If this is normal, don’t let me see weird. “You mean you do this to other people, too?” I gasped out.
He made a brief snorting sound. “Not me. Sometimes people come without their flesh, Magi and the like. Very few are sent for. Only the desperate come here.”
“I can believe that.” I took a deep whooping breath. Felt bile burn the back of my throat. “Thanks,” I said, finally, and he started off again. This hall was narrow but high, and there were paintings hanging on the wall that I didn’t want to look at after catching a glimpse of the first one. Instead I stared at my feet moving under me, and had a brief flash of unreality—my feet didn’t look like mine.
Jaf’s fingers closed around my nape and I took in a deep breath. I’d stumbled and half-fallen. “Not long now,” he said, releasing my neck, pulling me along by my arm. “Just hold on.”
I was in bad shape, shivering and trying not to retch, when he opened another door and pulled me through a subliminal snap. My feet took on their normal dimensions, and I slumped gratefully into the demon’s grasp. The only thing holding me up was his fingers.
Then I felt something in my hand. He closed his free hand around mine, the sword held by both of us now. “Here,” he said. “Hold on to your blade, Necromance.”
“Indeed, it wouldn’t do to drop it.” This voice was smooth as silk, persuasive, filtering into my ears. “She survived the Hall. Very impressive.”
Japhrimel said nothing. I was actually kind of starting to like him.
Not really.
I opened my eyes. The demon’s chest was right in front of me. I tilted my head back, looked up into his face. His eyes scorched mine. “Thanks,” I told him, my voice trembling slightly. “That first step’s a lulu.”
He didn’t say anything, but his lips thinned out. Then he stepped aside.
I found myself confronted with a perfectly reasonable neo-Victorian study, carpeted in plush crimson. Leather-clad books lined up on bookcases against the dark-paneled wooden walls, three red velvet chairs in front of a roaring fireplace, red tasseled drapes drawn over what might have been a window. A large mahogany desk sat obediently to one side.
A slim dark shape stood next to the fireplace. The air was drunk and dizzy with the scent of demons. I tightened my fingers on my sword, fisted my other hand, felt my lacquered nails dig into my palm.
The man—at least, it had a manlike shape—had an amazing corona of golden hair standing out from his head. A plain black T-shirt and jeans, bare golden-brown feet. I took a deep rasping breath.
“What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the inconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate—” I trailed off, licked my lips with my dry tongue. I’d had a classical humanist as a social worker, and had been infected with a love of books at an early age. The classics had sustained me all through the schoolyard hellhole of Rigger Hall.
I shuddered, remembering that. I didn’t like to think about the Hall, where I’d learned reading, writing, and ’rithmatic—and the basics of controlling my powers. Where I’d also learned how little those powers would protect me.
He turned away from the fireplace. “And courage never to submit or yield,” he finished. His eyes were like black ice and green flame at the same time, and there was a mark on his forehead that I didn’t look at, because I found I had dropped my gaze.
The demon Jaf sank down to one knee, rose again.
“You’re late,” the Prince of Hell said, mildly.
“I had to paint my nails,” my mouth bolted like a runaway horse. “A demon showing up on my doorstep and pointing a gun at me tends to disarrange me.”
“He pointed a gun at you?” The Prince made a gesture with one hand. “Please, sit, Miss Valentine. May I call you Dante?”
“It’s my name,” I responded, uncomfortably. The Devil knows my name, I thought, in a kind of delirium. The Devil knows my name.
Then I gave myself a sharp mental slap. Quit it. You need your wits about you, Danny, so just quit it. “I would be honored,” I added. “It’s a pleasure to meet Your Lordship. Your Highness. Whatever.”
He laughed. The laugh could strip the skin off an elephant in seconds. “I’m referred to as the father of lies, Dante. I’m old enough to know a falsehood when I hear one.”
“So am I,” I responded. “I suppose you’re going to say that you mean me no harm, right?”
He laughed again, throwing his head back. He was too beautiful, the kind of androgynous beauty that holovid models sometimes achieve. If I hadn’t known he was male, I might have wondered. The mark on his forehead flashed green. It’s an emerald, like a Necromance, I thought. I wonder why? Necromance emeralds were set in the skin when we finished basic schooling at about eight; I didn’t think the Prince of Hell had ever gone to primary school.
