Working for the Devil

CHAPTER 33

Las Vigrasas was a bar. The street it crouched on lay under a drift of trash, furtive shadows sliding from place to place, danger soaking the air. I shivered, peering at the front of the bar from our safe place across the street. Japhrimel had suggested watching the place for a few minutes, and I'd concurred.

I scanned the place carefully. No real Power here, this was a blindhead bar. It was asking for trouble, walking in there. Some places weren't very hospitable to psis.

A lonely sign with a peeling L's Vig asa painted on it swung slightly in the freshening breeze. The air was so muggy, even the breeze didn't help much. Bullet holes and plasgun scorches festooned the buildings.

I took a deep breath. "What do you think?" I asked him.

I can't believe I'm asking a demon his opinion, I thought. What the hell is wrong with me? Then again, he's my best backup, at least until I find this Egg thingie.

"I think this is a dangerous place," he said softly. "I would ask you to be careful, but—"

"I'll be careful," I said. "Look, don't hesitate in there. You see someone go for me, take them down."

"Kill them?"

"If necessary." I paused. "I trust your judgment."

His eyes sparked briefly, turning bright laser-green, and then just as swiftly darkened. "You do?"

"I guess so," I answered. "You haven't let me down yet."

He didn't answer, but his eyes held mine for a long moment.

I finally eased out of the shadows and crossed the street, skirting mounds of rubble and trash. I didn't have to look—Japhrimel seemed melded to my shadow. Three steps led up to Las Vigrasas's swinging door; I heard rollicking shouts from behind it, a barrelhouse piano going. I pushed the door open, grimacing inwardly at the feel of greasy wood against my fingers. A roil of smell pushed out—alcohol, vomit, cigarette smoke, the stench of an untended lavatory, unwashed men.

Eau de Nuevo Rio bar, I thought. I wish Gabe was here.

That startled me. I wasn't used to hunting with anyone in tow, but it had been nice to have Gabe around. At least she was honest—or I hoped so. Then again, she had suggested staying with Jace, and contacted him.

It truly sucks to doubt your friends when you only have one or two of them, I realized.

I strode into the bar, Japhrimel behind me. Cigarette smoke hazed the air. The dark and sudden quiet that fell over the raucous drunken pit warned me. Oh, what the hell, I thought. In for a penny, in for a motherfucking pound. My emerald spat, sizzled, a green spark drifting down to the floor.

A long bar crouched on the left side of the room, tables and chairs scattered to my right. I stepped down, my boots making quiet sounds against the wood of the stairs and then a muffled deadened sound as I stepped onto the oiled sawdust.

Dark eyes watched me. Several Nuevo Rios, lean tanned men in clothes very much like mine, plasguns and old-time projectile guns openly displayed. There was a smattering of Anglos—I scanned the bar once, and found a familiar slouched set of shoulders. Lucas stood with his back to the door, leaning against the bar.

I knew better than to think he didn't know who had just come in from the cold.

I made it two steps across the sawdust before the bartender spat something in Portogueso, a long deadly-looking shotgun in his brown hands. He wore a stained apron and a sweat-darkened white shirt, oddly luminescent in the gloom.

Japhrimel said something in reply, and the air temperature dropped by at least ten degrees. Nobody moved, but there was a general sense of men leaning back. I waited, eyeing the bartender, my peripheral vision marking everyone in the room. Lucas wore a Trade Bargains microfiber shirt, like me; run-down jeans and worn engineer boots. But he also wore a bandolier, oiled supple leather against his shirt; his greasy hair lay lank against his shoulders.

The bartender spoke again, but his voice quivered slightly. I watched the shotgun.

Japhrimel said nothing, but the air pressure changed. I felt like a woman holding a plasgun over a barrel of reactive—my pulse ran tight and hot behind my wrists and throat, my nape tingling, my skin bathed with Power.

Five seconds ticked by. Then the bartender dropped his shotgun on the bar. The wood and metal clattered. I tensed, bile whipping my throat. Do all these places have to smell so bad? I thought, and then, If I didn't have Japhrimel with me, someone would have tried to kill me by now.

It was awful handy, having a demon around.

The bartender raised his hands, backing away from the shotgun. His pupils dilated, the color draining from his face. Pasty and trembling, he slumped against the fly-spotted mirror sporting shelves of dusty bottles. Glass chattered.

I pantomimed a yawn, patting my lips with the back of my hand. My rings flashed. I walked across the sawdust, skirting a table where three men had a card game set out. I glanced down at the table—poker. Of course. A pile of metal bits lay in the middle of the table. One of the men caught my eyes and hurriedly looked down at his cards.

I made it to where Lucas leaned against the bar. A glass full of amber liquid sat at his elbow.

"Valentine," he said, not turning around. His voice was a whisper, the same whispered tone Necromances affected after a while. It made me shudder to hear. "Thought you'd come looking for me."

"I hate being predictable," I said carefully. "I want information."

