Saint City Sinners

Chapter 7

Gabe made tea, moving around her kitchen; the house smelled of dust and I saw… well, there were toys scattered through the hall, toddler's toys, blocks and small hovercars made of primary-colored nontoxic plasilica. Other things. A small shoe in one corner of the kitchen, the heavy spice of kyphri in the air mixed with other smells no longer familiar.

She hadn't said anything about a kid during the phone calls. Not a single word. Not even a hint.

Gabe's long dark hair was threaded with gray since she'd stopped dyeing it, and the wrinkles fanning from the corners of her eyes spoke of frequent smiling. She was still slim and strong, shorter than me and with an air of serenity and precision I had envied so many times. I wondered if she still carried her longsword, a piece of sharp metal far too big for her. When I'd been human, I often thought I never wanted to face her for real over that steel-she was capable of cool clinical viciousness not many other fighters possessed. She'd been a cop all her life, going from the Academy into the Saint City PD, fighting the good fight.

She wasn't old, not by any stretch-but being a cop had marked her, turned her hair prematurely gray. That gray alone told me volumes. For Gabe to go against Codes and not dye her hair black was either exceeding vanity or a sign she wasn't working professionally anymore. She still moved with the ease of combat practice and flexibility; she hadn't gotten sloppy like some old bounty hunters or cops do. But there was a slight stiffness, a shadow of slowness, that hadn't been there before. She had graduated from the Academy a full five years ahead of me; one of the few psions to have taken a break between primary training at Stryker and entering for her accreditation. She'd spent those years in Paradisse becoming a cosmopolitan, then come dutifully home and done what her family had always done-gone through advanced schooling, taken her Trial, and settled into being a cop.

We'd been friends a long, long time.

I sat at the old breakfast bar, looking at the fall of fading sunlight through the kitchen window, and felt the full consciousness of time settle in on me.

She had aged, and I hadn't. I still looked the same as I had when I opened my eyes in a Nuevo Rio mansion to find a demon had Fallen and shared his power with me. My hair was shorter, true; but otherwise I was the same. On the outside.

They were only tiny changes, the lines on her face and the threads of gray in her hair. If I'd stayed in Saint City I probably wouldn't have even noticed.

"How long has it been?" I should know. I should know how long it's been.

She cast me a shuttered, dark look. "You've lost track? Of course, you disappeared. And time's not your strong suit."

I opened my mouth to defend myself, shut it. I had disappeared. With Japhrimel, and she didn't know. We'd settled in Toscano, and I'd buried myself in decoding Magi shadowjournals, searching for the clues that would tell me what I was because he would not. I thought it was a matter of embarrassment-most demons are very touchy about the whole subject of the Fallen, and I thought perhaps Japh didn't want to speak of something painful and degrading. Now I wondered.

Her bitter laugh brought me back to the present. "Only a couple years. Don't worry, Danny. I understand, as much as I can. I saw you after the Lourdes case, remember? You were dead on your feet, sunshine. I'm just glad to see you now."

"You called." I couldn't produce more than a croak. "Mainuthsz. Of course I came."

Her back stiffened as she faced the kettle on the stove. "I wasn't sure you would."

"You know me better than that." Or at least you should. Was I hurt?

"You and your damn sense of honor." She cleared her throat. "There's two things I want from you, Valentine. I'll make you tea and we'll talk."

I nodded, though she was facing the other way. Her aura, bright with the trademark sparkles of a Necromance, swirled steadily. Where was Eddie? I couldn't imagine him leaving her.

Memory swallowed me again.

"I'll catch him, Eddie. Or her. Whoever's doing this."

He snatched his fingertips away, his dark eyes scarred holes above hollow unshaven cheeks. "Yeah. You do that. Word of advice? When you do catch 'em, don't bring 'em back alive. Anything to do wit' Rigger Hall is better off dead."

"Including us?"

Eddie moved, sliding his legs out of the booth and standing up. He tapped at his datband and looked down at me, his shaggy blond hair tangling in his eyes. "Sometimes I think so," he said, quietly, and his eyes were haunted wells. "Then I look at Gabe, and I ain't so sure."

I found nothing to say to that. Eddie stumped away toward the door, and I let him go.

No, I could not imagine Eddie leaving her.

