Dante Valentine

  I had nothing to fear. I kept my honor intact. An honorable person was only as good as the promises she kept, the loyalty she showed. My honor was unstained.

  A familiar touch against my shields warned me—Jace coming back, probably on a slicboard. He was dropping in fast, probably to avoid being seen or shot by the holovid reporters outside. I felt the security net slide away to let him pass.

  I made it almost all the way down the stairs before my legs started to tremble alarmingly. I slid down to sit, my knees giving out so I thumped inelegantly onto the second step. When Jace opened the front door I was perched on the steps, leaning against the wall, my knees drawn up.

  He kicked the door closed. “Danny?” His voice, blessedly normal, sane, made me shut my eyes again. I rested my chin on my forearms, braced on my knees, the silken cascades of the dress falling to either side. The wall was doing a damn fine job of holding me up.

  Three scars, dipping down my back, and the brand laid along the crease below my left buttock. I smelled the sick-sweet odor of burning flesh again, heard whistling soft laughter and my own throaty screams, felt blood and semen trickling down my inner thighs.

  And I heard something else: Headmaster Mirovitch’s dry, papery voice whispering while the iron met my skin. I forced myself to stare unflinchingly into the memory, the door inside my head a little ajar, showing me what I’d locked away so I could go on living.

  “Danny.” Jace stood in front of me. “You okay?”

  I lifted my head. His hair was messy, windblown, and his blue eyes were humanly kind. I didn’t deserve his kindness, and I knew it.

  My eyes burned, but my left shoulder had quieted. It took me two tries to reply through a throat gone dry as reactive paint. “No. I’m not. Get the shovels, Jace. We’ve got some digging to do.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The garage housed garden implements and a sleek black hover, dead and quiescent on its landing gear. This space had been empty before I’d gotten rich. I had always meant to turn it into a meditation room, but I ended up avoiding it and doing my meditating in the living room or bedroom.

  I pushed a stack of boxes aside, my hands trembling, and looked up to find Jace watching me, his wind-ruffled hair a shock of gold in the light from the bare full-spectrum bulbs.

  “Listen.” He pushed his hand back through his windstruck hair. The motion achieved absolutely nothing in terms of straightening it, only made it stick up raffishly. He looked like Gypsy Roen’s sidekick Marbery, all angles and cocksure grace under a shock of hair. “Why don’t we call this off and get drunk? Tackle this tomorrow night.”

  “You might be able to get drunk. I can’t.” I was surprised by how steady my voice was. The smell of the garage, the hover on its leafspring legs and cushion of reactive smelling of metal and fustiness, clawed at my throat.

  “Well, why don’t we just fall into bed and shag until we forget this, huh?” He tried to make it sound like a light, bantering offer. Just like prejob bullshitting to ease the nerves. Unfortunately, his breath caught and ruined the effect.

  Oh, Jace. I actually managed a smile, then pushed again. The boxes of files scraped along the floor, cardboard squeaking against smooth concrete. I looked down, saw the wooden door set in the concrete. A round depression in the center of the trapdoor held an iron ring.

  “You truly are amazing.” Jace propped the two shovels over his shoulder like an ancient gravedigger. “This is right out of a holovid.”

  Irritation rasped at me, but my retort died on my lips. He was too pale, sweat standing out on his forehead. We were both claustrophobic, and he… what was he feeling? If I touched him I would know. Bare skin on skin, I might have been partly-demon but I was still the woman who had shared her body and psyche with him. Almost a decade ago, but that kind of link didn’t fade.

  Was that why I couldn’t quite let go of him? Or was it because he reminded me of the person I had been before Rio, a feeling I couldn’t quite remember for all the sharpness of my Magi-trained memory?

  “You don’t have to come down.” I closed my hand over the metal ring. It was so cold it scorched—or was it that my fingers were demon-hot? Dust stirred in the still-hot air; I was radiating again. I’ll never need climate-control again, maybe I should hire myself out as a portable dryer. Rent your very own psionic heater, reasonable rates, sarcasm included.

