“Amen to that,” I answered. “Hey, what hotel are we staying at?”
“No hotel,” she said, still trying to push her hair back, “I got us one better. We’re going to stay with a friend. Cheap, effective, and safe.”
“Who?” I was beginning to suspect something wasn’t quite right by the way Eddie was grinning, showing all his teeth.
“Who else?” A familiar voice echoed along the dock. People began to pile out of the transport, casting nervous glances at us—two Necromances and a Skinlin, armed to the teeth, and a man in a long black coat. I closed my eyes, searching for control. Found it, and turned on my heel.
Jason Monroe leaned against a support post, his blue eyes glowing under a thatch of wheat-gold hair. He wore black, even in Rio, a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, a Mob assassin’s rig over the T-shirt, two guns, a collection of knives, his sword sheathed at his side. I prefer to carry my blade; he wore his thrust through his belt like an old-time samurai.
He was taller than me, and broad-shouldered, and wore the same kind of boots Gabe and I did. The thorny-twisted tattoo on his cheek marked him as an accredited Shaman just as the leather spirit bag on a thong around his neck marked him as a vaudun. Small bones hung from raffia twine clicked together as he moved slightly, twirling his long staff. I caught a glimpse of red in his spiky aura—he must have just offered to his patron loa. “Hey, Danny. Give an old boyfriend a kiss?”
CHAPTER 22
I can’t believe you did this,” I hissed at Gabe. She looked supremely unconcerned.
“It’s safe,” she repeated for the fifth time. “And neither of us has endlessly deep pockets. Who’s going to mess with an ex-Mob vaudun Shaman in Nuevo Rio? He’s established, Danny. He’s letting us stay for free and feeding us as well as running interference with the locals. What more do you fucking want?”
“A little warning next time you decide to drop shit like this on me,” I said, glancing out the window. Jace had reserved us a cab, said he’d meet us back at his place, and hopped on a Chervoyg slicboard, rocketing away. Leaving us to pile into the cab with our luggage and get dumped at his house like a package delivery.
One thing hadn’t changed; the man certainly irritated me as much as he ever had.
Eddie was grinning broadly. “He’s still got it for you, you know.” He settled back, stretching his legs out, bumping my knee. I kicked him back. For a claustrophobe Skinlin, he seemed extremely comfortable in the close quarters. Maybe it was just big transports he didn’t like.
Nuevo Rio sprawled underneath us in a haze of smoke and noise. Here, the Power was more raw, not like Saint City’s cold radioactive glow. This was a different pool of energy, and I would have to spend a little time acclimating. As it was, I felt a little green, and when the cab swooped to avoid a flight of freight transports, I grabbed at the nearest steady thing—which just happened to be Japhrimel’s shoulder. I dug my fingers in.
He said nothing.
“I don’t care who he’s got jackshit for,” I snapped. “I told you I never wanted to see him again. And you—you—” I was actually spluttering.
Gabe regarded me coolly, her dark eyes level. “What’s the big deal, Danny? If you were so truly over him, it wouldn’t be a big deal, y’diggit?”
“One of these days,” I forced out between clenched teeth, “I will make you pay for this.”
She shrugged. “Guess we’ll be even when all’s said and done, won’t we?” She looked out the window at the sweltering smoghole that was Rio. “Gods. I hate the heat as much as I hate travel.”
I could kill her, I thought. No jury would ever convict me. I realized my fingers were still digging into Japhrimel’s shoulder and made them unloose with a physical effort. “Sorry,” I said, blankly, to the demon.
He shrugged. “He was once a lover?” he asked, politely enough. “He seemed very happy to see you.”
“We broke up,” I said through gritted teeth. “Long time ago.”
“She hasn’t dated since,” Eddie offered helpfully. “They were a hot team when they did work together—if they could finish a job without ripping each other’s clothes off.”
I gave him a look that could have drained a hovercell. “Will you quit it?”
He shrugged, settling back in the seat, bumping my knee again with his long legs. The smell of dirt and growing things filled the car, and the musky perfume of demon that I had only just become accustomed to. “Not my business,” he said finally. “Hey, I wonder what time’s dinner?”
