"How sweet." My heart began to thud. I did probably smell like a bakery, thanks to the cinnamon sweetness of almost-demon. With the musk underneath it, it was probably extremely distinctive to a 'cain's sensitive nose. "Who were you going to deliver me to, furboy? Huh?"
"Agh-" He gurgled, I eased up a little. "You know I can't." His voice was choked not only by my arm across his trachea but also by a mouth not truly shaped for human speech. Too many sharp teeth and a wrong-sized tongue.
"Give it up, or I'll brainwipe you." To give the threat a little more credence, I extended the borders of my awareness and pressed, very gently, on the edges of his mind. Curiously unprotected, the cranial fire of his consciousness shivered under my touch like a dog begging to be stroked. It would be so easy, so very easy-and he was paranormal; his mind wasn't the open sewer of a normal human's.
I caught a breath of something-more musk, the smell of oranges, and heart-pumping fear. Demon.
This sparked a few more moments of furious struggling, ending up with me yanking back and choking until he went limp. Then I eased a little. Wait a second, how did a demon get mixed up in this? Or is it just that anyone following my trail is going to come across demon stink? "Names, furboy. I want names."
"Mob!" he half-barked. "I think he's Mob, he acts like Mob, corner of Fifth and Chesko, East Side. Paying two hundred thou for you. Fifty thou for information; where you are, who you visiting."
"A bargain, all things considered."
The werecain didn't see the humor in it. I suddenly longed for Japhrimel. He'd get the joke, it was just the kind of thing he might have said. Another few seconds of furious struggle, and the 'cain began to whine a little, far back in his throat. The sharp stink flooded my nostrils again, my nasal receptors suddenly waking up. Garbage, wet fur, werecain-what a combo.
"Relax. I'm not going to brainwipe you, you've been a good boy. Spread the word: Dante Valentine's back in town, and she's on the warpath. Whoever knocked off Gabe Spocarelli is already dead. Got it?"
A growl was the only answer I received. I could have pistol-whipped him a few times to give myself enough room to get away, but that would have been too much. My arm loosened a little, he drew in a whooping breath, his flexible strong ribs heaving under me.
I was at the mouth of the alley before I realized it, my body moving too fast for me again. I still wasn't used to how damnably quick my demon reflexes were.
It was a good thing too, I heard scrabbling and a snarling roar behind me. Time to move, time to move-Ialmost wasted precious moments worrying about Lucas while I blurred through patches of streetlight shine, the wind making a soft sweet sound in my ears, combing my hair back. I was fairly sure I was fast enough to outrun a werecain-but it wasn't just the running I was worried about, it was breaking my trail. Werecain are extremely good trackers, and the only thing keeping them from putting psion bounty hunters out of business is the fact that criminal psions are generally unwilling to be brought in without exploiting a 'cain's psychic vulnerability. And normal criminals aren't averse to hiring out a little work from a psion to keep 'cain away. Not to mention the fact that the Hegemony only licenses 'cain to hunt down criminals among the other paranormal species.
Running. He's not still behind me, he can't be, got to be sure… Breathing coming hard and harsh, muscles burning. Burst out into the confusion of Klondel and Thirty-Eighth, streaking through the crowd and probably bowling over a few of them; I went for the darkest alley I could find and crouched in the garbage, shuddering and hyperventilating, the mark on my shoulder numb as if I'd been shot up with varocain. As I crouched there, my back against the damp brick wall of the alley, I silently berated myself.
He's not following you, a 'cain knows better than to follow a wary combat-trained psion. He's going to head straight to the East Side to sell his information, and this possibly-Mob connection is either going to pull up the stakes and vanish in a hell of a hurry or hire a hell of a lot of security posthaste. Probably the latter if he has to stay put to receive information and possibly your own sweet self trussed up like a Putchkin Yule turkey. You can't fight off every mercenary and paranormal in the city Dante. You just can't.
Besides, what was the breath of demon I'd caught in the 'cain's memory? What if the people watching Abra's shop weren't there because of my search for Gabe's killer? Or what if only some of them were, and the rest were the hunters looking for Eve, or looking to snatch me because I was suddenly so goddamn important?
