Working for the Devil

CHAPTER 42

I crouched in the bathroom, a towel haphazardly wrapped around me. My throat burned from laughing until I screamed, and screaming until my voice broke.

Outside, raised voices. Japhrimel had driven them back into the room and stood guard, not allowing any of them to come near the bathroom.

Gabe: I don't care what you think, that's Danny in there. You can't—

Eddie: Used to be Danny. That goddamn thing did something to her!

Gabe: What the fuck did you do? Answer me, or I'll—

Japhrimel: Injuring me, if it is possible at all, will harm her. You don't want that. I can calm her, if you leave. Leave now.

Eddie: Shoot the fucker, Gabe, shoot him!

Japhrimel: Shooting me might possibly harm her. And if she is harmed I will kill you both. This was the price I demanded of her, and she has paid. It is a private matter.

Eddie: Shoot the fucker, Gabe! Shoot him!

Gabe: Shut up both of you. Or I'll shoot you both. What the hell happened to Danny? What did you do to her? You'd better start talking.

Long tense silence. Whine of an active, unholstered plasgun. Then another sound, footsteps. Drawing closer. Feet in boots, a familiar tread.

Japhrimel: Don't, human. She is dangerous.

Jace: Fuck you.

The door slid open, a slice of light spearing the darkness. I put my head on my knees, curling even more tightly into myself.

He didn't turn the light on. I smelled him, rank with dying cells. Human, a smell I had never noticed before. Would I smell it everywhere, this effluvia of decay? How did Japhrimel stand it? How could I stand it?

He didn't walk into the bathroom. Instead, he stood in the door for a moment, looking. Then he slowly bent his knees, knelt down, and crawled into the bathroom on all fours.

The darkness wasn't helping. Neither was the electric light that poured through the door. Nothing was helping. Nothing would ever help again.

He stopped just inside the door. I huddled against the antique iron bathtub, making a small breathless mewling sound. The sound wouldn't stop, no matter how hard I drove my sharp new teeth into my perfect new lips. My datband was blinking. It had to be reset—I didn't scan as human now. I scanned like a genesplice, like an aberration… like something other. He told me I wasn't a demon, I was hedaira—but what the fuck did that mean!

Jace eased himself to the side, sitting with his back against the wall. He sat for a few moments, and then, slowly, he reached up into his linen jacket and pulled out—of all things—a pack of cigarettes.

He never used to smoke, I wonder if he got those from Gabe, I thought, and my breath hitched. The small wounded sound I was making quit, too.

"Mind if I smoke?" he said, quietly.

My breath sobbed in.

He lit up. The brief flare of the lighter seared my eyes. I huddled back even further, the soft helpless sound rising to my lips again. But he didn't do anything, just inhaled some synth hash smoke and blew it out. "It's a nasty fucking habit," he said, his tone pitched low and intimate. "But you've always got to have a pack, in case some petty thug you're trying to ease needs one. You know?"

I said nothing. Squeezed my eyes shut. Patterns of Power shifted in the darkness under my eyelids, patterns I had never seen before. Part of a demon's Power. Shaking at the edge of my control, straining to leap free.

He tapped the ash onto the tiled floor next to him. The tiles were dark-green, with lighter green ones scattered every fourth or fifth tile. It was pretty, and kind of soothing.

He took another drag. "I must have seen thousands of these in my time," he said. "Smoked a few, too. Have to take detox every six months, but it's worth it to see someone relax when you offer them a stick. You know they used to call these fags? Used to make them out of tobacco 'stead of synth hash. Nicotiana. Eddie still grows some of that shit."

My breathing eased out a little. His tone was so normal, so familiar. I opened my eyes, resting my cheek on my naked knees. Watching him.

He finished the smoke and ground it out on the floor. I heard low shuffling sounds out in the bedroom. Gabe's hiss, the slow static of Japhrimel's attention. Japhrimel was trembling, too, a fine thin tremor racing through his bones. I could feel it in my own body, the demon's need of me.

Like an addiction.

"I remember one time I was talking to this guy," Jace continued, lacing his fingers over his knee and leaning back into the wall, "and I had to find out what he knew. He was uncooperative… they'd already put him through the wringer by the time I got there. I took a look at the situation, and settled down in a chair. Then I offered him a cigarette. I had the information in five minutes. Useful things."

More silence. Jace tilted his head against the wall. I caught the gleam of his blue eyes.

"You remember that little slicboard shop we always used to get our boards tuned at? You still ride a Valkyrie?" He waited.

I was surprised to hear my own voice. "After jobs, sometimes." I sounded flat and bored. My breath hitched; my beautiful new voice was ruined and husky—but still lovely. It still made the broken glass on the floor shiver slightly; I felt Japhrimel listening intently.

"You always loved Valkyries," he said. "I think what you liked best about riding a board was the flying. The adrenaline. Made you feel alive, right?"

A tear trickled down my cheek, touched my knee.

So demon-things can cry, I thought. It was the first sane thought, and I grabbed it like a shipwreck survivor.

"I miss Saint City," he said. "That noodle shop on Pole Street with the fishtank on the far wall. And that hash den we used to drink at—the one with the great music."

My throat was raw. "It closed down," I whispered. "Two hookers ODed in a week. On T-laced Chill."

"Shit," he said easily. "Damn shame. They played RetroPhunk all the time. And Therm Condor."

"Ann Siobhan," I supplied finally, my voice shaking.

"The Drew Street Tech Boys," he said after a considering pause. "Audiovrax."

I seemed to be slogging through mud to think. "Blake's Infernals."

"Krewe's Control and the Hover Squad," he said.

"I hated them," I whispered.

"Did you?" Now he sounded surprised. "You never told me."

"You loved them." My voice caught on a hoarse sob.

"You bought me all eight discs," he said, scratching at his cheek. "Damn."

"I incinerated them," I admitted. "After you left."

"Oh." He paused. "I'm sorry, baby."

It sounded like he meant it.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered, my voice raw.

"I was trying to protect you, Danny. If you'd known, you'd have come riding into Nuevo Rio with your sword out, to 'save' me. That goddamn honor complex of yours would have gotten you killed. Just like you're trying to get yourself killed avenging Doreen."

"I have to," I said. "I have to." I choked on the words. Rigger Hall had taught me how to be hard—but to be hard was no use without your honor. Honor was everything. And honor demanded I avenge Doreen, even if it killed me.

Even if it turns me into a genesplice aberration? I wondered, and my breath jagged out, a low moaning sob.

"I know," he answered, softly, intimately. "You can't be anything else, Danny. I always liked that about you. Right out to your fingernails, you just can't be anything other than what you are."

"Look at what he did to me," I whispered.

"So what?" Jace said. "You're still you. Still my pretty Danny Valentine. And while you sit in here moaning about it, your prey is either getting away or digging into a hidey-hole." He shrugged, his shirt moving against the tiled wall and making a little whispering sound. "We need you to finish this hunt, Danny. Gabe needs her own revenge on the Saint City Slasher. Eddie needs Gabe happy. I need Sargon Corvin dead so I can start living again and maybe prove to you I ain't so bad. You're letting us down, Danny. Come on."

I shuddered. It should have been a transparent ploy, but it needled me. I was letting Gabe down—she'd dropped everything to come with me. And Eddie loved her. It must eat at him to see her unhappy.

A deep racking cough shook me. I wiped at my face with bladed hands—my hands weren't even my own anymore. But they would do what I asked them to do. I finally raised my head to find Jace watching me. He didn't look nervous, but the set of his shoulders told me he was tense.

"I need some clothes," I said huskily.

"You got it," Jace said. "Anything you need, baby."