I wondered what the “usual manner” was and felt my skin go chill again.
Can it be you have not resurrected him? Taunting, soft, and corrosive.
I decided I didn’t fear him as much as I had when I was human—and that was bad. After all, I wasn’t a demon, only a hedaira, whatever that was. And even if I had been a demon, Lucifer was the Prince of Hell.
So maybe the Prince of Hell was starting a new game. I had to go carefully, or I might be caught like I was last time. Of course, any game the Devil started was rigged from the beginning; but last time I’d had no warning whatsoever. Now at least I knew something awful was about to happen.
Cold comfort, if any.
“Danny!” Jace caught my arm. Sunlight fell down on the crushed stone. I’d walked out of the house and toward the garden wall. A few more strands of my hair fell in my face. My boots seemed rooted to the ground now. “Hey. The hover’s this way.”
I blinked at him. “Jace.” I’d been so deep in my thoughts I had literally forgotten about him. The sunlight was kind to him, made his hair catch fire and his eyes glow. Had he followed me through the entire house, trying to get my attention? “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
“It’s not like you to wander around deaf to the world.” He shook his staff for emphasis, the bones clicking and twirling on their raffia twine. “It’s that phone call, isn’t it.” His voice was flat.
Once before, I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t been aware of my surroundings. Japhrimel had pulled me out of the way of a speeding streetside hover. I had no demon to watch over me now; I gave myself a severe mental shake, pushing away uncertainty. I’d deal with Lucifer after I dealt with this mess.
After I deal with a crazed killer from Rigger Hall, the Devil might almost be a vacation. Black humor tinted my mental voice, gallows humor. The type of macabre humor every Necromance and cop used to distance him or herself from the horror of what people could do to each other with gun and knife and club.
My fingers tightened on the scabbard. “Are you coming with me to Polyamour’s?” I looked up into Jace’s face.
He nodded. His jaw set, a muscle in his cheek flicked. “Of course. Do I get to play bad cop?”
You’d be better at that than I would. How many other things did I not know about Jace?
Did it matter?
Not to me, not now. Whatever he hadn’t told me could stay in the past. What mattered was that he’d given up Rio for me, moved in with me, and stretched his human body to the limits trying to help me. And gods help me, I could forgive him everything for that.
“We’re not going to frighten her,” I decided. “Not unless I think she’s guilty.” I touched his shoulder, my hand closing, my thumb moving gently. It was almost a caress. “Thank you. For… for everything. I mean it.”
His face eased slightly, mouth relaxing into a genuine smile. “Hey, no problem, baby. Hanging out with you is better than a holovid game.”
An unwilling smile tilted my lips up even as my heart sank. Jace Monroe, the man I’d thought abandoned me years ago, loved me. But I still couldn’t stand the thought of anyone but Japhrimel touching me. If Japhrimel could be resurrected… “I’ll choose to take that as a compliment. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 24
Polyamour’s was in the Tank District, on the very northern fringe between the Tank and the financial heart downtown. Of course, she had to be close to her clients; and her clients had to be rich. To afford a liaison with Polyamour, or one of her contracted sexwitches, took a chunk of hard cash or credit that Lucifer himself might have balked at spending. She was evidently expecting us, for the security net acknowledged my hover; Jace spent a few minutes tapping on the deck, and the net’s AI linked with ours, brought the hover down in a circling pattern to land with a jolt on the roofpad. It was broad daylight, so the roof lot was empty except for one sleek gleaming hoverlimo.
I spent a few moments studying the roof and the shielding. The place was well-shielded, both magickally and electronically; I wouldn’t have wanted to crack it. The roof entrance was a sort of small gazebo seemingly made of stone and strung with glittering plaslights; stairs descended. I exchanged a glance with Jace and shook my right hand out. It threatened to cramp. My shoulder eased a little; maybe the thin shell of calm over my deepening panic was fooling the demon-made mark.
