Working for the Devil

CHAPTER 18

I met Gabe in a noodle shop on Pole Street. I was starving, and managed to get most of a bowl of beef pho into my stomach before Gabe and Eddie drifted in the front door, Eddie silently snarling, Gabe looking cool and impenetrable in a long black police-issue synthwool coat.

Gabe slid into the booth across from me, and Eddie lowered himself down with a single glance at the demon, who sat utterly straight next to me, staring into the distance, a teacup steaming gently in front of him. The tattered red velvet and black-and-white photographs of ancestors and movie stars hung on the walls made the entire place feel warmer than it was, and the sticky plastic of the booths made squealing sounds as they made themselves comfortable.

The waitress brought coffee for Gabe, and Eddie ordered seafood soup. I slurped down another mouthful of noodles. Eddie smelled like dirt and violence, and Gabe had one hell of a black eye. Probably fresh, since she would have used a healcharm on it if she'd had time. I studied her for a long time before letting my eyebrows raise.

"I got called in to do para backup on a Chill raid last night," she said finally, tossing her dark hair back over her shoulder. "Some motherfucking dumbass Magi dealing Chill out of his nightclub. Wouldn't you know."

I nodded. "Sorry about that."

She shrugged. Her sword was propped between her knees, and Eddie was probably carrying some hardware, too. "Not your fault, sweetie. You did the right thing." She slid a bulky package wrapped in brown paper across the table. "An official bounty hunter's license, two H-DOC and omni-license-to-carry, and a plug-in for the Net. A sanctioned plug-in."

My jaw dropped. Japhrimel's lip twitched. He looked down at the table, one gold-skinned finger tracing a single symbol I wasn't able to decipher over and over again on the Formica.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Someone's put some pressure on the department. Apparently anything you need is okay. You're a real golden girl right about now." Gabe's lips quirked up at the corners. "Knowing the Devil personally has some benefits, I'd guess."

I let out a gusty sigh and slurped some more noodles. "You want to get on my shit list, too?" I asked her. " 'Cause the number of people on that hallowed list is growing rapidly tonight."

"Poor baby," she laughed, while Eddie glared at me. "So where we going? What did Abra say?"

"Abra said Nuevo Rio," I said shortly. "And what's this we?"

Japhrimel stared out from the booth, his eyes moving over the entire restaurant in smooth arcs. I got the feeling that even the flies buzzing in loose spirals over the tables and the pattern of grease speckles and neon on the front window were receiving his full attention. Behind us, an old Asian man slurped loudly at his noodles, a curl of cigarette smoke rising slowly into the air. I'd been eating noodles here for six years, and no matter what time of the day or night, the old man was here, and he was always smoking. It was a dependable thing in a very undependable universe.

"Well," Gabe said finally, after studying the demon's impassive face for a few moments, "Doreen was my friend, too, and it was my case. Eddie and I have talked it over, and we're coming with you."

I put my chopsticks down and took a deep breath. "Gabe," I said, as kindly as I could, "I work alone."

She jerked her chin at the demon. "What, he's good enough to come along, but not me?"

"It's not like that," I said. "You know it's not like that." The familiar tension began in my shoulders, drawing tighter and tighter.

"I know you're going to get yourself killed chasing Santino down, and you need backup. Have you read your cards lately?" Her elegant eyebrows raised.

"My last divination session was kind of rudely interrupted," I said dryly.

"Come on, Danny." She batted her long, coal-black eyelashes at me. "I've got some vacation time, and I want to bring this fucker down."

"Gabe—"

"She says she's going," Eddie growled. "Means it too. Can't dissuade her."

Since when does Eddie use the word "dissuade"? I thought. This is lunacy. "Since when do you use the word 'dissuade, Eddie? You get yourself a Word-A-Day holovid pro? Come on, Gabe. I don't want to have to watch out for Eddie on a hunt like this—"

"Eddie's got his own hunter's license," she pointed out, "and he's perfectly capable. You're grasping at straws, Danny. We're coming."

I threw up my hands. "Oh, Sekhmet sa'es," I snarled. "If you must, I suppose. Gods above and below damn this for a suicidal idea, and Anubis protect us all. What did I do to deserve this?"

"You were Doreen's best friend," Gabe reminded me. "You got her out of that—"

I shivered, all levity and irritation disappearing. "Don't," I said tonelessly, looking down at the table. "Don't talk about that. I failed when it mattered, Gabe, that's what I did. So don't go patting me on the back. If I'd been stronger, smarter, or faster, Doreen might still be alive."

Silence descended on the table. Eddie's chopsticks paused in midair, noodles hanging from them. Steam drifted up. The smell of fried food, soy sauce, grease, and dust warred with the smell of demon, making my stomach flip.

The demon looked over at me. He reached out, deliberately, and touched the back of my wrist with two fingers.

Heat slid through my body. The mark on my left shoulder tingled. My other arm, where the bruise was swiftly developing, gave a crunching flare of pain and then eased. He said nothing.

I licked at dry lips and finally jerked my wrist away from him, almost upsetting my almost-empty soup bowl. I caught it, gathered my chopsticks, and dropped them into the plasglass bowl with a clatter.

"I'm catching a transport out in the morning," I said, picking up my bowl.

"We've already got the tickets, for you, too," Gabe replied. "And we're bringing munitions. Being a cop is good for something."

"It better be," Eddie muttered darkly, munching on his noodles. I took a long drink of hot beef broth, holding my chopsticks out of the way with my thumb. The demon still watched me.

I ignored him.

When I finished and set my bowl down, Gabe was staring into her coffee cup. "Better go home and get some sleep," she said. "We're scheduled for a 10:00 a.m. jumpoff."

