“I was pleasantly surprised.” Levity, his own particular brand of dry humor. We both knew how close it had been.
I sighed, opened my eyes, saw the blue velvet canopy flutter. How many times had I awakened to this bed? How many times had Japhrimel soothed me out of a nightmare, stroked my back and shoulders until I could stop trembling? How many times had I sobbed out the names of my failures and listened to his calm voice making everything better?
If Japh needed me to, I’d take on the Prince of Hell and more. What else could I do? “All right. If you want me to, I’ll meet the Devil again.”
I hadn’t realized how tense he was until he relaxed, the silent crackling static of his attention swirling out of the air. I took a deep breath of the scent we made together—amber musk, burning cinnamon, something spicy and overwhelming to a human but the equivalent of a shield for a demon; a defense against the mortal world and its pervading odor of dying. It was also the equivalent of an air bubble, climate control and some indefinable gas making breathing easier. I used to think the smell of a demon wasn’t physical. Now that I was part-demon it was all too physical.
“I will protect you, Dante.” His tone was low, a promise. “Never doubt that.”
Silence rose between us. Before, quiet had been something shared. Now it was dangerous.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I swallowed the next question: Do you mean it when you say you’re staying with me?
I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d heard it anyway. I did some quick mental calculations. It had to be months that we’d lived here, quite how many I didn’t know. Time got away from me nowadays, especially when I was in the library.
However long it had been, I hadn’t doubted a single word that crossed his lips until now. “And how long has Lucifer been asking for me?” I added.
“Since I was resurrected, my curious. We have had more time than I ever thought possible. You needed it.” He stroked the curve of my hip, rounder now since I’d put on a little weight. Not much, but a little.
“You lied to me.” Flatly. I shouldn’t have been so upset. Even as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have.
You forgave Jace, didn’t you? He lied to you about Santino too. My conscience, of course, piped up loud and clear. But Jace had stayed with me, putting up with my grief and my inability to stop moving, pushing his aging human body to its limits to keep up with me on bounties, watching my back. I had forgiven him. He’d earned it. Danny Valentine, the woman who swore that even one lie was a treasonous offense, had forgiven Jace everything, even if I couldn’t be what he wanted or needed.
But Japhrimel . . . was different. The thought of Jace lying to me had filled me with untinctured rage and contempt at the time; the thought of Japhrimel hiding something from me, no matter the reason . . . hurt. As if my heart had been replaced with a live coremelt. Tears rose behind my eyes, I pushed them down. Blinked furiously. Why does it hurt like this? What’s wrong with me?
He sighed, tracing the arch of my rib without tickling. I almost wished he would tickle me—that would end up in a wrestling match, and that would mean I wouldn’t have to think for a while. “What would you have done, had you known? You were a shadow. Whatever ghost I rescued you from crippled you. I feared you might die of despair, and if you locked yourself in the library at least you were not grieving.” His fingers were so gentle, he stroked my skin delicately, soothing. I had never been touched so carefully by a human lover; even Doreen’s comfort had lacked the deep softness of Japhrimel’s. Who would have thought a demon could be so gentle? “To know that Lucifer was asking for you was a burden you were not ready for.”
It wasn’t so much the chain of his logic as the infuriating tone of reasonableness and I-know-best he used that made me spitting mad. The fresh anger and irritation was like a tonic against the clawed pain in my chest, fear sparking fury as a defense.
All in all, I was taking the news rather well.
“I’ll decide what I’m ready for,” I snapped, rolling up and pushing his hand away. “You should have told me.” I gained my feet, scooping up my sword, and strode for the bathroom. If I was going to meet the Prince of Hell again, there were things I had to do first.
The mark on my shoulder warmed, a prickling of heat.
“What of your secrets?” His voice rose from the tangled bed behind me, a silky challenge. “What of the dead you bear such guilt for? You grieved for me while living with your human paramour, and I have never asked you to explain that.”