We went down the stairs and finally came to a beautifully carved mahogany door. Venus glowed from one half, her wooden face serene; Persephone with her pomegranate on the other. Others might have mistaken it for art, but any Magi-trained psion would know better. The sexwitch’s realm was Eros and Thanatos, the life-urge married to the reality of Death itself, pain turned to pleasure turned to Power; that it was offered for clients dispelled none of the mystery.
Some theorists said sexwitches were the bridge between sedayeen— the healers—and Necromances, those who tread in the realm of Death. I didn’t believe it.
Still, I couldn’t dismiss the power of sex itself. No psion who deals with the deepest urges of the body and psyche can.
Sex was the least of what sexwitches offered. Redemption, delight, the chance to play with the deepest and most forbidden of fetishes and fantasies, companionship, vulnerability—sexwitches offered all the power of the physical body to soothe, all the power of sex to enlighten, to loosen, to liberate. It was heady stuff, and people paid in buckets for it, making sexwitch House taxes a top revenue source for the Hegemony government.
Two full-spectrum lights made to look like gaslamps burned behind the silvery lattices of ornate carriage lamps. I inhaled and smelled kyphii, sex, and synth hash.
“Great,” Jace murmured. “The one time I go into Polyamour’s and it’s during the day.”
I laughed. The sound bounced off the creamy marble walls. “I wonder what these stairs are like when it rains.”
“Slippery. But think of the possibilities.”
“Slipped disk. Cracked skull.” I kept the laughter back only by sheer force of will.
He snorted, a short chuckle. “You have no imagination.”
“More like too much.” The banter to ease our nerves was so familiar I began to relax fractionally. Then the doors gave a theatric creak as they began to open, a slice of glowing almost-candlelight widening.
We waited, my right hand closing around the hilt of my sword. Jace let out a short sound that wasn’t quite a whistle and nowhere near a word. When the door was fully open, it revealed a dimly lit hallway hung with red velvet and decorated with tasteful marble statues. And there, standing in the middle of the hall, was the transvestite Polyamour, the most famous sexwitch of our generation.
She was tall, and her face was as beautifully made as any architectural triumph: caramel skin; long, curling black hair; and amazing gray eyes fringed by thick charcoal lashes. She had long aesthetic legs, lightly muscled and revealed by a fluttering pale-pink silk dress. Her feet were bare and surprisingly small, the nails lacquered deep blood-red. One dainty ankle was graced with a thin gold bracelet, and gold hoops hung from her perfect ears. High on her left cheek was the inset ruby, aesthetically placed, which any datscan would reveal as encoded with a powerful protective chip. If a plasgun or projectile discharged anywhere near her or if the ruby were removed, the police would automatically be called. A datscan would also reveal her as a licensed sexwitch, immune to several laws applying to other psionics—and worth ten years in a federal prison if she was assaulted. The Hegemony received far too much in tax profit from sexwitches to look kindly on any harm done to them—not like the fifty years before and after the Parapsychic Act, when sexwitches had all but died out due to the abuse they received from being bought and sold like chattel, worse than any other sort of psion.
Her quick intake of breath showed a pair of shallow high breasts under the silk. I wondered if they were augments, or if she’d taken hormone courses.
Her Power reached out, caressed the edges of both my shields and Jace’s. The familiar
smell of sexwitch—sex and vulnerability and pure sugary musk heat—rolled out from her in waves.
Anubis, she’s powerful.
“Dante Valentine. And Jace Monroe.” She tilted her beautiful head slightly, an acknowledgment that sent her perfect ringlets cascading. “I thought you would be along sooner rather than later. The holovids just reported Aran Helm’s death.” Her voice was caramel with a slight astringency, too deep for a woman’s but too light for a man’s.
I sniffed. Something smelled odd here: a rank edge of fear under all the perfume.
I saw a glint of silver at her throat.
I dug in my pocket, pulled out the broken necklace. The spade swung at the end of it. “Tig vedom deum.” My voice stroked the hall, made the velvet hangings flutter. I was forgetting to be careful.
Polyamour actually turned pale and stepped back. She reached up to her sculpted throat and touched her own necklace. If my eyes hadn’t been so sharp, I might not have been able to see it in the shifting, dim light. But there it was, a silver spade. I felt a jolt of sick happiness, one more connection sliding into place. I was getting closer. Are you happy, Christabel? I’m remembering, and I’m dragging other people through remembering it too. Are you fucking happy?
