To Hell and Back

Chapter 13

There's an old psion joke taken from a Zenmo koan. It goes like this: Before they discovered Chomo Lungma, what was the highest mountain in the world?

The answer, of course, is another Zenmo joke. The one inside your head still is.

Normals don't get it. But pretty much every psion who hears it cracks up. The laughter is bright and unaffected if you're a child, somewhat cynical and world-weary by the time you hit eighteen, and turns knowing when you're older. When you get to the combat-trained psions, the bounty hunters, cops, and government agents — we don't just laugh. We laugh as if our mouths are full of too much bitterness to be contained, because we know it's true. There aren't any geographical features that can stop you. It's the faults, fissures, and peaks inside your own skull that bring you up hard and short.

Chomo Lungma is the mountain's name — Great Mother Mountain. She rises in pleats and tooth-shapes from the rest of the Himalayas, a low thundering bassnote of Power throbbing from her rock and ice. She is more than a mountain. Generations of belief and thought have made her a symbol of endurance and the unconquerable, no matter how many climbers have climbed to her top unaided by hover technology. It's still an act of faith to scale her.

Our hover drifted through a night sky starred with hard points of brilliance, unwashed by any cityglow. The mountains around the Mother are a historical zone in the Freetown Tibet territory, no cities allowed, precious few hovers, the infrequent temples lit by torchlight, oil lamp, and candleflame.

I stared out the porthole, resting my forehead on chill slick plasglass. Hoverwhine boiled through my skull, rattled my back teeth, slid into my bones. Pleated gaps and gullies of stacked stone vibrated like plucked strings under the hover's metal belly. Starlight danced on snow and knife-edged crags. The air was so thin up here it sparkled.

A slim slice of waning moon drifted in the cold uncaring sky, shedding no light.

Japhrimel stepped into the room. I hadn't moved for a long time, watching the shapes of mountains as we circled the Mother of them all.

He shut the door and said nothing, but the mark on my shoulder hadn't stopped its distress-beacon pulsing. I searched the edged gullies and piles of rock below, my eyes not fooled by thin starshine. The mountains were hooded with snow, but it didn't soften their contours. Instead, it laid bare every grasping, razor edge.

My voice surprised me again. "I'm all right."

Another lie. They were coming fast and thick these days. I had always been so proud of keeping my word; I wondered if that pride was about to turn on me, cutting my hands as I tried to use my sorcerous Will. A Necromance uses her voice to bring back the dead; it's why we whisper most of the time.

We know what the spoken word can do.

He was silent for so long I closed my eyes, the darkness behind my lids comfortless. When he finally spoke, it was a bare thread of sound. "I do not think so, my curious."

The bitterness of my reply surprised even me. "I should think up a cute little nickname for you, too, you know." It was something I might have said in Toscano, back when the world had still been on its course, not descended into insanity. I'd thought I was fucked-up then but beginning to heal. I hadn't had any idea of how fucked-up it could get.

A nasty little voice inside my head whispered that maybe I didn't have any idea now, either.

"You could," he finally said. "I would answer."

"You always do." The darkness behind my closed lids made it easier to say. "Somehow."

"I have not been kind to you." The words came out in a rush, as if he'd been sitting on them for a while and just now set them free. "What I have done, I have done with the best of intent. You must believe me."

"Sure." Who the hell else do I have to believe? "Look, Japh, it's okay. You don't have to."

Meaning, I'm not in any position to throw stones when it comes to good intent. Meaning, you came for me, even when you didn't have to. Meaning, someone else hurt me, not you. Meaning other things, too, things I couldn't say. There might have been a time when I could have opened up my mouth and spilled everything, but that time was long gone.

Besides, he probably wouldn't understand anyway even if I could say it. I had been reduced more than once to incoherence by his inability to comprehend the simplest things about me.

I didn't hear him cross the room, but his breath touched my hair. The warmth of him radiated against my back. "We do only what we must." Each word touched my hair like a lover's fingers, raised prickles on my nape. Precious few people got this close to me. "You more than most, I think. May I ask you something?"

Oh, gods. "If you want." The stone lodged in my throat coated itself with ice, froze the words halfway.

He paused. His fingers touched my left shoulder, skating over the fabric of my shirt. My chin dipped, shoulders unstringing, losing their tension.

Maybe I could relax for just a few seconds. I needed it. I was on the knife-edge of psychosis — too much violence, too high an emotional pitch for too long. It was a wonder I hadn't had a psychotic break yet. I just wanted to curl up somewhere and rest, close my eyes and shut out the world.

Trouble was, the world doesn't take too kindly to being shut out.

The hover lifted, gravity turning over underneath my stomach. We were in a holding pattern, drifting quietly over the tallest mountain in the world.

Except the one inside my head, that was. The one standing between me and any semblance of reasonable humanity. I heard Lucas mutter something outside the door, the sound of metal clinking — ammo, probably. Leander's muffled reply was short and terse.

Japhrimel sighed. It was a very human sound, stirring my hair as a soft rustling began. When his arms came around me I didn't pull away, but neither did I lean back into him. His wings unfolded, rippling as they closed around me, heavy and silken. Spice and demon musk freighted the air, carrying the indefinable smell of maleness and the faint tinge of leather and gunpowder that was his, unique.

His wings draped bonelessly, the slice of starshine coming through the porthole closed off as they cocooned us, liquid heat painting my skin. He was always so warm.

A very long time ago I'd read a treatise on Greater Flight demons and their wings. It is a tremendous show of vulnerability, almost submission, for a demon of Japhrimel's class to close his wings around another being. The writer of the treatise — a post-Awakening Magi whose shadowjournal had been more difficult than most to decipher — hadn't used the word trust, but I'd inferred it anyway, fully aware of imputing human emotions to something… not human.