  “And let you face this alone?” He shook his head. “No way, sweetheart. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  Words rose in my throat. I’m so sorry. I wish I could be what you needed.

  Instead, I wrenched the trapdoor up.

  A musty smell of sterile dirt exhaled from the square darkness. I felt around under the lip of the hole. “Probably not working,” I muttered. “That would just cap the whole goddamn day.”

  My fingers found the switch, pressed it, and a bare bulb clicked into life. I let out a whistling breath through a throat closed to pinhole size.

  “How was the suckhead convention?” Jace’s tone was light, bored. I glanced up at him, suddenly intensely grateful for his presence. If I owed Gabe and I owed Eddie, what did I owe to Jace?

  The answer was the same in each case: too much to easily repay. Debt, obligation, honor; all words for what I would keep paying until I took my last breath, and be damn grateful for the chance.

  It was better than being alone, wasn’t it?

  It sure as hell was. “Interesting. He says he’s got some books on demons I’m welcome to come by and peruse.” I managed not to choke on my own voice.

  “You do have a way of making friends.” Hipshot and easy, Jace Monroe examined the trapdoor, the bare bulb’s glare showing a drop bar and a square of pale, dusty dirt.

  “Must be my charming smile.” I leaned forward, catching the drop bar in both hands. The dress slithered as I trusted my weight to the iron, pulling my legs in and dropping them, then slowly lowering myself down. Thank the gods my swordhilt didn’t snag. I hung full-length for a moment, then dropped the three inches to the dirt floor. “There was a werecain attack while I was there.”

  He hadn’t mentioned my torn dress or the black demon blood crusted on the side of the bodice. I would never have believed him capable of such restrained tact. If I went upstairs to change out of the dress, I would find some way of putting this off.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I.” Jace handed the first shovel down, the second. He took his sword from his belt and handed it to me.

  “Guess not. I went by and checked out Christabel’s apartment.” Bits of garden dirt still clung to the rusting metal of the first shovel. The second shovel was new. Why had I bought it? Was my precognition working overtime again?

  Sometimes I hated being gifted with precognition as well as runewitchery. Being gifted with precognition is like being shoved from square to square on a chessboard, you’re never sure if your intuition is working or if you’re just getting paranoid. There’s precious little difference between the two. Out of all the Talents, precogs—Seers—go insane the most.

  “Find out anything interesting?” He leaned over, caught the drop bar, and levered himself down gracefully. His T-shirt came untucked when he curled down and I caught a flash of his tanned belly, muscle moving under skin. His boots ground into the dirt, and he scanned the unfinished space. “Anyone else would have a ladder, Danny.”

  “You think I come down here often enough for that? And yes, I found out something interesting, at least at the suckhead convention. The Prime and his Consort identified the circles as being marked with Feeder glyphs.”

  I felt cold just mentioning it. Feeders were nothing to mess with. It’s every psion’s worst nightmare, tangling with a Feeder.

  Jace whistled tunelessly, taking both shovels from my unresisting hands, leaving me his sword. I was abruptly warmed by the implied trust. “That’s… well.” His sandy eyebrows drew together, his lips compressed.

  I studied the perfect arc of his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth. He h
ad always been so very attractive; and his air of self-assuredness was compelling too. I wondered if I’d fallen for him because he’d always seemed so damn sure I would, and my own well-camouflaged uncertainty made his confidence even more magnetic. I had always secretly wanted to be as sure as he seemed to be, instead of faking it as I usually did. His façade never cracked, his good humor rarely faded. “What did you find out?”

  A shrug, a brief snort of frustration. “Exactly zip. Our Mr. Smith was registered as normal on his datband. He worked as a jeweler, but his birth certificate’s vanished and his utility bills were paid by a trust.”

  I pushed past him, glad the ceiling wasn’t lower. “What kind of trust?” I’d bought this house partly because of the crawl space being basement-sized; Doreen hadn’t minded as long as it had a garden. It had been abandoned and rundown, but the foundations were sound; we’d celebrated the final round of remodeling by throwing a huge party for the Saint City parapsych community. I’d met Jace at that party, though I hadn’t seen him again until after Doreen’s murder.