More important to the Prince of Hell than even he realized, Japhrimel had said.
Great. I have such a choice of enemies it's not even funny. I leaned my head back against the weeping brick. The smell of a demon rose around me, a cinnamon-laden filter to keep out the reek of human filth.
"I've got to steal a slicboard," I whispered.
Chapter 17
I massaged my numb shoulder while melding into the shadow of a large holly hedge, watching the intersection of Fifth and Chesko on the East Side of Saint City. My skin prickled with harsh hurtful awareness and my heart pounded a little too rapidly. The icy cuff of metal on my left wrist didn't help, taunting me with its dull dead surface.
This made only the second time I'd been on the east side of the river since boarding the transport to take me to the Academy. I suppressed a guilty start everytime I realized where I was-and found, without any real surprise, that my hands were shaking a little. So I braced them with my sword in its scabbard, and settled down to watch. The slicboard I'd stolen-a nice sleek Chervoyg deck-leaned against the hedge next to me, hot-taped and magwired. I'd lifted it from a rack outside a yuppie club in the Tank District. More than likely some rich kid gone slumming would have to take a hovercab home, I wouldn't have stolen a slic courier's deck.
I waited, my knuckles almost white as I clutched the scabbarded blade. I hoped I wasn't too late.
I couldn't even enjoy the fact that I'd ridden a slicboard again. It used to be after every Necromance job I'd take a slic up into the hoverlanes until the adrenaline hammered my heart and brain into believing I was alive. Now the rushing speed and sense of being balanced on a stair-rail, sliding down with knees loose and arms a little spread, was oddly diluted..
Maybe because I was on the East Side again. On the same side as Rigger Hall.
I looked back over my shoulder again, checking the empty street under its drench of streetlamp light. At any moment I might hear a soft sliding footstep, or catch a whiff of chalk, offal, and aftershave.
Stop it. Mirovitch is dead. You killed him. You scattered his ka and Japhrimel cremated Lourdes. He burned Rigger Hall to the ground, wiped that cursed place off the map. Just stop it. Stop.
A different set of memories rose. Japh touching my back gently, his fingers digging into cable-strung muscles as I sobbed and shook with the aftermath of Mirovitch's psychic rape tearing through my vulnerable head. My own hands clenched in fists, my wild thrashing when the flashbacks returned, Japhrimel catching my wrists in a gentle but inexorable grip, stopping me from beating my head against the wall or flinging myself into damage. The pulse beating in his throat as we lay in the darkness, his voice a thread of gold holding me to sanity.
I let out a soft breath. I wish he was here. It was a traitorous thought; would I be in this position if he hadn't maneuvered me from square to square in Lucifer's game? He'd been sneaking out while I was asleep, maybe hunting Eve, and keeping important information from me.
What choice did he have, Danny? Lucifer trapped him, just like he trapped you. Japh's doing what he has to do. You can't argue with his methods if they're keeping you alive. And who was it that just held Abra up against the wall and scared the hell out of her? You're losing your moral high ground here.
I could have done with a little backup at the moment. Where was he?
A flicker of movement caught my eye. There, a quick feral flash, leaping over the fence of the mansion on the northwest side of the intersection.
Well, what do you know. Idiocy str
ikes again.
I eased myself out of the shadows-or I would have, if the air pressure hadn't changed and a faint shimmer coated the air beside me. I pressed back into the spiny greenness of the hedge, my right hand closing around my swordhilt-and the figure of a tall, slim, dirty-blond and blue-eyed holovid angel appeared, resolving out of bare air. One moment gone, the next here, Tiens closed his hand over mine, jamming the sword back into its scabbard. "Tranquille, belle morte," he whispered, stretching his lips and showing his fangs. "Do not go in there. It is," and here he sniffed disdainfully, "a trap."
Nichtvren generally only Turn humans if they are either exceptionally pretty or exceptionally ruthless; I've never seen an ugly Nichtvren. Truth be told, I've barely seen any Nichtvren despite the mandatory Paranormal Anatomy and Interspecies Communication classes I'd taken. In the relatively short time I'd been an almost-demon, I'd met more Nichtvren than in my previous thirty-odd years combined. Then again, Nichtvren don't like Necromances. What species that prizes immortality would like Death's children?
