I don't know why I asked. "Why?" Curiosity killed the cat, Danny. Just get out of here. Get out of here now.
She shrugged. It was a beautiful, loose, fluid movement. "Maybe because I used to be one. Stay and have a drink if you like, the bar's got stuff for just about everyone. Come back sometime."
"I might." I made it to my feet, my shoulder throbbing. "Thank you."
Nikolai lifted his hand. "One moment, demonling."
I froze. He recognizes me as demon? Of course, he's Nichtvren. He can see Power. If he came over the table at me I could carve his heart out, but she was something else. The hard glitter in her dark blue eyes and the nervous way she twitched was almost scarier than his rocklike stillness. And the Power that cloaked them both was impressive, even if it was nothing like a demon's. Then again, nothing in the wide world was like a demon when it came to Power—except for a god.
And I had no desire to meet any god other than my own, thank you very much. I could even go the rest of my life without having to deal with a demon ever again too.
Now if I can just convince the Prince of Hell to forget I exist.
"I have a library." Nikolai's flat cat eyes looked straight through me. The music pounded behind me. I wasn't sanguine about going back out into the sonic assault. Or about having them at my back. Or about staying in this goddamn place any longer than I absolutely had to. I didn't look up at the cages on the ceiling—but the effort cost me dearly. My stomach fluttered uneasily, and I had never in my life wished to vomit more than I did at that moment. "Among my acquisitions are several texts supposedly written by demons. You may find them useful."
Where were you the last year or so when I had time to come and bury my nose in a few books? I nodded. "Thank you." It was all I could say.
I turned on my heel and plunged through the sticky shield, pausing only to scoop up my cloak and swirl it around my shoulders. The music slammed into my whole body like a backdraft from a reactive fire. Get me the hell out of here. I have got to get out of here; dear gods, get me out of here—
There was only a millisecond's worth of warning before the lights died. The music failed as well, which was a relief. Instinct sent me into a fighting crouch, and my hand blurred up toward my swordhilt. Sudden dark settled into the walls and floor, I heard whispers and shuffles, the lamplit pricks of Nichtvren eyes firing through the gloom.
I heard something else, too. A low, vicious growling.
My sword whispered free of the sheath. My heart gave one incredible leaping thud, my skin coming alive. I cursed the skirt of the dress even as the demon equivalent of adrenaline flooded my system. Whatever was coming, if anything got near me I was going to kill it.
Oh, yes. This was what I lived for.
Screams. Something snarled and soft padded feet slapping the floor.
A thundercrack of Power slammed out from behind me, bearing the unmistakable cold acid tang of Nichtvren. "I am not amused," Nikolai said softly, the weight behind each word pummeling the air in concentric rings of razor-edged glass.
That seemed to break the stasis. Chaos screamed into being, snarling and scrabbling boiling through the darkness. Roaring filled the air. I tracked the sound, coming up out of my crouch in a fast, light shuffle, blade whirling, the familiar feeling of racing on the thin edge of adrenaline rising from that old place of instinct and terror. The cloak fell for the second time, it would only tangle me up. My boots squeaked as I half-turned, steel coming up with a faint sound as it clove heavy air.
Tchunk. My blade carved cleanly through whatever it was. I whirled on the balls of my feet, avoiding blood-spray, took the second one with a clash. Low hulking shape, my pupils dilated, demon-eyes taking in every available photon and squeezing the usefulness out of it. There wasn't much light here, even for me.
My left-hand main-gauche, reversed along my forearm to act as a shield, took a hell of a strike. I cried out, more in surprise than pain—the damn thing was fast. The emergency lights came up, a wash of crimson stinging my eyes but I was moving on instinct anyway, punching something hairy in the face with my fist braced with the knife-hilt then leaping, landing between two hulking shapes. Quick kick behind one's knee, the hairy shape bellowing and folding down; spinning to engage the other. The smell of blood and wet fur exploded out, gaggingly strong, my shoulder burned even more fiercely. Claws raked up my side, and the whole world seemed to go white for a moment, a sheet of fire blinding me. Black, demon blood pattered on the marble, my blood, redolent of spice and sweet rotting fruit. How did I get into this? I'm fighting off a couple of fucking werecain, bad luck I suppose, I was just in the way. Goddammit.
