Working for the Devil

  Good.

  It was while I was sitting in the hover, resting my head against the side of the seat, that everything became clear. Of course Japhrimel had helped Vardimal escape Hell. It made sense, especially since Lucifer probably let him do it, figuring that Vardimal wouldn’t find anything of value among humans, even humans carrying the strain of the Fallen—psions. What Lucifer didn’t know, and Japhrimel probably didn’t know either, was that Vardimal had taken the Egg. And when Lucifer found that out, suddenly Vardimal wasn’t so little a threat. If Lucifer hadn’t known about the kid then, he’d probably guessed when he found the Egg gone and took notice of the human world again; finding out that Vardimal, true to form, had been taking samples from human psychics and had then disappeared. And at some point, Lucifer had made contact with Eve—way before I did, but probably by following the same link of blood I’d followed. Only his link with the child would be stronger, since it was his genetic material, and I only had the fading echo of my love for Doreen and our shared human link.

  And if Lucifer had been unable to leave Hell without the Egg, all of a sudden it became necessary to attack Vardimal from a direction the scavenger demon wouldn’t see coming. No demon would think that the Prince would hire a human.

  Lucifer had been playing to retain his control of Hell; Eve was another playing piece with potential value as a created Androgyne. It would be child’s play for Lucifer to reverse-engineer and find Vardimal’s “shining path of genes,” securing his own grasp on the reproduction of other demons. And it probably piqued the hell out of Lucifer that Vardimal had managed to do something the Prince couldn’t.

  Vardimal had been playing for control of Hell itself. Japhrimel had been playing for his freedom, and just when it seemed possible that he might live out the game, Lucifer had killed him for letting Vardimal escape—never mind that Lucifer allowed and probably facilitated it.

  It was all very logical, once I got a chance to think about it. Simple enough.

  Me? Just a human tool. I’d been playing for my life. And here I was alive, and the demon who lied to me was dead. I’d killed Santino at last, but Lucifer had Doreen’s kid. If that made us even, it also made me the loser.

  Maybe Lucifer hadn’t expected Japhrimel to turn me into whatever I was now. And that was a problem—just what the hell was I? Japhrimel had expected to be alive enough to explain it to me when everything was said and done. Maybe he miscalculated just how deeply Lucifer would detest the idea of anyone winning anything from him—even his assassin, whom he’d thrown away anyway.

  The transport finally docked, and I waited until everyone else had a chance to get off before I made my way out into the hoverport, breathing in the Saint City stink again, feeling the cold glow of my home’s Power rasping against my flesh. It took me bare seconds to adapt, because I wasn’t . . . human.

  I caught a cab home, the urn cuddled against my belly, and found myself in my own front yard again, under a blessedly cloudy Saint City sky. A faint light rain was misting down, decking out my garden with small silvery beads of water. I’d need to weed soon, and tear up half the valerian. Dry out the roots to use for sleeping-tea.

  If I could ever sleep again, that was.

  I unlocked my door and stamped my feet on the mat. My familiar, soothing house folded around me.

  I carried the urn into the stale, quiet dimness of my house. The hall had that peculiar odor of a place where nobody has breathed for a while, a house closed up on itself for too long.

  Halfway up the stairs, the niche with the little statue of Anubis was just the same as it had always been. Dusty, but just the same. My house was still here, still standing. It was only my life that had been burned to the ground.

  I settled the urn between two slim vases of dead flowers—I had forgotten to throw them out before I left—and lit two tall black candles in crystal holders. Then I trudged up the rest of the stairs, one by one. I draped my coat over the banister, unbuttoned my shirt, freed my hair from its filthy braid. Somehow washing off all the crud hadn’t seemed worth it.

  My personal computer deck stood in the upstairs study, next to the file cabinet where Santino’s file had rested. I flicked it on and spent a few moments tapping.

  When I finally signed on to my bank statements, I sat and stared at the screen for a long time.

  I was no longer Danny Valentine, struggling mercenary and Necromance.

