Jovienne

by Linda Robertson

  IN THE LATE afternoon, Araxiel arrived in San Francisco.

  After a bit of research, he decided to take lodging at The Archbishop’s Mansion. By the name alone, he figured it would be the last place an abhadhon would look for him if it came to hunting him down.

  He parked in the off-street lot and carried his overnight bag up the steps. Entering the mansion was like walking into a time tunnel. The antiques, columns, and wide wood of the trayed ceilings made for a cozy and serene setting.

  He checked in under the name Smith, paid cash for a week’s lodging and, after settling in to their most opulent suite—the former Archbishop’s personal rooms—he realized the sun would set in less than an hour. It was time for a walk.

  San Francisco was much colder than Miami.

  Araxiel hunched in his light jacket and pulled the pack of cigarettes from the pocket. He flipped the pack in his hand, trying to talk himself out of smoking one. Despite his efforts to maintain the health of this body, he did like the occasional smoke. Especially when he was tense.

  Hoping to meet an abhadhon made him very tense.

  He pulled out the cigarette and traded the pack for the lighter in his pocket.

  The easiest and most obvious method of making contact would be to follow the Call, which would happen soon, and show up when she faced a demon. But being on scene with an abhadhon already in kill-mode seemed unnecessarily reckless.

  He would prefer to cross her path in a more natural way, but he didn’t have the time to approach this like an adept and thorough stalker. To manufacture an innocuous meeting, he would need information. Local geist could accommodate that need, but they would as readily tell her about him when she questioned them, giving away his surprise advantage.

  He continued his walk, looking for inspiration around him. The San Francisco vibe reminded him of home. Multi-cultural, casual, and very walkable. It also had inflated parking costs, homeless, and some run-down spots. But it didn’t have the balmy southern heat.

  As he turned on Fulton Street, the Painted Ladies came into view. His eyes widened.

  In Miami, the temperature and the attempt to escape it dictated so many things. Pale colors were the norm because the sun bleached everything, anyway. But here, each of these famous homes were uniquely colorful.

  He paused mid-way up the hill and leaned against a lamp post to study the houses. Even in the dying light, they looked cheerful and inviting.

  Up the street, a young man exited a house. He meandered down the sidewalk, hands shoved into the pockets of a dark peacoat.

  Ignoring him, Araxiel brought the cigarette to his lips again, but as the fellow approached, he sensed something and faced the young man fully. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  The young man’s steps slowed. A lopsided smile appeared on his face. “No, sir. I don’t live here,” he said. “I’m visiting Father Everly.” He gestured toward the house he’d exited.

  Since the young man had assumed he owned one of these fine homes, Araxiel ran with it. He held out his hand. “I’m Dan. Dan Smith.”

  The fellow hesitated, and then clasped his hand. “I’m Nathan Marshall.”

  UNWILLING TO LET sleep reclaim her, Jovienne readied her gear for the evening. When she grabbed the sword sheath, however, she went still. In her mind’s eye, she saw the blade snap in Zaebos’ claw. She jerked the upper portion free and studied the edge of the break.

  It wasn’t a clean break. The edges were ragged and ugly. She stalked into her bedroom and cast the broken top half under her couch bed. The bottom half hurled from the sheath and skittered across the floor to join the first.

  She selected another sword, a spatha. It was not unlike the gladius, except a little longer and with a bit more of a handguard. It was placed under the open roof alongside her gloves. A pair of daggers were added to the pile of what she’d wear when she left tonight. She slipped a few into the sheaths built into the pants under the chainmail reinforced sections.

  Thus ready, she began working through her practice routines, sweating and shouting in effort to silence the echo of Zaebos saying, “Aww, poor Jovienne. What do you want?”

  It was working, until a series of kicking maneuvers ended with her facing the doors that led to the lower level.

  When she first came here she’d known what she wanted.

