And I cried in relief, clinging to Japhrimel the demon. He was solid and warm and real, and I did not want to let go.
CHAPTER 38
I was weak but lucid by the time we got back to Jace’s mansion.
Eddie covered Jace with a plasgun most of the time. Gabe, paper-pale with exhaustion and bloody all over (most of it was mine), piloted the hover. I didn’t ask where it had come from—if it was Jace’s, it was all right, if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to know. All three of them—Gabe, Eddie, Jace—looked as if they had been through the grinder. Eddie’s left arm hung limply by his side, Jace’s face was covered in blood from a scalp wound and most of his shirt was torn off, stripes criss-crossing his torso. Gabe’s clothes were tattered, filthy, smelling of smoke and blood and something suspiciously like offal.
Japhrimel carried me. His face was shuttered, closed, his eyes dark, a smear of my blood on one cheek. Santino had shot me in the chest. Otherwise, his dark coat was pristine. He occasionally stroked my cheek, sometimes glancing at Jace while he did so.
I didn’t want to know. I had the uncomfortable feeling I’d find out soon enough.
I was too tired to think. My brain reeled drunkenly from one thought to the next, no logic, nothing but shock.
The city lay under a pall of smoke. It looked as if a full-scale riot had gone down. I saw several craters, but the rain had intensified and was drowning the fires. The aroma of burning filled the air, even inside the hover. When we touched down at Jace’s, it was a relief.
Inside, Gabe herded us all into a sitting room done in light blue and cream. Eddie shoved Jace down on a tasteful couch. I hope he searched this room, I thought, tiredly, Jace could have a weapon stashed in here.
I shivered. It would be a while before I took another Necromance job. If I went back to the borders of the land of Death too soon I would perhaps be unable to come back, training or no training.
“Okay,” Gabe said, stalking across the room to a walnut highboy and tossing it open to reveal liquor bottles, “I need a motherfucking drink.”
I cleared my throat. “Me, too,” I said, the first words out of my mouth since leaving Santino’s hideaway. “We need to move quickly,” I said, as Japhrimel carried me to the couch facing Jace’s. Instead of setting me down, he simply dropped gracefully down himself, still holding me. A little rearranging and I found myself in his lap, cuddled against him like a child.
A child. I shuddered at the thought. But it was comforting, his heat, and the smell of him.
Gabe groaned. “Give me a minute, Danny. I just found out one of my friends is a fucking traitor and yanked you out of Death’s arms. At least let me have a bourbon in peace.”
I cleared my throat. “Pour me one,” I said, husky, my voice almost refusing to obey me. “We’ve got big-time problems.”
“I would never have guessed,” Eddie growled. “You get into more fucking trouble, Valentine. That thing nearly burned down the entire goddamn city looking for you.”
I barely had the courage to look up at Japhrimel’s face. “You did that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I had to find you,” he said, simply.
I let it go. Instead, I started telling my story with the accompaniment of rain smacking the windows. Gabe knew me well enough not to interrupt, and Eddie watched Jace. Halfway through, Gabe handed me a glass of bourbon and settled down stiffly in a chair, her split lip and black eyes combining to turn her thoughtful expression into sadness. I downed the liquor, coughing as it burned the back of my throat, then continuing. By the time I got to the child sleeping in the bedroom, Japhrimel’s eyes were incandescent. He had turned slowly to stone underneath me.
When I finished, Gabe drained the rest of her drink. Silence stretched through the room, broken by a low rattle of thunder.
Then she leapt to her feet and hurled her glass across the room, letting out a scream as sharp as a falcon’s cry. The shattering glass didn’t make me jump, but the scream came close.
She half-whirled, and pinned Jace with an accusing glare. “Traitor!” she hissed. “You knew!”
“I didn’t know a goddamn thing—” he began. Eddie growled.
“Let him talk,” I said, quietly, but with a note of finality that cut across the Skinlin’s rumbling. “And while he does that, Gabe, can you take a look at Eddie’s arm?”
