Working for the Devil

CHAPTER 36

What felt like an hour but was probably only fifteen minutes later, I pushed the door cautiously open, my katana held ready. Stairs hacked out of stone rose up in front of me, and I sighed. Of course not. It couldn't be easy, could it? I climbed cautiously, my shaking legs protesting, my back on fire, my shoulders tense as bridge cables and my glutes singing a song of agony.

I reached the top of 174 stairs and found another door. This one was more resistant to my lockpicking skills, and I was beginning to gasp with panic, imagining being trapped underground, when it finally yielded. It creaked open, slowly, and revealed the very last thing I expected.

A large high-ceilinged room done in white. White marble floor, a large white bed with mosquito netting draped over it, a fireplace made of the same white marble. A white leather chair crouched in front of the empty fireplace, and a white rug lay on the floor at the bed's foot. I had to look twice before I recognized it as a polar bear's pelt. My gorge rose. I pushed it back down.

The tall French doors across the room were open, and the filmy white curtains fluttered on a sultry breeze. I heard the sound of falling rain, smelled oranges.

Out. Get out. Get out of here.

I made it halfway to the windows before he spoke.

"Impressive, Ms. Valentine. Lucifer's faith in you is well-placed, I expected another six hours before you came through that door. I hope your temper has calmed."

His voice was chill, high-pitched, and soaked with murderous Power. And then I smelled it—ice and blood, blind white maggots churning in a corpse, the smell that had soaked my nightmares for five long years.

I turned, my sword held ready. Blue fire ran along the blade, dripped on the floor. Gooseflesh roared over my body.

Get down, Doreen. Get down—

Game over.

He stood by the fireplace, one long hand on the back of the chair, the black teardrops over his eyes swallowing the pale marble light. He wore a white linen suit, cut loose and tropical on his thin demon's frame. His ears poked up through a frayed mat of dark hair, coming to sharp points. My hand shook, but the katana stayed steady. My spare knife slid out from its hidden sheath in my coat, reversed itself along my forearm.

"Santino," I whispered.

"The very same," he answered, bowing slightly. "And you, my beauty, are Danny Valentine. I knew I'd meet you again."

"I'm going to kill you," I whispered.

"Certainly you want to," he replied. "But I would like to talk to you first."

That was just strange enough to make me blink. He's a demon, he's tricky, be careful.

"Who are you?" I blurted. "Are you Sargon Corvin, or Santino Vardimal?"

He nodded. "Both. And more. Come with me, Dante. Let me show you what Lucifer doesn't want you to see."

"I don't trust you," I snapped. My rings sparked. Why did he leave my sword and my gear in there with me, if he wanted to kill me? It didn't make sense.

But I knew how he liked to play with his prey.

"I didn't think you would. However, I have not killed you. If I wanted to, I would have while you lay unconscious in the street and saved myself all this trouble. Surely you can afford to listen before you attempt my murder?" He shrugged, a demon's shrug.

I wish Japhrimel were here, I thought, and hastily shoved the thought away.

"You're being used, human," he said softly. "Come with me. I'll show you."

Without waiting for my answer, he turned his back on me and paced across the room.

Don't follow him, Danny. Take the window, however big the drop is from there you can take it, get out, get out, get AWAY—

I found myself following, advancing, keeping my sword ready. If he tried anything, I'd kill him or die trying. Why did he leave me my blade?

The house was massive, mostly floored in white marble, done hacienda style. It would have been beautiful if I hadn't been so terrified. He led me down stairs and through rooms furnished with pieces worth more than I made in a year—apparently Vardimal had done very well for himself.

Just like Jace.

He didn't seem to notice I was following him, but as we walked down a long hall with columns on one side and paintings I didn't look at on the other, he began to talk.

"Lucifer wants me destroyed because I outwitted him. He never could stand that. Yet he is himself the Prince of Lies. He may know that I've managed to do it, I've succeeded where so many others have failed."

"You're not making any sense," I said numbly.

