The Devil's Right Hand

Chapter 15

When you spend decades doing assassinations, it pays to have a bolthole in a major city or two. I was just glad Villalobos had one here.

I followed his shuffling feet and slumped shoulders through twisting narrow streets in the Old Town, marking each turn in a Magi-trained memory that has seen many cities; it’s amazing how much they start to look alike after a while.

We ducked down an alley and into the sewers through the basement of a crumbling building that now housed a colony of slicboard couriers, Neoneopunk music pounding through the air and the sharp smell of Czechi cooking filling my nose, sparking hunger. I already had a good basic grasp of the shadow side of the city after my six-bar odyssey. Now Lucas took me underneath.

Here under the Stare Mesto, water dripped in chilly rivulets down stone, twisting its dark way from the rounded ceilings of the old sewers. Lucas pressed the scanlock on the round door, after making sure we weren’t followed by doubling back a few times.

Claustrophobia filled my throat with acid and made my heart pound. I didn’t say a word. The door creaked open. I lose a lot of my sense of direction underground, but I was fairly sure I could make it to the surface and give anyone chasing me a good run. If I didn’t expire of hyperventilation when the walls started to close in on me. I do not do well with closed spaces; most psions don’t. I have memories that don’t help either, memories of the Faraday cage in the sensory-deprivation vault under Rigger Hall, where the darkness was like worms eating the foundations of my mind and the air itself turned to solid glass, choking and slick.

Better claustrophobic than dead. I can live with an awful lot when demons are trying to kill me.

Beyond the door, mellow full-spectrum light played over wood and tile. I stepped through the round hole and let out a soft breath of wonder.

Lucas’s lair in New Prague was in a long, vaulted chamber, well insulated from psychic or physical attack. If I knew Lucas, there would be a few little surprises hidden in the room, as well as quick ways to get out that didn’t involve the front door. But for a moment, I simply stopped to admire as he closed the door behind us.

I saw two beautifully restrained maplewood tables with the distinctive den Jonten curve to their legs. A restrained red Old Perasiano rug, a Silbery lamp. A near-priceless Mobian print—a naked man sitting on a wooden table, his legs pulled up and head resting on his knees, a tattoo of a scorpion on his bicep straining against the skin—hung on the wall over two low, graceful Havarack chairs.

I remembered a different Mobian print, the one hanging in Polyamour’s house in Saint City. A sudden, intense longing to see the noodle shop on Pole Street, or Gabe’s house on Trivisidiro, or even Abra’s pawnshop, stole the breath from my lungs. I’d lived in Saint City nearly all my life.

My human life, that was. Now that I had no chance of getting there, I found myself longing to go back.

Lucas paused behind me.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I like Mobian.”

“Valuable,” he returned dismissively. “Sit down. You hungry?”

I was starving. I was lucky to be able to fuel myself with human food instead of sex or blood, but I hadn’t had the chance to eat as much as I’d’ve liked. “Yeah.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat, Lucas.

“There’s a kitchen through there. Help yourself. I’m going to go bounce through town and see if anyone’s looking for you, pick up a few things.” I heard him moving behind me, my back prickled. Lucas Villalobos is behind me. I can’t see what he’s doing.

I nodded, turning slowly to face him, telling the ridiculous jolt of panic to go away. He wasn’t going to stab me in the back, or at least, I didn’t think he would. Instead, he was planning on doing what I would have done if our situations were reversed, checking to see if there was any static on the new client. “Is there another exit?” I asked. “In case the front door’s compromised?”

He studied me for a long few moments, his almost-yellow eyes empty of all expression. I suppressed a shiver. I was crazy, contracting Lucas to help me; still, a man who couldn’t be killed was far from the worst ally when it came to dealing with demons. I had no choice.

Dammit, Dante, quit being such a whiner. Until Japh finds you, you’re on your own.

He nodded. “Come over here.”

Behind a painted Cho-nyo screen he showed me a small depression in the tiles, just big enough for a hand. It triggered a slice of the wall to swing inward, and if you were quick, you could drop down into another tunnel that would take you to the surface. Push the door closed from the other side, and nobody would be the wiser. “But be careful, it’s slippery.” It hurt to hear him talk. He sounded like he had a lung infection, wheezing out the words.

“Good enough. Thank you, Lucas.”

He gave another whistling, snorting laugh. “Don’t thank me, Valentine. I’m only taking this because I’m fuckin’ curious.”

“About what?” I followed him out from behind the screen and almost to the door. Our footsteps echoed, and I was suddenly cold, thinking of when he shut that door and I was alone. Underground. In a windowless room. Oh, gods.

“Maybe the Devil can kill me,” Lucas Villalobos said, triggering the scanlock on the door. “The gods know I’ve waited long enough.”