What, you're expecting more? I set the cup down on a slice of table snugged into the chair's side. "What happens now?" I sounded like a kid again, breathy and scared.
"Now we pick up the pieces." He tilted his head slightly, indicating the front of the hover, Japhrimel in whispered conference with Vann and Tiens, Kgembe slumped asleep in a foldout chair bolted to the hull, Lucas leaning on the hull at the periphery of that conversation, his yellow eyes trained on me.
I swallowed hard. The hover bounced a little, the AI piloting since Tiens was now leaning closer to Japh, making some earnest point. The Nichtvren's gaze flicked to me and away, and he brought one fist softly into the palm of his other hand for emphasis.
My sword lay across my knees, the metal quiescent and shining only as much as ordinary steel. It had rammed through Lucifer's chest, and still remained intact. The Knife lay on the table, its slow song of grief and rage sounding more and more foreign.
My eyes drifted closed. The coffee sloshed. I drifted, my fingers and toes gone cold and rubbery. The broken places inside my head shivered, too tired to even try knitting together.
For a long time I rocked like that, my head lolling against the back of the seat, the bumps and jostles of the hover a cradle's soft movement. I heard raised voices, and Japhrimel's tone suddenly cutting through the cotton wool surrounding me. He said something short and sharp, and all discussion ceased.
Not too long afterward, someone touched my dirty, dust-caked hair. The fingers were gentle, and I opened my eyes to see Japh standing over me, his face drawn and thoughtful. My left shoulder twitched, as if a fishhook in the flesh had been pulled.
"Can you stand?"
He might as well have asked if I could fly.
I grabbed the arms of the chair. Braced myself, tensed, and managed to push myself up with a low sound of effort, my right hand scooping up Fudoshin's hilt.
Japhrimel steadied me with one hand, picked up the Knife with the other, using only his fingertips and wincing slightly. "I shall have Vann make another sheath for this."
I shook my head, the entire hover tilting as I did. "You keep it. I don't want it." I'd say give it to Lucas, but I don't know if he wants it either.
Japhrimel paused. He glanced over his shoulder. Lucas had closed his eyes, leaning against the hull and listening while McKinley said something to Tiens, the Nichtvren casting a dubious look at me.
I didn't care anymore.
His hand fell away from my arm. I swayed. "Where are we going?"
"I thought you might prefer a bed. Such as it is." His eyes caught fire, but his face was merely set and thoughtul. "Dante."
I set my jaw. A bed. Just one more thing, and I can sleep for a week. That'd be nice. "Japhrimel."
Then I can start untangling the rest of this mess. All those things I swore I'd do once I finished. All, those promises I made.
The pain wouldn't go away. It was right under my ribs, my heart caught in a nest of splinters. All my friends were dead, and so was the Devil.
Why didn't I feel any better?
The hover bounced. McKinley finished what he was saying, and silence folded through the interior.
All eyes on you, Danny. Do something.
I took an experimental step. Swayed. Japhrimel moved restlessly, but I waved his hand away. I'd make it to the bed on my own, goddammit. One thing at a time.
Why don't I feel better? Tears rose in my throat, prickled behind my eyes. Why?
"Valentine. ' Lucas, his whisper half-strangled.
I stopped, tensed, and waited. The hand that can hold the Knife has faced fire and not been consumed, has walked in death and returned, a hand given strength beyond its ken.
Had there truly been a prophecy? Or was it just absurdity? He was the Deathless, but Eve had thought I was the Key.
Had I been? Would I ever know?
What he said next bordered on the absurd. "We even?"
Even? How the hell could we be even? I tried to kill you; you were working for everyone except me — but you killed Lucifer. And you gave me back the Knife. Even doesn't happen in this kind of situation.
An exotic thought stopped me. I considered it, in my exhaustion-fogged state. Thought about it for a long while, as the hover rose and fell, its gyros coping with various stresses.
"Valentine? Are we even?" Tension under his throat-cut whisper, I could almost feel his entire body tightening.
Amazing. Was Lucas Villalobos asking if we were still friends?
