We got on the southbound train, the press of the crowd soft and choking against my mental borders. My knuckles were white, my fingers rigid around the scabbard. The demon stood slightly behind me, my back prickling with the thought—he could slip a knife between my ribs and leave me here, gods protect me. The whine of antigrav settled into my back teeth as the retrofitted train slid forward on its reactive-greased rails, the antigrav giving every bump a queer floating sensation.
Whispers and mutters filled the car. One little blonde girl in a school uniform stared at my face. She was probably examining the tattoo on my left cheek, a twisted caduceus with a flashing emerald set at the top. An emerald was the mark of a Necromance—as if anyone could have missed the sword. I smiled at her and she smiled back, her blue eyes twinkling. Her whey-faced mother, loaded down with shopping bags, saw this and gasped, hugging her child into her side a little harder than was absolutely necessary.
The smile dropped from my face.
The demon bumped me as the train bulleted around a bend. I jumped nervously, would have sidled away if the crowd had allowed. As it was, I accidentally elbowed an older woman with a crackling plastic bag, who let out an undignified squeak.
This is why I never take public transportation, I thought, and smiled an apology. The woman turned pale under her gray coif, coughed, and looked away.
I sighed, the smile again falling from my face. I don’t know why I even try. They don’t see anything but my tat anyway.
Normals feared psions regardless—there was an atavistic fear that we were all reading normal minds and laughing at them, preparing some nefarious plot to make them our mental slaves. The tats and accreditation were supposed to defray that by making psions visible and instituting tight controls over who could charge for psychic services—but all it did was make us more vulnerable to hatred. Normals didn’t understand that for us, dipping into their brains was like taking a bath in a sewer. It took a serious emergency before a psi would read a normal’s mind. The Parapsychic Act had stopped psions from being bought and sold like cattle, but it did nothing to stop the hate. And the fear, which fed the hate. And so on.
Six stops later I was heartily tired of people jamming into the subway car, seeing me, and beating a hasty retreat. Another three stops after that the car was mostly empty, since we had passed rapidly out of downtown. The little girl held her mother’s hand and still stared at me, and there was a group of young toughs on the other end of the car, sallow and muttering in the fluorescent lights. I stood, my right arm wrapped around a pole to keep my hand free to draw if I had to. I hated sitting down in germ-laden subway seats.
“The next stop,” Jaf-the-demon said. I nodded. He still stood very close to me, the smell of demon overpowering the canned air and effluvia of the subways. I glanced down at the end of the car and saw that the young men were elbowing each other and whispering.
Oh, great. It looked like another street tough was going to find out whether or not my blade was just for show. I’d never understood Necromances who carry only ceremonial steel to use during apparitions. If you’re allowed to carry steel, you should know how to use it. Then again, most Necromances didn’t do mercenary work, they just lived in shitty little apartments until they paid off their accreditation fees and then started trying to buy a house. Me? I decided to take the quicker way. As usual.
One of them got to his feet and stamped down the central aisle. The little girl’s mother, a statuesque brunette in nurse’s scrubs and Nikesi sneakers, her three plastic bags rustling, pulled the little girl into her side again as he passed.
The pimpled young man jolted to a stop right in front of me. He didn’t smell like Chill or hash, which was a good thing; a street tough hyped on Chill would make the situation rapidly unbearable. On the other hand, if he was stone-cold sober and still this stupid—“Hey, pretty baby,” he said, his eyes skittering from my feet to my breasts to my cheek and then back to my breasts, “Wassup?”
“Nothing,” I replied, pitching my voice low and neutral.
“You got a blade,” he said. “You licensed to carry that, sugar?”
I tilted my head slightly, presenting my cheek. The emerald would be glinting and winking under the harsh lights. “You bet I am,” I said. “And I even know how to use it. So go trundle back to your friends, Popsicle.”
His wet fishmouth worked a little, stunned. Then he reached for his waistband.