They all stared at me for a moment. Then Gabe moved stiffly to the hedgewitch and touched his shoulder. Some unspoken agreement seemed to pass between them, and Eddie’s shoulders sagged just a little. More thunder crawled across the roof of the sky. I was so tired that for once it didn’t hurt me to see Gabe press her lips to Eddie’s forehead—but I did look away. I looked at Jace, who was paper-pale, the tic of rage flicking in his cheek.
“Talk fast,” I told him. “Before I decide it was a bad idea to do that.”
“I didn’t know a goddamn thing,” he said, harshly. Gabe started poking at Eddie’s arm, and I felt the vibration of her Power start. She was doing a healing. I shuddered—every time she pulled on Power, it was like another astringent stripe against my abraded psyche. She had pulled me back from Death.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a blood Corvin?” I asked. Are you part demon, Jace? The question trembled on my lips. My skin crawled.
“I’m not,” he said, sagging into the couch back. His hair was matted with blood and water. We were a sorry-looking group—except for Japhrimel, who was untouched except for the swipe of my blood on his cheek. “I was adopted by one of the Four Uncles—Sargon Corvin’s adopted sons—because of my psi potential. That’s what gets you into the Corvins—psi. I hated every goddamn minute of it, Danny. Once Deke Corvin died I made my escape and I ran as far as I could . . . and then I met you.”
“You knew Sargon Corvin, the head of your fucking Mob Family, was Santino?” I asked, very clearly.
“No,” he answered. “Gods, no. I swear on my staff, I had no idea. Nobody’s seen Sargon for years except the older uncles—they give all the orders, supposedly from him. I thought the great Sargon was a motherfucking myth, Danny. Nobody was allowed into the Inner Complex—where we found you. That’s where all the gene research went down, they were heavy into illegal augments and gene splices because it made money—that’s what I knew. I didn’t know. I thought Sargon was after you for revenge, since my street war with them killed all three of the surviving Uncles. They died hard, too. I’ve had my hands full while you were up in Saint City moping.” He dropped his head back, leaning against the couch, and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He would know that the only way to hurt me would be to kill you, Danny. That’s why I left you, and why I insisted you stay here during this little hunt of yours.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a Corvin? You should have told me.” I tried not to sound hurt and failed miserably. I was just too tired.
He laughed, dropping his chin to look at me. “Everyone knows how you feel about the Mob, baby. I never would have gotten past your front door.”
“So you lied to me.”
“I love you, Danny,” he said, closing his eyes and tipping his head back onto the couch. Dark circles stood out all the way around his eyes. He was unshaven, gaunt. “I didn’t have a choice. Not if I wanted to stay clean; if I’d told you who I was, you would have ditched me. I wanted to be clean for you. I was out, until you went on the Morrix job. They threatened to kill you. The only thing I could do was disappear and hope they would leave you alone.” He sighed. “Sargon’s been too busy to bother with you, I’d guess, while he perfected this fucking process of his and I slipped my chain and started giving him trouble. Until you came back and shoved yourself in his face again. I didn’t know, Danny. If I had known, I would have killed him myself. Or tried to, at least. Why don’t you ask your pet demon what he knows about all this?”
“Watch your mouth, human,” Japhrimel said quietly, his tone completely cold. “Did the Prince know that Santino has gone so far as to create an Androgyne, he would
have brought Hellesvront—Hell-on-Earth—to bear on this Corvin Family, and wiped them from existence. This affects him far more than it affects you.”
Jace snorted and opened his mouth. “Shut up,” I said. “Just shut up.”
Japhrimel lifted his free hand and stroked my hair back from my face. “You should rest, Dante.”
“What about the little girl?” I asked, craning my neck to look at his face. “Did you know Santino was trying to breed a new kind of demon?”
“Not a new kind of demon,” Japhrimel said. “An extremely rare kind of demon. Lucifer is the Prime, the first Androgyne from whom all demons are descended—the younger Androgynes are either his vassals or his lovers. It is not a thing spoken of to humans.”
I let out a long sigh. I was so damnably tired, my eyelids felt like lead. “So you knew. What does it mean, Japhrimel? I’m tired, and I died back there. I’m feeling kind of stupid, spell it out for me.”