I never thought I'd live to see the day.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, now. If I could live without knowing some things, I could live with calling Lucas Villalobos something other than an enemy. "We're still friends, Lucas. If that's what you're asking."
Nobody moved. I barely even breathed.
"Good 'nough." Villalobos sounded relieved; and my heart eased, a sudden convulsive movement. "Get some rest."
Not all my friends are dead. I followed the hem of Japhrimel's coat, stumbling with exhaustion and clutching Fudoshin's hilt. When the door closed behind us and he took me in his arms, I found tears running hot and thick down my cheeks.
For once that didn't matter, either. "Where are we going?"
"Santiago City, Dante. Your home. Ours, now."
Epilogue
The city lies under its pall of orange light and fog, sheets of white coming up from the bay. It pulses, from the depths of the Tank to the spires of downtown, the financial district to the suburbs. Against the skyline, lines of hovertraffic slide between buildings in patterns almost random enough to practice divination with. You can spend a whole night up here, the curtains pulled back and the bulletproof plasglass dialed to maximum transparency, the entire room dark except for the red eye of the nursery monitor. Each night the sound of human breathing soothes me, a child's deep trustful sleep in a room guarded by two agents.
They take turns at her door.
In our house, a little human girl sleeps. She does not ask, anymore, when her mother is coming back. I know better than to think she's forgotten the question.
She has Eddie's golden curls and Gabe's wide dark eyes, and dimples when she smiles. Oddly enough, it's the demon she likes best; he is endlessly patient with her, willing to spend hours reading brightly colored primary books or playing small games designed to teach her how to control her gifts. Of course, she is a child of psions, and testing at birth returned a Matheson score almost as high as mine.
Her mother's will is explicit; I'm named as guardian and trustee. Gabe, with her inherent precision, reaching from beyond the grave to hold me to my promise. Love and obligation, the net that holds me here, all boiled down to a child's laugh and scattered toys.
Did I break the other promises so I could keep this one?
Do I want to know, if I did?
Tell me what you want, he says, and each time I shake my head. I take my sword into the long dimly lit practice room, its wooden floor smelling of workouts and its mirrored wall reflecting a body I no longer have to strain to control. The katas my teacher first taught me unfold, each movement precise and restrained.
Sometimes that control breaks, and the blackness infecting my mind leaks out. It is most often at night, and I will resurface to find myself in his arms, my throat aching with unshed screams and my body tense, stiff and wooden with the strain of holding it back.
If I can't, if it escapes me and I struggle, there is another net to hold me above the abyss. It is the net of a demon's arms, his hand cupping my skull to keep me from battering it to pieces, the grip he keeps on my wrists so I cannot claw my own eyes out.
We do not speak, those nights. I cannot stand the sound of another voice.
There are whispers.
The net of human and financial assets available to demons on earth is strangling in its own blood. The only ones safe from vengeance and chaos are vassals of another demon, one the new Prince does not control. They hear the whispers, and pass them on, safe in their scrupulous neut
rality. Kgembe visits each month with a report, and each time he studies me as if I am the answer to a question never asked.
Hell has never been quiet. Lucifer ruled with fear and iron discipline, torture and trickery. Ousting him from his throne was the easy part; now the new Prince must solidify her grip on power. She is young, and there are older and mightier among the Greater Flight. There are also those who might not believe Lucifer is quite dead.
He was, after all, the Prime. The alpha of demonkind, if not the omega.
The whispers are mounting. Magi have never found it so easy to break the walls between our world and Hell. It's a Renascence in their branch of magick, and precious few are looking for a sting in the tail of the gift. Those who question its provenance are told they don't have to participate. Psions are uneasy, and violent attacks on those with Power are at an all-time high.
If it's a chemical reaction, it's nowhere near finished yet. Even the cure for Clormen-13, that great drug blight of our time, hasn't helped. There are new drugs, and rumors of a high better than any drug — a high available, for a price, from new sources. Inhuman sources.
There's one more thing.
The urn sits on the mantelpiece, over the nivron fire I never turn on, in the bedroom where I sit at night and watch the city glow. It's black and wetly lacquered, a beautiful restrained demon artifact. It is full of cinnamon-scented ash.