  Thinking of that made me shiver again. I quelled the shudder, rubbing my right hand against my ruined skirt. Dried black blood crusted the velvet, scraped against my black-lacquered nails.

  “A blind sealed trust. No way of breaking in. The same trust that covered the names of his clients under corporate confidentiality. A full search of public records turned up a big fat nothing except for the name the guy’s slicboard was registered to.” Jace sounded disgusted.

  I found the corner at the far end of the house, under a closet I never used. I stopped, my heart pounding. The left side of the dress’s bodice crackled with dried blood as I took in a deep breath. My heart beat thinly. “A jeweler with a slicboard? What name?”

  “Keller. Just the one word. No last name. Bought at a dealership out on Lorraine that’s since gone out of business.” His aura roiled with spikes—Jace didn’t like being down here either. I felt the warmth of his body across the air separating us as I turned back to him. The smell of peppered musk and honey was soothing even if it carried the decaying tang of human.

  “The plot thickens.” My voice shook. I reached for one of the shovels.

  “Goddamn thick enough already.” Jace shouldered me aside. “Let me, I’ve been up to my elbows in paper and public records for hours. I could use a little sweat. Where do I dig?”

  I pointed at the corner. “Just start going down.”

  He gave me an extraordinary blue-eyed glance. In this corner of the basement, the light was dim enough that I couldn’t see the fine lines beginning at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  Unless I concentrated.

  I chose not to. Instead, I watched him drive the shovel down and start to dig. The concrete foundations were very close here. The earth was dusty and pallid. Having nothing else to do, I lowered myself down and sat on the ground, shifting inside my rig until the sword rode comfortably, balancing his scabbarded blade across my knees.

  “Jace?”

  “Hm?” He tossed another shovelful of dirt with a clean, economical movement.

  “Thank you.” The words stuck in my throat. As if I could ever thank him for what he was doing right this second, digging so I didn’t have to.

  “Anytime, baby.” Another shovelful of pale dirt and small stones. “What am I digging for?”

  “Metal. I buried it deep. Really, I mean it. Thank you.”

  “You’re going to ruin that dress.” His muscles flexed under the black T-shirt.

  I swallowed copper fear, wished there was more light. Shadows pressed thickly in the corners. “It’s already ruined. And I’m never wearing a dress again. If jeans and a Trade Bargains shirt isn’t good enough, people can go fuck themselves.”

  “I’ve always liked you in jeans. That cute little ass of yours.” He was beginning to get serious about digging, breathing deep and loosening up. Starting to sweat, drenching the air with the smell of a clean human male having a good workout.

  I shivered, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry.” It came out as easy as an apology ever had. Which meant it tore and clawed its way out of my chest while I watched him excavating something I never wanted to see again.

  His even rhythm didn’t stop, but his shoulders tensed. “For what, baby?”

  “I’m not very nice to you.” That’s the understatement of the year, isn’t it. I’m a right raving bitch to you. You deserve someone who can at least be affectionate.

  If I was telling the truth to myself, I might as well let him in on it.

  He was silent for a full three shovelfuls. The hole was beginning to take shape. Chills crawled over my skin. My jaw clenched tight so my teeth wouldn’t chatter. “No. You’re not.” He tossed another shovelful of dirt, didn’t look at me.

  “You’re better than I deserve.”

  That made him laugh. Jace Monroe had an easy laugh, sometimes used as a shield, sometimes genuine. This one was genuine. “You worry too much, sweetheart. What am I digging for?”

  “Metal.”

  “What’s inside?” He was beginning to get a respectable-sized hole. My teeth chattered, since my jaw had unloosed enough to talk. I hugged myself, cupping my elbows in my palms, squeezing, feeling my fingernails poke at my arms. Wished I could go back up into my house and forget about the trapdoor again—bury the memory deeper than I’d buried the rest of everything that had to do with the Hall.