Tiens was a tall male with a shock of dirty-blond hair and a beautifully expressive masculine face, his eyes curiously flat with the cat-sheen of his nighthunting species. Below the shine, they were a pale blue. He had a slight flush along his cheekbones-he'd fed somewhere. He wore dusty black, a V-neck sweater and loose workman's pants, his feet closed in scarred and cracked boots; he looked just the same as he had in Freetown New Prague.
Though I'd begun to feel a little easier around Lucas, I was still very wary of a suckhead Hellesvront agent. Suckheads scare me more than demons, and a suckhead working for demons is enough to make my hand itch for my swordhilt.
He was right, the house at Fifth and Chesko was a trap. It didn't take much more than a few moments for the werecain to come back out. When he did he circled the block and plunged back over the wall again. If I'd just arrived-or been chasing him all along-I might have been fooled. Maybe my own blind panic had actually served me.
Tiens's warm fingers eased off my hand as he looked back over his shoulder, noting the werecain's re-disappearance with a slight smile as if at the antics of a not-too-bright child. "Cretin." The word was softened by an accent as ancient as South Merican. "Come. Here is not the place for you, belle morte."
"I'm not going anywhere with you," I told him quietly, and he cocked his head, smiling. For some reason that smile chilled me more than a snarl would have-especially since his fangs were slightly extended, dimpling his exquisite lower lip just a little. His eyes lit up with cheerful good humor, as if it was a foregone conclusion that I would, indeed, go with him, once he found the proper way to explain to me I had no choice.
"An old friend wishes a word with you." His eyes passed down my body and back up again. His smile widened a trifle, appreciative; I shuddered. Appreciation I s not what I want to see on the face of any Nichtvren. "Selene, the Prime's Consort."
"Where's Japhrimel?" And just what «errand» did he send you on, suckhead? A Nichtvren working for demons, there's no reason for me to trust you any farther than I can throw you.
"M'sieu should be with you." Tiens shrugged. "Since he is not, I will remain. We shall go swiftly. You are expected, le chien there was obviously meant to lure you. There are soldiers hidden behind the walls, with tranquilizer guns."
I examined him in the difficult light, demon eyes piercing shadows to show me his faint, charming smile. His eyes all but sparkled. Nichtvren eyes, capable of seeing in total blackness. He was at the top of the night-hunting food chain. While I was fairly sure I could handle individual werecain, Nichtvren-especfally Masters-were something else entirely. The few suckheads I'd met since I'd become almost-demon were scary if only for the amount of Power they carried.
Let's face it, they were also old enough to make me feel like an idiot child. Too old to be strictly human anymore. If I survived, how long would it be before I was like them? That was the scariest thing of all.
"You go in front of me." I shoved my sword in the loop on my rig and bent to pick up the slicboard. "Where I can see you." A few quick flicks of my fingers stripped the magwiring off, a press against the controlpad activated the home-return function. Then I dropped it. It would be picked up by the next maintenance bot and returned to its owner, a little worse for wear, maybe. I wasn't strictly a thief.
Not of something so paltry as a slicboard, anyway. The next thing I would steal would be a life.
My left arm felt cold and clumsy. The scar throbbed, holding back the chill from the Gauntlet. I wished I had time to figure out how to take the damn thing off.
He made a slight, pretty moue with his sculpted mouth. "You do not trust me?"
"I'm getting to the point where I don't trust myself. If you really don't know where Japhrimel is-"
"He should have been with you, belle morte, guarding his prize. If he has left your side, it is something extraordinaire." Tiens took one graceful backward step, making a fluid gesture with his hands, expressing surprise and resignation all at once. The flat sheen of an alleycat's eyes at night closed over his blue eyes as he contemplated me, folding his arms. "I think we shall go slowly, for your sake."
I took a deep breath, struggling with irritation and the fresh urge to draw my sword. "Just tell me where the Nest is, and I'll go. You can do what you like."
"If I am to do as I please I shall accompany you, pretty one. A pleasant job in a world full of unpleasantness, non?"
