To Hell and Back

Chapter 6

Konstans-Stamboul is an amazingly low-built city. Zoning laws are tight and archaic here, and the traffic is mostly wheel or airbikes, with a generous helping of slicboards. There aren't many hovers, and the freight lanes over the city are full of slow silvery beetles marching against a sky often starving-deep blue, old pollution and new citybreath laying a bowl of refraction over dreaming blocks of stone buildings mixed with concrete and weathered plasteel.

In the midst of this, the white walls and piercing towers of Hajia Sofya rise like a flawless tooth in otherwise shattered gums. Graceful and pristine, the temple thrums with agonized centuries of worship and belief Old Christer, Islum, Gilead Evangelical, and finally the multicolored, multilayered hum of Power collected consciously by psions coming to pray to their personal gods and normals coming to propitiate those same gods. Belief like sweat dews the white, white walls, and everywhere in the city you can feel the temple looming, a heart pumping slowly but surely.

There are other temples in Konstans-Stamboul, but none of them feel like Sofya. That's how psions refer to her-Sofya. And even more familiarly, as She. There are only two temples referred to in the feminine singular — Hajia Sofya, and Notra Dama in Paradisse.

Vann crouched easily on the grated plasteel floor of the hover, tossing what looked like brown knucklebones onto a square of dark leather painted with three concentric rings. He didn't look like a psion, but I supposed a Hellesvront agent working for Japhrimel might pick up a little divination here and there.

McKinley slumped in a chair, his head tipped back and a pale slice of throat showing. He wore all black, as usual, and his left hand lay cupped on his knee, more metallic than ever, glowing in mellow Stamboul light falling through the portholes. He looked tired, dark bruised circles graven under his closed eyes.

Lucas leaned against the hull, peering out a porthole; his yellow eyes slitted and the river of scarring down his face red and angry-looking. He rested one hand on the butt of a 60-watt plasgun, stroking it meditatively. Leander Beaudry, his cheeks scruffy with stubble over his accreditation tat, very pointedly didn't look at Japhrimel. He sat in another chair bolted to the floor, his knees drawn up and his sword across them. His emerald glowed, a spark popping from it as I stared at his familiar, suddenly-strange face. He looked so… human. He even smelled human, the odor of mortality a spice against the scent of other everyone else in the hover carried.

Even me. Mythumb rested against the katana's guard. "We're exposed here." Lucas didn't acknowledge my presence with anything else. "How long we staying?"

"We shall be leaving shortly." Japhrimel's heat against my back was comforting. He stood close, shadowing me in a way he never had before. "As soon as we have collected what we require."

McKinley's eyes showed a faint gleam under the heavy lids. They rested on me, those little gleams. I didn't like it. The sandpaper-on-skin distaste I always felt for him rasped at me. The little clicks as Vann threw the bones irritated me too.

I wondered if I could kill either or both of them before Japhrimel intervened. I actually even started planning how to do it, a thin unhealthy joy rising behind my heartbeat when I imagined slipping my katana free of its sheath and letting the rage take me.

The first few steps would be forward, gathering momentum and leaping, committing myself while McKinley was still in the chair. The sword would clear sheath with a musical ring, and the strike would be an upward diagonal, so that even if he tried to leap to his feet he would walk into it. He wouldn't take the easiest way out, kicking the chair over backward, because it was bolted to the floor. The second stroke would be a reverse, wrist twisting and hilt floating as the blade sped back down, and it would finish him and position me for a crouch to launch myself at Vann -

McKinley's dark eyes unlidded themselves halfway, his lashes rising with agonizing slowness. He looked at me like he could read my mind.

I'm sure my face reflected what I was thinking. I could feel it, a chilling little smile pulling the corners of my lips back, showing strong white demon-altered teeth.

McKinley didn't move. His Adam's-apple bobbed as he swallowed, but there was no stink of fear from him. Instead, he examined me from under half-closed eyelids, wearing the same set expression he might use to watch a poisonous but not terribly bright animal, one to be cautious of despite its inherent stupidity.

The friction on my nerves got worse. Vann said something I didn't quite catch, his stance changing just a fraction as he crouched fluidly over whatever he was doing.

Japhrimel's hand descended on my left shoulder, his fingers curling around and tightening over his mark in the sensitive hollow under the wing of my collarbone. "There is no cause for alarm," he said quietly. I had no trouble hearing his voice through the sudden rushing noise in my ears. "It is, after all, natural."

McKinley shrugged, a lazy movement. "Doesn't look like she agrees, m'Lord."