He led me into another hall, this one sloping downward. "You're right. I should tell you from the beginning." A pair of doors in front of him; he twisted the knobs and flung them open. "A long time ago, when Lucifer had finished twisting the genes of humans to fit his plans, the sons of his kingdom looked upon the daughters of Men, and found them fair. They came to earth and lay with them, and in those days giants roamed the earth."

I'd heard this story before. Another hall spun under my feet. Where are all his guards and everything? I wondered. And Lucas told me Jace is a Corvin's youngest son.

"Are you telling me you've bred with human women?" I said, my boots whispering over the slick marble. I was beginning to feel sick and dizzy from the backlash of Power—and terror. I was following Santino through his own lair. Close enough to kill him. I was close enough to kill the thing that had killed Doreen.

Why hadn't I attacked him?

Something else is going on here, I thought. The premonition buzzed under my skin, the vision Japhrimel had interrupted. Would it have shown me this if he hadn't short-circuited it?

"Of course not. Yet you're far more intelligent than you're given credit for. Human women are some of the most pleasant ways to pass the time. Why do you think Lucifer took an interest in your species? But no, I have not fathered a child. Not in the way you think."

He turned down another hall, this one lit by high-end fluorescents, most of them turned off so only a faint glow showed me the marble floor and tech-locked doors, each with a handprint lock. "Have you wondered why Lucifer granted me an immunity, Dante? Because I am a scientist first and a demon second. Long ago, I did the grunt work for Lucifer's remodeling of your species. Before demons could play with humans, humans had to be… well, helped along a little."

My gorge rose again. He talked about playing with humans as if it were slightly shameful, slightly loathsome, the way a Ludder would talk about going to a sexwitch House. Santino stopped in front of a blank, anonymous door, laid his hand on the printlock. Green light glowed, and the door shushed aside. "Come inside."

I followed him, the chill of climate control closing over my skin. It was a lab—fluorescent light flickered, computer screens glowed, and the temperature was about sixty-five degrees, shocking after the heat outside. Along one wall was something I'd seen before at the Hegemony psi clinics—a DNA map, twisting on a plasma screen, numbers and code running in the lower left corner. One whole wall was taken up with liquid-nitrogen-cooled racks of sample canisters behind glass, each neatly labeled. I had the sick feeling I would recognize the names on some of those labels. Each canister was a life, probably holding an internal organ, or a vial of blood—and a slice of human femur, with its rich big core of marrow. Just the thing for genetic research.

So many, I thought, the racks and rows of canisters gleaming softly under the bright pitiless light. So many deaths.

Santino turned to face me again, and I lifted my sword. Blue light ran over the blade. He looked thoughtful, the black teardrops over his eyes holes of darkness. "I'm sterile, Dante," he said. "I couldn't breed with a human woman even if I wanted to. To breed, a demon has to be one of the Greater Flight of Hell—and he must also become one of the Fallen. I can't do that. So I escaped Hell and came here, in search of something very special."

My throat was dry. "You weren't taking trophies," I whispered. "You were taking samples."

He beamed at me, razor teeth gleaming, his high-pointed ears wriggling slightly. "Correct!" he said, like a magisterial professor talking to a gifted but sometimes-terribly-slow student. "Samples. I felt sure that the key to the puzzle lay in psionics. Humanity exhibits some rather bizarre talents as a result of demon tinkering; if I could find a certain strain of genetic code I could reach my objective. I adopted several psionics and sponsored research in the Hegemony, but they move too damnably slow, even for humans. I decided to do the work myself, and for that I needed other samples. I was running out of time. I knew that the more time passed, the greater the chance Lucifer might decide to create another demon, and find the Egg missing." His fingers stroked the glass over the sample canisters, his claws making a slight skree against the smooth surface.

"What objective? And what is this Egg thing?" Kill him, my conscience screamed. Revenge for Doreen, don't listen to him, KILL him!

But if I was being used, I wanted to find out why.

Lucifer had told me none of this. Japhrimel had told me none of this. Which brought up the question of what they really wanted—what deeper game was being played here? I'd wondered why they had let him roam around earth for fifty years.