I surfaced. This was proving to be harder than I'd thought, past swallowing present as it so often did these days. Was it because I was older too inside this slim golden body? I had been no spring chicken when Japh changed me. Most bounty-hunting psions have a short shelf life, despite genesplicing repair bodies under constant hard use.

Gabe poured the tea. I stayed silent. She'd tell me what she wanted, she would either solve the mystery or not. If not, it would be obvious she didn't want to talk about it, and the least I owed Gabe was a measure of tact. If anything happened to her, the last person who remembered my human self-truly remembered my human self-would be gone.

How would I go on then? Getting more and more distracted, shackled to Japhrimel, maybe forced into ever more complex games with Lucifer when he had some further use for me, trying to preserve some shred of my humanity…

Stop it, Danny. You'll go nuts if you keep thinking like that. Just stop it.

Chamomile tea for me, in a long black sinuous mug familiar enough to make a funny melting sensation begin under my breastbone. Chai for her, in a new mug-a sunshine-yellow one. That was a change. She usually wasn't a sunshiny-yellow type of person.

I wonder if it's having a kid that does it. Where is the little person who plays with the toys, Gabe, and why didn't you tell me? That qualifies as major life news. I would have liked to have been here for that.

She hadn't told me, hadn't even hinted. Why? Of course, I hadn't ever hinted I was living with a demon who had resurrected himself from ash, either. One secret balancing out the other?

She leaned against the breakfast bar, her fingers clasped around the tea mug. I saw the beginnings of a papery dryness on the fragile skin on the back of her hands, and felt that melting sensation again. Swallowed hard against it.

"No questions?" Gabe smiled. "No, you wouldn't ask me a damn thing, would you. You'd wait for me to tell you, or never mention it if I didn't. Hades, I forgot what it's like to talk to you." She turned away, stalked across the kitchen, and scooped something up from the cluttered counter. The clutter was something new too, her house had always been neat before. Dishes were stacked in the sink, a few holomags scattered across the far end of the breakfast bar, and dust lay on the counter next to me.

"I hope it's pleasant." It was just the thing Japhrimel might have said.

"Sometimes." She tossed it on the counter in front of me. It was a file folder. "I want you to help me kill whoever did this," she said tonelessly, and I realized she was holding onto her serenity by the thinnest of threads.

"Okay," I said promptly, opening the folder. Consider 'em dead, Gabe.

I would have agreed to it because I trusted her. I also would have agreed to it because looking at the first sheet in the folder-a nice glossy laseprint showed a body lying on a white floor, a wrack and ruin of shattered glass winking up and dusting the blood that had dried sticky, spreading out in an impossibly large stain. But what drove the breath from my lungs was the face at the top of the ruined mass of flesh.

The mark on my shoulder crunched again, dragging me out of shock. I swallowed something that tasted like human bile. "Eddie," I whispered.

It was his body, indisputably dead. The experience of many other murder scenes rose under my skin, I noted the bullet holes clinically. Projectile weapons, a good way to take out a raging Skinlin. His shaggy head, the arc of his cheekbone as his chin was tipped back, the dark-blond whiskers telling me he hadn't shaved for a day or so before his death. Mercifully, if age had ravaged him, it wasn't visible in the picture.

"When?" The sinuous black mug chattered against the countertop, I reined myself in with an effort.

"Ten days ago." Her hands tightened again around her mug. I could almost taste the gunpowder anger roiling off her, used like a shield against the shock of loss.

I knew that territory. I'd seen it as a Necromance in the families of the departed, and been through it myself when Doreen, and later Jace, died. Two events, seeming as if they happened to different people, completely different Danny Valentines. Then there was the terrible almost-year I'd spent mourning Japhrimel as he lay dormant, ash in an urn. I remembered the abyss of loneliness and black despair, the mind bumping against the single word gone because the word dead was too final, no matter that Death was my trade.

We all think we're immortal, even Necromances. Necromances, really, should know better. And yet we never do.

"There's one more thing," Gabe said. "Before you agree„

"Too late. I've already agreed." My throat was dry and raw as a scraped-clean coremelt. "Mainuthsz."

She made a low hurt sound, but when I looked up her eyes were dry. She reached down under the counter, as if she was digging in her pocket, and brought out another small piece of paper. I took it, and found myself looking down at a laseprint of a beautiful little toddler with Gabe's dark eyes and Eddie's wild blond hair, wearing a pair of denim overalls and grinning up without a care in the world. Behind her, the green of a laurel hedge writhed.