  I was rich. Not just rich—phenomenally rich. The breath slammed out of me while I sat there, staring at the flickering screen. I would never have to worry about money again—not for a long, long time, anyway.

  And just how long would I live, cursing myself, knowing I’d been outplayed by the Devil in a game I hadn’t even known I was going to be sucked into? All things being equal, I was lucky to still be breathing.

  I looked at the numbers, my pulse beating frail and hard in my throat and wrists. At least Lucifer hadn’t welshed on that part of his promise.

  I logged out and switched the deck off, then sat looking at my hands in the gathering twilight. The blessed quiet of my house enfolded me.

  My hands lay obediently in my lap, golden-skinned and graceful. The right was still twisted into a kind of claw, but if I tried I could move the fingers a little more each day. My wrists were slender marvels of bone architecture. If I scrubbed the dirt off my face I could look in a mirror and see a demon’s beauty under a long fall of dark hair, the emerald glowing from my cheek.

  Would I still be able to enter Death? I was pretty sure . . . but I didn’t have the stinking courage to find out for sure. Not yet.

  Empty. I was an empty doll.

  You will not leave me to wander the earth alone. Had he meant it?

  Had the only thing Japhrimel not planned for been me? Or had I been part of his game?

  Somehow, I didn’t think I’d been something he’d planned. Call me stupid, but . . . I didn’t think so.

  The breath left me in another walloping rush. I blinked. A tear dropped from my eyelid, splashed onto my right hand.

  I might have sat there for hours if my front door hadn’t resounded with a series of thumps.

  My heart leapt into my mouth. I tasted bile.

  I made it down the stairs slowly, like an old woman. Twisted the doorknob without bothering to scan the other side of the door. My shields—and Japhrimel’s—still remained, humming and perfect over the house. Nothing short of a thermonuclear psychic attack could damage my solitude now.

  I didn’t want to wonder why Japhrimel’s shields were still perfect if he was dead. Maybe demon magick worked differently.

  I jerked the door open and found myself confronted with a pair of blue eyes and slicked-down golden hair, dark with the creeping rain. He stood on my doorstep, leaning on his staff, and regarded me.

  I said nothing. Silence stretched between us.

  Jace shoved past me and into my front hall. I shut the door and turned around. Now he faced me in my house, through the stale dimness.

  We stared at each other for a long time.

  Finally he licked his lips. “Hate me all you want,” he said. “Go ahead. I don’t blame you. Yell at me, scream at me, try to kill me, whatever. But I’m not leaving.”

  I folded my arms. Stared at him.

  He stared back at me.

  I finally cleared my throat. “I’m not human anymore, Jace,” I said. Husky. My voice was ruined from screaming—and from the Devil’s hand crushing my larynx. I was lucky he hadn’t killed me.

  Or had he deliberately left me alive? To wander the earth. Alone.

  “I don’t care what you are,” he said. “I’m not leaving.”

  “What if I leave?” I asked him. “I could go anywhere in the world.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Danny.” He pounded his staff twice on my floor, sharp guncracks of frustration. “Get off it, will you? I’m staying. That’s it. Yell at me all you like, I’m not leaving you alone. The demon’s dead, you need someone to watch your back.”
br />   “I don’t love you,” I informed him. “I won’t ever love you.”

  “If I cared about that I’d still be in Rio with a new Mob Family and a sweet little fat-bottomed babalawao,” he shot back. “This is my choice, Danny. Not yours.”

  I shrugged, and brushed past him. Climbed the stairs, slowly, one at a time.

  I hadn’t made my bed before I left, so I just dropped myself into the tangle of sheets and covers and closed my eyes. Hot tears slid out from between my eyelids, soaked into the pillow.

  I heard his footsteps, measured and slow. He set his staff by the bed, leaning it against the wall the way he used to. Then he lowered himself down next to me, fully clothed.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch, if you want,” he said finally, lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Do whatever you want,” I husked. “I don’t care.”