Japhrimel and I do not speak of it.
The broken places inside my head are healing, slowly. I have not spoken to a god since the moment of spillskin ecstasy when they filled me, denying me, body and soul, from a demon's grasp. I can't call my faith lost, precisely. It's just… quiet.
Dormant. If it ever wakes, I'll light my candles and speak to my god again. I think He, of all creatures, understands.
On the other end of the mantel, set on a twisting stand of glass, a Knife of silken wood and grief hums sleepily to itself. Its point spears toward the urn, and sometimes it quivers a bit, as if sensing…
But that's impossible, isn't it? Lucifer was not Fallen. A Fallen's dormancy doesn't apply to him, does it?
It matters little. The Knife was made to kill demons, no matter how powerful. While we hold it, the weapon guarantees us some safety.
If the new Prince manages to hold Hell, we're safe. Or are we? Plot, counterplot, lies, and agendas.
If the new Prince doesn't hold Hell in check, what might happen? The walls between their world and ours grow thinner every day. And sometimes, when he thinks I'm not looking, my Fallen's face holds a familiar expression. Listening for a sound I can't hear, ready for a threat I can't imagine.
A Knife, and an urn full of ash. Right now the Knife is insurance, and the urn is… what? A token? A memento? Tomorrow they might be bargaining chips in a new game. And I have a daughter to keep safe now. A promise I will keep, even if it means playing their games again. I'll be better at it next time.
Much better.
I wait, and watch, and raise my best friend's daughter. Already there's an idea growing in the back of my mind, a little tickle of precognition, a plan I might have to put in play. Whoever occupies the throne of Hell, I hope they have sense enough to leave us alone.
Because if they don't…
… all Hell will break loose.
That's a promise I'll have no trouble keeping.
Glossary
Androgyne: 1. A transsexual, cross-dressing, or androgynous human. 2. (demon term) A Greater Flight demon capable of reproduction.
Animone: An accredited psion with the ability to telepathically connect with and heal animals, generally employed as veterinarians.
Anubis et'her ka: Egyptianica term, sometimes used as an expletive; loosely translated, "Anubis protect me/us."
A'nankhimel: (demon term) 1. A Fallen demon. 2. A demon who has tied himself to a human mate. Note: As with all demon words, there are several layers of meaning to this term, depending on context and pronunciation. The meanings, from most common to least, are as follows: descended from a great height, chained, shield, a guttering flame, a fallen statue.
Awakening, the: The exponential increase in psionic and sorcerous ability, academically defined as from just before the fall of the Republic of Gilead to the culmination of the Parapsychic and Paranormal Species Acts proposed and brokered by the alternately vilified and worshipped Senator Adrien Ferrimen. Note: After the culmination of the Parapsychic Act, the Awakening was said to have finished and the proportion of psionics to normals in the human population stabilized, though fluctuations occur in seventy-year cycles to this day.
A'zharak: (demon term) 1. Worm. 2. Lasso or noose. 3. A hand fitted into a glove.
Ceremonial: 1. An accredited psion whose talent lies in working with traditional sorcery, accumulating Power and «spending» it in controlled bursts. 2. Ceremonial magick, otherwise known as sorcery instead of the more organic witchery. 3. (slang) Any Greater Work of magick.
Clormen-13: (Slang: Chill, ice, rock smack dust) Addictive- alkaloid drug. Note: Chill is high-profit for the big companies as well as the Mob, being pharmaceutical instantly addictive. Rumors of a cure have surfaced.
Deadhead: 1. Necromance. 2. Normal human without psionic abilities.
Demon: 1. Any sentient, alien intelligence, either corporeal or noncorporeal, that interacts with humans. 2. Denizen of Hell, of a type often mistaken for gods or Novo Christer evil spirits; actually a sentient nonhuman species with technology, psionic, and magickal ability much exceeding humanity's. 3. (slang) A particularly bad physiological addiction.