I was rapidly getting incoherent. “Excuse me,” I said politely enough. “It’s getting hard to breathe in here.”
“This won’t take very long. Bring the lovely Necromance over to a chair, my eldest, she’s about to fall down.” His voice turned the color of smooth cocoa mixed with honey. My knees turned to water.
Jaf dragged me across the room. I was too relieved to argue. The place looked normal. Human, without the weird geometry. If I ever get back to the real world I’m going to kiss the ground, I promised myself. I’ve read about people going to Hell astrally. Lucky me getting to visit in the flesh.
He dropped me into a chair—the one on the left—then stepped around to the side, his arms folded, and appeared to turn into a statue.
The Prince regarded me. His eyes were lighter but more weirdly depthless than Jaf’s, a sort of radioactive silken glow. Thirty seconds looking into those eyes and I might have agreed to anything just to make it stop.
As it was, I looked down at my knees. “You wanted to see me,” I said. “Here I am.”
“Indeed.” The Prince turned back to the fireplace. “I have a mission for you, Dante. Succeed, and you can count me as a friend all the years of your life, and those years will be long. It is in my power to grant wealth and near-immortality, Dante, and I am disposed to be generous.”
“And if I fail?” I couldn’t help myself.
“You’ll be dead,” he said. “Being a Necromance, you’re well-prepared for that, aren’t you?”
My rings glinted dully in the red light. “I don’t want to die,” I said finally. “Why me?”
“You have a set of . . . talents that are uniquely suited to the task,” he answered.
“So what is it exactly you want me to do?” I asked.
“I want you to kill someone,” he said.
CHAPTER 6
Whoa.” I looked up at him, forgetting the hypnotic power of those green eyes. “Look, I’m not a contract killer. I’m a Necromance. I bring people back to ask questions, and lay them to rest when necessary.”
“Fifty years ago, a demon escaped my realm,” the Prince said mildly, his voice cutting through my objections. “He is wandering your realm at will, and he is about to break the Egg.”
Did he say crack the egg? Is that some kind of demon euphemism? “What egg?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. My sword lay across my knees. This felt too real to be a hallucination.
“The Egg is a demon artifact,” the Prince said. “Suffice it to say the effects will be very unpleasant if this particular demon breaks the Egg in your world.”
My mouth dried. “You mean like end-of-the-world bad?” I asked.
The Prince shrugged. “I wish the Egg found and the thief executed. You are a Necromance, capable of seeing what others do not. Some have called you the greatest death-talker of your generation, which is high praise indeed. You are human, but you may be able to find the Egg and kill the thief. Jaf will accompany you, to keep your skin whole until you accomplish your task.” He turned back to the fireplace. “And if you bring the Egg back to me I will reward you with more than a human being could ever dream of.”
“I’m not so sure I want your rewar
d,” I told him. “Look, I’m just a working girl. I raise the dead for issues of corporate law and to solve probate questions. I don’t do lone-gun revenge stuff.”
“You’ve been dabbling in the bounty-hunting field since you left the Academy and with corporate espionage and other illegal fancies—though no assassination, I’ll grant you that—for five years to pay off your mortgage and live more comfortably than most of your ilk,” he replied. “Don’t play with me, Dante. It is exceedingly ill-advised to play with me.”
“Likewise,” I said. “You’ve got a fully armed Necromance who knows your Name sitting in your inner sanctum, Your Highness. You must be desperate.” My mouth dried to cotton, my hands shook. That was another lie.
