Dante Valentine

  “Dante,” she said quietly. “I’ve brought you clothes. And explanations.”

  “The h-hellhounds.” I sounded like a little girl. The wristcuff above my datband glowed green. “Velokel?”

  “Only one was ours, and only supposed to find you so I could speak with you. The other, I do not know. Kel would not harm you, Dante. He knows how much you mean to me.”

  Is that why he tried to tear my head open like a sodaflo can? My throat was dry. “You have Japh.”

  She nodded. “It was a stroke of luck, capturing instead of killing him.” Her pale hair didn’t ruffle, it was as sleek as a silken cap. Her skin glowed, burnished gold. “I’d hoped you would be able to distract him.”

  Me too. “He’s persistent.” The thin trickle of heat in my belly made my stomach turn. I am not a sexwitch. I do not respond this way to Power.

  But I did, didn’t I? After all, I was staring at her, at the shape of her lips, filling my lungs with the scent of her. Fresh bread, musk, and demon, a smell that whipsawed me between terror and desire, a smell that made it difficult to think straight. Pheromones like a sexwitch, drenching the air. She smelled like Lucifer, but she didn’t scare me the way he did.

  She sighed. “We’ve had a difficult time evading the Eldest.”

  “You and me both. He kept putting me to sleep without my realizing it. I asked him not to hunt you, Eve. I begged him not to hunt you, and not to lie to me.” I sound like a whiny three-year-old. But it was suddenly very important for Doreen’s daughter to understand I’d tried my best to keep him away from her.

  She made an expressive gesture with one hand, brushing away the need to explain. “Demons lie, Dante. It’s in the nature of the thing.” Her lips quirked up into a half-smile, my own expression, familiar. Was it true? Was she also my daughter, the sample Santino took from Doreen contaminated with my blood as well?

  Doreen’s daughter, Gabe’s daughter. Both mothers dead and depending on me.

  How am I going to pull this one off? My mouth was dry, my lips cracked. “You too?”

  “Maybe. I suppose you’ll have to figure out if you can trust me. There are no guarantees.” She held up the handful of material, jeans and something else. “I brought you fresh clothes. Then I’ll take you to see the Eldest.”

  My throat closed up. He’s here. In the same building, maybe? The mark was numb, maybe because whatever they have him trapped in cuts him off from me? “What if I don’t want to see him?” It was a rusty croak. The light caressed her face, ran its fingers over her hair, touched the arc of her golden neck where the pulse beat.

  She shrugged. “How else are you going to know if I’m lying?”

  I tore my eyes away from her face, away from the slope of her breasts under the crisp white cotton. My eyes fell on my sword’s curved length, resting against the velvet in the glowing indigo sheath Japhrimel had given me. “I have a revenge to do.” I still sounded like a little girl; high and squeaky, and breathless.

  “I won’t force you, Dante. I’ll ask for your support, but I won’t force you.” She approached quietly, cloth whispering as she laid the clothes on the end of the bed. “Your weapons are there, on the floor. Whenever you’re ready, you may go on your way or see the Eldest, as you wish. If you decide to… to throw your lot in with us, we’ll welcome you. You killed a hellhound; there’s not many that could have done so.”

  It almost killed me too, it was trying to take my heart out through my ribs the hard way. “The h-hellhound was t-trying t-t-to—”

  “The one we sent was supposed to find you and bring you to us, not harm you. I’m sorry, Dante. Events have become… complex.”

  Complex. I was getting to hate that word. When someone said it’s getting complex, the translation usually was Danny Valentine’s about to get screwed.

  My head hurt. I had revenge to accomplish and Gabe’s daughter to collect; I didn’t have time for demon games.

  My heart thudded behind my breastbone. “Leander. And Lucas. The demon—”

  “The demon who brought you to us was uninterested in the others, Dante. Or so he told us. I believe he was led to you in a manner I would not quite agree with.” I felt more than heard her back away, toward the door. “Kel mistreated you, and for that I am sorry. I will punish him, if you like.”