I had a split second to decide if he was armed or just trying to start some trouble. I never got to make the decision, though, because the demon stepped past me, bumping me aside, and smacked the youngster. It was an open-handed backhand strike, not meaning to do any real damage, but it still tossed the kid to the other end of the subway car, back into the clutch of teen toughs.
I sighed. “Fuck.” I let go of the pole as soon as I regained my balance. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Then one of the punk’s friends pulled out a Transom 987 projectile gun, and I crouched for nonexistent cover. The demon moved, stepping past me, and I watched events come to their foregone conclusion.
The kids boiled up from their seats, one of them yanking their injured, pimply-faced friend to his feet. They were all wearing black denim jackets and green bandannas—yet another minigang.
The demon blinked across intervening space and slapped the illegal (if you weren’t accredited or a police officer) gun out of the boy’s hand, sent it skittering against the floor. The nurse covered her daughter’s ear with her hand, staring, her mouth agape. I moved forward, coming to my feet, my sword singing free of the sheath, and slid myself in between them and the gang, where the demon had broken one boy’s arm and was now in the process of holding the gunner up by his throat, shaking him as negligently as a cat might shake a mouse.
“You want to get off at the next stop,” I told the mother, who stared at me. “Trust me.”
She nodded. Her eyes were wide and wet with terror. The little girl stared at me.
I turned back to find the demon standing in the center of a ring of limp bodies. “Hello!” I shouted, holding the sword in my right hand with the blade level across my body, the reinforced scabbard reversed along my left forearm to act as a shield. It was a highly unorthodox way to hold a katana, but Jado-sensei always cared less about orthodox than keeping alive, and I found I agreed with him. If the demon came for me, I could buy some time with the steel and a little more time with Power. He’d eat me alive, of course, but I had a chance—
He turned, brushing his hands together as if wiping away dust. One of the boys groaned. “Yes?” Same level, robotic voice.
“You didn’t kill anyone, did you?” I asked.
Bright green eyes scorched the air. He shrugged. “That would create trouble,” he said.
“Is that a yes or a no?” I firmed my grip on the hilt. “Did you kill any of them?” I didn’t want to do the paperwork even if it was a legitimate kill in response to an assault.
“No, they’ll live,” he said, glancing down. Then he stepped mincingly free of the ring of bodies.
“Anubis et’her ka,” I breathed. Anubis, protect me.
The demon’s lips compressed into a thin line. The train slowed, deceleration rocking me back on my heels. If he was going to attack, this would be a great time. “The Prince requested you delivered unharmed,” he said, and sidled to the door, not turning his back to my blade.
“Remind me to thank him,” I shot back, swallowing against the sudden dust in my mouth. I wondered what other “requests” the Prince had made.
CHAPTER 4
We ended up on the platform, me sliding my sword reluctantly back into the sheath, the demon watching as the nurse hurried her little girl up the steps. The stop was deserted, sound echoing off ceramic tiles as the train slid along its reactive-greased tracks. I took a deep breath, tried to calm my racing heart.
When the last footstep had faded, the demon turned on his heel and leapt down onto the tracks.
“Oh, no,
” I said. “No way. Negatory.” I actually backed up two steps. “Look, I’m human. I can’t go running around on subway tracks.” For a moment the station seemed to shrink, the earth behind the walls pressing in, and I snapped a longing glance at the stairs.
He looked up at me, his long thin golden hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. “There is nothing to fear,” he said finally.
“Says you,” I snapped. “You’re not the one who could die here. Come on. No way.”
“This is the quickest way,” he said, but his mouth thinned even more once he stopped speaking. I could tell he was losing patience with my stupid human self. “I promise you, there is no danger. However, if you keep balking I will have no choice but to drag you.”
I just saw him blast six neopunks without even breaking a sweat. And he’s a demon. Who knows what he’ll do?
“Give me your Name,” I said, “and I will.”
