Dante Valentine

  No. This time I descended into blood-red, the sound of an old slow heartbeat and the running liquid crackle of flame. I fell, again, and this time I felt no pain.

  I don’t know how long I was out. It seemed a very long time. I would surface, hazily, and something would push me back down. Two things never varied—the feel of softness under me, and a low rasping voice, even and quiet. And the third thing: fever, sinking through my flesh like venom. Each time it rose, the cool cloth on my forehead and the voice would drive it back.

  The voice was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Male, a low whispering tone, produced by a human throat. Or was it only that the ragged pleading in it sounded so human?

  “Don’t you dare give up on me, Valentine.” Hoarse and harsh, a throat-cut voice, suffering through the syllables. “Don’t you dare.”

  My eyelids fluttered, shutterclicks of light pouring into my head, scouring. The light was from a candle on a bare, sticky wooden table, glimmering in a ceramic holder. The candleflame cast a perfect golden sphere of light, and my naked skin shrank under the weight of a sheet. The room was warm.

  “Hey.” Lucas Villalobos’s lank hair was mussed and dirty; flecks of dried blood marked his sallow face. The river of scarring down his left cheek twitched as an odd expression filled his yellow eyes and exposed his strong, square white teeth.

  He was grinning. With relief.

  Now I’ve officially seen everything.

  I let out a sharp breath, my right hand feeling around slick sheets. The thin mattress was getting harder by the second. I felt every individual slat of the low cot.

  I flinched and blinked. Stared up at Lucas. Managed a single, pertinent question.

  “What the fuck?”

  “That’s more like it. You’re one slippery bitch, Valentine.”

  Another question surfaced. “How…” I coughed. My throat was a dust-slick river of stone. I hurt all over, heavy and slow. But everything on me was working. My belly ached, way down low, as if I carried a hot stone.

  Another hot rill of bile worked up my throat.

  “I got ways of trailin’ my clients.” He shrugged, picking something up from the nightstand. He slid one wiry-strong arm under my shoulders and tipped tepid chlorinated water down my throat.

  It was the sweetest taste I’d had in ages. He took the cup away despite my sound of protest, stopping me from getting sick on it. I didn’t think I’d retch, but I wouldn’t put it past me.

  “You disappeared six months ago.” He shook his lank hair back, rolling his shoulders in their sockets as if they hurt. He wore a threadbare Trade Bargains microfiber shirt, but his bandoliers were freshly oiled, resting on reinforced patches. “I been knockin’ around tryin’ to find you, keep one step ahead o’ everyone else. Two nights ago I found you in Jersey, of all fuckin’ places.” He paused, as if he wanted to say more. “Care to tell me how the fuck you managed to vanish like that?”

  I sank back onto the thin mattress. Shut my eyes. Darkness returned, wrapped me in a blanket. “Six months?” My voice was just as ruined as his, but where Lucas’s harsh croak was a raven’s, mine was cracked velvet honey, strained and soft. “I… I don’t know.”

  “You was in pretty bad shape. I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  Relief rose up, fighting with pure terror as I strained to remember what I could, tiptoeing around the huge black hole in my head…

  My sword chimed as I dropped it, my boots ground in shattered dishes and broken glass, and I had her by the throat, lifted up so her feet dangled, my fingers iron in her soft, fragile human flesh. The cuff pulsed coldly; green light painted the inside of the kitchen in a flash of aqueous light. She choked, a large dark stain spreading at the crotch of her jeans. Pissed herself with fear.

  My lips pulled back. Rage, boiling in every single blood vessel. Heat poured from me, the air groaning and steaming, glass fogging, the wood cabinet-facings popping and pinging as they expanded with the sudden temperature shift, the floor shaking and juddering. The entire house trembled on its foundations, more tinkling crashes as whatever Pontside and Mercy and their merry crew of dirty fucking Saint City cops hadn’t broken as they searched the house shattered.

  It is your choice. It is always your choice. Death’s voice was kind, the infinite kindness of the god I had sworn my life to. If I denied Him, He would still accept me, still love me.

  But He should not have asked this of me.