"Charming," I muttered, then poked at the demon's shoulder with the hilt of my sword. "Okay. Come by my house about eight-thirty tomorrow. All right?" I took the bulky package with me, following the demon as he rose gracefully to his feet and moved aside, offering his hand to help me stand. I didn't take it, squirming out of the booth on my own.

"Don't get any ideas about stranding me, kid." Gabe peered around Eddie, who had his face buried in his bowl, supremely unconcerned. "It's hard enough to find a friend nowadays. I don't want you to go all banzai on me."

Oddly enough, that made a lump rise in my throat. "You win, Gabe," I said. "You win."

I turned around and headed for the door.

"Nice to be working with you," Eddie burbled through his soup.

We made it out onto the hushed street. The noodle shop's neon-lit windows threw a warm red glow out onto the drying pavement. The demon still said nothing.

My arm didn't hurt anymore.

I could feel the demon's eyes on me. Wouldn't you know, he wasn't bothering looking at where he was going; he was busy looking at me, stepping over a drift of wet newspaper without even looking.

"What?" I finally asked, my eyes on the pavement under my feet. I kicked a Sodaflo can out of the way. "I can feel you wanting to say something, so spit it out."

We walked for maybe half a block until he spoke. "You're distressed," he said quietly. "I hurt your arm. My apologies."

"We could have gotten a lot more out of Abra if you hadn't threatened her," I pointed out.

"I did not want you injured."

"Because it'll foul up your own carefully laid plans," I flared. "Fine."

He was quiet for another half minute, during which we crossed Pole Street. I looked both ways this time. The old feeling of being on a hunt, adrenaline and sour boredom and fierce determination, was beginning to come back.

"You are the most infuriating human I have ever met," he said.

"I thought you didn't often leave Hell." I was so out of sorts that my neck was starting to tingle.

"Why must even an apology be a battle, with you?"

"I thought demons didn't apologize."

"You are testing my patience, Dante."

"Go back to Hell, then."

"If I were human, would you be so cruel to me?"

"If you were human you wouldn't have shown up at my house and dragged me to Hell with a gun pointed at my head and gotten me involved in this mess." I stamped against the pavement, my boots echoing. Get over it, Danny. You're losing your focus. What is wrong with you?

Nothing's wrong with me. It wasn't quite true. I thought I had made my peace with Doreen's death, but the ghosts of the past were standing up, shaking out their dusty clothes, and emerging into my life again. I didn't want to face any more memories of pain and terror and death—I had too many already.

And if the memories of Doreen were coming back, why not the other memories I thought I'd locked up and buried for good? Let's make it a party for Danny Valentine, let's get out all the old terrors and shake her to and fro, how about that?

"How would you have preferred it, then?" he asked.

"I would have preferred to be left alone," I snapped at him. "I thought you were going to apologize."

"I already did. If you weren't so determined to hate me, perhaps you would have noticed."

"You arrogant—" I was again paying no attention to where we were going, so the slight scuffle in the alley made me stop midstride and whirl. Metal sang as my sword cleared the sheath. A good fight was just what the doctor ordered. My lips peeled back from my teeth. Come on out, I thought, dropping into guard position, my blade suddenly aflame with blue light. Even the thought of the paperwork it would take to clear up the mess wasn't enough to deter me from stepping forward, unconsciously putting the demon behind me as if to protect him, the blue glow of my sword suddenly reflecting on eyes and teeth and glints of metal.

The demon turned, too, an oddly graceful movement, peering into the alley. He held up a hand, and sudden light scored the darkness, making my eyes water.

Shit, he's destroyed my night vision, dammit—I flicked my sword up into the blind guard, readying myself for a strike. Here on Pole Street, it wasn't likely to be a minigang like on the subway. Here it was likely to be a full-fledged pack of street wolves, and even though I had a sword and a Necromance's tat, it could get really ugly, really quickly.

Then again, ugly was just fine with me. The flood of copper adrenaline was almost as good as riding a slicboard, my breath hissing out through my teeth.

Unfortunately, the demon's little light-ball showed six dark shapes fleeing down the alley, one with a metal glint in his hands. Switchblade or gun, didn't matter. I stood there as the demon calmly flicked his wrist, bringing the white-hot glowing sphere back to rest obediently in his palm. Another flick of his wrist and the light was gone, making me blink my dazzled eyes. Power hummed through the air, the smell of ozone and rain mixing with the sharper smell of garbage, and fear. And over it all, the smoky smell of demon.

"As I said," he said quietly, "you appear to need a caretaker. Were you unaware of being followed? And did you think to protect me?"

His face resolved as my pupils expanded, green eyes glowing and half-lidded, his mouth curled up faintly at the corners. Laughing at the poor stupid human.

"I don't need to be taken care of, especially when it's only a grunge-smelling pack of Pole Street wolves. I need to get this over with so I can go back to my life, pay my mortgage, and retire." I resheathed my sword, the blue glow draining from the blade as unspent adrenaline wound my nerves up like a slic set on high. "I'm going home to get some sleep."

He nodded.

I set off down Pole Street, vaguely wishing there had been a fight. The demon's disdain was infuriating, even though I shouldn't have cared. It took me about a block to realize I'd been rude. "Hey," I said, looking up at the demon, who paced beside me silent as a shark.

"Yes?" Wary. But he looked puzzled, too, as if I had just done something extraordinary.

"Thanks for the apology," I gave him, grudgingly. "And I tend to take point to protect whoever I'm with. It's not a comment on your ability. I'm sure you're able to take care of yourself."

Did he stumble slightly, or was it just my imagination? He didn't say a word.