I just couldn't stop doing it. Not when I made a short broken sound, all my air leaving me in a half-sob, and relaxed, abruptly, all at once against him.

The darkness behind my eyelids turned kind and comforting. He held me carefully, resting his chin atop my head and occasionally shifting his weight as the hover banked. His pulse came strong and sure, one beat to every three of mine.

"I thought to ask your forgiveness," he murmured, his voice a thin thread of gold in the stillness. "I thought to ask if you regretted our meeting. I also thought to ask…"

I waited, but he said nothing more. How am I supposed to answer either of those questions, Japhrimel? You hurt me, manipulated me… but you always show up just when I'm about to get strangled by yet another demon. And if I never met you Santino would still be alive, Doreen would be unavenged — but maybe Jace and Gabe and Eddie would still be alive, too.

If I'd never met you the Lourdes hunt would have killed me. A thin shiver walked up my spine with tiny, icy claws. Taking on a Feeder's ka birthed from the ruins of Rigger Hall would have been chancy at best for even a fully-trained Necromance. Maybe I would have been strong enough, maybe not.

Probably not. I would have been only human, after all. If I hadn't met him.

If he hadn't changed me in so many ways. The physical changes were only the least of them.

How could I even begin to untangle it all? Lies and truth and hate and need, all twisted together into a rope. Even as it burned my hands and dragged me down, at least that rope could be counted on to yank me back out of the abyss. Every other safety net I'd ever had was gone.

Tell him the truth, Danny, if you can admit it. Tell him you wish you'd never seen his face. Tell him you wish he and Lucifer had just left you alone instead of fucking you up so bad you can't even think straight, so bad you can't even talk to your god anymore.

Go ahead, sunshine. Deliver the bad news. It might even hurt him.

My fingers relaxed, my katana dangling from my left hand. The rig was heavy, straps cutting into my shoulders, weapons poking at odd places. In a while the leather and hilts would conform to me, would be unfelt until I needed them.

Tell him, Dante. You're always so proud of telling the truth and keeping your Word. Look where it's gotten you. Tell him.

"I'm glad I met you." The lie sounded natural. For once, I delivered an untruth, and I meant it while I said it, too. "Don't be ridiculous."

Japhrimel's weight pitched forward, resting fully on me for one heavy second. He straightened, a small sound escaping his lips as if I'd hit him. "Forgive me?" he whispered. It sounded less like a question, more like a plea.

What am I supposed to say to that? The answer came, and I was grateful for it. "If you forgive me." We can be even, this once. Can't we?

"There is nothing to forgive." He sounded more like himself, contained and even. His arms tightened, and for a moment his wings pulled even closer, warm scented air touching my wet cheeks.

I didn't know I was crying. I hadn't cried since Gabe's death. Not so long ago, really, but it felt like a lifetime. The hover banked into a curve, Japh's weight shifting. He inhaled, his breath moving against my hair, and his body tightened the merest fraction. I knew that tension in him, had shared it so many times. It was a subtle invitation to have a conversation in the most intimate way, skin-on-skin, the only language we ever truly shared.

I flinched. Japhrimel froze.

I struggled to contain the urge to flinch again. He had never hurt me in the private space of our shared bed. It was ridiculous to think he ever would.

Still, my body turned cold, the tears changing to ice on my cheeks, a black hole where something had been torn out by the roots opening in my head, my body robbed of its integrity. My own voice, breaking as I screamed, echoed up from that well of darkness.

Don't think about that. Don't.

When he moved again, it was to reach up, smoothing my hair. His fingertips were unerringly gentle, not even a prickle to remind me of his claws. I remembered to breathe again, took a deep steadying gulp of warm air full of his goddamn safe-smelling pheromones.

"I'm sorry." Memory curved, overlapped — how many times had I said the same thing to Doreen, to other lovers? How many times had I apologized for my inability to respond, my coldness, the echoes of trauma lingering in my head blocking me from accepting even the smallest gift of touch? "Japh, I —"

"No." At least he didn't sound angry. "Leave it be, hedaira."

"What if…" What if I can't ever go there with you again? What if I can't ever stand to have anyone touch me again?

He inhaled again, smelling me, his ribs expanding to make his chest brush my back. It was a relief to find out I didn't want to cower away from that touch. "It doesn't matter."

"But — ?"

"It does not matter. Youwill heal. When you're ready, we shall see." His fingers combed through my hair, infinitely soothing.

I had to ask. "What if I'm never ready?" What if I don't own my own body, ever again?

"Then we will find another way." The darkness changed as his wings unfurled, slowly, flowing back down to armor him even as his arms remained around me. He let out a short, soft sigh. "But first, we have a Prince to kill and our freedom to accomplish."

Just those two little things? Sure, we can get that done in an afternoon. An unhealthy, sniggering laugh rose up in my throat, was mercilessly strangled, and died away. "Japh?"

"Hm?" He sounded just as he always did. Except for the banked rage under the surface of his tone.

"I feel… dirty." Unclean. Filthy, as a matter of fact. I couldn't frame the question I needed answered most. Does that matter to you?

He was silent for a long, long moment. Finally, he spoke into my hair, a mere thread of sound. "I did too, my beloved, when Lucifer broke me to his will. I healed. In time, you will."

His arm uncoiled from my waist and he stepped away, quickly. His retreat to the door was killing-silent, but I felt every step in my own body. I kept my eyes tightly shut. Oh, gods. "You mean he — "

"It is one of his preferred methods." The door opened, a slight click as he turned the handle. "We shall be landing soon. Bring your weapons, and especially the Knife. I regret there is not more time for rest, but we must move."