Japhrimel’s eyes didn’t flick over to check me, but the mark on my shoulder came to agonized life again, Power flooding me, exploding in my belly. White-hot pokers jerked in my viscera. My scalp twinged, I tasted blood and burning. My sword rang softly, the core of the blade burning white, blue runic patterns slipping through keen edge and painting the air. I managed to lift it, the blade a bar between me and the Devil facing his eldest son.
The red lights were still flickering, sweeping over the entire building in their complicated patterns, eerie because there were no dancers. “You would have me believe—” Lucifer started. Stone and plaster shattered at the sound of his voice, dust pattering to the wracked floor.
Japhrimel interrupted him again. I felt only a weary wonder that he was still standing there, apparently untouched, his long black coat moving gently on the hot fire-breeze. “We were told by the Master of this city—your ally and Hellesvront agent—that you wished to meet Dante here alone. Did you lure your Right Hand here to kill her, Prince? Breaking your word, given on your ineffable Name? Such would conclude our alliance in a most unsatisfactory fashion.”
I could swear that Lucifer’s face went through surprise, disgust, and finally settled on wariness. He studied Japhrimel for a long, tense thirty seconds, during which my throat burned and tickled but I didn’t dare to cough.
Japh clasped his hands behind his back. He looked relaxed, almost bored. Except for the burning murderous light of his eyes, matching Lucifer’s shade for shade.
I stayed very still, my left arm cramping as my belly ran with pain and my right trembling as I held my sword. A small part of me wondered where Lucas was. The rest of me stared at Japhrimel with open wonderment.
If I survive this, I’m going to kiss him. Right after I punch the shit out of him for lying to me. If he lets me. The nastiness of the thought made me suddenly, deeply ashamed of myself. He was here, and he was facing Lucifer. For me.
He had given up Hell. He had also taken me to Toscano and let me heal from the psychic rape of Mirovitch’s ka, protecting me from dangers I hadn’t had the faintest idea existed. He was loyal to me after all.
In his own fashion.
Lucifer finally seemed to decide. The flames among the shattered wreckage twisted into angular shapes as some essential tension leached out of him. “I rue the day I set you to watch over her, Eldest.” The darkness in his face didn’t fade, however—it intensified, a psychic miasma.
The tickling in my throat reached a feverish pitch. I had to cough, shoved the urge down, prayed for strength. Anubis, please don’t let me attract their attention. Both of them look too dangerous right now.
Japhrimel shrugged. “What is done, is done.” His voice pitched a little higher, as if he imitated Lucifer. Or was quoting him.
The Prince of Hell set his jaw. One elegant hand curled into a fist, and perhaps the other one was a fist too, but I couldn’t see it. I think it was the first time I saw the Devil speechless, and my jaw would have dropped if I hadn’t clenched it, trying not to cough. I took a fresh grip on my belly, trying not to hunch over. I wanted to see, needed to see. My sword held steady even though my hand was shaking, the blade singing a thin comforting song as its heart glowed white.
He finally seemed to regain himself. “You deserve each other,” he hissed. “May you have joy of it. Bring me back my possession and eliminate those who would keep it from me, Tierce Japhrimel, or I will kill both of you. I swear it.”
Japhrimel’s eyes flared. “That was not our bargain, my lord.”
Lucifer twitched. Japhrimel didn’t move, but the mark twisted white-hot fire into my shoulder, a final burst of Power. The urge to cough mercifully retreated a little. I blinked drying demon blood out of my eyes. I wanted to look for Lucas.
I couldn’t look away from my Fallen. He stood tense and ready, in front of the Devil.
“I am the Prince of Hell,” Lucifer said coldly.
“And I was your Eldest.” Japhrimel held Lucifer’s eyes as the air itself cried out, a long gasping howl of a breeze coming from them, blowing my hair back. I felt the stiffness—blood and dust matted in my hair. I was filthy, and I ached. I stayed where I was. “I was the Kinslayer. Thus you made me, and you cast me away. I am yours no longer.”
“I made you.” The air itself screamed as the Prince of Hell’s voice tore at it. “Your allegiance is mine.”