  Oh, gods. I shook my head, speechless. Leave me the hell out of this. I don’t need another demon mad at me.

  “If you like,” she repeated, patiently.

  “No,” I whispered. Where did they go? Did they sense the demon coming? Gods grant they got out of there in time. I shuddered again, ice water creeping through my veins. I wasn’t thinking straight. “No,” I repeated, louder.

  The gods knew I didn’t want to make another demon enemy. Just add it to my laundry list, the merry voice of unreason chirped brightly inside my skull. I choked down a maniacal giggle.

  “As you like.” She paused. “If you change your mind, all you have to do is tell me.”

  I shook my head again, and she retreated.

  When she closed the door with a quiet click, I scrambled up out of the bed to get dressed. My legs were a little shaky but still solid, and once I had clothes on I felt a lot better. If I kept moving, the vision of Eddie’s shattered body—and the vision of Gabe’s broken, battered, bloody one—wouldn’t torture me so much. If I could just keep moving I might be able to get through this.

  The clothes were… well, they were almost certainly Eve’s. The sweater was too big for me, as was the silk T-shirt. But they were clean, and the jeans fit, and the boots were my size even if they were too new. They would need hard use before they were good.

  My head gave an amazing flare of pain, so did my left shoulder. I crouched at the foot of the bed for a little while with my sword in my hands and my forehead pressed into the velvet of the coverlet. The shivers and hyperventilating finally stilled. Even my god was silent. There was no blue glow, no comforting sense of being held in Death’s hands. There was only the breathless sense of waiting. For what?

  True to Eve’s word, my weapons rig was tangled on the floor by the bed. Everything was undisturbed, I buckled myself in and wished for a microfiber shirt and a coat. Jace’s necklace still rested against my throat, pulsing reassuringly as my fingers touched the knobs of the baculum. The mark on my shoulder had turned warm but quiescent, feeling like normal skin for the first time since it had been pressed into my flesh.

  The cold retreated bit by bit, and the sense of being watched returned, but oddly distant. As if something was trying to see me, through layers of interference. Something deadly and inimical.

  The Gauntlet was still dead-dark against golden skin, its surface swallowing instead of reflecting light.

  I don’t think I’m thinking clearly.

  My right hand shook when I held it out in front of me. I tried to stop it, but the harder I tried the harder it vibrated. My fingers jittered like a slicboard needing tuning.

  That reminded me of the Valkyrie, under a hedge in the rich bayfront part of town. I wanted the slicboard. It was a ridiculous thing to focus on, but it seemed the only thing that mattered was the sleek black deck, gleaming as I pressed its powercell and flung myself into open air, going fast enough to outrun… what?

  First things first, Dante. Get this the fuck over with so you can kill the fucking traitors. Then you can go on living. Everything else—demons, Hell, Lucifer, even Eve—can wait.

  I stopped the trembling in my hands by simply clamping them around the sword’s slenderness. Once I got right down to it, the world was really simple. All I had to do was just cut out the bullshit and decide who to kill first.

  I found Eve waiting for me in the hall, leaning against the wall and looking out a long window while gray light washed her face. She had tucked her pale hair behind her ears and stood slumped, as if tired. But she turned to me with a smile, as Doreen always had, and my heart thudded in my throat. “It’s so nice to see the sun,” she said, a little wistfully. Her sm
ell mixed with mine, a fleshy ripe combination of musk and cinnamon, demon and female. “I missed that, in Hell.”

  A year in Hell is not the same as a year here, they all told me. I hoped I’d never find out. I glanced out the window, saw a slice of green and a high concrete wall. The hall was long, with high narrow windows. Blank doors stood at even intervals.

  “You weren’t ever allowed to come out?” Miraculously, my voice didn’t shake. I clenched the sword in my hands, the hilt bobbing a little as my arms jerked.

  She shook her head slightly, her eyes dropping. “Coming to your world, is a privilege for us. One earned only by obedience.” Eve peeled herself away from the wall, pushing her sweater-sleeves up. “I have not been obedient in the slightest.”