Despite being more research-oriented than most of my kind, I didn’t know the Devil’s Name—nobody did. In any case, he was too powerful to be commanded around like a mere imp. I doubted even knowing Tierce Japhrimel’s Name would do more than keep him from outright killing me. Lucifer’s Name was a riddle pursued by Magi, who thought that if they learned it they could control the legions of Hell. The Ceremonials said Lucifer’s true Name was more like a god’s Name—it would express him, but didn’t have power over him. The exact nature of the relationship between Lucifer and the gods was also hotly debated; since the complete verification of the existence of demons the various churches that had survived the Awakening and the Ceremonials had conducted experiments, largely inconclusive. Belief in the power of the words to banish imps was necessary—but sometimes even that didn’t work unless the demon in question was extremely weak. As Gabe’s grandmother Adrienne Spocarelli had remarked once in a footnote to her Gods and Magi, it was a good thing demons didn’t want to rule the earth, since you couldn’t even banish one unless it was a bitty one.
“And you must be greedy.” His voice hadn’t changed at all. “What do you want, Dante Valentine? I can give you the world.”
It whispered in my veins, tapped at my skull. I can give you the world . . .
I actually thought about it, but Lucifer couldn’t give me anything I wanted. Not without the price being too high. If I was sure of nothing else in this situation, I was sure of that. “Get thee behind me,” I whispered, finally. “I just want to be left alone. I don’t want anything to do with this.”
“I can even,” he said, “tell you who your parents were.”
You son of a bitch. I rocketed to my feet, my sword whipping free. Blue runes twisted inside the steel, but neither demon moved. I backed around the chair, away from Jaf, who still looked like a statue, staring at my sword. Red firelight ran wet over the blade, blue runes twisting in the steel. “You leave my parents out of this,” I snapped. “Fine. I’ll do your job, Iblis Lucifer. If you leave me alone. And I don’t want your trained dog-demon over there. Give me what information you’ve got, and I’ll find this Egg for you.”
For all I knew my parents had been too poor to raise me; either that or they’d been too strung out on any cocktail of substances. It didn’t matter—since my Matheson index was so high and they’d had me in a hospital, they hadn’t been able to sell me as an indentured. That was the only gift they’d given me—that, and the genetic accident that made me a Necromance. Both incredible gifts, when you thought about the alternative. It wasn’t the first time somebody had twitted me about being an orphan.
Nobody ever did it more than once.
Lucifer shrugged. “You must take Japhrimel. Otherwise, it’s suicide.”
“And have him double-cross me once we find this Egg? You must not want word to get out that someone took off with it.” I shook my head. “No dice. I work alone.”
His eyes came up, bored into my skull. “You are under the illusion that you have a choice.”
I lifted my sword, a shield against his gaze. Sweat trickled down my back, soaking into my jeans. It was damnably hot—what else, in Hell? You were expecting a mint julep and a cool breeze?
I didn’t even see Jaf move. In one neat move he had the sword taken away, resheathed, and the gun pressed into my temple. One of his arms was across my throat. My feet kicked fruitlessly at empty air.
“You are intriguing,” the Prince of Hell said, stalking across the room. “Most humans would be screaming by now. Or crying. There seems to be a distressing tendency to sob among your kind.”
I spat an obscenity that would have made Jado-sensei, with his Asiano sense of decorum, wince. Jaf didn’t move. His arm slipped a little, and I fought for breath. He could crush my windpipe like a paper cup. I stopped kicking—it would waste what little oxygen I had left—and concentrated, the world narrowing to a single still point.
“Let go of her,” the Prince said calmly. “She’s building up Power.”
Jaf dropped me. I hit the ground and whirled on the balls of my feet, the sword blurring free of the sheath in an arc of silver, singing. No think, little nut-brown Jado in his orange robes yelled in my memory. No think, move! Move!
I didn’t even see Jaf move again. He stepped in close, moving faster than a human, of course, twisted my wrist just short of breaking it, and tore the sword from my fingers. I punched him and actually connected, snapping his head back. Then I backed up, shuffling, away from the two demons, my two main-gauches whipping out, one reversed along my left forearm, the other held almost horizontally in front of me, ready for anything.
Anything except this.
Jaf dropped my sword. It chimed, smoking, on the floor next to the scabbard. “Blessed steel. She believes,” he said, glancing at the Prince, who had stopped and was considering me.
Of course I believe, I thought, in a sort of delirium. I talk to the god of Death on a regular basis. I believe because I must.
“Do you think you can fight your way free of Hell?” the Prince asked.