“My allegiance,” Japhrimel returned, inexorably quiet, “is my own. I Fell. I am Fallen. I am not your son.”
One last burst of soft killing silence. I struggled to stay still.
Lucifer turned on his heel. The world snapped back into normalcy. He strode for the gaping hole torn in the front of the nightclub. Red neon reflected wetly off the street outside. A flick of his golden fingers, and the hellhounds loped gracefully after him, one stopping to snarl back over its shoulder at me.
Well, now I can guess who sent the hellhounds. Probably Lucifer himself, to make sure I fulfilled my intended role as bait. You bastard. You filthy bastard. I sagged. My sword dipped, and the urge to cough rose again. It felt like a plasgun core had been dropped into my gut.
The Prince stopped, turned his head so I could see his profile. “Japhrimel.” His voice was back to silk and honey, terrible in its beauty. “I give you a promise, my Eldest. One day, I will kill her.”
Lucifer disappeared. Vanished. The air tried to heal itself, closing over the space where he had been, and failed. He left a scorch on the very fabric of existence.
Japhrimel was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed forward. He didn’t look at me. I was glad, because his face was full of something terrible, irrevocable, and devouring.
“Not while I watch over her,” he said softly.
Chapter 40
I finally coughed, a racking fit that ended with me spitting more black blood. It felt like I’d been torn in half. My legs were made of insensate clay. I doubted I’d be able to stand.
Japhrimel knelt beside me, caught my right wrist and pushed my sword away with simple pressure. He said nothing, but immediately slid his other hand under my left arm, pressed flat against my shirt. His fingers burned.
A jolt of Power seared through me. I cried out, hunching over, and retched; a deep, amazing hacking sound. He swore, passionlessly, and I tipped into his arms as the awful tearing agony went away. All right. Everything’s going to be all right. He’s here. The ludicrous, childlike certainty welled up, I choked back tears.
Right then I didn’t care what he’d done to me before. I was just damn glad he’d shown up in time.
He kissed my forehead, my cheek, hugged me. Spoke into my hair. “A’tai, hetairae A’nankimel’iin. Diriin.” His voice was ragged now. “Why, Dante? Why?”
What are you asking me for? I’m just trying to stay alive. I hitched in a breath. Another. It rasped terribly against my abused throat. What was it with demons and crushing my trachea? “Lucas,” I rasped. “Took on Lucifer… is he—”
“Check for the Deathless,” Japhrimel said over his shoulder. “Hurry.”
Who else is here? The thought was very far away. Shaking. Shivers roaring through me. Why? I wasn’t cold. “J-j-j-japh—”
“Be silent. You’re hurt, and you need rest.” His tone was clipped now. “Do not fight me, now.”
“Japhrimel—” I tried to tell him. “I… I saw… before—”
He didn’t listen. “No more of this.”
I tipped into blackness, but not before I heard Lucas’s wheezing voice.
“Goddammit, that hurt. Get your ass moving, we have a transport to catch.”
Long hazy time of darkness. When I woke, slowly, I found myself on my side. Warmth closed over me, and softness. Power pulsed down my skin, sank in, ran along my bones. I heard Japhrimel’s voice, quiet, saying something in his native tongue. Something stroked my forehead, a touch that sent a sweet gentle fire through my entire body. He traced my hairline, touched my cheek, ran his knuckle over my lips.
Hoverwhine. I felt the peculiar humming sensation of antigrav transport. Was I on a hover?
I don’t think I like hovers anymore.
I opened my eyes. Dim light greeted me. I felt my swordhilt, both hands locked around it. The sword lay with me, its subliminal hum of Power good and right against my palms.
Japhrimel moved as soon as I looked up at him, straightening and stepping back. I was on a medunit table bolted to a wall behind a partition, and the curve of the plasteel walls told me it was a fairly good-sized hover. The table was hard, but I wasn’t being strangled and I didn’t feel ripped in half. I was still breathing, and I had all my original appendages.
It felt great. I closed my eyes, opened them again, and he was still there.
“Gods,” I rasped. “I’m glad to see you.”