“Soon,” Gabe said. “He told me he’d feed us. Since we’re on business.”
“What else did you tell him?” I was forced to ask.
“Not much. Said you’d brief him on the hunt. That was his condition, that he get a piece of the—”
“Oh, Sekhmet sa’es,” I hissed. “You didn’t.”
“What is your motherfucking problem?” Gabe snarled.
“Here we go again.” Eddie at least pulled his legs up out of the way.
“Strictly speaking,” the demon said, “the more cannon fodder, the better your chances, Dante.”
I looked at him, my jaw dropping.
Silence crackled in the cab for a good twenty seconds, during which the driver—a bespectacled Hispanic normal with an air-freshener of Nuestra Dama Erzulie de Guadalupe hanging from his farecounter—did his level best to commit suicide by taxi. I stared out the window until my stomach rose in revolt and then shut my eyes, breathing deeply and trying to get a handle on my rage. It would strike at anyone around me if I lost control, my anger taking physical form—and I didn’t want that.
Not yet.
“You invite yourself along on my hunt,” I said slowly and distinctly, “and you give me trouble about the tech I ask you to supply, and you finish up by inviting someone else into my hunt too, someone who may or may not be trustworthy. This is not looking good for future collaborations, Gabe.”
“You’re the one dragging around a fucking demon,” Gabe replied tartly. “And he’s right—the more cannon fodder, the better the chances that your sloppy ass will get through this alive. You’re losing your touch, Valentine. Don’t make me come over there and smack some sense into your hard head. Besides,” she continued, “sparring with Monroe will take some of your edge off. You haven’t had a good sparring partner in years, and you won’t eat him alive the way you’d do anyone else. Way I recall it, he always gave you a good run for your money—in and out of the sack. I never saw you so relaxed.”
“Do we have to drag my sexual history into this?” I asked. “’Cause if we do, you’re going down with me.”
Silence. The cab began a wavering descent. My ears popped.
“Do you need combat to ease your nerves?” the demon asked.
I shrugged, keeping my eyes firmly shut as my stomach lurched.
“Hades,” Gabe breathed. “Does he live there?”
I opened my eyes to look; wished I hadn’t.
Jace had either done well for himself or was renting from a Nuevo Rio druglord. The house was large, with an open plaza made of white stone, green garden growing up to the stone walls, a red-tiled roof and the glitter of shielding over it.
The shielding slid briefly through the taxi, flushing slightly as the demon stilled. The mark on my shoulder gave another spiked burst of pain.
“The mark’s hurting,” I said. The demon’s attention fixed on me.
“My apologies.”
“What’s up?” Gabe asked.
“Don’t even talk to me,” I said without any real heat. The anger had drained helplessly away. “Not until after dinner, Gabe. Fuck.”
She shrugged and stared out the window again.
“Thank the gods,” Eddie mumbled.
I was just beginning to seriously contemplate drawing a knife when the cab touched down and we scrambled out onto the glittering hard-baked white marble plaza—above the city’s smoghole stink, but still blazing under the hammerblow heat of Nuevo Rio.
&nbs
p; CHAPTER 23
Jace Monroe hadn’t just done well for himself.
He’d gotten absolutely, filthy, marvelously, stinking rich.
I took a long bath in a sumptuous blue-tiled bathroom while the demon laid his own protections in the walls and windows of the suite a hatchet-faced butler had led us to. Gabe and Eddie had their own set of rooms right next door, done in pale yellow instead of blue and cream. I wondered if Jace had picked the furnishings himself or had an assistant do it.
I wondered who he’d bought the house from, and how he’d managed to accumulate enough credit. Mob freelancers usually don’t get rich—they usually die young, even the psionics.
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the back of the tub. The water was hot, the soap was sandalwood-scented—I knew that was Jace, he had to remember that I’d always used sandalwood soap—and I felt as safe as it was possible to be, in a Shaman’s mansion with a demon carefully laying warding everywhere.