“The Egg is a sigil of the Prince’s reign,” Japhrimel said. “It holds the Prince’s genetic codex and a portion of his Power—so much Power that he cannot leave Hell without it. Santino can access the genetic codex by virtue of his function as one of Lucifer’s genetic scientists, but the Power locked inside the Egg is not his to use. If another Androgyne unlocks the Egg, the balance of power in Hell itself will shift. The Androgyne with the Egg will control Hell—and who will control the Androgyne?”
“Santino,” I breathed. I believed it. I didn’t need the canisters or the vision of the little girl with Doreen’s face to convince me any more than I already was. Demons played with genetics the way they played with technology—some scientists said our own genes were proof of that. It was one of the greatest scientific mysteries, hotly disputed and contested by Magi and geneticists—could demons theoretically interbreed with humans? Only no demon had done so for thousands of years, if they ever had—if you could believe the old stories about demons marrying human women and giants roaming the earth.
I thought of the rows and rows of canisters and shuddered. Santino had figured out how to make another Lucifer, a Lucifer he could use for his own ends? A lovely little malleable, controllable genetic copy of Lucifer—using Doreen’s genetic material in the process.
And now he wanted to use mine. Or maybe just my body as an “incubator.” You could be the new Madonna, his voice whispered in my memory, soft and chillingly inhuman.
I shuddered. I had escaped being assigned as a breeder in Rigger Hall; I didn’t want to be turned into one now for a crazed demon. And what about other sedayeen or Necromances, possibly kidnapped and forced to incubate more of the filthy little things?
I should have been angry. Japhrimel had omitted to tell me far more than Jace had, but I only felt a weary gratefulness that the demon was here—a gratefulness I didn’t want to examine more closely. Silence stretched through the room. Eddie hissed a curse between his teeth, and Gabe murmured an apology, bandaging his arm.
“He’s playing for control of Hell itself,” the demon said quietly. “And if that happens, he will gain control of your world as well.”
“He says it’s for freedom,” I answered. Exhaustion pulled at my arms and legs, wrapped my brain in cotton wool.
“Freedom for Vardimal, perhaps.” Japhrimel shrugged. The movement made my head loll against his shoulder.
I closed my eyes. It was so hard to think with exhaustion weighing me down.
“So what now?” Gabe said.
“Now I get a couple hours of sleep, and I do what I should have done in the first place.”
“And what is that?” Japhrimel didn’t move, but his arms tightened slightly. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have thought about that.
Sleep was stalking me a little more gently than Death had. It was the expected reaction; most people fell into a deep sleep after being yanked back from death. It was the psyche’s method of self-defense, trying to come to terms with brushing the Infinite. “I’m going to get up, and find my sword, and hunt the motherfucker down. Alone.”
“Not alone,” Gabe said. “We’ll tie you up if we have to, Danny. Don’t start that again.”
I was about to tell her to back the fuck off when I passed out. The last thing I heard was Japhrimel’s voice. “If I did not leave her at Death’s door, I would not leave her now. I will take her to bed.”
CHAPTER 39
I slept for twenty-eight hours.
Plenty of time for Santino to get away.
When I finally surfaced, it was to find myself tucked naked into a large dark-green bed. The climate control was on, so the room was cool, even though fierce early-morning sunlight stabbed through the windows. I blinked at the light, propping myself up on my elbows.
My entire body ached, the reverberation of the plasgun bolt and Power backlash. I’d pushed myself far beyond the limits of pain-free Power use. I would be lucky to escape a migraine in the next twenty-four hours.
My shoulder didn’t ache, though. I touched the scarring of Japhrimel’s mark and had to steel myself against a wave of painful nausea.
“I’m here,” he said, and turned from the window. I hadn’t seen him there, maybe dazzled by the sunlight. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to be seen. “Rest, Dante.”
“I can’t rest,” I said, tasting morning in my mouth. “Santino—”
“He’s being tracked. You will not be helpful if you do not rest.” He approached the bed silently, his black coat floating on the sunlight. “Events are moving, Dante. The Prince, now that he knows what Santino was attempting, has placed the full resources of Hellesvront under my control. Every Hell-on-Earth agent is looking for Santino. He will not long escape our attention.”