“You were not a member, but you know.” Her voice was less smooth now. Her eyes slid over me again. “I suppose you should come in.”
“I suppose we should.” I moved down the steps, heard Jace behind me. “The way I see it, either you’re part of it or you’re a potential victim. If it’s the former, I’ll get you first. If it’s the latter, you could do worse than have my protection.”
She laughed, but the sound was unsteady. Polyamour turned on one soft bare foot and started off down the hall. “I was told you were direct. That seems a bit of an understatement.”
“One of the victims was a girl of yours.” I moved after her, my boots clicking softly. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She cast me one extraordinary dark glance over her shoulder. The sway of her hips under the silk was almost a woman’s. I looked back at Jace, who seemed bemused. “You were at the Hall,” Polyamour said. “You know the habit of silence can be hard to break. I didn’t know anything useful about Yasrule’s death until Edward brought me the pictures. Then I knew.”
“What exactly do you know?” She wasn’t moving very quickly. My boots, and Jace’s, thudded in the murmuring silence, all sound dulled by the velvet on the walls. The doors closed behind us on whisper-soft hinges.
“Let’s have some coffee. We can be civilized, can’t we?” She had recovered. Her voice was back to smoothness. But her aura shifted uneasily, and my own Power reached out, caressing her vulnerable edges. Sexwitches were still nicknamed “beggars” in some circles; the natural physiological processing of Power triggered chemical cascades of pleasure in them, endorphins that made them pleading and vulnerable. As a part-demon, I had more Power than most sexwitches ever encountered; if Polyamour wasn’t fully-fed she would be distracted, and I would have to be very gentle. If I was careful of my new body’s effect on normal humans, I was doubly careful of what I could do to an exquisitely sensitive sexwitch.
Other halls began to open off this one. I caught sight of round couches, spears of daylight picking out details: a large harp, the glowing green leaves of some trailing plant, a sleeping white Persian cat on a round cushion of black velvet. All in all, it seemed pretty tame.
As if reading my mind, Polyamour laughed. It was a practiced sound, with a rill of uneasiness underneath. “These are only the reception rooms. Have you ever been inside a House, Ms. Valentine?”
“Call me Danny,” I said automatically. “No. Some bordellos and brothels, but never a House. It’s very beautiful.”
She accepted the compliment with a queenly nod. “My private quarters are a few floors down. If you don’t mind.”
“It would be an honor.” Something that was bothering me became painfully clear. “Where are your bodyguards? I’d think your intra-House security would be a little tighter.”
“What good would bodyguards do if Dante Valentine wants me dead?” Her tone edged on the whimsical. “No. For personal reasons, I’d prefer to keep this meeting private.” The end of the hall rose up in front of us and two shielded doors opened, revealing an elevator. I swallowed, my jaw setting, and Jace’s hand closed around my elbow. “Besides, I am not without a slight precognitive Talent. It comes in handy.”
We stepped into the elevator. Polyamour’s aura pressed against mine, the air roiling with Shaman, sexwitch, and almost-demon. The doors closed. There was a time when I would have drawn steel and started struggling to escape such a confined space, but now I set my teeth together and tightened my left hand around the scabbard. My rings popped and sparked. Jace’s touch on my elbow loosened for a second, but then he drove his fingernails in savagely.
The bright diamonds of pain were negligible, but they helped.
Polyamour studied my face. In such close quarters, I could see the line of her jaw, too strong for a woman’s. There was an old, faint scar running just under her right ear, under the jawbone to the bottom of her chin. Her forehead was a little too broad too. But those eyes more than made up for it. “You’re exquisite,” she said. “I could get you a ton of work.”
I managed a tight smile. Maybe she didn’t assume I’d been genespliced. Then again, she could see the black stain on my aura. Thanks for the compliment. I don’t want to look like this. “Not many would like to fuck a Necromance.” And I can’t touch a man without thinking of a dead demon and how he held me.
