First, though, I had to rest.
A twilight doze fell over me near dinnertime, just as I heard Japh and McKinley speaking in the other room. It was hard to ignore, my hearing was so acute, and I strained for the sound of Japhrimel's voice despite myself.
"Tiens is right. You should-" McKinley, getting braver by the moment.
"I did not ask for your opinion on this matter, McKinley." Japhrimel didn't let him finish the sentence, which was irritating in the extreme. "I asked for your loyalty as my vassal. There is a difference."
A long pause. "I've served you faithfully. I'd be remiss in my duty if I didn't warn you it is dangerous to allow her to treat you like this."
"What do you suggest? I should chain her in a sanctum like a Nichtvren's plaything? Or that I should allow her to commit a foolhardy suicide and fall with her into darkness?" Each word was underlit with savage anger. I snuggled deeper into the softness of the bed, drowsily glad Japh never spoke to me like that. And fuzzily alarmed at what I was hearing.
Foolhardy suicide? Just what does he think I'm going to do? Of course, he can't have too high an opinion of my maturity right now. Iactually winced at the thought.
It was time to get a few things straight with him. I lay utterly still, pieces of both puzzles revolving inside my head. Waiting for dark, when I could uncoil like a snake under a rock. And begin hunting.
"You put it that way, it gets a lot clearer." McKinley sounded like he was smiling, for once.
I was tired. My eyes were heavy, and the mark pulsed and rang with soft Power, sliding down my skin, easing me into relaxing. I couldn't cry anymore, could barely dredge up the energy to keep listening.
I listened anyway.
"It is no small choice." Japhrimel sounded heavy, and sadder than I'd ever heard him. "Her hatred or her pain, I do not know which is harder to bear."
If you'd just talk to me, Japh. Precognition tingled along my skin, prickling with tiny diamond feet. It isn't my strongest talent, not by a long shot, but sometimes when the quicksand is getting deeper and deeper I can get a flash of something useful.
Sometimes. But not when my heart was aching this badly. Not when I all but vibrated with the blood-deep hunger for revenge. I wanted to start killing, and I wasn't too choosy about who I started with.
Anyone would be fine. And that alarmed me a little. The precog refused to come. Just the sense of danger, and a creeping sensation against the flesh of my wrist, above my datband. I'd taken the Gauntlet off, but my skin still tingled with the feel of it. Loathing touched the back of my throat, I forced it away.
Relax, Dante. Nothing you can do right now. Just breathe, and wait. Hold yourself still. Don't even think. Just breathe.
I did.
I tipped over the edge into gray nothingness. It wasn't the dead unconsciousness Japhrimel could lull me into, the sleep that was a restorative for my human mind. No, this sleep was more like the restless tossing I'd had all my mortal life, my conscious mind paralyzed by too much stress and sliding out of commission like a disengaged gear, spinning fruitlessly while the deeper parts of me worked, intuition and insight grinding finer and finer until they would present me with the wrench jamming the works.
Inducing a precognitive vision is hard goddamn work, and I failed miserably. But something else happened, something I hadn't done since I'd been human.
I dreamed.
This was not the hall of Death.
I gathered up my skirts as I negotiated a wide, sweeping staircase; the vast parquet floor of the ballroom below shimmered mellow under many layers of wax and care. I recognized this place.
It was the Hotel Armeniere in Old Kebec. I'd stayed here once on a bounty hunt ending with a clean collar in the teeming sink of the Core in Manhattan. The Armeniere was expensive, but a Hegemony per diem had covered it and right after Doreen's death I hadn't cared if it was pricey; it was magshielded, had a sparring hall, and the staff were mostly psi friendly. That was worth a little credit. Besides, I'd just been knifed, shot at, and hit on the left arm with a ringbar while engaging in a slicboard duel with the bounty I was tracking. I figured I deserved a little relaxation while I waited for him to screw up and give me something to work with to bring him down.
The ballroom had been one of my favorite places, mostly deserted during the day; quiet and full of space where I could run through katas without being gawked at or challenged to a sparring match I wasn't in the mood for. Long narrow windows looked out on a night pulsing with neon and citylife, I heard distant traffic and the thump of a nightclub on the other side of the wall by the stairs. That told me it was a dream-the Armeniere was on a busy street, but the walls were thick and you would no more hear a nightclub than you would hear the staff whistling the Putchkin anthem.
