Saint City Sinners

Chapter 6

I hate traveling transport, and my recent experiences with hovers falling on me hadn't cured me of it. It was with profound relief that I stepped onto the concrete dock under a familiar plasilica dome and filled my lungs with soupy chemical-laden tang, the familiar cold radioactive glow of Saint City's power well rising to greet me.

Goddamn, it's good to be home. The thought surprised me; I'd never considered the place home before. Never thought about what home would feel like.

Lucas jostled me from behind, Leander sighing as he worked the kinks out of his neck. "Damn transports." the Necromance said, and I felt sneakingly glad my own claustrophobia was shared by at least one member of our little troupe.

I looked over my shoulder. To the side, Japhrimel murmured to McKinley, who had showed up on the transport dock at midnight in Cairo, along with Tiens. The Nichtvren left to help Vann with whatever errand Japhrimel had sent him on, and the black-clad Hellesvront agent had boarded the transport with us. I didn't like that. The man-if you could call either Vann or McKinley a "man"-made me nervous. The oddly silver metallic coating on his left hand puzzled me too. I still didn't have the faintest idea what the Hellesvront agents were, precisely, but they were part of the net of financial and other assets the demons had in place on earth. Vann had said something about "vassals." Maybe they were organized into a feudal system, like some federated Freetowns.

Which meant that Vann and McKinley were loyal to Japhrimel-if they weren't exclusively loyal to Lucifer. Either way, neither of them was likely to be any help to me, or to give me any information. The Nichtvren didn't seem very likely to help me either.

Which left me with Lucas, Leander, and my own wits. Put that way, I seemed damn near rich. The Deathless and another Necromance were far from the worst backup I could have.

Don't say that, Danny. You're dealing with demons. All the backup in the world might not be enough.

As I watched, McKinley nodded and set off for the other end of the dock, apparently given his marching orders. Japhrimel watched him for a moment, but the mark on my shoulder was alive with heat. No matter that he was looking the other way, Japh's attention was all on me.

I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that. "Lucas?"

"Huh?" His whispering, painful voice barely reached through the sound of people disembarking. The North New York-Saint City transport run was a full one since both cities were hubs. That hadn't stopped us from having a whole first-class compartment to ourselves all the way from Cairo. Maybe Japhrimel had arranged for that, I didn't know. Didn't care, either.

"Two things," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "Find out what Japhrimel's business in Saint City is, and tell Abra I'll be coming by to see her. Good?"

"You got it." He detached himself from us and melted into the crowd. It was a relief to have a professional in my corner. Whatever Japh was up to, Lucas was my best bet of finding out sooner rather than later.

Leander raised an eyebrow as Japhrimel approached us, threading through a string of disembarking normals who didn't even look at him twice but cut a wide swath around the human Necromance and me.

I thought I'd grown past being hurt by that sort of thing. My mouth tipped up into the same faint half-smile I'd worn as a shield through so many bounties and apparitions as a Necromance. My cheek burned, the tat shifting under golden flesh, I wondered suddenly why my tat hadn't vanished like my other scars when I'd become hedaira. "I'll have a job for you too," I told Leander. "Just wait."

"Take your time." Amused and confident, his smile widened.

I grimaced, good-naturedly. He sounded like Jace.

The thought of Jace pinched hard deep in my chest, in a place I'd thought was numb.

Guess it isn't so numb, after all. If I took a slicboard and rose up into the traffic patterns, I would eventually see the huge soaring plasteel-and-stone pile that was St. Ignatius Hospital, where Gabriele had done what I could not and freed the empty clockwork mechanism of Jace's body from the illusion of life.

Leander's low laugh combined with the surf-roar of crowd noise-different from the Souk's genial roar and tainted with fatigue from the long transport haul. I'd slept between Paradisse and North New York, my head propped on Japhrimel's shoulder; the black dreamless nothingness I needed every two or three days. How odd was it that I could only sleep when he lulled me into it, when he was close?

I brought myself back into the present with a jolt. Stop wandering, Danny. Why are you getting so distracted? It's not like you. "First things first, though. Can you get us a cab?"

"All things should be so easy."

"You are truly a master," I called after him as he loped away to find and reserve us a hovercab in the queue that would be waiting outside along Beaumartin Street.