And while you're keeping an eye on me you'll be hoping for Japh to show up. I gave up, and followed him. It wasn't worth a fight. Besides, I wanted to see Selene and Nikolai anyway.
Chapter 18
The Nest was downtown on Ninth, in a building that looked like a renovated block of apartments. It was incongruous in the middle of a parklike lawn, prime downtown realty treated like a suburban estate by a Nichtvren. Then again, Nikolai was the Prime of the City; he could afford it. For him to have a grandiose lair was expected.
Inside, the halls were dim and restful. I smelled lemon oil, beeswax, polish, and the delicious wicked perfume of Nichtvren. They smell so distinctly sweet, maybe it's the decaying blood. But there's also a hint of sinful dark chocolate, wine, and secret sex to them. My Paranormal Anatomy professor at the Academy had called them "the pimps of the night world" once, right before he was fired. I guess Doctor Tarridge had a bone to pick with Nichtvren. Lots of people do.
The cloak of Power laid over the Nest was cold and prickling, full of defenses and the weight of a Master's will. My own shielding drew close, my numb shoulder prickling a warning.
I saw nobody but was sure we were watched. When Tiens swept open a pair of double mahogany doors and led me into a firelit hall floored in parquet worthy of the Renascence, I had to suppress the urge to applaud sardonically. My eyes were hot and grainy, my shoulders tight, and I was hungry. I hadn't noticed it before, but when the adrenaline faded I was reminded I hadn't eaten for a while. I needed the physical fuel-not like Japhrimel.
Will you stop thinking about him? He's fine, he can take care of himself. Besides, he left you with McKinley. He can't have been too worried about your well-being.
A tall broad-shouldered shape stood in front of the fire, his hands hanging loose and graceful at his sides. Selene, the Consort, was thrown down in a huge red-velvet wingback chair, one leg hooked over the arm, her head resting against the high back. She tensed and flowed to her feet as we approached, pulling down the hem of her black sweater with one graceful yank. "Valentine." She managed to sound happy and disapproving at once. "Thank you, Tiens."
He swept a courteous bow. All he needed was a feathered hat, like in the old Dumas holovids starring Bel Percy. "For you, demoiselle, anything."
Nikolai stirred. He was a tallish Nichtvren male, dark eyes under a soft shelf of dark hair and a face an Old Master might have painted-wide, generous mouth now compressed into a thin line, sculpted cheekbones, winged dark eyebrows. An angel's face, carved in old Renascence stone. Not as sexless or alien as a d
emon's face could be. "I suppose I have you to thank for this chaos, demonling." Catshine folded over his dark eyes.
One trashed hotel room qualifies as chaos? Does he know about Gabe? "Two of my friends have been murdered and there's a price on my head that shouldn't be there." I replied shortly. "If there's chaos it's not my fault. You promised to look after Gabe."
It hadn't quite been a promise, but he'd sent a credit disc she could use to get into his office building downtown if she was in trouble. And I'd been secure in the knowledge that Nikolai and Selene were looking after Gabe, after the whole Mirovitch thing. Nikolai didn't take it kindly when sexwitches were attacked; Selene had been one before she'd Turned. Whatever story was behind that, I didn't want to know. I only wanted to know why the Nichtvren hadn't stepped in to protect Gabe.
Nikolai inclined his head, and the air went cold and still. Selene moved forward between us.
"Let's not start like this. I asked Tiens to look for her." Her dark-blue eyes were eloquently wide, and far more human than his. "Hello, Dante. I'm sorry for your loss. We were watching over Gabriele Spocarelli. Whoever killed her and her husband-"
I almost choked. "Husband?" Gabe married him? Wow. She didn't invite me to the wedding ortell me about her kid. Gods. What, did she think I'd refuse to come? "Oh."I shook my head. "Go on. I'm sorry."
"We have troubles of our own." Nikolai's voice was clawed silk. "A sedayeen clinic under our protection has been firebombed. And there are demons in my city, causing damage and killing Magi. What do you know of that, demonling?"
Tiens whistled, a long low sound that sliced the tension in the air. The fire popped and crackled. What are Nichtvren doing around open flame? I've seen them burn. Idiscarded the question, shivering at the memory. My right hand itched for my sword.
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