The Devil's Right Hand

Chapter 25

Gray. Everything gray. Shot through with veins of white flame.

The burning. Everywhere, burning. Creeping fire. Every inch of skin, inside my eyelids, the sensitive canals of my ears burning, burning, my mouth burning. Teeth turned to molten chips. Burning.

Screaming. A raw agonized voice I barely recognized, breaking on a high note of suffering.

My own.

Cheek on fire. Emerald. My emerald. But no blue fire, no hovering of Death.

Wasn’t I dead? At last?

“Hold that.” Quiet, a male voice I didn’t recognize, breaking through my agonized cry. “Goddammit, hold it, she’s not dead. Don’t know where she is, but she isn’t dead yet.”

Power, flaring out of my control. Sound of smashing plasglass. No blue glow. Only a ragged chant, nailing me in my body, a voice I didn’t recognize.

Funny, every other time I’d been this hurt I’d gone into Death and begged the god to take me.

How hurt was I?

It hurt. It hurt. It tore along every nerve, worked inward, creeping up my arms and legs like the slow icy crawl of Death. But something fought it—my left arm, braceleted and shoulder-torn in agony, sending out waves of fiery cold, fighting with the other pain for control of me. Back and forth, tearing at me until I screamed, thrashing.

Caught. Held, my arms and legs stretched as I convulsed again.

“Stop.” Japhrimel’s voice was ragged. “Give me another unit.”

A splash against my skin. A collective gasp. “More. As your gods love you, if you do not wish my wrath, more.”

Chanting, a Necromance’s chant; I didn’t recognize the voice behind it. But I wasn’t dead. No blue fire, no god of Death. Nothing but the ragged breathless male voice chanting, and the agony, tearing at my skin, working inward, collecting in every joint and rending tender tissues. Motion, spiked air dragging against my nerves, I was being taken somewhere. Or was the world just spinning away underneath me?

Flesh moving on my bones, literally crawling. Crawling as the chant melded with Power to knit together shattered and burned skin and muscle. Warmth, then, forced down my throat. Someone massaging my neck. Making me swallow. It burned all the way down, fire exploding out from the inside now as well as burrowing into my skin from the outside.

“More,” Japhrimel said again. His tone had smoothed out. He no longer sounded ready to kill. That was good, I felt queerly unable to move, couldn’t talk to calm him down.

Rich wet scent of rain. Was I outside? No, the air was too still. Another storm approaching?

There always is. A deep voice worked its way up through my racked brain. The voice of my instincts, quiet and sure.

“She’ll live.” The colorless voice that had been chanting, slow and slurred now. Tired, with a weariness that drew down to the bone.

“Help him, Tiens. McKinley?” Japhrimel’s voice, chill and hurtful, impossible to disobey. He’d never spoken like that to me, and I was grateful.

“Here.” McKinley’s voice, soft and respectful.

“Question the humans. Get even the smallest piece of information. Do not fail me.”

“Of course not.” McKinley’s low voice. I struggled, thrashing weakly, a hand closed around my wrist. Sharp inhale.

My body convulsed, a small weak sound torn from my lips.

“The Magi. What does he have?”

“He says it’s close. That’s all.” Bella’s voice, quivering. She sounds so young. Did I ever sound that young? What is she doing involved with this?

“Not enough. Go back to work.”

“He needs sleep, he’s exhausted. The countermeasures are—”

“Take what you need, but beware. Time is of the essence. Go.” Dismissive. Again, a tone he’d never used on me.

Footsteps retreating. “Gods.” I heard my voice crack, hoarse and shattered. It sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Gods. What happened?”

“First time I’ve ever seen a woman take on a hover,” Lucas said, his voice wheezing and terrible with amusement. “It was loaded with reactive. Lovely. We’re going to have the Freetowners crawling up our ass.”

“The damage was contained,” Japhrimel snarled. “What more do they want?”

Lucas was silent. Probably wise of him.

“More blood,” Japhrimel said, his voice stony. Light pierced my eyes. It hurt.

I whimpered.

“Easy, hedaira.” Something stroking my burning forehead. Ice-cold fingers, painful but also strangely comforting. Thank the gods, his voice was softer now, no trace of that chill hurtfulness. He sounded like himself again. “Let me work. You will not be scarred.”

“The hover—reactive—Japhrimel—”

“Just because it affects an imp does not mean it will affect me. Now lie still.”

“Japh—” I struggled with my unwieldy body. The reactive—the vision of the imp bubbling and screaming into a grease stain on the reactive rose again. “Japhrimel—”

“I am well enough. Ease yourself.”