It was regular bounty-hunter banter meant to ease our nerves. When Japhrimel reached me, his fingers braceleted my left wrist. I controlled the nervous twitch-that was the hand holding my katana, as usual.

Did he think I was going to run now? Especially when he knew I would only go to Gabe's, a place he'd been before? "McKinley will search for information and find us accommodation." His voice cut through the crowd noise like a golden knife. "I thought that would please you."

There was no sign of the necklace I'd given him, and I had too much pride to ask what he'd done with it. Instead, I tried to pull my wrist out of his hand and got exactly nowhere, though his fingers were gentle. "There's no need for this. We should get going."

"I feel a need." His thumb stroked once across the underside of my wrist. Fire spilled up my arm again, I tugged harder. Achieved nothing. He might not be hurting me, but he wanted me to stay put. "This is unwise, Dante. I am not to be trifled with at this moment."

What the hell? Sekhmet sa'es, what the fuck are you talking about? "I'm not the one who's trifling," I hissed back. "You're the one who won't tell me a damn-"

"I will tell you something now," he said in my ear as if we weren't surrounded by a crowd of normals who shuffled toward a transport or away from one. Above us rose the vast dome of the transport well and the different levels of huge hovers docking like blunt whales at each level, the spine of the AI's relays bristling around each floor, failsafes and double-synaptics glowing and humming with electrical force and reactive-painted buffers.

I went still, closed my eyes. My shields shivered. "Fine." I would never have thought a demon could throw a tantrum. My rings popped, sparking, I wondered what the normals around us made of this. His aura covered mine, pulled close and comforting, but I felt the echo of his attention. He was doing it again, listening to a sound I couldn't hear, set at a harsh watchful awareness I couldn't imagine anyone keeping up for very long.

Why? I'm only here for Gabe, but Japh seems to think I'm in danger. Of course I'm in bloody danger, there are demons after me. Still-

"I never knew dissatisfaction before I met you, hedaira. The only time I feel any peace is when you are safe and I am near you. Be careful who you spend your smiles on, and be careful of what you make of me." Japhrimel paused. "I am seeking to be gentle, but frustration may make me savage."

In all the time I'd known him, he had never said anything even remotely like this. My throat went dry, my heart banging at my ribs and in my neck, the darkness behind my eyelids suddenly blood-warm. "You mean more savage than you already are?" I pulled against his hand again. I might as well have been chained to the dock.

"You have no idea of the depth of my possible savagery." It wasn't so much the content of his words as the way they were delivered, with a chill even tone I could have thought was indifference except for the well of sharp rage behind it. Japhrimel for the first time in my memory was furious, holding himself to control with an effort of will. "I tell you again, be careful. And again, I do not expect your forgiveness or understanding. I require only your cooperation, which I will get by any means I deem necessary. We are here to see what is so urgent with your Necromance friend, well and good. But do not taunt me."

Taunt you? "Taunt you? I'm not the one who keeps playing manipulative little games here, Japh. It's you and Lucifer who have the corner on that one. Let go of me."

Much to my surprise, he did. I almost stumbled, the release of tension against my arm was so quick. I opened my eyes, the world rushing back in to meet me, and lifted my left hand slightly. The katana's weight was reassuring. "We've got a cab to catch," I said over my shoulder. "Unless you're going somewhere else."

He didn't dignify that with a reply. It was probably just as well.

Gabe's house crouched on Trivisidiro Street, behind high walls her great-great something-or-other had built. Her family had been cops and Necromances for a long time, passing along Talent and training in a haphazard way before the Awakening and the Parapsychic Act. They had survived because they were rich, and because they did everything possible to blend in before the Act made it possible for psions to come out of the shadows.

I deliberately did not look when we passed over the block that held a huge pile of stone with high holly hedges and walls. Aran Helm's house, where I'd begun to figure out just what nightmare had risen from the depths of Rigger Hall.

I didn't want to see if Helm's house still stood.

The first shock was that the neighborhood had changed. The winds of urban renewal had swept through what had once been a bad part of town, I saw several little boutiques and chic eateries as well as other restored homes.