Evangelicals of Gilead: 1. Messianic Old Christer and Judic cult started by Kochba bar Gilead and led by him until the signing of the Gilead Charter, when power was seized by a cabal of military brass just prior to bar Gilead's assassination. 2. Members of said cult. 3. (academic) The followers of bar Gilead before the signing of the Gilead Charter. See Republic of Gilead.
Feeder: 1. A psion who has lost the ability to process ambient Power and depends on «jolts» of vital energy stolen from other human beings, psions, or normals. 2. (psion slang) A fair-weather friend.
Flight: A class or social rank of demons. Note: There are, strictly speaking, three classes of demons: the Low, Lesser, and Greater. Magi most often deal with the higher echelons of the Low Flight and the lower echelons of the Lesser Flight. Greater Flight demons are almost impossible to control and very dangerous. Freetown: An autonomous enclave under a charter, neither Hegemony nor Putchkin but often allied to one or the other for economic reasons.
Hedaira: (demon term, borrowed from Old Graecia) 1. An endearment. 2. A human woman tied to a Fallen (A'nankhimel) demon. Note: There are several layers of meaning, depending on context and pronunciation. The meanings, from most common to least, are as follows: beloved, companion, vessel, starlight, sweet fruit, small precious trinket, an easily crushed bauble. The most uncommon and complex meaning can be roughly translated as "slave (thing of pleasure) who rules the master."
Hegemony: One of the two world superpowers, comprising North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, most of Western Europe, Japan, some of Central Asia, and scattered diplomatic enclaves in China. Note: After the Seventy Days War, the two superpowers settled into peace and are often said to be one world government with two divisions. Afrike is technically a Hegemony protectorate, but that seems mostly diplomatic convention more than anything else.
Ka: 1. (archaic) Soul or mirrorspirit, separate from the ka and the physical soul in Egyptianica. 2. Fate, especially tragic fate that cannot be avoided, destiny. 3. A link between two souls, where each feeds the other's destiny. 4. (technical) Terminus stage for Feeder pathology, an externalized hungry consciousness capable of draining vital energy from a normal human in seconds and a psion in less than two minutes.
Kobolding: (also: kobold) 1. Paranormal species characterized by a troll-like appearance, thick skin, and an affinity to elemental earth magick. 2. A member of the kobolding species
Left-Hand: Sorcerous disc
ipline utilizing Power derived from «sinister» means, as in bloodletting, animal or human sacrifice, or certain types of drug use (LeftHander: a follower of a Left-Hand path).
Ludder: 1. Member of the conservative Ludder Party. 2. A person opposed to genetic manipulation or the use of psionic talent, or both. 3. (slang) Technophobe. 4. (slang) hypocrite.
Magi: 1. A psion who has undergone basic training. 2. The class of occult practitioners before the Awakening who held and transmitted basic knowledge about psionic abilities and training techniques. 3. An accredited psion with the training to call demons or harness etheric force from the disturbance created by the magickal methods used to call demons; usually working in Circles or loose affiliations. Note: The term "Magus" is archaic and hardly ever used. "Magi" has become singular or plural, and neuter gender.
Master Niehtvren: 1. A Nichtvren who is free of obligation to his or her Maker. 2. A Nichtvren who holds territory.
Mentaflo genius: 1. An individual with a registered intelligence level above "exceptional," generally channeled into Hegemony or Putchkin high-level civil service. 2. A highly intelligent individual. 3. (slang) An individual who, while being "book-smart," lacks common sense.
Merican: The trade lingua of the globe and official language of the Hegemony, though other dialects are in common use. 2. (archaic) A Hegemony citizen. 3. (archaic) A citizen of the Old Merican region before the Seventy Days War.
Necromance: (slang: deadhead) An accredited psion with the ability to bring a soul back from Death to answer questions. Note: Can also, in certain instances, heal mortal wounds and keep a soul from escaping into Death.
Nichtvren: (slang: suckhead) Altered human dependent on human blood for nourishment. Note: Older Nichtvren may possibly live off strong emotions, especially those produced by psions. Since they are altered humans, Nichtvren occupy a space between humanity and "other species"; they are defined as members of a Paranormal Species and given citizen's rights under Adrien Ferrimen's groundbreaking legislation after the Awakening.
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