Relief. I collapsed, hearing a slight whistling sound as I let my breath out. “I’m not hurt,” I managed, despite the awful burning sensation. It was no longer blind white agony, only a hard, sharp weight against my nerves. Like the touch of sun on already-burned skin. Or the awful creeping rash of slagfever. “The others?”

“Safe. They left the hotel in time. I must admit your instincts are finer than mine.” A warm wave of Power, something else splashing against my skin and sinking in. Something gelid and spicy like demon blood. “You are hurt, Dante, but not badly. Lie still.”

Another voice. Tiens. Was it night now, the Nichtvren up and about? “The human’s locked in a room.”

“Feed him, keep him close. He is not a prisoner.” Japhrimel sounded chilly again, used to command. Why had I never heard this tone from him before? “Tell him he has my thanks.”

“Is she—”

“She will live, Tiens. Do as I say.” Thin razor-edge under the command. Japh might be calmer but he was still on a lasetrigger.

Tiens apparently didn’t consider it a big deal. “Of course, m’sieu. More blood?”

“No. I have enough. Get out.”

Blood? That means Japhrimel’s feeding. He never wanted to feed on blood in front of me, he preferred to visit slaughterhouses or feed on sex. I didn’t think I’d be up for any bedgames for a little while. “Japhrimel?” I sounded delirious, wondered why. Is he all right? The reactive… he sounds all right. I hope he’s okay.

“Be still, now. Let me work.” Power, pulsing along my abused nerves. Coating them with honey. A crackling sound, then a chill as something peeled away from my flesh. Air hitting damp skin, cold and full of knives but still somehow better than the burning.

Peeling away. Fingers in my hair, stroking gently, spinning out the silky strands. A low humming sound of Power sinking into my skin, swirling and dyeing the air green; diamond-black flames twisted over me, working down toward my bones. Shadows began to form, coalescing against the bright white light. “Am I blind?”

“No. Let me work.”

Now that the furious pain was gone I could think again. “My emerald—”

“Still there. Still alive with your god’s presence. Be quiet now.”

The strength ran out of my arms and legs. I felt something hard under me, Japhrimel’s arms around me. A tickling touch over my face, down my throat, over my breasts, flowering down my body. A different type of tension stirred in me, my hips jerked forward. I heard a low moan—my own.

What, I’m a sexwitch now? The thought was panicked and dark, laden with uncomfortable hysteria—not at all like my usual self. Power had never evoked a sexual response in me.

Never.

It ran out my toes, a crackling tide of burning leaving me molten and shaken. I blinked several times, something fine and dusty falling from my eyelashes. Closed my eyes, still blind. Let my head tip back like a heavy fruit on my limp stem of a neck.

I still had eyelashes? Had someone said a hover laden with reactive? I’d been too busy trying to get Japhrimel out of the way to think about anything else.

Reaction fire. What was it with these people chasing me and the reaction fire?

Is it any consolation that they are not “people”? Japhrimel’s voice, deep and amused, sounded in my memory.

Had a demon tried to smash me with a hover? It didn’t seem like them, I somehow got the sense that demons liked to do their work a little more up-close. When you’ve got eternity to play in, bloodsport needs to be personal; anything else is just too boring. Or so I think, having studied what I can of demons.

Something else is going on here. Lucifer winds me up and sets me in motion—but he also takes the chance and makes sure I’m separated from Japhrimel. Someone sends an imp after me—but any Greater Flight demon would guess I would be almost capable of taking care of an imp. It was just to keep me running. And a hoverload of reactive—if it won’t kill Japhrimel, it might not kill me, but it will slow us both down. So someone needs time to do something.

But demons had all the time in the world. Lucifer only contracted me for seven years. The smart thing to do was lie low and wait until I was no longer the Right Hand. Seven years was an eyeblink for a demon.

Someone was trying to throw me off the track. Someone wanted me to chase my own tail.

Or someone was using me for another purpose, bait or distraction.

Lucifer? An escaped demon? Who?

All of the above?

I opened my eyes. Saw darkness. Blinked, saw glowing green eyes. A familiar face.

“Japhrimel,” I breathed. My body felt made out of lead, my mouth strangely numb.

His fingertips stroked my forehead. “Dante,” he breathed back. “Did you think to protect me?”

“As a matter… of fact, I did.” I blinked again. “Someone’s trying… to delay… us. Or… use… ”

“Now this is revealed unto you?” He stroked my forehead again, bent to press a kiss onto my cheek. “Think no more on it. Sleep, and heal.”

I fell into darkness, still trying to think through the soup my brain had become.