I sat up the rest of the way, gingerly, and rubbed at my eyes. “Unless he goes where there aren’t any people,” I said. “Human agents aren’t any good if he stays out of sight like he’s been doing for the past fifty years.” And besides, he was mine. I’d started this hunt, I was going to finish it.
He shrugged. “Not all the agents are human. Vardimal is a scavenger, despite his contempt for humans. He needs people, hungers for them. Hellesvront will find him.”
“What the hell are the demon police getting involved for? They can’t kill him. I should know, I tried. Where are the others?” I asked, squinting up at him. I wanted to see his face, couldn’t.
“The other Necromance and the earth-witch are sleeping. Your former lover is sealed in a spare room, but otherwise unharmed.” Japhrimel’s tone changed slightly. He sounded . . . disdainful. His eyes glowed with a light of their own. Backlit by the sun, he looked like a shadow with bright eyes. “I would speak with you of something else, Dante.”
“If Vardimal’s a scavenger, what does that make you?”
“I am of the Greater Flight, he is of the Lesser. I am not bound by his hungers.” Japhrimel shrugged, but the movement wasn’t as fluid as it usually was.
“Is that why you’re the Devil’s assassin?”
He bared his teeth in a facsimile of a pained grin. “I am the Prince’s assassin because I am able to kill my brothers and sisters without qualm, Dante. And I am his assassin because he trusts me to do his bidding. I would speak to you of—”
I didn’t want to know. “Is it true?” I asked him. “Sedayeen and Necromances—is it true?”
He was silent for a long time. Then, “It is true; sedayeen and Necromances do carry recessive genes closely related to demons. I would speak to you about—”
Gods. I’m human, I thought. I’m not a demon. I know I’m human. “Later,” I said, and slid my feet out of the bed. The blessed warmth of the covers was matched only by the blessed coolness of the climate control. “Get the others. We’ve got work to do.”
“You should eat something,” he said, stepping back slightly. Retreating into the sunlight. “Please.”
“I’ll make you a deal.” I gained my feet in a rush, too happy to be vertical to care if I was naked. Besides, he was a demon, he’d probably seen plenty of n
aked women before. “You get the others here by the time I get out of the shower, and I’ll eat breakfast while we plan.” I headed for the bathroom, heard his sharp intake of breath. “What?”
I stopped, looking over my shoulder. My knees were shaky, but I felt surprisingly good despite having been shot and dragged back from death.
“Your . . . scars.” Japhrimel’s voice was flat again.
“They don’t hurt anymore,” I lied. “It was a long time ago. Look, Japh—”
“Who? Who did that to you?” Now there was a tinge of something else in his voice. Was it anger?
It was my turn to shrug. “It was a long time ago, Japhrimel. The . . . the person who did that is dead. Get the others. I’ll have breakfast while we plan.” I forced myself to take another step toward the bathroom. Another. That’s what you get for walking around naked in front of a demon, I thought, and managed to make it to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and shut the door behind me before I looked down at the other mass of claw scars on my belly. My ribs stood out, each one defined, my hipbones sticking out sharply. I’d lost weight.
I blew out a long whistling sigh between my teeth. My legs trembled. I looked up, meeting my own eyes in the mirror. I’d faced Santino again, and survived.
Miracles did happen.
“Maybe this job won’t kill me,” I whispered, and tore my eyes away from my gaunt face to go take a shower.
Gabe looked a lot better, especially with her long dark hair clean and pulled back. Eddie still favored one arm, but Gabe’s healing charm had apparently sped his recovery—as well as hers. Her black eyes were now a yellow-green raccoon mask, and her split lip looked less angry.
Jace was unshaven and moving a little stiffly, but his eyes were clear. He lowered himself cautiously into the chair Japhrimel placed for him. Gabe didn’t even spare him a look. Eddie, shaggy and direct as ever, stared at him for a full twenty seconds, lip lifting in a silent snarl.