  The hall was painted white too, with a hardwood floor. It looked like an institutional hall, and the skin on my back roughened to phantom gooseflesh at the thought that it might be a school. Or any old abandoned government building, maybe. Who knew? About all I could tell was that I was still in Saint City.

  My arms jerked again.

  Eve’s fingers closed around mine. She was too close; I flinched. Demons had a spooky habit of getting too damn close to me; maybe they liked to move in on humans and see them flinch.

  Only I wasn’t quite human, was I?

  The Androgyne’s hand was warm, her skin impossibly soft. “Avayin, hedaira,” she murmured. “Peace, Dante. Breathe.”

  I did. It was what Japhrimel always told me—Breathe, Dante. Simply breathe. It was enough like him that I felt my shoulders unloose, I closed my eyes. The iron bands squeezed around my lungs loosened a little, I dragged air down into the very bottom of my belly, and blessedly saw the blue glow of Death rise behind my eyelids. It wasn’t much—just subtle traceries of blue fire—but it made the shakes settle down.

  My god, at least, had never betrayed me.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Eve’s face inches from my own, her nose almost touching mine. Her eyes were like Doreen’s, dark blue, and except for the gold of her skin and the green gem glittering above and between her eyes, it was like looking at Doreen again. The crucial millimeters of difference weren’t so visible close up, the overlay of demon that made her so exotic. Was there a similarity to my own face lurking in her bones?

  My daughter. All I had left of my sedayeen lover.

  “Better?” she asked again.

  I nodded, just a slight dip of my chin. “I’ve got to go,” I managed through the lump in my throat. “I’ve got a revenge to finish before I’m free to handle the rest of this.” Now my knees were shaking for a different reason. She was so close I drowned in her smell, fire rising through my bones and blood and flesh, a heat I recognized pounding in my wrists and throat—and low in my belly.

  I stepped back, breaking her hold on my hands. She let me go. There was a faint smile playing on her lips—an expression that was neither Doreen’s nor mine, or even her own.

  It reminded me of Lucifer. A slight, cruel lift of the corners of the lips, the eyes lit from within, the entire shape of the face changing from sweet or tired to predatory.

  Desire turned to ice, crackling through me. Gray light bleached her platinum hair even further, made her eyes lighter than their usual dark blue. With the emerald glowing in her forehead, her eyes took on a slightly green cast.

  Gods— My heart hammered. “Eve?” The word shattered on my lips, fell to the floor.

  She shook her hair back and was again familiar. Or if not familiar, then at least more like what I thought I recognized.

  Demons lie, Dante. Demons lie.

  But Eve hadn’t done anything to make me distrust her. As a matter of fact, she was the only demon I seemed able to believe at this point.

  “See him,” she said. “Please. If you would, Dante.”

  Weariness swept over me, sucked at my legs. What did it matter? I knew what I needed to know, knew where my revenge lay. Five minutes facing down Japhrimel wouldn’t matter one way or another. Would it? “Can he get out?”

  Her shrug was a marvel of even fluidity. “He’s the Eldest. Even an Androgyne can’t hold him for long, even in a circle made harder to break by the use of his hedaira’s name. No one except the Prince could hold him, and perhaps not even that.” She studied me for a moment, her hands dropping graceful and loose to her sides. “Of course, if you broke even a single line of the circles around him… that would set him completely free. I only ask for a little warning, enough to get my people out of here. We fear him.”

  The set level look in her blue eyes convinced me. You used my name in a circle to trap him? No wonder he’s pissed. I swallowed, tasted copper. “There’s a bunch of demons running around loose. What’s going on?”

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “My rebellion, it seems, has spread. I suspect that isn’t what worries him the most, though.” As usual, when she mentioned Lucifer her lip curled and her expressive eyes filled with disdain and loathing, not to mention a healthy dose of fear.

  I stared at her face. “The treasure.” A thin croak, the words turned to dust. “The Key.”

  “So he’s told you?” She looked puzzled.

  I shook my head. I felt gawky next to her sleek beauty. She was so comfortable inside her golden skin, and I felt like an imposter every time I saw my face in the mirror. “He wouldn’t tell me. We saw the Anhelikos in Sarajevo, though. I didn’t have time to tell you.”