"Of course you do. And I'm the only honest fucker you can find in this town that won't sell you." He shrugged, one shoulder lifting, dipping. "What you paying?"

"What you want?" I kept my katana between us.

"The usual, chica. You got it?" His shoulders tensed.

"Of course, Lucas. I wouldn't come here otherwise."

Letting you walk inside my mind isn't a price I want to pay, but I have no choice.

He turned around then, slowly, and I took a step back. Japhrimel's fingers closed around my shoulders, and I found myself with the demon plastered to my back, my sheathed katana raised to be a bar between me and Lucas Villalobos.

He was five inches taller than me, compact with muscle, his lank hair hanging over a pale, wasted face. His eyes glittered almost-yellow in the uncertain light.

The scar ran down his left cheek, a river of ruined skin. Was that where his tattoo had been burned away? I didn't know, he never told. I gulped. Lucas was a lot older than he looked; something in the hooded twinkle of his eyes and the almost-slack set of his mouth made that age visible. He wouldn't die, though. You could gut him, slit his throat, burn him alive, but he wouldn't die.

Death had turned His face from Lucas Villalobos. Nobody knew why, and it was worth your life to ask.

"You want to know about Jace Monroe," he whispered. His smell, dry as a stasis cabinet, brushed against my nose.

I preferred the stink of the bar. Power pushed at Lucas would simply be shunted aside; he didn't cast spells. No, he merely killed; hired himself out for protection work and assassinations. It was expensive to have the Deathless on your side—but worth it, I'd been told.

I never wanted to find out. Even going to him for information scared me. This was our third time meeting, and I sincerely hoped as I did every time that it was our last.

Nobody else in the bar spoke. Japhrimel was tense behind me, heat blurring through my clothes. The smoky smell of demon began to drown out every other scent in the bar—and for that, I was grateful. My mouth tasted like cotton—and bile.

"Tell me," I said simply.

He shrugged. "Not much to tell. He was born into the Corvins, I think. Far as I know, he's Deke Corvin's youngest son. Word is, he planned his escape for a long time, hoofed out to Saint City, and started doing mercenary work. Then something happened he didn't count on." Lucas shrugged, picked up his glass. Drained it, his Adam's apple working. "Idiot fell in love with a girl. Old man Sargon moved in for the kill, fouled up a job of hers, then let Jace know that if he didn't come back and fly right, he'd take out a contract on the girl. Jace caved, came home like a good little boy." Lucas's yellow eyes mocked me. "Stupid bitch didn't even bother coming out to Nuevo Rio to find out what had happened."

"I'm sure she had her reasons," I said, matching his quiet tone. Our words dropped into the profound silence of the bar like stones into a pond. "Who's running the Corvin Family from behind, Lucas?"

"Nobody I know of," he whispered, setting his empty glass down with finicky precision. "Sargon runs the Corvins, with an iron fist. Jace just bought himself free legally—and extralegally, the streets are still bleeding from his nightside war with the Corvins. He's incorporated under a Mob license of his own. Surprised?"

"Not really," I said. "Once Mob, always Mob. Who's looking for me, Lucas?"

"Whole damn city," Lucas returned. "You're worth hard cash, good credit, and a clean slate to several interested parties. Jace is combing the sinks for you and your pet demon there. Boy's got a real hard-on for you."

"I'm sure it will pass," I said. "Give me something real, Lucas."

"I don't have anything else," he said. "Someone wants you alive and unharmed. Every bounty hunter worth a credit is pouring into the city. You can't hide forever."

"I don't want to hide," I said. "I'm after Santino."

If I'd thought the place was quiet before, it went absolutely still now. Nobody was even breathing once I spoke that name.

Lucas went even paler. "Then you're on the track to suicide," he whispered. "Take my advice, Valentine. Run. Run as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Steal whatever bit of life you can. You're already dead."

"Not yet I'm not," I said. "You can tell whoever you like. I'm gunning for Santino, and I'm going to take him down."

Lucas made an odd wheezing sound. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing. Cold sweat broke out on my back.

Lucas finally wiped tears away from his hooded yellow eyes and regarded me. "You can't kill that fucker, Valentine. Not from what I've heard," he said. "Now get out of here. I don't want you near me."

"What about payment?" My fingers tightened on my katana.

"Don't want it. Get the fuck away from me before I decide to take you in myself."

"Good luck," I said dryly. "I don't want any debt to you, Lucas."

"I'll see you in Hell, Valentine. Get the fuck out of here, now." His eyes slid up, regarded the demon. "Go out and die well."

I didn't wait to be told twice. I backed up, cautiously, Japhrimel moving with me, oddly intimate. Then he slid to the side, and I turned around. He walked behind me as I retraced my steps. I looked back over my shoulder once, when I reached the stairs, and saw Lucas pouring into his glass from a bottle of tequila. He filled it to the brim, then lifted the bottle to his lips and took two long gulps, not stopping for breath. He looked shaken. Now I had officially seen everything.