The second shock, when we got out of the hovercab and Japhrimel paid the driver, was that the shields over Gabe's walls had changed. The hovercab lifted away with a whine, and my skin chilled again. I was really getting to hate hovers.

I caught Japhrimel's arm. He stilled, looking down at me. Leander stood on the corner, his eyes moving over the street and probably marking it in his memory; it was the same thing I did in an unfamiliar city. "Her shields are different," I said quietly, knowing I had Japh's full attention. "Look, can you and Leander wait for me?" He moved slightly, and I interrupted him before he began. "I give my word I won't go anywhere but into Gabe's house, I promise I'll come back out to you. I swear. But please, Japhrimel, this is private."

"You continually try to push the limits of-" he began and I squeezed his arm, sinking my fingers in. I couldn't hurt him, but just this once, I wanted to. I wished I could. My claws slid free, pricking into his coatsleeve, my entire hand cramping with the effort to stop them.

"Please, Japh." My voice gentled, it took an effort that would have made me sweat in my human days. Something suspiciously like tears pressed against the inside of my throat, so it came out muffled and choked instead of only soft. "Don't make me beg you over something like this." I can't stand begging you over something so simple. I can't stand begging you at all.

"You do not have to." He nodded, once, sharply. "An hour. No more. Or I will come in for you, Dante, and I will demolish her precious shields. If I even think you may be in danger-or seeking to escape me-I will do the same. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." I let go of his arm, finger by finger. When did you get so arrogant? You were so gentle in Toscano, Japh. Drew in a sharp deep breath flavored with the smell of dusk in Santiago City-the taint of chemicals, damp, and mold rising from the ground, the tang of the sea and the further iron-rich smell of the lake to the east, the throbbing whine of hover traffic. "Thank you." I didn't sound grateful, but I suppose I might have been.

"There is no need to thank me, either. Go." A muscle flicked in his golden cheek again.

I moved away, across the sidewalk, and stepped up to Gabe's gate. Brushed against her shields, a familiar touch, and realized what was wrong. The shields Eddie had put up, the spiky earth-flavored magick of a Skinlin, were fading rapidly, as if they'd been mostly dismantled and left to shred away from the other defenses.

A curious flutter began under my pulse. Eddie and Gabe had been together so long they seemed eternal.

She was home, and awake. One of the things about visiting psions, when we have a minor in precog we're usually home when you need us. Her shields flushed red as I laid my hand against the gate; the lock clicked open as Gabe's work recognized me. I pushed at the gate before it could close again and stepped through.

The gardens were another shock, full of weeds. Eddie had always kept them pristine-of course, a dirtwitch's trade is in his garden. Skinlin are mostly concerned with growing things, like hedgewitches, but hedgewitches are more interested in using plant material to accessorize spellwork. Skinlin are the modern equivalent of kitchen witches; most of them work for biotech firms, getting plants to give up cures for mutating diseases and splicing together plant DNA with sonic magick or complicated procedures. Their only real drawback is that they're berserkers in a fight. A Skinlin in a rage is like a Chillfreak-they don't stop even when wounded. Eddie was fast, mean, and good; I never wanted to fight him.

I trudged up to the front door as night began to breathe in the garden, more disturbed than I could have ever admitted. The mark on my shoulder pulsed steadily like a heartbeat. Japhrimel, keeping contact with me the only way he could.

Is it the only way he can? I've heard his voice inside my head before, been able to call him without words. The thought froze me on the step, my hand raised to knock on Gabe's red-painted door. The house simmered above me, three stories of brownstone with even more shielding wedded to its physical structure. Would I know it if Japhrimel was inside my mind right now, a thin shadow under my thoughts?

The idea called up a nervous flare of something close to panicked loathing. Communication was one thing, but thinking the cubic centimeters inside my skull might not be wholly my own was…

You learn early that your body betrays you-it's your mind that has to stay impregnable. Polyamour's voice echoed in my memory, husky and beautiful. I shivered, pushed the thought away.

The door opened. Gabe regarded me with her dark eyes. The final shock was the worst one, I think, the one that made the world go gray and the mark on my shoulder smash with pain that shocked me, brought me up and made me gasp. My emerald burned on my cheek, answering hers.

Gabriele Spocarelli, Necromance and my friend, had aged.