It hit me like a freight train, fur and stink and claws.
I smashed up with my left and again; too close to engage with the sword, get a little distance, move move move. I took the easy way out, dropping and rolling to scythe the 'cain's legs out from underneath it. The 'cain spun aside, twisting in midair with unholy fluidity, and the scar on my left shoulder blazed into agonized life. My body gathered itself, new strength suddenly coursing through my veins, and I kicked up with both legs, my back curving as momentum jolted me up off the floor and onto my feet. My right foot lashed out, catching the 'cain I'd just tripped on the nose. A flurry in the corner of my eye was another one bearing down on me. Steel flashed. Fudoshin described a sweet, clean arc, deadly steel singing low, and more blood exploded. The 'cain leaping for me dropped, its intestines slithering wetly out as I landed, spinning to feint with the main-gauche and then cut; followed with a one-handed side-downsweep that missed because the 'cain was shuffling back.
It was my turn to attack, my wrist turning so the blade fell into position again, every motion as natural as breathing. I bolted forward, boots shuffling and the battlecry rising in my throat; my kia shivered the air as I engaged with the werecain again. Its snarl turned into a falsetto squeal as I rammed the main-gauche home between two ribs, then leaned, sword coming in from the side, because the side-downsweep turned naturally into the rib-splitting cut. The werecain gurgled as Fudoshin bit deep—deep enough, I hoped, to cut the abdominal aorta. I twisted the blade against the suction of preternatural muscle, smelled the stink of a battlefield and of werecain blurring together, and the 'cain in front of me slumped away from my sword. I backed up, blood hissing free of shining blade as I whipped it through the cleaning-stroke; faint blue fire etched itself along the razor edge. The process of making the sword mine had begun with the first blood shed together.
I half-spun, ready to take on the next enemy, but as soon as it had begun the fight was over. Dead werecain lay scattered about, the last one flopping until Nikolai casually reached down, Nichtvren claws extended, and tore its throat out.
There were more bodies piled over the red velvet couch he and Selene had just been perched on, and still more bodies further away toward the dance floor. For every one I'd killed, Nikolai had killed three. "Most distressing." His voice throbbed in the lowest register, like a huge pipe organ. It was a voice that could tear through bones and thump against the heart itself, a sound felt more than heard in the crackling silence that followed the death of the music.
"Well," Selene answered, over his shoulder. "You left nothing for me."
"My apologies, milyi." He straightened. "Soren will have much to answer for." His eyes came up, dark holes in his face under the shell of crimson lighting. "You fight well, demonling. And you attacked my enemies."
That most emphatically does not make me your friend, I thought, clamping my teeth so the words couldn't escape. The last thing I needed right now was more trouble. If I hadn't been in the way they would have ignored me, and I would have been happy to just get the hell out of here. "Thanks for the compliment," I managed, my jaw set tight as I bent down to wrench my knife free of a were-cain's ribs. "Why…" I trailed off, not wanting the explanation anyway.
"The werecain are embroiled in a territorial dispute." He straightened as I did, immaculate. His face was a thoughtful Renascence stone angel's, set in its
perfection and unremarkable as a statue compared to the welter of Power surrounding him. Selene stood behind him, dyed and dipped in crimson, her hands on her hips. She didn't look happy. "This is the faction unhappy with the decision I was required to arbitrate. I am sorry for the disturbance. I do not like a guest of mine being forced to fight, it reflects badly on me. Accept my apology."
It's hell being top of the heap, isn't it? The merry, sardonic voice inside my head almost made it out of my mouth. There was a time when I would have let it. "Oh. No worries." Then, "Have a nice night."
"It is extremely unlikely." He half-turned to look over his shoulder at Selene, his gaze falling in one swift sweep down her body, as if checking her for damage. "But you have my thanks, demonling. Good luck."
Great. I couldn't help myself. "I'm beginning to think I'll need it," I said, and got out of there while I still could.
Chapter Fifteen
I had the hoverlimo for the rest of the night; there was no reason not to use it. So I gave the driver Christabel Moorcock's address.