Japhrimel's thumb stroked the wing of my shoulderblade, brushing one of the rig's leather straps. The touch burned through me, clearing away the sick unsteady feeling of violence.

He irritates me, but that's not a reason to kill him. What am I thinking?

I didn't know. And that was dangerous in and of itself. Silence stretched out until McKinley closed his eyes again. Vann scooped up the bones and the leather square, rolling them into a neat packet he tied off with a leather thong. The resultant little thing disappeared into his clothes and he rose with swift economical grace. "Will we be accompanying you, my Lord?"

The way the two agents spoke to Japh — with careful deference but absolute trust — rubbed me the wrong way too. It wasn't that they were so respectful. I of all people understood the need to be cautious where demons were concerned, especially if you work for them. But the lack of unease told me these two had known Japh longer than I had, and that I didn't like at all.

Sekhmet sa'es, Danny, are you jealous? Of a couple of Hellesvront agents? I slid away from Japhrimel's hand. He let me, but I didn't miss the sudden tension in the air as I crossed the hover in swift strides, my new boots and rig creaking, to stare out the porthole next to Lucas's.

"You will be accompanying me, but not in the usual manner." Japhrimel said it carefully, giving each word particular weight. "Your task will be to protect what is most precious to me."

Silence spread out in ripples again. I peered out the porthole, seeing the edge of a landing pad, a bare weedy empty lot, and the unmistakable slumped tenements of Konstans-Stamboul's poorer section. This wasn't quite where I would have picked to park — a shiny hover sitting around in this neighborhood would draw attention. Thick, golden late-afternoon sunlight dipped every surface in honey.

My fingers tightened on the sheath as the silence grew more intense. I felt eyes on me, didn't turn around. What was I supposed to do?

"Very well." Japhrimel sounded like something had been decided.

Lucas let out a soft breath, a tuneless hum. I glanced over, meeting his yellow gaze. A thought froze me, seeing the river of scarring running down his face.

They called Lucas the Deathless, and the rumor was that he'd done something so awful even Death had turned His back on the man. I'd always assumed Lucas had been a Necromance.

What if I was wrong?

"Lucas." The word was out of my mouth before I was aware of speaking. "Can I ask you something?"

He shrugged, turning his gaze out his own porthole. "We stick out like a hooker in a Luddite convention, parked here." Under the threadbare yellowing shirt, his wiry shoulders were hunched. Call me sensitive, but I got the idea he didn't want to answer any questions just now.

"I thought the same thing." Thin amusement rode the edge of my voice. I rolled my shoulders back in their sockets, settling the rig. "I just wish I could stop getting my clothes blown off me and bloodied."

"Quit gettin' yourself into trouble with demons." He jerked his chin toward his right shoulder, a movement I belatedly realized took in the silent and visibly unhappy Leander. "Boy's learned his lesson."

"You don't have to call me a coward, Villalobos." Leander's voice was soft, the professional whispering tone of a Necromance. We who enforce our will on the world with our voices learn to speak softly. It's also kind of an affectation — a whisper is better than a shout when it comes to scaring the hell out of someone.

I don't usually feel like scaring the hell out of someone. People — at least, normal headblind people — are simply scared of psions as a whole. It's xenophobia and fear of the unknown all wrapped up in one economical package, with lingering hatred left over from the Evangelicals of Gilead and their theocratic North Merican empire making a festive bow. The Seventy Days War and the fall of the Republic were years and years ago, but people have long memories when it comes to hating the different.

"Not callin' you a coward, Beaudry. Think it's your smartest move." Lucas gave the whistling gurgle that was his laugh.

I turned away from the porthole, looking at Leander directly. A scintilla of light from the emerald embedded in his cheekbone sent a swift bolt of something too hot and nasty to be pain through me. "What's going on?"

The Necromance shrugged, an economical movement. His katana rattled unhappily inside its sheath, and his shielding shivered as the charged atmosphere stroked at it. His eyes were shadowed, and the inked lines of his accreditation tat shifted under scruffy dark stubble. "Your friend doesn't like me, Valentine." He didn't have to point for me to know it was Japhrimel he was talking about. "But if I strike out on my own, I'm looking at trouble. I'm associated with you now. So do I stick around and wait for your pet demon to take more of a dislike to me, or do I find a hole to hide in until this blows over?" A short bitter laugh, and he palmed his face wearily. "Except things like this don't blow over. I'm just unhappy. I'm not a goddamn coward."

"Nobody's saying you are." My eyes fastened on the emerald, alive with green light. He still had his connection with his psychopomp, with whatever face of Death had revealed itself at his Trial.