I actually stumbled. I hadn’t believed he would throw Jace at me, especially since it was salted with the pinch of truth. I took in a deep breath, my head down, tendrils of my hair slipping like living things over my shoulders. Then I lifted my head, regaining my balance. “At least Jace didn’t lie to me,” I flung back over my shoulder, and slammed into the bathroom before he could reply.
It wasn’t quite true. Jace never told me he was Mob, and part of the Corvin Family to boot. But I’d flung it at Japhrimel. Now who was the liar?
6
If I was going to visit the Devil, I wanted to be fully armed. So I opened up the huge dresser in the corner of the bedroom. Japhrimel was nowhere to be seen. I knelt on naked knees, my hair drying in a thick braided rope against my back. Pulled out the lowest drawer and saw with faint surprise everything was still there.
Well, why wouldn’t it be there? You put it there. You’re being ridiculous, Danny. Get moving.
Trade Bargains microfiber shirt, sheds dirt easily and doesn’t smell no matter how long you wear it, thanks to antibacterium impregnation. Butter-soft, broken-in jeans, cut to go over boots and treated to be water and stain resistant, patches tailored in to accommodate holsters and with the crotch inset so side-kicks are possible. The old explorer’s coat, too big for me because it was Jace’s—supple tough Kevlar panels inset in canvas, one pocket scorched where a silver spade necklace had turned red-hot and burned its way free. The rig, still oiled and spelled, not cracking like regular leather. Knives, main-gauches and stilettos, and the two projectile guns, cartridges neatly stacked off to the side. And in its deep velvet case, the necklace Jace had given me in the first days of our affair. I’d worn it all through the last job—tracking down Kellerman Lourdes. Even after I’d finished, that job had almost killed me
I could admit as much now, if only to myself.
The necklace was beautiful. Silver-dipped raccoon baculums on a fine silver chain twined with black velvet ribbons and blood-marked bloodstones as well as every defense a Shaman knew how to weave, all twisted together in a fluid piece of art. He hadn’t given any other woman something like this—at least, not that I knew of. He had spent months making it, a powerful mark of his affection for me.
If I went into Death again, if I used the necklace he’d worked so hard on or the sword twisted with his death to call his apparition up, what would he have to say to me?
Maybe something like “I loved you, Danny, and I was human. Why couldn’t you love me?” Maybe something like that. Or maybe “Why did you let me die?” Or “What took you so long to come find me?”
Any or all of those questions were equally likely, and equally viciously hurtful. Which one would I pick to answer, if I could?
“I’m not brave enough to find out,” I whispered, and picked up the necklace with delicate fingers. I fastened it, and spent a moment arranging it so the baculums hung down, each a curve of silver against my golden skin, knobbed ends pointing out. “Or am I?”
I felt as if a shell had been ripped away, as if my skin was hitting the air for the first time. I’d spent so long living on the edge of a sword, taking one bounty after another, jobs other Necromances wouldn’t touch, honing myself into a weapon to still the voices whispering in my head. Not good enough, not strong enough, not brave enough, not tough enough. Now, instead of feeling properly terrified, I felt a type of giddy glee. Soon I’d be facing down some new kind of danger, feeling as if my heart was going to explode from adrenaline
. I had said that all I wanted was a quiet life, to be left alone.
I’d actually believed it when I’d said it, too.
Under the necklace were my rings, chiming as they tangled together. I lifted them one by one—amber rectangle, amber cabochon. Moonstone. Plain silver band. Bloodstone oval, obsidian oval. Suni-figured thumb ring on my left hand. They began to glow, sullenly at first, then brighter as my Power stroked at them. I sighed, feeling the defenses and spells caught in each stone rise to the surface, tremble, and settle back into humming readiness.
I dressed quickly, my fingers flying as they hadn’t for a long while. Buttoning up my shirt, my jeans, finding a pair of microfiber socks. My boots were a little cracked, but everything still fit. Living soft hadn’t made me fat yet, though I’d lost the look of being starved. A demon metabolism, every girl’s best friend.
I picked up the rig with trembling hands. Shrugged myself into it, buckled it down. Tested the action of the knives. They were still sharp. The plasgun went into its holster under my left arm. The projectile guns rode easy in their holsters. I slid clips in them both, chambered a round in each, and found the little clicks comforting to hear.
