to my left, soundless as Death Himself, his presence felt like sunshine on my back. His mark on my shoulder was warm, comforting. The streets were familiar, resounding under my boots. One moment I wanted to dance with crazy joy.

  The next I felt the weight of my bag, with the folder inside it. Then my eye would fall across a slight change-a new building, an old building remodeled, something different-and the change would hit me hard in the solar plexus.

  It was small consolation that with a war shaping up between Lucifer and Eve, and something else in the offing Japh couldn't be prodded to tell me about, I might not live long enough to see other changes.

  I finally hailed a hovercab at the corner of Fifteenth and Pole, right at the edge of the Tank District. The driver-an Asiano man-didn't look happy to find out his fare was a psion, but he'd descended and flipped the meter before seeing my tat. Japhrimel gave the driver Gabe's address in flawless unaccented Merican. His control of the language-indeed, of most languages-was phenomenal.

  Then again, demons like languages just as they like technology, or genetics, or meddling with humans. Meddling with humans-but not feeling any affection for them. Or Falling, for them.

  The unsteady flutter of my stomach as the hovercab rose into the sky intensified as I studied Japhrimel's profile. He stared straight ahead, laser-green eyes burning intently as if they intended to slice through the plasilica barrier between us and the driver, out through the front bubble, and cut the sky with a sword of light. "Japh?"

  "Hm?" As if startled out of his own uncomfortable thoughts. His eyes turned to me, and I found it slightly easier to meet them.

  "Can I ask you something?" My left hand eased on my katana, I even drummed my fingers a little bit against the scabbard.

  "Gods protect me from your questions, my curious. Ask." Did he smile? If he did it was a fleeting expression, moving over his face so quickly even my demon-sharp eyes barely caught it.

  No time like the present. Since you won't explain anything else, I might as well ask for the moon. I plunged ahead. "Why did you Fall?"

  I expected him to turn the question aside, refuse to answer it. He would always make some ironic reply before, or simply, gently, refuse to tell me anything of A'nankhimel. Would tell me myths about demons, old stories, tales to make me laugh or listen wide-eyed with a sweet sharp nostalgic terror like a child's-but never anything I could use to find out what I was, what the limits of my new body were. Not
hing about himself, or what his life had been like. He would only talk about things that had happened since I'd met him, and even some of those he wouldn't speak about.

  As if he'd been born the day he showed up at my door. I never knew dissatisfaction before I met you, hedaira. Today, he cocked his head. Considered the question.

  I felt his awareness again, closing around me. His aura stretched to cover mine, the mark on my shoulder staining through the trademark sparkles of a Necromance's energetic field with black diamond flames.

  When he spoke, it was soft, reflective. "I lived for countless ages as the Prince's Right Hand and felt no guilt or shame at what I did. I still do not."

  No philosophy for me, he'd said, during the hunt for Santino. I don't take sides. The Prince points and says that he wants a death, I kill.

  He was silent for so long, his eyes burning green against mine, that I finally found my lungs starving for breath and remembered to inhale. He'd refused to kill me to gain back his place in Hell. I had it on good authority; better authority than if he'd tried to tell me himself. So what did that mean?

  "Then, the Prince set me to fetch a human woman and use her in a game that would end with the created Androgyne under his hand. I found myself in the presence of a creature I could not predict, for the first time in my life."

  He shrugged, a simple evocative movement. "I did not understand her-but knew her in a way that seemed deeper than even my kinship with my own kind. And thus, my dissatisfaction."

  "Dissatisfaction?" I sounded breathless. What a surprise-I was breathless. Damn hard to breathe when he was staring into my eyes like this.

  "I Fell through love of you, hedaira. It's simple enough, even with your gift for complicating matters. I don't want your fear of me; I have never wanted you to fear me." He looked as if he would say more, but ended up shutting his mouth and shaking his head slightly, as if mocking himself for what he couldn't say.

  I don't want to fear you either. "I don't want to be afraid of you. But you make it so goddamn hard, Japh. All you have to do is talk to me."