  “Just for tonight, then.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll be a gentleman. Buy another bed and clear out that spare bedroom tomorrow . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “I don’t care,” I repeated. Silence descended on my house again, broken only by the soft sound of rain pattering on my roof. The sharp tearing in my chest eased a little, then a little more. Tears trickled down to my temples, soaked into my hair.

  He must have been exhausted, because it took a very little time before his even breathing brushed the air, his face serene with human unconsciousness and age. Sleep, Death’s younger sister.

  Or oldest child . . .

  I lay next to Jace, stiff as a board, and cried myself into a demon’s fitful sleep.

  About The Author

  LILITH SAINTCROW was born in New Mexico and started writing at the age of ten. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington with her husband, two children, two cats, and assorted other strays. She can be reached at http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

  If you liked

  Working for the Devil. . .

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  Turn the page for a sneak peak at these three books . . .

  VALENTINE’S FALL

  (A Dante Valentine Novel)

  Lilith Saintcrow

  Two days later, the buzzing sound jolted me out of an uneasy, thready half-trance. Jace muttered something next to me, blowing out between pursed lips. I rolled over, checked the clock, and sighed. The cotton sheets tangled around my legs. I’d been tossing again.

  3:00 P.M. Another drunken night of watching old Indiana Jones, Magi, and Father Egyptos holovids shot to hell. Jace muttered again, turned away, presenting me with his broad, muscled back. The scorpion tattoo on his left shoulder blade shifted uneasily, its black-edged stinger flexing. Thin lines of pale scarring traced across muscle hard as tile, marring skin that had never lost its Nuevo Rio tan. He’d collapsed on my bed for once because the room down the hall was too far away when he was that inebriated. Besides, it was almost nice to hear his breathing next to me while I lay and tried to sleep, achieving at most a half-trance that tried to rest the mind and left me feeling almost as tired as when I started.

  Something’s up. Instinct raced along my spine, my rings flashed. A golden spark popped from the amber cabochon on my left middle finger. Of course something was up, nobody would call me in the late afternoon unless something was up. And no holomarketer would call a registered psion’s number, we tended to be a bad return on that advertising dollar. Even though it was illegal to hex a normal out of spite, some of us had a nasty habit of disregarding possible legal action when it came to bloody holomarketing jackals. It was also expensive for corporations to keep the required coverage that would bring a psion out to remove the hex.

  My left shoulder ached, a sudden fresh bite of coldness burning all the way down to the bone from the demon-mark pressed into my skin. If I touched it, I might almost feel the ropes of scar moving under my fingers. I refrained from touching it, as usual, and shifted position, rolling the shoulder in its socket as I shook the almost-dream away. The sound shrilled again, the most annoying buzz I’d heard in a long time.

  I scooped up the bedside phone, cursing at whoever had thought it was a good idea to plug in a phone up here. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, which meant I was muttering imprecations at myself. “Sekhmet sa’es. What?”

  All things considered it was as polite as I could get. I never use the vid capability on modern phones if I can help it. The thought of someone seeing me inside my own private house without having to get in a goddamn hover and come out just rubbed me the wrong way. Plus, if I want to answer the phone naked, it’s nobody’s business but mine.

  “Danny.” Gabe’s voice, instantly recognizable. Of all the people I could identify with one word, she was at the top of the list. She sounded strained and urgent. “Get your ass up. I need you.”

  I sat bolt upright, dragging the sheet away from Jace, who made a low sleepy sound of protest and curled into a tighter ball. “Where?”

  Click of a lighter, inhaled breath. She was smoking again. Bad news. “I’m at the station. How soon can you be here?”

  I reached over, shook Jace’s shoulder. His skin was cool under mine, my lacquered fingernails scraping slightly. He woke up a little more gracefully than I did, sitting up, sheathing the knife he kept under his pillow as soon as he realized I was on the phone instead of under attack. We were both jumpy. Going from bounty to bounty will do that to you.