  “Books. Other things.” I couldn’t even pretend to have a steady voice.

  “Great. Other people bury bodies, Dante Valentine buries books.” He warmed to the work, I could feel the heat coming from him. Human heat, animal heat. Familiar heat.

  Why did I feel so guiltily grateful for that warmth? For his mere breathing presence?

  “They’re going to be useful, Jace.” I dropped my head, staring at his sword in my lap. A dotanuki instead of the katana I usually carried; he’d had it since I’d met him. A bigger hilt for his bigger hands, more weight, I’d sparred with him before. I’d beaten him even before Japhrimel made me into what I was now. But Jace was dangerous, tricky; he was the type that would take a cheap shot. I used to think it was dishonorable of him.

  Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I trailed my fingers over the hilt-wrapping, catching flashes of Jace as he handled the blade. There were memories locked in that steel. I tapped the scabbard, touched the hilt again.

  “Danny, baby,” Jace said, “you keep stroking him like that you’re going to give me a hard-on.”

  I glanced up. He was watching me, leaning on the shovel. His eyes were dark and hot, I didn’t need a dictionary to read the look on his face. Jace Monroe had never made any secret about wanting me, which had made his abandonment of me all those years ago so much more shocking. And then, Rio, and now this penance he was paying by staying with me, watching my back, and forcing me to live.

  Of all the things I had to be grateful for, Jace was probably the biggest. Who else would have put up with me?

  “Sorry.” I laid his sword aside. That’s it exactly, Jace. I don’t know what would kill me, but I think losing Japhrimel was damn close to it. Did you think I’d hurt myself? Is that why you came back?

  He gave me a brilliant, unsettled smile. Well, what do you know. Claustrophobia strikes again. “It’s okay. I kind of like it. What did you find at Christabel’s? Anything?”

  I snorted and hauled myself to my feet, scooping up the other shovel. “Nothing I didn’t already know. Let’s get to work.” And I walked toward my grave with sweating demon hands and a sour stomach.

  “Chango love me, girl.” Jace used his forearm to wipe sweat from his face. “You buried this fucker deep.”

  “Only way to stop the dead from rising.” I tossed the shovel. It was a passionlessly accurate throw, ending with the shovel neatly stowed up on the surface, out of the way. The second shovel followed, its blade chiming against the first. I laced my fingers. “I’ll give you ten up and hand it to you.”

  Th
e deep gloom of the hole meant I saw the gleam of his teeth and the whites of his eyes as he grinned a little too widely. “Sounds good. I need a shower.”

  “Me too.”

  He stepped into my fingers and I lifted him easily enough, careful not to overshoot. He caught the edge and levered himself out.

  One good thing about demon strength, I never would have been able to do that before.

  Then I lifted my coffin, an old-timey footlocker from before the Seventy Days War. Hefted it with more ease than I’d lifted him. Something chinked inside, and the sound made a cold shiver trace all the way down my spine. I bit back a moan, it died as a strangled gasp.

  Jace dragged it up out of the hole. Then I leapt, catching the lip just like the side of a swimtank, hauling myself up. “Sekhmet sa’es,” I hissed between my teeth. “I hate this. I just started this hunt and already I’m six feet deep and sinking fast.”

  “Keep paddling, baby.” Jace yawned. “We gonna fill this in?”

  “We’d better.” I rubbed at my forehead, feeling gritty grave dirt clinging to my skin. “Let’s get it over with so we can wash up.”

  “We could probably use some dinner too.” He stretched, then gamely went for the shovels. I laid my hand on his arm.

  He went still, looking down at me.

  “You go on up, get washed up. Get something to eat. I’ll be up in a few.” I don’t think either of us believed I was dealing with this well.

  “I’ll help.” He shook his golden head, stubborn, his face streaked with dirt.

  “Come on, Jace.” I took the path of least resistance. “I’m hungry. This way, by the time I get up there I can take a shower and eat something. Okay?”

  He examined me for a long moment. “ ’Kay,” he said finally, just like a pouting little boy.