I should have started with the puzzling Bryce Smith, or with the sexwitch Yasrule. I should have gone to salvage whatever traces remained, yet I went to Christabel's. I tried to tell myself I was violating procedure because of instinct, and that the other two scenes were too old.
The hoverlimo spiraled down to land on the roof of her brownstone apartment building at the edge of the Tank District. The driver scurried around to open the door before I could reach for the handle; his eyes were wide and dark. The hoverlimo rose afterward to circle in the parking-patterns overhead.
This close to the Tank District, the smell of garbage and synth hash swirled through the air, mixing with sharp spikes of illicit sex from the hookers prowling the strips and the deep wells of the nightclubs, glittering like novas in the psychic ether. Cool wind touched my hair as I stood for a moment on the concrete landing-pad, feeling the atmosphere of the Tank press against me. If Saint City was a cold radioactive animal wanting to be stroked, the Tank was the pulsing heart of that animal, so fiercely cold it burned. The throbbing that forced vital energy through the rest of the city, through the sluggish brain of the financial district and the arteries of the pavement. The Rathole was buried in the depths of the Tank, a deep pit of vital energy whistling a subsonic note at the very bottom of my sensing-range.
My city. It did indeed feel like home.
My datband got me in through the building's public-access net; Christabel's magsealed apartment was on the top floor. Since Gabe had keyed me into the Saint City police net with access to the scenes, the magsealing parted for me.
The air was stale, tinted with the chemical wash of Carbonel, used to get blood out of fibers. The cleaners had come in to get rid of the blood and matter once the forensic techs had gone through the place; I caught a lingering trace of jasmine perfume and the tingle of a powerful awareness. A Reader had been here to capture every aspect of the scene; it had probably been Beulah McKinley. She did good work, and whatever scene she had processed always held a breath of jasmine.
I wondered if she, like Handy Mandy, had caught sight of whatever had driven Christabel's ghost mad.
The front door had been shattered, splinters peppering the wall opposite and the carpeted hall. Christabel's shields were slowly fading, the giant rents torn in them patched with Gabe's trademark deftness. A shuntline hummed into the street outside to carefully and safely drain away the ambient energy and fold Christabel's shields up so no trace of murder and agony remained to create psychic sludge for other inhabitants of this quiet building. The temporary magseal door shut behind me with a click.
I was inside Christabel Moorcock's house.
The carpet was wine-red. The hall was dark, but I caught geometric patterns painted over the walls; protection charms. I glanced into the dining room and into a bathroom with an amber-glowing fleur-de-lis nightlight. In both rooms the painted walls were covered with an intaglio of protection runes, each knot of safety carefully daubed. They resonated uneasily, the ones near the door spent and broken; long waving fronds of Power flowed toward the front door.
Huh. That's odd.
The entry hall, the dining room, and the two bedrooms were carpeted. The bathroom was tiled, the kitchen and the living room in mellow hardwood. The second bedroom was a meditation room, a round blue and silver rug in the middle and the ceiling painted with a wheeling Milky Way.
Quite an artist, Christabel. I did not turn the lights on yet.
I inhaled deeply. I smelled traces of Gabriele's kyphii-tainted scent, the Reader's jasmine, other faint human scents overlaying a more complex well. Closing my eyes, I shut away all the more recent smells, including the sweet, decaying fruit of the blood drying on my ruined dress.
That left me with a powerful brew of female psion, a healthy astringent scent. Christabel had smelled like molecular-drip polish on long nails, slightly-oily hair, and strong, sweet resin incense. Resin was cheap and high quality, readily available in metaphysical supply stores, and it brought back a swirl of memories from my school days.
So you used schoolgirl incense. A little surprising, but I suppose it isn't any stranger than Gabe and her kyphii. The furniture was overstuffed, no hard edges. Her bookshelves weren't dusty, but there were no houseplants. No pets either, not even cloned koi.
The altar in her meditation room held a bank of white candles in varying heights, and a statue of Angerboda Gulveig Teutonica, glittering gold leaf on Her robe worked with flames and the Teutonica heart symbol. There was another statue set off to one side, a black dancing Kali of the old school, graphic and bloody.