  She was helpless and unarmed, incapable of fighting back. But she was guilty, and she had lied and murdered as surely as any bounty I’d ever chased.

  Anubis et’her ka… Kill. Kill her kill her KILL HER!

  I could not tell if the reply was Anubis, or some deep voice from the heart of me. But she can’t fight back. This is murder, Dante.

  I didn’t care. And yet…

  “I didn’t kill her,” I whispered. “The healer. I didn’t… I walked away. I went to a phone booth, and I called Polyamour.”

  “She told me so. She was the last person to talk to you, near as I could figure. Nobody else knows. I had a hard enough time gettin’ her to give me anything.”

  I could see why. Lucas Villalobos was every psion’s worst nightmare. We knew what he charged for his help. Only the desperate bargained with him, and I hadn’t had time to tell Poly he was on my side.

  “Valentine?” Lucas restrained himself from shaking me, thank the gods. “Care to tell me where you was?”

  I thought about it. Where had I gone?

  My heart thudded, a sharp strike of pain inside my chest. Clawed fingers, digging in—

  Lucas grabbed my wrist, locked it, and half-tore me out of the bed as he backpedaled to avoid my punch. We went down in a tangle of arms and legs, my claws springing free and slashing at empty air as he evaded the strike. “Stop it!” he yelled, producing an amazing amount of noise through the gravel in his throat. “Calm the fuck down!”

  The sheet tangled around my hips. One of Lucas’s skinny, strong arms locked across my throat, his knee in my back. “Calm down,” he repeated, in my ear. “I ain’t your enemy, Valentine! Quit it!”

  I froze. My heart thundered in my ears. I felt my pulse in my wrists, my ankles, my throat, in the back of my head. Even my hair throbbed frantically.

  It was true. He wasn’t my enemy.

  Who was? What had happened? “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know what happened. The last thing I remember is being in that phone booth.”

  It wasn’t strictly true. I knew I’d left the phone booth and gone… somewhere.

  Pretty damn far, a sneering little voice spoke up inside my head. You went right over the moon. Right over the goddamn moon and into the black, sunshine.

  Lucas was out of breath. “You calm?”

  I’m not anywhere near calm, Lucas. But it’ll have to do. I stared at the floor—filthy boards, dirt squirming in cracks, my narrow golden hand spread in front of my face to keep me from being mashed into the ground. I still had my rings, but each stone was dull and empty, no spells sunk into their depths. I had used them all.

  When?

  I coughed, racking. Wanted to spit. Didn’t. “Let me up.”

  He complied. I made it up to sitting, my back braced against the cot, the sheet wrapped around me. Lucas squatted, easily, his yellow eyes on my face. Just like a cat will stare at a mousehole, patient and silent.

  I shut my eyes. Breathed in. My shields were in bad shape, ragged patches bleeding energy into the air, heat simmering over my skin as my demon metabolism ran high. The surfroar of human minds outside this small room was just as loud as ever, but it wasn’t crashing through my head. The discipline of almost forty years as a psion stood me in good stead, trained reflex patching together holes in the shimmering cloak of energy over me, little threads spinning out to protect me from the psychic whirlpool of a city.

  Almost forty years, last time I checked. I didn’t even know what year it was.

  The absurdity of the situati
on walloped me right between the eyes. Danny Valentine, part-demon bounty hunter and tough-ass Necromance, and I didn’t even know what goddamn decade I was in.

  I bent over, wheezing. Lucas rose to his feet and shuffled away. I laughed until black spots crowded my vision from lack of oxygen, fit to choke as the candleflame trembled and the bare white-painted walls ran with shadows.

  Lucas came back. He settled down cross-legged, and when I could look at him again, swabbing hot salt water from my cheeks, he offered me the bottle. It was rice wine, fuming colorlessly in my mouth. I took a healthy draft and passed the green plasglass bottle back to him. He took a swig, didn’t grimace, and tossed it far back. His throat worked as he swallowed.

  I wondered who the blood on his face was from. Discovered I didn’t want to know. There was only one thing I needed to know from him.

  “What the fuck’s going on?”