  “I’m on my way,” I told her. “Hang loose.”

  She hung up. I dropped the phone back into its cradle and stretched, the ligaments in my right hand cracking as I tried to spread the fingers all the way. I hadn’t been dreaming,—had I? I couldn’t remember— but it had been the closest I’d gotten to real sleep for a good three weeks, and I didn’t like having it interrupted. Bounties weren’t good for sleeping on; sleep usually meant that your prey was getting away.

  Then again, I’ve always had bad dreams. The only stretch of good sleep I’ve ever had was the time when Doreen lived with me. A sedayeen could tranquilize even the unruliest Necromance, and that was one more thing I missed about her, the gentleness in the middle of the night when she calmed me down from a dream and sent me back into grateful blackness.

  “What’s up now?” Jace sounded sleepy, but he slid his legs out of the bed and grabbed his jeans. I was already across the room, pulling a fresh shirt off the hanger with no memory of the intervening space. I’d blinked through the room again, using inhuman speed. Got to stop doing that.

  Ten months and counting, and I still wasn’t used to this new body. I remembered just how eerily, spookily quick Japhrimel could move, and wondered if I looked the same way when my body blinked through space and my mind tried to catch up. A piece of my power, he’d called it. To make you stronger, less easy to damage. If it wasn’t for that gift I might be dead now. Lucky Danny Valentine, tougher than your average psion.

  “Gabe. At the station. Wants us there now.” I didn’t need to yawn, but I did take a deep breath, wondering where the weariness came from. If I didn’t need to sleep, why should I be tired? Did almost-demons need sleep? None of the Magi shadowjournals or demonology books could tell me, and hunting down bounties was cutting into my research time in a big way.

  “Fuck.” Jace yawned, stretched. He stripped wheat-gold hair back from his face, yanked his shirt down, and shrugged into his assassin’s rig. Oiled, supple leather; guns, knives—my own hands moved automatically. My right hand throbbed uneasily until I shook it out, joints cracking and popping. I ducked my head through the strap of my black canvas bag and had to stop, taking another deep breath, settling the strap diagonally across my body.

  Maybe it was another bounty. I hoped it was another bounty. A big one, a complex one, one that would keep me occupied with the next thi
ng to be done, and the next, and the next.

  It didn’t matter. I jerked my coat from its hook, shrugged into it. My two main knives rode in their sheaths; the guns easy and loose in my rig, and my rings popped a few more golden sparks. It felt so natural I had to stop and breathe again, deep down into the well of my stomach. Familiar excitement mixed with dread deep in my belly, tainted the air I blew out between my teeth.

  “Did she say anything else?” Jace rubbed his face, yawning again. His aura rippled, the spiky darkness of a Shaman prickling the air. My own cloak of energy responded, singing an almost audible answer. “I mean, do I need to bring the rifle?”

  “No.” I plunged my fingers in my bag and checked for extra ammo clips, the plasgun didn’t need them but the projectile weapons did. Sunlight glowed under the edges of my bedroom blinds; I felt logy and slow as I usually did during the day. “Just your staff. If she needed your rifle, she wouldn’t have dialed, she’d have shown up personally.”

  “Good point.” How did the man sound so casually amused, especially after drinking three-quarters of a bottle of Chivas Red? I could still smell the sourness of his body and Power metabolizing the alcohol, running through the depressant, converting the sugars. “Fuck. I think I’m still drunk, Danny.”

  “Good,” I replied, stuffing another two ammo clips into my bag. It pays to be prepared. “That’ll keep you relaxed. Let’s go.”

  KITTY AND THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

  Carrie Vaughn

  I tossed my backpack in a corner of the studio and high-fived Rodney on his way out.

  “Hey Kitty, thanks again for taking the midnight shift,” he said. He’d started playing some third-generation grunge band that made my hackles rise, but I smiled anyway.

  “Happy to.”

  “I noticed. You didn’t used to like the late shift.”