The only thing left was my tattered canvas messenger bag—the bag that had gone into Hell with me, back to the nightmare of my childhood with me, the bag I’d carried on every job since Doreen had bought it and sewn in the extra pockets and loops of elastic to hold everything down.
I scooped up the bag and the six extra clips, paced over to the bed, and dumped everything out. Scraps of paper, containers—blessed water, salt, cornmeal mix, my lockpick set, extra handkerchiefs and ammo clips and my athame, still glimmering with Power inside its plain black leather sheath. The chunk of consecrated chalk—my fingers trembled, touching its dry surface. I’d been searching for it desperately in the abandoned cafeteria of Rigger Hall with Lourdes chasing me, carrying the poisonous remnant of Mirovitch inside his brain like a cancerous flower. A silver Zijaan lighter with a cursive-script CM etched into it. A battered paperback copy of the Nine Canons—the runes that Magi and other psions and sorcerers had been using since before the Great Awakening—that I’d had since the Academy. My tarot cards in a hank of blue silk. Rough bits of quartz crystal, a few more bloodstones, some chunks of amber. More odds and ends.
My hands knew what to do. I laid Jace’s coat down, my fingers moving, checking, stowing everything in its proper place. I picked up the bag, gave it an experimental shake, and let it settle. I ducked through the strap and settled the bag on my hip, under the holster carrying my right-hand gun. I rolled my shoulders back as everything settled in, then shrugged into Jace’s coat. Picked up my katana.
“Ready for anything,” I muttered.
The house was oddly quiet. I listened and heard nothing, not even servants moving. I realized how used to the sound of human hearts beating I’d become. The maids didn’t talk to me—I didn’t speak Taliano, and they didn’t speak much Merican, so I let Japhrimel translate and was grateful none of them looked askance or forked the sign of the Evil Eye at me. None of them set foot in the library unless it was to dust while I was sleeping or to leave a box of new books inside the door. Only Emilio seemed completely unafraid, both of me and of the demon who shared my bed.
I stood for a few moments, the room resounding with small sounds as my attention swept in a slow circuit, brushing the curtains of the bed, sliding along the walls, caressing the framed Berscardi print above the low table where Japhrimel kept a single lily in a fluted black glass vase. The lily was gone, the vase dry and empty. The curtains fluttered. I sighed.
I turned on my heel, my boots clicking, and strode out of the bedroom, down the hall. The doors rose up on either side of me, never-used bedrooms, a small meditation room, a sparring room with a long wooden floor and shafts of light coming in every window.
The sparring room almost quivered with the echoes of sessions between Japh and me, combat as intimate as sex, his greater strength and speed giving me the ability to push myself harder, faster—I didn’t have to worry about hurting him, didn’t have to hold back. The only times I’d ever fought as hard were in Jado’s dojo, training to take on the world.
I found the door I wanted unlocked, hit it with the flats of both hands. It swung inward silently, banging against the wall. Dust flew. This wasn’t a place anyone entered often.
The room was long, a wooden floor glowing with layers of varnish. At the far end, barred by two shafts of sunlight, stood a high antique ebony table, and on this table lay a scarred and corkscrew-twisted dotanuki, its hilt-wrappings scorched.
Jace’s sword. Still reverberating with the final agonized throes of his death.
A blot of darkness hunched on the floor in front of the table. Japhrimel, on one knee, his back turned to me, his coat lying wetly against the floor behind him.
Of all the things I expected, that was probably the last.
He didn’t move. I strode up the center of the room and came to a halt right behind him, my boots sliding on the floor. I dug my heels in—going too fast. It seemed I would never learn how to slow this body down. My rings spat, swirling with color, each stone glittering.
I waited. Japhrimel’s head was down, inky hair falling forward to hide his face. His back was utterly straight. He didn’t speak. Sunlight fell like honey, but the sun was sinking down in the sky. We were going to go find this door into Hell soon.
I finally settled for stepping close and laying my hand on his shoulder. He flinched.