He managed to look surprised and gratified at once, his saturnine face easing. “Then I am happy. You are well and whole, your friend Lucas has mended, and McKinley and Vann are no worse for wear. Tiens will meet us in Giza. The humans have gone back to their lives, except for your Necromance.” His mouth turned down slightly at the mention of Leander.
I nodded. It was getting hazardous to hang around me, and humans were fragile.
I felt only a twinge of guilt for thinking that. After all, I’d been wholly human once, hadn’t I?
Was Japhrimel right? Was it no more than a habit? I didn’t want to think so. I was human inside, where it counted.
He leaned forward, his eyes still bright and green. I examined his face as he examined mine, something new in the silence between us.
He broke it first, for once. “He could have killed you.”
I nodded, my hair sliding along a crisp cotton pillowcase. Where had the pillow come from? “He certainly wanted to.” The question spilled out of me. “Did you hunt the Fallen, Japhrimel?”
He froze. I would never get used to his particular quality of stillness, as if his very molecules had slowed their frenetic dance. Then his face darkened. It was all the answer I needed.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” It came out plaintive instead of angry. I was too emotionally exhausted to be angry. “If you would just talk to me—”
“I see no reason to tell you of every assassination I committed at the behest of the Prince.” There was no mercy in his tone; it scorched with bitterness not directed at me. “Why will you not trust me? Is it so hard to do as I ask?”
You could make me do whatever you wanted; you could force me. You probably will. And I’ll fight however I can, no matter how much I love you. You can’t control me. “I want to trust you,” I whispered. “You make it hard.” I had one last question. “Did Lucifer offer you your place in Hell back if you got rid of me?”
He stared at me for an endless moment. Then comprehension lit his face, comprehension and savage anger. “Vardimal’s Androgyne.”
“She wanted to meet me.” I opened my mouth to tell him the other half of it—that she’d said she was my daughter too—and shut my lips.
He didn’t need to know that. That was private. That was human, between Doreen and me. It was mine.
“Ah. Now it makes sense.” Japhrimel straightened, and turned away from me. His shoulders shook, stiffly. He tipped his head back, his inky hair falling away from his forehead, and I felt the slight tremor that raced through the hover.
“Japhrimel?” I didn’t expect him to listen, but he did. “Please, don’t.”
His reaction told me everything I needed to know. He hadn’t kept the knowledge of Eve’s escape from me, he hadn’t even known. I was willing to believe it.
Are you believing it just because you want to, or because it makes sense?
I didn’t care.
The earthquake of his fury eased. I could barely tell anyone else was on the hover, it was so silent.
When he turned back to me, I almost flinched. His upper lip drew back, exposing his teeth; his eyes were incandescent. He looked far more lethal than Velokel the Bull. “An Androgyne out of Hell,” he said tightly. “Of course. Of course. I suppose the Hunter and the Twins are in league with her?”
“I think so.” I freed my right hand from my swordhilt, started to push myself up on my elbow. The softness—it was one of the new microfiber spaceblankets, warm and soft at the same time—crinkled as it folded down. He was immediately there, helping me; I felt clean, my clothes were soft as if freshly laundered. Probably cleaned off with Power; he knew how I hated to be dirty. I was vaguely surprised to find my sword had a new reinforced sheath, deep indigo lacquer. “Japhrimel, she asked me to distract you. To just wait out the next seven years and pretend we can’t find her. She wants to—”
“She is in rebellion against the Prince.” He stroked my hair back from my face with his free hand as he steadied me. “She cannot possibly win. She is young, untutored, without any support.”
“She can win if you help her. You’re…” I couldn’t believe I’d said it, and apparently neither could he, because he set his jaw and looked away, a muscle flicking in his golden cheek.
“No.” Just the one word, forced out through his lips.
“Japhrimel—” Please, I was going to say. I was going to plead, to beg if that was what it came to. Stopped myself just in time. Begging was weakness.
But she was part Doreen’s, and part mine. It was worth any weakness if I could make him understand, if I could convince him to help me.