As soon as it escaped my mouth, I backed up another two steps, wishing I hadn’t said it. It was too late. The demon made a sound that might have been a laugh.
“Don’t make me drag you, Necromance,” he said, finally. “The Prince would be most displeased.”
“That isn’t my problem,” I pointed out. “No way. I can’t trust you.”
“You have left the safety of your abode and followed me here.” His eyes narrowed. “Unwise of you, to cavil now.”
“So I’m too curious for my own good,” I said. “Give me your Name, and I’ll follow you.”
He shrugged, spreading his hands. I waited. If the Prince truly wanted me delivered unharmed, the demon would give me his Name. It barely mattered—I was no Magi, able to force a minor demon into working my will or able to negotiate a bargain with a greater demon for years of service in exchange for blood, sex, or publicity. I rarely ever dealt with demons. He was right, that I’d come this far and it wasn’t exactly wise to start backing down now, but better to back down now while I still had a running chance at reaching the surface than have the demon drag me into a subway tunnel. At least with his Name I might be able to stop him from killing me.
“Tierce Japhrimel,” he said, finally.
I blinked, amazed he’d given in, and did some rapid mental calculations. “Do you swear on the Prince of Hell and the waters of Lethe that your true, full Name truly is Tierce Japhrimel?”
He shrugged. “I swear,” he said after a long tense sweating second of silence.
I hopped down into the dark well of the tracks, jolting my knees. I’m too old for this shit, I thought. I was too old for this shit ten years ago. “Good deal,” I mumbled. “Fine, lead the way, then. I’m warning you, though, any tricks and I’ll haunt you, demon or not.”
“That would indeed be a feat,” he said. I think he meant to say it quietly, but the entire station echoed.
With that said, my sword ready, and no more excuses handy, I followed the demon into darkness.
CHAPTER 5
If I had to say with any certainty where the demon opened the door that led into a red glare, I would be at somewhat of a loss. I lose a lot of my sense of direction underground. The demon’s tearing at the fabric of reality to split the walls of the worlds . . . well, it’s complex, and takes an inhuman amount of Power, and I’ve never seen anyone but a demon do it. Magi sometimes tried unsuccessfully to force doors between this reality and the world of demons lying cheek-by-jowl with it instead of pleading for a demon to come through and make an appearance, but I was a Necromance. The only alternate reality I knew or cared about was the world of Death.
Some of the Magi said that the higher forms of Power were a result of the leaching of substance between this world and the world of the demons. I had never seen that—humans and the earth’s own well of natural Power were all I’d ever noticed. Even though Magi training techniques were used as the basis for teaching psions how to control Power, every Magi had his or her own kind of trade secrets passed on from teacher to student and written in code, if not memorized. It was like Skinlin with their plant DNA maps or a Necromance’s psychopomp, personal information.
There was an access hatch, I remember that much, that the demon opened as if it had been deliberately left unlocked. Then again, who would be running around down here? A long concrete-floored corridor lit faintly by buzzing fluorescents, and a door at the end of it—but this door was ironbound wood with a spiked, fluid glyph carved deeply into the surface of the wood. The glyph smoked and twisted; I felt reality tearing and shifting around us until the demon was the only solid thing.
I was seriously nauseated by now, swallowing bile and nearly choking. This isn’t built for humans, I thought, vicious little mouths nipping at my skin. It was akin to freefall, this walking between the worlds; that was why you were only supposed to do it astrally. The physical structure of my body was being stressed, the very building blocks of my cellular structure taking loads they weren’t designed to handle. Not to mention the fact that the twisting of visual and auditory input screwed up my perceptions, and the alienness of the Power here made my aura compress close to my skin and shiver. When the demon opened up the door and red light spilled out, I almost lost the chicken soup I’d bolted for lunch. The demon grabbed my arm and hauled me through, and I understood why he’d been standing so close to me. As soon as the smell of demon washed over me, I felt a little better. The demon’s aura stretched to cover me, and when the door closed behind us with a thud I found myself with a demon holding my elbow, volcanic heat lapping at my skin, and a gigantic hall with what appeared to be an obsidian floor and long narrow windows. Red light from spitting, ever-burning torches ran wetly over the floor and the ceiling, which I only glanced at and then back at the floor, shutting my eyes.