The other clue that I was in a dream was the fantastic pre-Merican-era illustration of a dress. Red silk long whispering skirt, a bodice just short of indecent, and long sleeves that belled over my hands.
My human hands, not gold-skinned demon hands. I saw the well-healed scar on my right thumb, the different texture of pale human skin, the crimson molecule-drip polish I used to use. A fading bruise was turning yellow on the back of my right hand.
With the fuzzy logic of dreams, it all made perfect sense. Even the dream-copy of the necklace Jace made for me, silver-dipped raccoon bacula and blood-charged bloodstones, was there. The real necklace was on my sleeping self, but this copy hummed with Power, throbbing against my collarbones.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, my pulse pounding like the thump of bass coming through the wall. I felt naked-I had no sword, none of the familiar weight of a rig against my shoulders. Crimson silk mouthed the floor as I moved, cold waxed wood and the grit of dust against my bare tender human feet.
You look beautiful.
The necklace's throb settled into a sustained heat. I whirled.
He leaned against the wall between two windows, his face in shadow except for the bright points of light in his blue eyes. A stray breeze touched a sheaf of wheat-gold hair, and my mouth turned dry and slick as desert glass.
Jace Monroe hooked his thumbs in his belt. He wasn't armed either. Hey, Danny. Spare a kiss for an old boyfriend?
I'm dreaming, I thought. Dreaming. Have to be.
Of course you're not dreaming. His lips shaped the words, but the air didn't move. Instead, the meaning resounded inside my head. Like the tone of psychic music that was a god's communication, fraught with layers on layers of complexity. A wash of amusement, bitter spice of regret, a thin thread of desire blooming through and sparkling like an iron wire to hold it all together. Under it, the smell of peppered honey that was Jace's magick, the smell of a Shaman, the smell I'd missed without knowing.
He moved forward into the dim light. Don't think much of the choice of venues, sunshine. Never did have you pegged as a romantic.
Another shock. He was the young Jace of the days of our first affair, moving smoothly and without the telltale hitch from his injured knee, his face smoother without age and the bitterness that had crept up and glazed over him like varnish. Even his haircut shouted it-shaggy, but obviously expensively trimmed. I'd forgotten that about him, forgotten the antique Bolgari chronograph he used to wear glittering over his datband. Forgotten the lopsided, charming smile he used to use on me, the one I'd fallen for.
He folded his arms. This has got to be the first time I've ever seen you speechless. Don't talk too soon; I'm enjoying it.
You're dead. My lips shaped the whisper. The pulse in my temples and throat was made of glass. Mirovitch killed you. Gabe set you free in the hospital. You're dead.
Of course I'm dead. He shrugged. But am I gone? Not on your life, Danny girl. I don't have much time right now, you're heading into dangerous waters. I'II help all I can.
A shuddering impact hit next door, the wall behind the stairs creaking. Dust pattered down from the ceiling. I flinched, my right hand searching for a weapon that wasn't there. I didn't just feel naked wi
thout my sword. I felt lost, and panicked, and uncomfortably like I was having a nightmare.
Jace's hand closed around my wrist. I damn near levitated-anyone getting that close without my knowledge spooks me. Listen to me, he said, his skin warm and dry and blessedly human against mine. You have to wake up now, Danny. No time for fun and games. Wake up and get moving. You got a lot of trouble on your tail.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but he shook his head again. I drank in his face, the angle of his jaw, each small detail lovingly polished. It was lifelike, incredibly vivid, right down to the individual grains of grit under my bare feet. Jace's fingers burned, clamping down hard on my left wrist, clasping like chill heavy metal quickly warming to my skin.
Wake up, Danny. Wake up.
I don't want to! I wailed. My hair slid forward-my old human dyed-black dead dark lifeless hair. I never thought I'd be so glad to see split ends again. I don't want to wake up!