There was a fresh offering in front of Kali, a shallow dish of something sticky that smelled of wine and faint traces of human blood. Also interesting.
Christabel's bed was neatly made. A copy of Adrienne Spocarelli's Gods and Magi stood on the bedstand, a ritual knife laid across its cover. The clothes hamper was full of dirty clothes that smelled of lilac powder. A sleek, gleaming Pentath computer deck stood in the corner at a precise angle to her mauve bed. Her bathrooms were spotless.
To go from this order to the chaos of the living room was a shock. Great gouges had been torn into the wooden flooring, and the waning chalk marks on the hardwood were barely visible under a dark stain no amount of cleaning could scrub away. The couch was destroyed, the table reduced to matchsticks. Little drawstring bags of herbs, protective amulets all, hung from the dark ceiling fixture. Splashes of blood had baked onto the full-spectrum bulbs;
I was glad I could see in the dimness. There had been a hell of a fight in here.
I let out a long, slow breath. Both Gabe and a Reader had been here. There was nothing for me to see. Wherever Christabel had allowed herself to truly live, it wasn't here. This place was more like a stage set than anything else.
Paper lay scattered across the gouged floor, the same parchment she had written her last message on. A spilled bottle of dragonsblood ink lay near the entrance to the kitchen. Try as I might, I couldn't find the pen among the drift of chaos.
My own voice startled me. "I'm here." It was a whisper, like a child's in a haunted house. "If you want to talk, Christabel, I'm listening."
Silence gathered in the corners. I felt like a thief, here in the middle of this carefully constructed world. I didn't want to resurrect her mad raving ghost; I wanted some breath of the living Necromance.
None came. Even the flowering stain of thick-smelling violence in the air was smooth and blank, nothing for my intuition to grab onto.
The other scenes won't tell you anything either, the deep voice of certainty suddenly spoke inside my head. I paused, velvet and silk rustling as I turned in a slow circle, my eyes passing over the chiaroscuro of protection runes painted on each wall. The answer to this puzzle doesn't lie here. You know where it lies.
I did. The only clue I had likely to unravel this tangled skein was encapsulated in three words scrawled on parchment by a terrified dying Necromance.
&n
bsp; Remember Rigger Hall.
"I would much rather not," I muttered, and the air swirled uneasily just like my skirt. I suddenly felt ridiculous, overdressed, and very, very young for the first time in years.
But if remembering the Hall would keep someone else from dying, I would do it. I'd survived that place once. How hard could remembering it be?
The three stripes of phantom fire down my back twinged in answer. So did the vanished scar along the crease of my lower-left buttock. The scar on my shoulder burned, burned.
My hand tightened around Fudoshin's scabbard. I was no longer weak or defenseless.
"All right, Christabel." My voice bounced off the walls. "You're my best clue. For right now, you lead the dance."
I had the not-so-comforting feeling that the air inside her wrecked living room had changed, becoming still and charged with expectation. As if it was… listening.
My knuckles were white on the scabbard. My mouth had gone dry, and when I slipped out again through the temporary magseal door I should have felt relieved to leave the scene of the carnage behind.
I wasn't. All I could think of were three little words, chanted over and over again by a shrieking, insane ghost who had once been a woman inhabiting a neat, orderly, soulless little apartment.
Remember. Remember Rigger Hall.
I knew what I had to do next.
Chapter Sixteen
The night was getting deep when the hoverlimo dropped me off on the concrete landing-pad in my front yard, and I tipped the driver well. He muttered his thanks and lifted off before I reached my front door. The garden rustled uneasily, dappled with darkness and the orange glow of citylight.
My hands were shaking. Not much, but enough that I could see the fine vibration when I held them out in front of me. Even my right hand, that twisted claw that had so gracefully held a sword and defended me tonight, was shaking, the fingers jittering as if I was typing a Section 713 Bounty Report.
I made it inside, shut the door, and leaned against it, scabbard digging into my back. The dress was stiff and crusty with blood along my left side that I noticed for the first time. "Anubis et'her ka." The god's name made the air stir uneasily. "That was unpleasant."