I wondered what Jace would make of Japhrimel. He hadn’t seemed to even notice the demon. I wondered what Gabe had told him.
I lifted my toes out of the silky hot water. Examined the blood-red molecule-drip polish on my toenails. The heat was delicious, unstringing muscle aches and soothing frazzled nerves.
Gabe was right, really. This was better than a hotel. And if Jace would feed us, it would mean that we wouldn’t have to spend a fortune tracking down Santino. We could spend our credit on finding the demon instead of hotels and food . . . and maybe hiring some merc talent to make things uneasy for him.
Feeding, I thought, and grimaced. What am I going to do about the demon? Blood, sex, fire. I can’t give the last two . . . and he’s refused the first.
A knock on the bathroom door interrupted me. “Dante, I’ve finished shielding the room.”
“Come on in,” I said, sinking down in the milky water. “We’ve got to have a little talk.”
He opened the door. A burst of slightly cooler air made the steam inside the bathroom billow slightly. “Are you certain?”
“For God’s sake. I’m sure you’ve seen a naked woman before. I’m under the water, anyway. Sheesh.”
He stepped into the bathroom, his long coat moving slightly. He didn’t seem to sweat, even in the fierce Nuevo Rio heat. He examined the mirror over the sink across from the bathtub as if he’d never seen one before, and I thought of asking him to sit down but the only place was the counter next to the sink or the toilet—and the image of a demon sitting on the toilet and looking at my profile was too much. While he studied the mirror I studied his broad back, turned to me and covered with that coat. “You wanted to talk?”
“You need blood,” I said, wiggling my toes against the cobalt tiles. My sword leaned against the tub, a comforting dark slenderness. “The mark’s hurting me, and I can’t do my job with that kind of unnecessary distraction. Okay?”
He nodded, his dark hair beginning to stick to his forehead. He wasn’t sweating—the steam in the air was weighing his hair down. “It may be uncomfortable for you.”
“Well, you won’t take mine, so . . . Um, how many pints do you need?” I should have suggested a Nichtvren haunt, I realized, kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. Since the advent of cloned blood, Nichtvren social drinking had taken on a whole new context and popularity.
“I can visit a slaughterhouse,” he said. “You still have slaughterhouses.”
“Oh.” I absorbed this. “You don’t . . . oh. Okay.” Silly me. I thought he meant my blood. I slipped my toes back into the water, yawned. Oddly enough, I was tired. “How about tonight? I need to do some recon anyway, get used to the whole place.”
He nodded. His eyes were darker, their luminescence veiled. “Very well.”
“Is it going to be really messy?” I asked. “We can’t afford him being warned of our intentions.”
“I think it would be best if I went alone, Dante.”
I shrugged, water rippling against the side of the tub. “Fine.” Another yawn caught me off-guard. “I’m going to finish up in here, and then you can have a turn.”
“Not necessary. But thank you.” He didn’t sound robotic—his tone was merely polite, shaded with some human emotion. Which emotion? I couldn’t tell.
I shrugged again. “Okay. Scoot along, then.”
He turned to leave, then stopped. “I would not have you see me feed, Dante.”
Why should I care? I thought. “Thanks,” I said out loud, not knowing what else to say.
He ducked back out the door, steam drifting behind him. He didn’t even sneak a peek, I thought, and smiled, ducking under the sandalwood-scented water.
When I emerged into the bedroom, wrapped in a towel and carrying my sword, the demon stood by a window looking down into a courtyard full of orange trees. Up here above the main bulk of the city, the smog wasn’t so bad, and the heat was bearable due to the high ceilings and chill stone walls. Jace had climate control. But I was going to have to get used to the heat if we were going to be hunting here.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I said, dropping down on the bed. Water weighed my hair, sandalwood smell drifting around me and warring with the heavy smell of demon. “I wonder how Jace affords this.”
“Ask him,” the demon replied. “You’re tired, Dante. Sleep.”
I yawned again. “If I asked him, he’d probably think I was interested.”
“Are you?”
“We broke up a long time ago, Japhrimel. Why are you asking?”