  He shrugged, took another hit off the bottle. “You disappeared and all hell broke loose. Your green-eyed boyfriend’s tearin’ up whole cities looking for you, and he’s not too choosy where he looks or how hard. Your blue-eyed girl was scrambling to keep away from him at first, but she pulled a vanishing trick too, about a month ago. Everyone wants a piece of Danny Valentine, and I nearly got my head taken off a few times lookin’ for you myself. I never been so happy to see a datband trace go live in my life.”

  So that’s how he’d tracked me, with a datband trace. I was glad nobody else had been close enough to me to slip that code in. “Six months.” I stared down at my hands. The battered black molecule-drip polish on my fingernails was almost gone, the fingernails themselves translucent gold.

  Claw-tips. I could extend them, if I had to, and rip the sheet to shreds.

  A year in Hell is not the same as a year in your world. Eve’s voice floated through my head.

  Why would I think of that now? I’d been out of action for six months, six months I couldn’t remember. Six months I would probably, if I was lucky, never get back. I didn’t want to remember them.

  What do you do now, Danny? Japhrimel’s looking for me, and Eve… Has he done something to her? Where have I been?

  It didn’t matter.

  “What do you think we should do?” I whispered. I was fresh out of ideas.

  Lucas took another mouthful, handed the bottle to me. “I think we should contact your boyfriend. There’s other shit goin’ down too, Valentine. Magi casting circles and invoking, and things coming through.”

  “Isn’t having something come through the point of Magi casting circles?” I took a hit of rice wine, let it burn all the way down into my chest. It wouldn’t do a damn thing for me—my part-demon metabolism mostly shunted alcohol aside now.

  But the idea of getting drunk was so fucking tempting I wondered if I should find a vat of beer or something stronger.

  “Not when Magi keep getting torn apart, even when they’re just casting regular sorceries. The Hegemony’s issued a joint directive with the Putchkin Alliance. No Magi are allowed to practice for the foreseeable future.”

  I stared at him, my jaw suspiciously loose. “Sekhmet sa’es,” I breathed, a thrill of fear running along my skin. “A joint directive?”

  No Magi practicing meant the corporate shields of gods-alone-knew how many companies weren’t being worked on. The glut of work could be ameliorated by some Shamans, but the finer industrial thieves were probably having the time of their lives. All sorts of other effects would ripple out through the economy—the potential loss in tax revenue was enormous. The setback in research labs would cost a hefty chunk, too.

  “I ain’t no coward.” Lucas gave me a straight yellow-eyed glare. “But I can’t see keepin’ you alive much past sundown if we break cover. There’s just too much fuckin’ flak up there. Your green-eyed boy will keep you alive, and I confess I’d like a little backup m’self.”

  Now I have officially heard everything. For the man they called “the Deathless” to admit to wanting backup was thought-provoking, to say the least.

  Thought-provoking isn’t the word you want here, Danny. The word you want is terrifying. I sighed, swallowed another slug of clear fiery liquor. Even if I couldn’t get drunk it was a calming ritual. My stomach rumbled a bit, subsided. I should have felt ravenous.

  I only felt slightly unsteady. Nauseous. And heavy, my limbs filled with sand. “I need clothes. And weapons.” Where is my sword? I badly wanted to close my hand on a hilt, hear the deadly whistle as a keen blade clove air. I wanted my sword, the sword my teacher had gifted to me.

  I came back to myself as the bottle groaned sharply in my clenched hand, thick green plasilica singing with stress. Lucas eyed me.

  I had to force my fingers to relax. I breathed deeply, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Just like the first and last meditation instruction every psion has hammered into her head—breathe, and the mind grows still.

  I wish that was true. My datband gleamed on my wrist, which looked suddenly naked without the thick cuff of silvery metal.

  The Gauntlet, the demon artifact that marked me as Lucifer’s little errand girl. Where was it?

  That was another thought I didn’t want. I pushed it away.

  “You got it.” Lucas levered himself to his feet. “You got any idea how we’re gonna find your boyfriend?”

  My fingers tingled, and the scar on my shoulder burned, shifting. I could feel the ropes of scarring writhing against the surface of my skin. “We won’t have to.” My voice sounded very far away. “Sooner or later he always finds me. One way or another.”