He spoke before I could muster the words. “You are asking me to endanger your life by throwing our lot in with a rebellion that cannot possibly succeed. No, Dante. I will not risk you.”
“Lucifer wants to kill me anyway.” It came out flat and hopeless. What chance did I have if the Devil wanted me dead?
“I can keep him from you.” His hand bit into my shoulder. “Have I not kept him from you so far?”
Oh, Japh. Please. Help me out here. “She only asked, Japh. She didn’t demand, she didn’t manipulate, she didn’t force me. She just asked.”
That seemed to make him even angrier. “She’s demon. We lie, my curious one, in case you have not noticed.”
Oh, I’ve noticed. Believe me, I’ve learned to count on it. “What about you?”
He leaned in close, his nose an inch from mine, his eyes filling mine with green light just like the wristcuff’s warnings. “Judge me by what I do. Have I not always kept faith with you?”
I opened my mouth to retort, but he had a point. All I had to do was breathe to understand the answer to that particular question. “The Master Nichtvren didn’t say it was Lucifer, he just said it was a demon with a green gem. You did lie.”
No response. My heart pounded. You gave up Hell for me, and you just lied to the Prince of Hell for me. “You lied to protect me from the Devil. And you pushed him back. You stopped him.”
He shrugged, his coat moving with a whispering sound. Said nothing.
I reached up with my right hand, touched his face. He sighed, closing his eyes. Leaned into my fingers.
If he hadn’t been so close, I might have missed the single tear that slipped out beneath his eyelashes and tracked down his cheek in the semi-darkness.
Oh, Japhrimel. My heart broke. I could actually feel it cracking apart inside my chest.
“What am I going to do with you?” I managed around the lump in my throat. “You tried to force me to do what you wanted. You hurt me.”
His face contorted, I smoothed his mouth down with my fingers. “I am sorry,” he breathed. He leaned into me, his lips brushing my skin so that he kissed my hand with each word. “I should not have, I know I should not have. I was afraid. Afraid of harm coming to you.”
Oh, gods. I traced the arch of his cheekbone, the shape of his bottom lip. Felt the tension go out of him as I leaned forward, pressed my lips to his smooth golden cheek. “You idiot,” I whispered, my lips moving against his skin. “I love you. Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
He flinched as if I’d hit him. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “Do
not doubt me.”
He’d actually apologized. Miracles were coming thick and fast now.
I couldn’t say anything through the lump of stone in my throat, but I nodded. I swallowed a few times.
When his eyes opened again, I almost gasped, their green was so intense. He studied me up-close, then pressed a gentle kiss onto my cheek. He made sure I was steady, sitting up, then straightened, backed up two steps and clasped his hands behind his back. “You’re hungry. We land in half an hour.”
Understanding flashed between us. His eyes said, Forgive me. Teach me how to do this. You are the only one who can.
My heart leapt. Just trust me, and don’t doubt me either. That’s all I need from you.
There was more, but I couldn’t have put it into words. The softening in his mouth told me he understood. For that one split second, at least, we were in total accord. My heart twisted inside my chest and my cheeks flamed with heat. Whatever Fallen meant, Japhrimel loved me. Hadn’t he proved it enough?
The rest could wait.
I nodded. Held up my sword. “Thank you. For the scabbard.” My voice was back to rough honey, granular gold. Soothing.
That wasn’t all I was thanking him for, and he knew it.
His slight smile rewarded me. Then he reached up, opening a small metal stasis cabinet. He lifted down something small but apparently heavy and took a single step forward, handing it to me. I had to lay my sword down to accept it. “A small gift, for my beloved.”
He vanished through the opening in the partition as I brought my hands down and found them full of a familiar weight. The statue was obsidian, glowing mellowly through a scrim of heat-scarring from the fire that had destroyed our house. The woman sat, calmly, Her lion’s head set firmly atop Her body, the sun-disc of hammered gold still shining. I could see traceries of Power, careful repair work, where Japhrimel had spent his demon-given Power to repair the weakening of molecular bonds the reaction fire had caused. It would have taken unimaginable Power and precision to repair the glassy obsidian, phenomenal strength and inhuman concentration.
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