Another shuddering boom. A visegrip clamped around my right shoulder and ripped my body free of its moorings. I felt the snap as whatever space holding me was torn away and I fell, arching my back, screaming and-
— landing on the floor beside the bed, an undignified squeak cut short as my teeth clicked together hard. I blinked up, a pair of familiar yellow eyes meeting mine; the tip of my blade caressed Lucas Villalobos's throat. Blue flame ran through my sword, its heart showing a thin thread of white fire; I had also lifted my left arm instinctively into a guard position when I'd landed on my ass. My eyes snagged on my raised wrist-clasped against my golden skin, the cuff of silvery demon-wrought metal glowed.
I didn't put that back on. I choked. I wasn't sure what surprised me more-a human dream, or finding out I was still hedaira. The thin hitching sound of a sob rose in my throat; I denied it.
"Time to go," Lucas wheezed. Darkness broken only by the glow of a small nightlight fastened into a wall plug filled the room like deep water, shadows lying over the top of unfamiliar furniture. "Get up, Valentine."
My sword whispered back into its sheath. It was small consolation that I'd been ready to kill him, he could have slid a knife between my ribs while I was lost in whatever trance had taken me. My eyes were grainy, and my entire body felt torpid, like I'd been shaken out of a dead sleep in the middle of the afternoon. It was a very human feeling.
It was also profoundly unsettling. Where's Japhrimel? What's going on?
Of all the things I could have said, I settled for the most predictable. "What the hell?"
"Had to wait until your boyfriend left; chica. Come on." Lucas's sleeve was torn and floppy, soaked with blood. His yellow eyes were dead and dark, his lank hair fell in his face, and he wore the widest, most feral smile I had ever seen on him; either post-coital or post-combat, it was wholly scary. His teeth gleamed white in the dim bedroom. "Abra wants to see you tomorrow. I found out some o' what the demon's up to."
"Great." I ducked into my rig. Where's Japhrimel? I thought he wasn't going to let me out of his sight. I didn't smell him, and the mark on my shoulder pulsed softly, absently, coating my skin with now-familiar Power. A few seconds worth of buckling had all my weapons riding in their accustomed places, I passed the strap of my bag over my head, shrugged into my coat, and was ready to go. My katana weighted my left hand as I followed Lucas out into the rest of the suite.
Which was, to put it kindly, a shambles. The furniture was destroyed, chairs and tables smashed, the holovid player shattered, and a large imprint rammed into the wall between the suite and the bedroom. Japhrimel was still nowhere in evidence; I wondered where he'd gone. "Sekhmet sa'es, I slept through this?"
"You been sleepin' a lot, chica. Even on your feet. It ain't like you." Lucas jerked his chin at a shape lying on the floor by the nivron fireplace. It was McKinley, bleeding from the nose and ears and gagged with an anonymous bit of cloth held down with magtape, trussed with a thin golden chain that shivered and smoked in the light from the upended lamp. The carpeted floor groaned under him as he caught sight of me and started to struggle.
Leander, now shaven-cheeked, his accreditation tat twisting under his skin, nodded from the windowsill. He stood with one hip hitched up against the sill, his sword shoved into his belt and a plasgun in his right hand, peering down into the street below. His dark hair was wildly mussed. "Hi, Danny." His tone was excessively even. "Sorry I had to bail, I thought it best I didn't stick around after the demon warned me off." His emerald sparked, and one corner of his mouth pulled down.
Warned you off. What the hell? I contented myself with a noncommittal noise. "Mh. What the hell's that?" I pointed at McKinley, whose black eyes narrowed. He was either furious or terrified, I couldn't tell. A whiff of burning cinnamon and dry naptha scented the air, as if his glands had opened to pour out chemical reek.
"The demon left him here, probably to watch out for Sleeping Beauty." Leander sighed, shrugging, but his dark eyes flicked nervously over the room as if expecting company any moment. "Let's go, the back of my neck's itching."
So was mine. Left him here? What the hell? It wasn't like Japhrimel to leave me alone. Where the hell was he? The last time Japh had left while I was unconscious, it was to go into Hell and start the process of dragging me back into a huge mess full of demons. One happy little home in the Toscano hills burned to smoking rubble in a reaction fire and my life crashing down around my ears again.
What was he doing now?