  When he did, I would at least be safe for a little while. Everything else was just noise.

  “Good thing, too. You get in more fuckin’ trouble.” He shuffled away, past the table with the dancing candleflame. Halted, his shoulders coming up and tensing. “Valentine? You okay?”

  Do I look okay to you? “Yeah.” I set the bottle down and scrubbed my hands together, as if they were dirty. I felt dirty. Filthy, in fact. Maybe it was the room. I dearly wanted a shower. “Is there a bathroom around here? Any hot water?”

  “There’s a bathroom. Knock yourself out.” He started moving again, a fast light shuffle barely audible even to my heightened senses. “Spect you might want to get cleaned up.” He vanished through the door.

  I wanted to scrub myself raw under some hot water. Still, I had more important work to do. I’d left Japhrimel trapped in a circle of Eve’s devising, and told him it was war between us. He probably wasn’t going to be happy with me in the slightest.

  It didn’t matter. My fingers crept up to the mark on my shoulder, its frantic dance against my skin oddly comforting.

  Japhrimel. The word stuck in my throat. Even if you are angry at me. Even if you’re furious. I need you.

  My fingers hovered, a scant half-inch from touching the moving scar. I pinched my eyes shut, my skin crawling, and curled over, my arm coming down to bar across my midriff. I squeezed myself, earning a huff of air from my lungs in the process. I was tired, and however good hot water sounded I suddenly didn’t want to visit the bathroom.

  There might be a mirror in there, and I didn’t want to see myself.

  Why not, Danny? The soft, mocking voice of my conscience came back on little cat feet as darkness swirled against the candle’s glow. My cheek hit the floor, and I pulled my knees up. Lying down seemed like a good idea. A really good idea.

  What are you so afraid of, Danny? Huh? Answer me that.

  I didn’t want to. So I just lay on the dirty floor and nailed my eyes shut, waiting for Lucas to come back.

  CHAPTER 3

  I jolted up out of a deathly doze when I heard the footsteps. Lay, my eyes closed, every inch of my skin suddenly alive with listening.

  I’d scooted back under the rickety cot, seeking blind darkness. It just seemed like a good idea, especially with so many people looking for me. I was too exhausted to fight much, especially with my shields so fragile.

  The fact that hiding under th
e bed wouldn’t necessarily keep me safe never occurred to me. If it had, I’m not sure I would have cared.

  Under the bed the floor was even filthier, but the wall next to the cot felt cold and solid against my back. I pulled my knees up, twitching the sheet under me and dispelling the urge to sneeze at the dust suddenly filling my nose. With that done, I listened, my sensitive ears dilating.

  There. Four sets of footsteps. One very light, brushing the earth, one shuffling equally lightly—Lucas—and the third, a tread of heavy boots.

  The last set I would have known anywhere. It was a noiseless step, quiet as Death Himself, but the mark on my shoulder woke with renewed soft fire spilling all the way down my arm.

  My eyes squeezed shut. Shame woke, hot and rank, pressed against my throat and watering eyes. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

  Like what, Danny?

  I couldn’t name it even to myself.

  The door opened. The footsteps had gone silent.

  I felt him come into the room like a storm front over a city, his attention sweeping the walls once and focusing, unerringly, on the small dark space where I huddled on my side, curled up as tightly as I could without breaking my own bones.

  The door closed, and he filled up the room like dark wine in a cup. The black-diamond fire of a demon’s aura almost blinded me, with my shields so fragile and torn. OtherSight blurred through the veil of the physical world, showing me the thick cable of my link to him, a bond cemented by blood. His blood, and mine.

  He’d changed me, given up Hell for me, and bargained to regain a full demon’s Power as well. Lied to me. Hurt me, held me up against a wall and shaken me, left me sleeping alone while he hunted Doreen’s daughter as I’d begged him not to.

  Every time the water got deeper, I found out he’d known the game from the beginning, and was playing against me.

  And yet, he always came for me. My heart swelled, sticking in my throat like a clot of stone.

  There was a slight sound as he reached the cot. I managed to open my eyes.