“Do you think you could be polite?” I tossed back. “’Cause I have to say, your treatment of a guest kind of sucks.” I gulped down air, a harsh whooping inhalation. It was slow suffocation, breathing in whatever gas these demons used for air.
Lucifer took a single step toward me. “My apologies, Dante. Come, sit down. Japhrimel, give her sword back. We should be polite, shouldn’t we, since we are asking her for her help.”
“What’s in the Egg?” I asked, not moving. “Why is it so important?”
Lucifer smiled. That smile made me back up until my shoulders hit a bookcase. “What’s in the Egg?” he said. “None of your concern, human.”
“Oh, boy.” I gulped down air. “This is so wrong.”
“Help me, Dante, and you will be one of the chosen few to claim my friendship.” His voice was soft and persuasive, fingering at my skull, looking for entrance. I bit savagely at the inside of my cheek, the slice of pain clearing my head slightly. “I swear to you on the waters of Lethe, if you retrieve the Egg and kill the thief, I will consider you a friend for eternity.”
I tasted blood. “What’s the demon’s name?” I asked. “The one that stole it.”
“His name is Vardimal,” Lucifer said. “You know him as Santino.”
I considered throwing my left knife. It wouldn’t kill him, but the blessed steel might slow him down long enough for me to juke for the door or the window. “Santino?” I whispered. “You slimy son of a—”
“Watch how you speak to the Prince,” Jaf interrupted. Lucifer raised one golden hand.
“Let her speak as she wishes, Japhrimel,” he said. For the first time, he sounded . . . what? Actually weary. “Value the human who speaks truth, for they are few and far between.”
“You could say the same for demons,” I said numbly. “Santino . . .” It was a longing whisper.
—blood sliding out between my fingers, a chilling crystal laugh, Doreen’s scream, life bubbling out through the gash in her throat, screaming, screaming—
I resheathed my knives.
Lucifer examined me for a few more moments, then turned and paced back to the fireplace. “I am aware that you have your own score to settle with Vardimal,”
he continued. “You help me, I help you. You see?”
“Santino was a demon?” I whispered. “How—” I had to clear my throat. “How the hell am I supposed to kill him?”
“Japhrimel will help you. He also has a . . . personal stake in this.”
Jaf gingerly picked up my sword, slid it into the sheath. I watched this, sweat trickling down my forehead. A drop fell into my eyes, stinging. I blinked it away. “Why doesn’t he just kill Santino?” I asked. My voice trembled.
“A very long time ago, during the dawning of the world, I granted this demon a gift in return for a service,” Lucifer said. “He asked for an immunity. Neither man nor demon can kill him.”
I thought this over. “So you think I can, since I’m neither.”
“It is,” Lucifer pointed out, “worth a try. Japhrimel will protect you long enough for you to carry out your mission.”
Awww, jeez, isn’t that sweet of him. I was about to say that, had a rare second thought, and shut my mouth. After a moment I nodded. “Fine.” I didn’t sound happy. “I’ll do it. It’s not like I have much of a choice.” And I’ll get free from this Jaf guy as soon as I’ve got the scent. How hard can that be?
“The rewards will be great,” Lucifer reminded me.
“Screw your rewards, I’ll be happy just to get out alive,” I muttered. Santino was a demon? No wonder I couldn’t find him. “Can I go back to Earth now? Or is this Vardimal hanging out in the Infernals?” The thought of hunting for a murderous demon through the lands of the not-quite-real-but-real-enough made suicide seem like a pretty good option.
“He is among your kind,” Lucifer told me. “Your world is a playground for us, and he plays cruel games.”
“Gee, imagine that.” I swallowed, a dry dusty click. “A demon who likes hurting people.”
“Let me tell you something, Dante Valentine,” Lucifer replied, staring into the flames. His back was rigid. “I saw your kind crawling up from mud yesterday, and pitied you. I gave you fire. I gave you civilization, and technology. I gave you the means to build a platform above the mud. I gave you the secrets of love. My demons have lived among you for thousands of years, teaching you, molding your nervous systems so you were no longer mere animals. And you spit on me, and call me evil.”