"Come." He led me through the lab, out another tech-locked door, and into a hallway that was more like a colonnade, an enclosed garden lying still and steamy under the Nuevo Rio rain, an assault after the climate control of the lab room. He turned to his left and I followed numbly, the door almost clipping my bootheels.

This garden was lit with a kind of orange glow—the light pollution from the city. He stopped at a techless door, this one white and etched with a strange design of an unearthly bird done in gold leaf. Santino turned to face me, and I shuffled back quickly, raising my blade. He laughed, a high-pitched giggle that echoed my nightmares and made my heart turn to dumb ice in my chest.

"We are an old and tired race, Dante, and our children are few and far between. Almost none are born without Lucifer's intervention, and he is most stingy in giving his help. To breed, a demon must go to the Prince as a supplicant." The black teardrops over his eyes somehow managed to convey the impression of a wide smile. "You want to kill me, Dante, because I took those precious human lives. But those lives were taken in service to a greater good—breaking the hold the Prince of Darkness has on your world and mine. I've finally done it, Dante. I've birthed a child that can challenge the Prince himself." He reached behind his back, twisted the doorknob, and backed into the room. "Come and see."

I followed him, cautiously. Don't trust him, Dante! Kill him now! Kill him or run!

It was a nursery. Slices of dim light fell through iron bars on the windows. Toys scattered across the hardwood floor, and plush rugs too. I saw a rocking horse, and a set of chairs around a table low enough for a little person. Wooden blocks lay scattered near a fireplace. And on the other side of the room, Santino stalked toward a low queen-sized bedstead wreathed in mosquito netting.

I followed, my boots occasionally kicking a small plush animal. Dear gods, I thought, he has children here? What kind of kids are raised by a demon?

"Lucifer rules because he is powerful," Santino whispered, his voice buzzing with secrecy. "But not only that—he rules because he is Androgyne, almost like a queen bee, capable of reproducing. It took me forty-five human years, but I finally found out how to birth another demon Androgyne. All it takes is the proper genetic material and engineering, Dante." He paused, maybe for effect. "Engineering by the scientist Lucifer used to create humanity in the first place—and material taken from a sedayeen, perhaps. A human psionic with the ability to heal, an almost-direct descendant of the A'nankimel—the demons that loved human women, and raised families with them eons ago. Until Lucifer, fearing the birth of an Androgyne on earth, destroyed them."

It made a twisted kind of sense. I approached the bed slowly, step by step. Needing to see.

"Demon genes don't lose their potency as human genes do," he whispered. "Witness the growth of human psychic powers, the fantastic blossoming of those powers during the Awakening—"

"Shut up." I sounded choked.

In the bed, under the smooth expensive sheet, was a pale-haired little girl about five years old sleeping the sleep of childhood innocence. Her long hair tangled over the pillow; I heard the faint whistle of her breathing. I tasted salt, and bitter ash. I knew that face—I had seen it before.

She lay on her back, one chubby arm upflung. Her forehead was odd, because there was a mark that glittered softly green on the smooth skin. My cheek started to burn. An emerald. I wondered why Lucifer had one. I could tell this emerald wasn't implanted—it was too smoothly and sheerly a part of her skin. Almost like a jeweled growth. It made me deeply, unsteadily sick to think that maybe my own emerald was an echo.

"There are two branches of human psionics that are almost directly descended from the A'nankimel, with the necessary recessive genes for my purposes. One branch is the sedayeen, who hold the mystery of Life. The other…" He paused again as I stared at the child on the bed.

The child that wore Doreen's young face.

"The other," Santino said, "is the Necromance."

"This is—" My voice was a dry husk. "This is why you—"

"This is why I took samples," he said softly, persuasively. "Who do you think rules both worlds, Dante? Who do you think is the king of all you survey? It's him. We are all his slaves. And I have the Egg, and the child that can topple him from his throne."

I swallowed, heard the dry click of my throat. "You killed her for this?" I rasped, and my eyes tore away from her sleeping face to Santino's grinning mask.