  She tore away the makeshift security measures and threw open the doors. For a moment, she stood staring at the steps. Down there, only days ago, she’d started a new life by entering this building. She’d known so much…and so little.

  Shoulders squared, she marched down and crossed the expanse of this dirty and forsaken place to stride into the entrance hall. She halted before the front-most doors. There, she stared down at her footprint in the dust.

  What she’d wanted when she took that step was to pass her test. It was the only thing she knew to want.

  Wishes couldn’t make her forget the awful things she’d learned since crossing that threshold. Nothing would erase what had been done. There was no going back. The only path was forward.

  But this immortal life spent pursuing demons at dusk. Sunset. Fight. Kill. Night after night like clockwork—it wasn’t a life worth having. How did the others do it?

  Maybe God didn’t make them kill people they loved in their tests.

  When she’d thought that Andrei was training her to work for the church, she’d expected to be researching and recovering lost religious artifacts or maybe tracking down known but not-yet-discovered ones. Sure, she’d wondered what she would do if she had to work in some small foreign village where there were no tall buildings to climb and escape the thunder of the dusk drums, but that, she’d thought, would be the biggest of her problems. Even when Andrei told her she would be hunting demons, she’d thought it would be an occasional thing, slaying demons summoned by people who didn’t know what they were doing. She’d never dreamed it would be the daily grind.

  These ideas had been extrapolated from what she was being taught. Now that she knew the truth, though, what was there for her if she escaped? What if she actually found a way to walk away from this life? Then what?

  There was no definitive answer, but she wanted the freedom to explore and discover that for herself.

  She turned and sat, succumbing to drowsiness with her back against the sun-warmed door. Her eyes shut.

  The drumming jerked her awake. The urge to dance was strong, but she remained seated. Her head fell back against the door. She would stay put and let the drums play as they would. When the cinder finished, the Call would direct her and she would answer. Until then, she could remain still and listen.

  But another sound came. The shuffle of feet.

  She called the leathery wings even as she stood and drew the spatha in one motion.

  A cinder was here.

  It stopped at the end of the hallway. Cowering like a beaten dog it advanced a single, normal-speed step. The jaw moved and that sandpaper voice scratched from the mouth.

  Jovienne made a face. It hurt to hear it. She couldn’t imagine the pain of trying to speak with dried, dead vocal chords. Then her heart jumped.

  It’s trying to communicate with me.

  Jovienne hit the lever to open the door behind her. Though the chains on the outside had fallen when she’d entered for her test, they had found their original placement once again.

  Trapped, she spun back to the cinder. Even at this distance, the stench made her gag. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand, but held the spatha ready.

  The hall was narrow. Analyzing the cinder’s position to plot a way past it, she realized that none of its actions were hostile. In fact, it moved human-slow and kept its head down, angled enough that those eerie eyeless sockets could watch her.

  The drums rumbled as it slowly advanced.

  Don’t do your work here. Don’t include me.

  It stopped ten feet away and crouched, half-fleshed arms moving to place something on the floor. It touched the back of its neck, t
hen dropped something on the floor beside the other item.

  The cinder stood and backed from the hall, then quickened straight across the depository interior, up the wall and out one of the high broken windows.

  Jovienne breathed a sigh of relief and sheathed the heavy spatha. She pushed away from the door and she waited until the drums faded before she inched toward the items the cinder had left behind.

  What she recognized first was her throwing star.

  That’s what it pulled from its neck!

  This was the same cinder that called up her test demon. It could have retaliated.

  Her gaze moved to the other, larger object. Unable to discern what the ash-covered object was, she used the toe of her boot to turn it over.

  Though filthy, she recognized her favorite doll, the grass-skirted one that had fallen into a cinder’s portal when she was just a child.

  How—?

  The cinders couldn’t remember her. Couldn’t know that some random doll had once been her own, her favorite. Couldn’t have kept it all these years…waiting.