"What's Japh been doing, Lucas?" My hand dropped to a knifehilt as I contemplated McKinley, who went absolutely still. He was bruised all over his face and I was sure one shoulder was dislocated by the way it rotated too far back. This was twice Lucas had faced down a Hellesvront agent and come away the winner.
I am so glad I hired him. Well, technically, Eve started out hiring him, but I'm glad he's working for me. With a clear-cut emergency in front of me; I felt better than I had since I'd received Gabe's message.
Gabe.
I pushed away the thought of her broken body, the emerald dark and lifeless in her pale cheek. Focus, Danny. Goddammit, focus! Broken plasilica ground into the carpet under my boots. The dangling almost-chandelier light fixture had been yanked out of the ceiling. The wet bar was a chaos of broken glass and the simmering stink of alcohol, reminding me of DMZ Sarajevo. A shiver bolted up my spine, was ruthlessly quelled.
"There's another demon in town, and word is your green-eyed boy is tracking it down, as well as some other interestin' shit. I got you an interview with a Magi who might know what the fuck's goin' on." Lucas shrugged. "Let's get the hell out of here. The whole fuckin' city's seething. Something about a dead Necromance and your name tangled up together. I can't leave you alone for a fuckin' minute, can I?"
Gabe. So someone knows. Chill fury boiled up behind my breastbone again, was suppressed. "Guess not." I drew a knife with my right hand. McKinley's black eyes met mine, and he strained against the gag, making a low muffled anonymous noise.
One problem at a time. Japhrimel was hunting Eve's rebellion here in Santiago City. Why hadn't he told me? You must trust me to do what you cannot, then. Japhrimel's voice, even and chill. He rarely said anything he didn't mean.
And here I thought he came along because I needed him. Silly me. Yellow bitterness coated the back of my throat. Stupid and blind, Danny. He's doing the same thing he did before, going behind my back.
Of course. Why expect him not to? It was what he did. Too bad I was only finding out now.
The knife flicked from my right hand, burying itself in the carpeted floor with a chuk, less than an inch from McKinley's nose. He flinched, barely but perceptibly, and I tried not to feel the hot, nasty wave of satisfaction curling through me. You told Japh it was better to tie me up and do whatever he wanted, didn't you? And he left you here alone with me. You son of a bitch. No wonder you work for demons.
"Tell Japhrimel," I said quietly. "Tell him exactly what I am about to say, McKinley. If he comes after Eve, he's going to have to get through m
e first."
That spurred the agent to frantic motion, twisting like a landed fish inside the thin golden chain. I didn't even want to know what it was made of. Another desperate smothered noise pressed against the gag as his eyes rolled.
My thumb caressed the katana's guard as I stared down at him. The blade thrummed, hungry inside its sheath. Lucas pushed me. "That won't hold him forever. Come on."
You're right. I don't have time for this, I have other hovers to fly. There was a time when the thought of Lucas Villalobos touching me would have made my skin crawl with frantic loathing and send me scrabbling for a weapon to protect myself. He was dangerous, as dangerous as a big venomous snake or a Mob Family Head. Just because he hadn't bitten me yet didn't mean he wasn't going to.
But along with being dangerous, Lucas was professional. He was indisputably working for me-and in any case I was no longer human. I was fairly sure I could outrun him. Besides, he'd taken on the Devil for me. Something like that will make a girl feel mighty charitable even when it comes to Villalobos.
Leander ducked out the window onto the fire escape, I did too. At least the window wasn't shattered. Someone was going to owe the hotel a bundle for that room-the noise had probably already been remarked.
Outside, the night was cool and cloudy, orange glowing on the clouds and hovers moving in silent formation overhead. The cuff was heavy on my left wrist above my datband; I wondered if Japhrimel had put it on me before he'd left. While I'd been dead to the world, unconscious or tranced into a high-alpha state.
Dreaming of Jace. Or not-dreaming.
The Gauntlet shimmered, my skin crawling underneath it. It bothered me more than I wanted to admit. I wanted to stop and peel the damn thing off again, but we had precious little time and I didn't want to have my hands full of jewelry if the other shoe dropped.
"So where are we going?" I asked Lucas, who had taken a position just behind my left shoulder, watching my back and scanning the street in front of us at the same time. "Where's this Magi?"
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