  Eve nodded. “We’re searching for something, Dante. A weapon that can change our fortunes and turn our rebellion into a successful coup. It will take time to track it down, but there have been most encouraging signs.” Her mouth tilted up in a smile, so much like Doreen’s gentle, forgiving expression I almost choked. “And once we have that weapon, he is welcome to find us.”

  A weapon. So the treasure is a weapon. “What’s the Key?” I asked, my heart sinking.

  “Not what, Dante. Who. We don’t know who the Key is yet, but I have a good idea. I think I’m the only one who does.” She was looking brighter and happier all the time. “When the time comes, the Key will be revealed. I think that’s what the Eldest is afraid of. If he finds the weapon first, he will be in a position to dictate to the Prince. If I find it… he may find himself on the losing side. If that happens, you may well be the only person who can save him. He’s too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

  She sounded as calm as if she was discussing dinner plans. “You mean you’d….”

  “For your sake, I want to give him every chance. You are, after all, the only mother I have left.” Now her eyes were large and dark. The rainy sunlight fell over the curves and planes of her face, so like Doreen’s. “Will you help me, Dante?”

  Gods above and below, you don’t even have to ask. I’m already in up to my neck because I’m helping you, I might as well drown.

  “Okay.” My throat was dry, my heart pounding in my wrists and temples. I could even feel the pulsing of my femoral arteries, my heart thundered so hard. “Fine. Lead the way, let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER 27

  I was right, this had been a school. I knew because they had him in the gymnasia, a huge wood-floored expanse pierced with shafts of cool light from the high-up windows. Bleachers had been pulled away from the walls and taken out so nothing remained but bare stained expanses of painted wall and gravball hoops bolted to either end of the long room. He was in the south end.

  It was just as I’d seen it, and I had to shake away the persistent doubled feeling of living out a premonition. Eve had paused near the door and asked if I wanted to be alone, I shook my head and motioned her inside. She closed the door with a precise little click—the maghinge had been taken off—and leaned against it, waiting. Her eyes were dark again, blue and lit from below like a swimtank with cloned koi flicking through its depths.

  I squared my shoulders and walked across the wooden floor, the heels of my new boots tapping on the wood. Halfway there, the mellow shine turned to glass underfoot. Seamlessly, a glos
sy black obsidian sheet rose up and supplanted the flooring.

  Demons are such snazzy interior decorators. I grabbed at the darkly humorous thought as if it was floating debris and I was drowning. If I was still cracking jokes, I was okay. Maybe. Kind of.

  Not really.

  The Key isn’t a what, it’s a who. And if I can’t convince Japh to back off… a weapon that could kill the Devil. My fingers tightened on the hilt, the Gauntlet’s heavy cold weight a reminder of the promise I’d made—the one I was about to break. It could just as easily kill Japh. Then I’d have to resurrect him. I never want to do that again, I don’t even know for sure what will bring him back, other than fire. Lots of fire. And maybe blood. He says enough blood would do the trick, but how do I know for sure?

  The air in here was thick and still, curdled with magick. It raised the fine hairs on my nape, coated the back of my throat, almost made my eyes water.

  He sat cross-legged in the middle of the circles, his back straight and his long black coat lying wetly against the floor behind him. In front of him, the candle with the blood-red flame now flickered and guttered, the streak of red light a good four inches high. There was about three inches left of wax for it to burn through.

  When the candle was snuffed, what would happen? But he’d probably be loose by then.

  I could See the layers of magick, woven too tightly and skillfully to be human, glowing with the icy tang of demon Power. I could also See his careful patient unraveling, working at the threads that held the borders of the circles—my eye traveled over them, marking each symbol in a Magi-trained memory. This was demon magick, a kind Japhrimel would never share with me. If it could trap him here like a silkworm in a kerri jar, I could almost understand why.

  And if Eve had used my name in the binding, and it held him here this long… I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about how furious he was going to be once I finished what I was about to say.