  With a shudder, she sidestepped it and ran from the hall. She raced up the steps and slammed the doors behind her. The Call would trigger her any second, but she took the time to reset the daggers in the floor and shove the two-by-four in place through the handles. She belted on the weapons she’d laid out, and then shoved her hands into the gloves as she took to the air.

  She circled the city, anticipating the command that would guide her to a demon she was meant to destroy. As the minutes wore on, she yearned for the sensation of grace that accompanied her compliance, but without the Call there was no obedience to give and no reward to earn. She flew another circuit, then landed atop the Transamerica Pyramid. The Call never came.

  This had to be wrong.

  There had been a cinder. While it had not immediately raised a demon, it surely did so after it left her. That was what cinders did.

  Maybe the darkblood was like an infection, causing damage slowly. Maybe it interfered with her quintanumin so she couldn’t sense demons because she carried a part of them within her.

  But, if that were true, God would punish her for not seeking out the demon.

  Unless the infusion kept Him from it.

  In which case, Damnzel would take action and come to bitch about it.

  She covered her face with gloved hands. This was maddening!

  She must resolve once and for all whether or not she had been damaged by the infusion. The only way she knew to prove if the quintanumin was functioning meant opening a Hellgate. Doing so would both sate her yearning for the grace of compliance and answer her question. But the seraph had ordered her to cease and desist. And, she had no idea what effect the darkblood flowing through her would have.

  If the demons take you through the door you cannot be rescued.

  SIXTEEN

  JOVIENNE CIRCLED THE junkyard, weighing in her mind if the knowledge she sought was worth the risk.

  She couldn’t spend eternity wondering, doubting. She had to know what was happening inside her, but a seraph would come. She might learn that the quintanumin worked fine, only to have it taken from her.

  I should be so lucky.

  Neither God nor Lucifer was ever going to forget about her.

  This had to be done.

  Identifying the ideal spot among the aisles of deteriorating metal, Jovienne angled her wings for a landing inside the junkyard. She’d used motor oil from the shed last time; this time she tore the washer fluid container from a Chevrolet Corsica and siphoned gasoline from the crane.

  Recalling the bullish brute she’d faced before, she poured the outer circle wider and made the Hellgate circle smaller. Then, Jovienne performed her summoning ritual. The mixture marking her circle flickered into flames. The odor of burning gas filled her nostrils. Her flesh prickled and every hair stood on end in response to the static crackling in the air.

  Caught within the circle, she could not leave, but neither could anything she called up until she unspoke the circle or was dead. The elementals had sealed her in and the world out.

  She clenched her gloved hands, rolled her shoulders, and drew the spatha. “Come forth!” she shouted. “I offer one chance—”

  Before she could finish, a red Whippet-sized demon wormed up through the hole. As it rolled free, a second, holding tight to the tail of the first, followed. And a third. And a fourth. She rushed two steps forward to scrape her boot across the circle to break it. A fifth was cut in half as the Hellgate slammed shut.

  The four demons darted at her legs. Jovienne leapt away, but it wasn’t an attack. The four converged on the remains of the fifth. She heard wet sucking sounds as they ate their fallen comrade.

  Mouth agape, Jovienne watched, motionless. The doorway was open but a crack and they’d slithered through before she was finished. They’d been waiting.

  Her heart thudded. Four. Four imps. She’d have to destroy their hearts.

  They weren’t big, but she hadn’t anticipated being outnumbered. While they focused on eating, she advanced, stabbing with the spatha.

  The demons scattered.

  Like an evil quartet, they were identical in appearance with gaping mouths filled with rows of triangular teeth. Their eyes were yellow spheres bulging from small sockets threatening to burst in a magma spray. Fleshy pointed noses sniffed at her, flaring to sample the scent of her.

  The demons clicked their claws together and reached for her, stalking forward on little cloven hooves. “You’re coming with us.”

  “The Hellgate is closed.”

  “For tonight.”