"Yes," he said. "I made a mistake, though. I shouldn't have killed her. I needed a human incubator, once I harvested the marrow and discovered she had all the requisite characteristics. It took all the cash and illegal gene-splicing that the Corvin Family could supply me with to bring this little one to pass. The human governments are too slow. But I did it. I found the shining path of genes that even Lucifer couldn't find with all his bloody tinkering. Now that I know how, I don't have to kill. All I need are female sedayeen—and Necromances—of certain Power, to blend with the codex in the Egg. I can make as many Androgynes as I want, capable of reproducing—"

"You killed her for this?" My voice rose. The child on the bed didn't stir. I heard her even breathing, slightly whistling through the nose. She slept like a human child, with deep complete trust.

"Think of it, Dante," he said. Softly, persuasively as Lucifer himself. "You can be the mother of a new race that will topple Lucifer from his throne. You'll be the new Madonna. Your every need—"

I backed up, kicking a small stuffed toy. "You killed her for this." I could say nothing else.

"What is one small human life compared to freedom, Dante?" He stepped forward. I raised my sword yet again. The blue glow from the blade intensified, and Santino flinched. It was only a small twitch, but I saw it.

A blessed blade will hurt him, at least, I thought. I heard Japhrimel's voice—she believes. Of course I believed—I saw the gods, I saw the Lord of Death up close. I had no choice but to believe. And that belief itself could be a weapon.

Maybe a blessed blade can even kill him, I thought.

"You didn't just kill Doreen. You slaughtered her while you laughed," I said. "You're no more a scientist than any other lunatic. You're just a different species of psycho, that's all." There's a window behind me. Oh, gods. Oh dear gods.

He waved his long elegant fingers, as if I were bothering him with trifles. Just like a fucking demon. "They were the mothers of the future, they died for a reason. Don't you understand? Freedom, Dante. For demon and human alike. No more Prince of Lies behind the scenes, everyone bowing and scraping to his whim—"

I was about to break for the window when the air pressure changed. Thunder boomed. The mark on my shoulder gave another screaming twinge.

Japhrimel. My heart leapt.

Santino's face twisted into a mask of rage. He lunged for me so quickly I barely saw him move. My sword jerked, blurring down as I threw myself sideways and back, toward the open window. His claws clanged off the blade. There was another shuddering impact, and I heard the unmistakable sound of Japhrimel's roar. The sound tore the air and left it bleeding. Santino snarled, whirling with balletic grace. He bolted for the bed and I scrambled forward, thinking of his claws and the little girl. I was too slow. Shock and the recent loss of Power and the swimming weakness dragged me down.

He scooped up an armful of bedding and the child's slight form, and his clawed hand came up. Metal flashed. The impact caught me high in the chest, the coughing roar of a projectile weapon splitting the air, my boots dragging along the floor in slow motion, my katana clanging on hardwood. I fell, my head cracking against something unforgiving—maybe one of the blocks.

How strange, I thought. He shot me. Why did he shoot me? You'd think a demon would be more creative.

I lay there, stunned, for what seemed like a long muffled eternity. Then I tried to roll onto my side. A bubble of something warm burst on my lips. I heard footsteps. Plasbolts. And Japhrimel's scream of agony. Pain bloomed in my chest, a hideous flower.

More footsteps. I tried to roll onto my side again. No dice. Just more pain. Bubbling on my lips—

— blood it's blood I'm dying, I'm dying—

"Oh, my God. Oh, God. He shot her, he shot her—" Jace's voice, high and breathless. "Goddammit, do something!"

A growled curse in a language I didn't know. But I knew the voice. A gigantic grinding shock against my chest.

"— leave me," Japhrimel snarled. "You will not leave me to wander the earth alone—breathe, damn you, breathe!"

Another shock, smashing through my bones. My left shoulder, torn from its socket, liquid fire in my veins. I gasped. Darkness tingled on the edges of my vision. I smelled flowers, and blood, and the musky smell of demon, drenching and absolute.

"You will not leave me," Japhrimel said. "You will not."

I tried to tell him to chase Santino, to kill him, to save the little girl—but before I could, Death chewed me with diamond teeth and swallowed me just as I hitched in breath to scream.