“He seems to evoke a response from you.” Did he sound uncertain?
“I suppose loathing might be a response,” I admitted. “He’s infuriating.”
“Did you leave him?”
“No,” I yawned again, closing my eyes, surprised. I didn’t sleep much on hunts. And who would have thought that it could be comforting to have a demon in the same room? “He left me. Three years ago. Came down here, I guess . . .”
“Foolish of him,” Japhrimel said, before I fell asleep.
CHAPTER 24
Gabe settled down cross-legged on the rug across from me. I balanced the tracker in one hand, examining its crystalline glitter. The arrow was spinning lazily, not yet triggered. I wouldn’t use it unless I absolutely had to—but it was nice to have. If we didn’t find any whisper of the demon here, we could trigger the tracker and see where it led us.
“Where’s the demon?” Eddie asked.
“Went out,” I replied absently, staring at the tracker. “Needs feeding.”
“Hades bless us,” Gabe snorted, “Feeding?”
“Well, he said he was going to go to the slaughterhouses. Efficient, right?” I shifted on the green and blue Persian rug, uneasy. “Where’s Jace?”
Gabe pulled a black satin card-pouch from the bowels of her blue canvas bag. Her fingers moved with the ease of long practice as she extracted the tarot cards, shuffled them with loud gunning snaps, then turned one over. “He said he’d be back by dark. It’s dark, so I suppose either he lied, or—”
“You have no faith in me either,” Jace said from the door. He stalked into the room, the bones on his staff clicking together. His hair was damp, sticking to his skull and darker than its usual gold, and his eyes were dark too. He’s upset, I thought, automatically cataloguing the set of his shoulders, the way his left knee moved a little stiffly, the way his aura shifted through violet and into blue. We’d been lovers once, and it was a mixed relief to find out I could still read him with a glance.
I looked back down at my palm, at the tracker’s lazy spinning.
We were downstairs, in a huge high-ceilinged living room holding two long blue velvet couches and a collection of silk and satin floor pillows, ceiling fans turning lazily. The staff of the house were Nuevo Rios, lean brown women in starched uniforms, a black-jacketed butler, none of whom spoke any English.
Gabe glanced up at Jace. “Hey, Monroe. Nice digs.” Her tone was neutral, and her expression might have been a warning.
“Anything for the famous Spocarelli. And the pretty Danny Valentine.” He paced over to the wet bar holding up one end of the room. “Drinks?”
“Scotch on the rocks for Eddie, vodka Mim for me, and Danny looks like she’s in the mood for a brandy,” Gabe replied promptly. “What’s the word, Shaman?”
He waved his staff briefly, a clicking rattle. “Give me a minute, Gabe. ’Kay?”
I studied the tracker, worrying my lower lip with my teeth. If I could still read Jace . . .
No. He had never been able to read me.
My left shoulder throbbed. Japhrimel had left as soon as dusk fell. I didn’t want to know what he was doing. I kept my fingers away from the mark, not wanting to see through his eyes.
Gabe’s eyes rested on me. The clink of glasses, liquid pouring from place to place. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she stage-whispered.
I darted her a murderous glance. She grinned, her emerald twinkling, and a completely uncharacteristic desire to laugh came over me. She was acting just like a high-school girl—or at least, like the high-school girls I’d seen in holovids, blinking innocently and giggling over boys.
I shrugged. I didn’t have a reputation for small talk, so I simply concentrated on stuffing the tracker back in its leather bag. If I have to use this, it had better work, I thought, or I’ll go back to Saint City and find whatever cell they’ve stuck Dake in, and I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.
If he hadn’t died from Chill withdrawal by the time I got back.
How long would it take to hunt down Santino anyway?
Not long. Not once he finds out I’m looking for him. My skin went cold, my nipples tightening and gooseflesh breaking out over my skin. All at once memory rose, swallowed me, was pushed down.
Jace turned around at the wet bar, and his blue eyes met mine. I hadn’t even known I was staring at his back. “I hear you’re hunting Santino, Danny,” he said quietly. “Is that why you brought a demon into my house?”