So this was who had been using the toys. The world had indeed changed while I'd been in Toscano, burying myself in books. Had she been pregnant during the hunt for Kellerman Lourdes? Either then or right after, it was a distinct possibility.

Why didn't you tell me, Gabe?

"My daughter," Gabe said tonelessly. "When I die, Danny, I want you to look after her. Swear to me you'll protect her, and if I… I want you to raise her."

I choked. What the hell? I can't-a kid? But-Myfingers tightened, almost crumpling the laseprint, she tore it out of my hand. "Gabe?"

"Swear it, Dante. Swear." Her lips peeled back from her teeth, her face dead-pale and her eyes flashing with something I'd never seen in her before.

I had to tell her. "Japhrimel's alive, Gabe."

She froze. Her pupils dilated. The perfume of fear and rage poured out from her in waves, a coppery chemical smell. "I know," she said, and my heart almost exploded inside my chest. "The fire at your house. The shadow inside. With wings."

I nodded. Black guilt rose, choked me, I pushed it fiercely away. I couldn't afford to stop now.

"I lied. I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you, Gabe." I was… I was afraid of what you'd think of me. I'm afraid of what you think of me now.

"You stupid bitch." Cold as the creeping chill of Death. "Of course I knew. It doesn't matter. I need you now." Tears stood out in her eyes. One fattened, slid down her cheek, leaving a shiny trail behind.

If she'd slapped me, I would have been less surprised. I would have deserved it.

"I'm here." I held her eyes across the air suddenly gone hot and straining between us. My rings crackled, spat, her emerald shifted with light. "As Anubis is my witness, Gabriele, I'll do it. I'll do anything you ask." My voice made a few holomags flutter off the end of the counter, their soft smacks hitting the hardwood floor.

She gazed into my eyes for a good thirty seconds, neither of us blinking. Then she held up the laseprint. "Swear," she said, and I saw the hardness in her. Gabe would not stop until Eddie's killers were dead. "Swear to me. On your name and the name of your god."

I didn't hesitate. "I swear to you, Gabriele Spocarelli, on my name and on the name of my god Anubis lord of Death, I will help you hunt Eddie's killers. I will kill them myself if you're unable to. And for the rest of my life I will look after your child and her children." Since I don't know how long I'll be around. "I give my word."

The world rocked slightly underfoot. There. It was done.

I owed her this much, and so much more. She'd been my friend, my only friend, since the Academy. She had tried to help me protect Doreen. She had gone into the icy hell of Santino's lair with me to hunt down Doreen's killer, and nearly died herself. It never occurred to her to bow out of that hunt, any more than it occurred to me I might bow out of this one.

Not only that, but she had done what I couldn't, and let Jason Monroe go. Performed the duty of a Necromance at his bedside, for me. It had been an act of mercy, one I didn't deserve and would never be able to repay.

Japhrimel's not going to be happy with this.

On the heels of that thought came a second, colder and harder. I don't fucking care. Let him try to stop me. This is more important than the fucking Devil.

Gabe slapped the laseprint down. "Good fucking deal." Tears trickled down her cheeks. "Now go away. Take the file with you. Come back tomorrow, ready."

You better believe it. "Where's your daughter?"

"In a safe place." Gabe's fingers curled around the counter, bloodless white with clenching rage. Her aura trembled. She was very close to losing control. Going nova, her aura exploding with pain, loss, fury, abandonment. If that happened, she'd come at me, and while I was fairly sure I could fend her off without hurting her I wasn't at all sure how Japhrimel would react if even a breath of what was happening got out to him. "Now get out. I'm not safe right now, Danny."

I know. Hadn't I once burned my house to the ground after I'd lost someone?

Someone once tried to tell me grief is passive. Whoever says that doesn't know women, and doesn't know Necromances either.

I left my mug there, but I took the file. I backed away from the counter. My left hand clenched around my sword's scabbard, her anger echoing in my own shields. The air spat, sparks showering from my rings. When I backed down the hall, out of sight of the kitchen, I turned around and left her house, walking as quickly as I could with eyes blinded by tears.

I owed her that, too.

I didn't want to think about the hot salt spilling down my own cheeks and dropping onto my shirt. I especially didn't want to think about the low hoarse sobbing sound I made as I flung myself out of her gates and straight into Japhrimel's arms.