Tierce Japhrimel, Lucifer’s assassin and oldest child, flinched when I touched him.
I didn’t choke with surprise, but it was damn close. “Japhri—”
“I have been here, asking the ghost of a human man for forgiveness.” His voice slashed through mine. “And wondering why he has more of your heart than I do.”
It was the closest thing to jealousy I’d ever heard from him. I closed my mouth with a snap, found my voice. “He never did,” I finally said. “That was the problem.”
Japhrimel laughed. The sound was so bitter it dyed the air blue. “Are you so cruel to those you love?”
“It’s a human habit.” The lump in my throat threatened to strangle me. “I’m sorry.”
Even now, saying I’m sorry didn’t come easily. It tore its way out of my chest with razor glass studded along every edge.
Japhrimel rose to his feet. I still couldn’t see his face. “An apology without a battle. Perhaps there is hope.”
I knew he was using that black humor again, like a blade laid along the forearm to ward off a strike. It still hurt. “If I’m so bloody bad why don’t you go back to Hell?” Great, Danny. Lovely. You’re really on edge, aren’t you? This is really adult. No wonder he treats you like a little kid.
“I would not go back, even if Hell would have me. I seem to prefer your malice.” He turned on his heel, away from me, the hem of his coat brushing my knee. “I will wait for you.”
My voice had turned ragged, but even that couldn’t stop the dripping sweetness along its edges. “Don’t run away from me, dammit.”
He paused. Stood with his back to me still, his shoulders iron-hard. “Running away is your trick.”
You little snot of a demon, why do you have to make this so fucking hard? “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch,” I informed him. The air turned hot and tight, the twisted corkscrewed sword lying on the table ringing softly, its song of shock and death cycling up a notch. Catching the fever in the air, maybe. We were both throwing off enough heat and Power to make the entire room resound like an echo chamber.
“I am what you make of me, hedaira. I will wait for you outside the door.” He strode away, every footfall a clicking crisp sound. Anger like smoke fumed up from his footprints. His coat flapped as if a wind was mouthing it.
“Japhrimel. Japh, wait.”
He didn’t pause.
“Don’t do this. I’m sorry. Please.” My voice cracked, as if Lucifer had just finished strangling me aga
in.
Two more steps. He stopped, just inside the door. His back was straight, rigid with something I didn’t care to name.
I folded my arms defensively, the slim length of my sword in my right hand, a bar of darkness. “I’m frightened, Japh. All right? I woke up, you weren’t here, and you drop this on me. I’m fucking terrified. Cut me a little slack here, and I’ll try to stop being such a bitch. Okay?” I can’t believe it, I just admitted being scared to a demon. Miracles do happen.
I thought he’d continue out the door, but he didn’t. His shoulders relaxed slightly, the hurtful static in the air easing. It took the space of five breaths before he turned back to me. I saw the tide of green drifting through his eyes, sparks above a bonfire. His mouth had softened. We looked at each other, my Fallen and I. I tried to pretend I wasn’t hugging myself for comfort.
“There is no need for fear,” he said finally, quietly.
Yeah, sure. We’re about to go meet the Devil, for the third time in my life. I could have done without ever meeting him at all. He’s probably got something special planned for us, and the Devil’s idea of a little surprise is not my idea of a good time. “You’ve got to be joking.” I sounded like I’d lost all my air. The mark on my shoulder turned to velvet, warm oil sliding along my skin from his attention. “It’s the Devil.” I don’t think he’s likely to be in a good mood, either.
He came back to me, each footfall eerily silent. Stopped an arm’s-length away, looking down to meet my eyes, his hands clasped behind his back. “He is the Prince of Hell,” he corrected, pedantically. “I will let no harm come to you. Only trust me, and all will be well.”
I’ve trusted you for a long time now. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” I searched his face, the memorized lines and curves. He had his own harsh beauty, like a balanced throwing-knife or the curve of a katana, something functional and deadly instead of merely aesthetic. Funny, but when I was human I had thought him almost ugly at first, certainly not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. The longer I knew him, the better he looked.