Nothing seemed to throw her. “You’d be surprised.” The elevator made a soft sound, and the doors opened. Disregarding safety or politeness, I was the first one out, tearing free of Jace’s hand but dimly grateful that he had choked up on my elbow.
This hall was plain, wood-floored, and white-walled. Sunlight poured in from the windows, but gauzy white curtains diluted the force of the light. I blinked, my pupils contracting, and smelled coffee. Polyamour led us through a plain wooden door and into a large comfortable room with a fireplace, a tumbled king-size bed, two blue linen couches, a battered Perasiano rug, and a woman wearing nothing but a collar and long chain standing in the middle of a small kitchenette, pouring coffee from a silver samovar.
“Please, sit.” Polyamour strode across the room, silk fluttering, and draped herself across one of the couches. “Diana will bring the coffee.”
I lowered myself down gingerly, the sword across my knees. Looked up at Jace, who wore a faint scowl. He stood to the side and folded his arms, watchdog written in every line of his body. “I suppose we might start with the obvious,” I said. “Someone’s killing the members of the Black Room. Why?”
She gave one elegant shrug, the silk whispering as she moved. The naked woman padded over softly, bearing a silver tray. She glanced at Polyamour, who nodded slightly.
“Cream?” the naked woman asked, her breasts moving gently as she knelt to place the tray on a low ebony table. Her pubic fleece was smoky darkness, her hair a long rippling fall of chestnut. She was a sexwitch too, a ruby glittering in her cheek. She seemed utterly unself-conscious of her nudity, almost to the point of parody. Her aura was at a low ember, fully fed, but she still made a subtle, inviting movement as soon as the edge of my aura touched her. “Sugar?”
“Just cream.” If this is a game to see how I react, Poly, you’re going to be very disappointed. Even when I was human I didn’t go in for this.
She looked up at Jace, who shook his head.
The naked woman handed me an antique silver cup full of expensively smooth coffee and chicory, cut with heavy cream. She spent a few more moments preparing Polyamour’s drink, handed it to her, and sat back on her heels, waiting.
“You may go, Diana. I will be quite all right. Come back in two hours.” Poly waved her away.
The woman bowed, her breasts moving, hair falling forward to veil her face momentarily. Then she rose, looped the ch
ain from the leather collar over her arm, and left, closing the door with a quiet click.
Polyamour seemed to shrink slightly at the sound of that click. “I suppose you want to know how they did it.”
I took a sip of the coffee. “This is very nice.”
She acknowledged the compliment with a small nod.
Let’s get down to business. “The more I know, the better prepared I am to stop this thing.”
“I’m not sure you can stop it.” She crossed her legs, demurely, but a faint sheen of sweat showed on her forehead. I wondered if she’d had her chin laser-treated to get rid of stubble, or if hormone treatments had taken care of it. “It’s probably Destiny coming home to roost. Do you believe in Fate, Danny Valentine?”
I shrugged. “No more than the next Magi-trained Necromance.”
She gave a coughing little laugh. “That’s very funny. I was involved in a conspiracy to kill a Hegemony officer. Are you going to arrest me?”
It was my turn to laugh, a laugh that dropped and shattered in pieces on the wooden floor. “Not fucking likely. Any truth to the rumor that someone turned into a Feeder and took him on in a predator’s duel?”
“In a way, I suppose.” Polyamour shivered.
My nostrils flared. I Saw her fear, rising in trails that rippled and eddied like heat. A sexwitch’s fear is perfumed, and smells like something fragrant and wanting, pheromones pressing hard against anyone in the room. Humans and Nichtvren like the smell, psions are particularly sensitive to a sexwitch’s pheromones of fear or excitement; werecain and kobolding aren’t affected at all.
And me? It was difficult for me not to look at the curve of her throat where the pulse beat. She smelled like food. She also smelled—just a hint—of amber musk and burning cinnamon, a smell that made me think of Japhrimel’s body against mine, his spent, shuddering sigh as he buried his face in my throat, the tang of demon blood burning my mouth. It’s not real. It’s only chemicals and Power. She’s just scared.