  Jovienne swiped again. It was an awkward move, but far-reaching.

  The demons leapt backwards, and then rushed forward in the blade’s wake. “Take her! Hold her!”

  Swiftly, she retreated, adding a spin that swung the sword over her head and brought it into position again. She kept her back to the circle wall. Her new favorite dagger, the lion-headed one with a well, slipped into her other hand. She leveled both weapons at the demons. The foursome charged.

  Jovienne let the dagger fly. Her aim was on target for its heart, but the demon ducked, taking the dagger in the face. A gelatinous yellow gush of magma erupted from its eye socket.

  She kicked another demon in the head and sent it slamming against a third demon even as she thrust her wing forward to shield herself from the thick spurt from the other one’s eye. The spray hit the leathery wing and rolled off without burning her. Good to know. The fourth demon avoided the spatha by rolling.

  The demons regrouped and rushed her. She leapt in a high somersault over their heads. Anticipating her landing, they turned and rushed back before she’d touched down. Jovienne beat her wings to rise up, but the still air in the circle made flying difficult. She threw another dagger. The foremost demon flung itself backwards to avoid the weapon.

  While that one picked itself up, she dropped low, sword swinging at the second closest and kicking the third one across the circle. The second one ducked, preferring to decapitate itself than take a sword to the heart. It would take a moment for it to sludge down and reform.

  The third demon scurried over to hunker over the headless second. The first jerked the lion-headed dagger from the eye socket of the fourth, and crouched over the twitching demon. At first Jovienne thought they were being protective of their fallen friends and meant to keep her away, but they did not growl at her. Instead, these demons devoured their fallen comrades, swallowing un-chewed chunks.

  She advanced on the third, but the first charged at her. When she turned to face it, that demon retreated to take another bite of its fallen comrade while the third charged at her. She’d never been taught about this cannibalistic behavior, but she understood they were working her to ensure they ate for some reason, and it was not likely to benefit her. She drew and threw stars.

  They avoided her attacks, but tore open the chests of their comrades to eat the hearts. She didn’t have to worry, the dow
ned demons would reform and return—

  The two standing demons shuddered and squealed, doubling their size. Feeding on the others had allowed them to reform themselves without sludging down or transforming into chrysalis stage.

  They stood on opposite sides of the circle. Attacking one meant exposing her back to the other.

  For a few heartbeats, she weighed her options. In that time, their eyes sank into the now larger skulls and their lips curled back from fleshy noses. One assumed a magenta color. The other remained red. Though larger targets, they were barrel-chested. Their hearts would be deeper inside.

  She stabbed the spatha’s tip into the ground and threw a pair of stars from each hand, aiming to herd the pair closer.

  Red moved as expected to avoid the stars, but Magenta threw itself to the ground. Jovienne grabbed the sword and rushed forward. She was on target to stab deep into Red’s heart, but Magenta got up faster than expected. Jovienne altered her path to plant a leaping kick on Magenta’s head.

  That move should have forced Magenta down. It should have and given Jovienne momentum toward Red. But instead Magenta forced her right toward Red’s arms. Pumping her wings, Jovienne shot upward, but not high enough. Red grabbed Jovienne’s left leg. Magenta’s claws hooked in the chainmail and restrained her right leg.

  “We’re going to enjoy keeping you until tomorrow night,” Red growled.

  Desperate, Jovienne pumped her wings and swiped the spatha at Red, who dived to the side as a long gash appeared on its chest. Jovienne flew up as Red’s grip slipped away, but Magenta’s strong claws held firm until the silver links of mail tore free. Jovienne’s leather pants ripped to expose her lower thigh and knee. For an instant, she thought she was free, but Magenta’s hold re-firmed around her ankle.

  Jovienne tried to gain altitude, but Magenta was too heavy to carry. Red lurched up, trying to grab a wing. Jovienne swung her sword as Magenta jerked hard on her leg.

  If they coordinate—