He was a Necromance. His god hadn't forced him to spare a traitor's life.

Except my god hadn't forced me, had He? No, He had simply asked. I could not blame Him. Who did that leave to blame?

Anubis — The prayer started inside my head, I shoved it away. I would not call on Him.

Not now. Not like this. The determination was raw and painful, heavy sunlight on already burned skin.

"So I'm in." Leander's tone said plainly, That's that. Don't push me.

I considered him for a long moment. He was right. I'd stepped in over my head this time, worse than usual. The hideous beating secret inside my brain was almost as black as the traitorous tingling on my cheekbone where my own emerald flashed.

After all my worship, all my love, and all my service, my god had let me down just when I needed Him most, by even asking the sacrifice of me. How could I reconcile my faith to that? I had been forced to spare a killer's life. I had been used by the god I loved.

Would another Necromance understand my pain? Why don't you ask him over coffee, Danny? Whenever you can take a moment out of your busy schedule of being dragged into Hell and strangled to death by demons.

I scraped together the most tactful thing I could think of to say. "Fine. You're in." Just stay out of trouble. I halfturned again, meeting Japhrimel's eyes.

My Fallen stood with his hands loose at his sides. It was the closest to bored I'd ever seen him, but he also had a look I didn't like at all. A look of listening to some sound I would never be able to hear, no matter how hard I strained my better-than-human senses. It was only a millimeter's worth of difference in the set of his mouth, a slight tension in his winged eyebrows, but it was as loud as a shout to me. I'd spent long enough looking at him to know.

He'd worn that look a lot in Toscano, before our life together had gone merrily to Hell.

Icy spider-feet walked up my spine. "You have a problem with that, Japh?"

He considered me, his eyes burning incandescent green. The raggedness of dark hair falling over those eyes helped make his gaze a little less awful, as did the thin oval of human darkness behind the glow.

He ended up saying nothing. It might have seemed like the wisest course, considering the way my right hand itched for my swordhilt. I wasn't used to this kind of simmering rage.

Still, I didn't dislike it. It felt clean. Cleaner than the dark thing pulsing in my head, at least.

"See?" I swung back round to face Leander. "You're in." Another thought stopped me, so fast I snapped off the end of the last word. A sudden inspiration. "My very own Necromance to hang around. Just like getting a puppy for my birthday."

The sharp intake of breath, for once, wasn't mine. It was McKinley's. His eyes flew open, and I could swear Vann went white under the copper tone of his skin.

Wow. Maybe I just said something right for a change. Either that or I've just made a huge mistake. Guess which way my luck's running lately.

Japhrimel nodded. "As you like, my curious." No more than that. No color to his voice except simple acceptance.

I wished I could figure out whether he was giving in because it didn't matter in the long run what I did. It was pretty damn likely.

There you go, Danny old girl. You're thinking like yourself again.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure I really was thinking like myself. It's hard to tell when you're not sure who you are anymore.

"My Lord." Vann clasped his arms behind his back, standing poker-straight. It looked ridiculous on him, especially with the fringe hanging off his leather coat. "I would remind you-"

"Not necessary, Vann." Japhrimel said over the top of him. Not dismissively, and not with any real heat. But his face settled and set, a demon's essential oddity closer to the surface than ever before, and my heart turned over inside my chest.

He wasn't human. It should have bothered me. It should have reminded me of the thing beating like a diseased heart inside my skull, the memory sleeping uneasily behind the strongest door I could make to shut it away.

It didn't. Instead, I saw the thin line of his lips, the fineness of his eyelashes, and the raggedness of his hair. I saw the oval of darkness behind his burning eyes.

I saw the man — no matter if he was a demon — who always came for me.

Whatever was on my face might not have been pleasant, but it seemed fine by my Fallen. His mouth relaxed into a half-smile, one corner quirking up in that sardonic expression that meant he was enjoying himself. As if I'd made an unexpected move in a game of battlechess, or done something that pleasantly surprised him.

I liked that look.

But what I liked even more was the thought that I might have some sort of control over my relationship with him. A little bit of control might sound like a small thing, but it was the difference between screaming insanity and some kind of rational shape to the inside of my head.

I actually felt happier than I had in a long time. Maybe I shouldn't have, but there it was. But still, my arms and legs were heavy, and deep in my belly a stone sat, dragging me down.

"So." I actually sounded perky. Chalk up a winning gravball goad for Danny Valentine. It's about time. "What's this about an appointment?"