I heard, dimly, the demon saying something. The sense of sudden freefall stopped with a thump, as if normal gravity had reasserted itself. Nausea retreated—mostly. I choked, and tried to stop myself from spewing.
The demon pressed the fingers of his free hand against my sweating forehead and said something else, in a sliding harsh language that hurt my ears. Warm blood dripped down from my nose. I kept my fingers around my sword.
It took a few minutes for the spinning to stop and my stomach to decide it wouldn’t turn itself inside-out. “I’m okay,” I said finally, feeling sweat trickle down my spine. “Just a little . . . whoa. That’s . . . oh, shit—”
“It’s a common reaction,” he replied. “Just breathe.”
I forced myself to stand upright, swallowed sour heat and copper blood. “I’m okay,” I repeated. “The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can go home, right?”
He nodded. His lips were turned down at the corners now, and I saw that his long black coat was now in the same geometric scheme as the rest of the world. That was part of the problem—the angles of the floor and walls were just a little wrong, just a crucial millimeter off. My brain kept trying to make it fit and failing, and that made my stomach resemble a Tilt-A-Whirl, only without the fun part.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
He kept his hand closed around my elbow as we negotiated the vast expanse of the ballroom. Is this the antechamber to Hell? I thought, and had a difficult time not giggling. I think I’m doing well with this. Really well.
Then we reached the end of the hall, and the demon pushed open another large ironbound door, and all thoughts of dealing really well went right out the window. I even dropped my sword. The demon made a quick movement, and had my blade . . . I never dropped my sword. Never.
“A human,” the Thing sitting behind the massive desk said. It had three spiraling horns sprouting from its head and wide, lidless, cat-slit yellow eyes that fastened on me. Its body was a shapeless mass of yellow blubber, festooned with long bristling black hairs in a few random places. Three nipples clustered on its chest, and the skin looked wrong, and greasy. The worst part was the hinged mouth and razor-sharp teeth—but even worse than that were the long spidery fingers that looked like maggots crawling among the pa
pers on its desk. My brain went merrily rambling on—a demonic bureaucrat, even Hell has its paperwork . . .
“Not for you, Trikornus,” the green-eyed demon said. “She’s for the Prince.”
“What a lovely present. Finally back in the good graces, assassin?” It was still staring at me. A dripping, purple-red tongue slid out, caressed its chin with a sound like screaming sandpaper. “Ooooh, give us a taste. Just a little taste?”
“She is for the Prince, Baron,” Jaf enunciated clearly. I was too busy suddenly studying my boot-toes. How did I get here? I wondered. If I’d known, I would never have been a Necromance. But jeez, they never told me dealing with dead people would get me here, I thought only Magi dealt with demons—
“Very well, you greedy spoilsport,” the horror behind the desk said. I had a vivid mental image of those sharp teeth clamping in my upper thigh while blood squirted out, and barely suppressed a shudder. I felt cold under the sick fiery heat coating my skin. The thing gave a snorting, hitching laugh. “The Prince is in his study, waiting for you. Second door on the left.”
I felt more than saw Jaf’s nod. Who ever would have thought that he’d seem like the lesser of two evils? I thought, then felt a chill finger touch the back of my sweating neck. That this Japhrimel looked a little more human didn’t mean that he was any less of an alien being.
He guided me past the desk, and I was grateful that he was between me and the four-eyed demon. What would I have done if that thing had been sent to come fetch me? And what the hell would a demon need a Necromance for?
The world grew very dim for a few moments, but the demon half-dragged me through another ironbound door. “Keep breathing, human,” he said, and stopped moving for a few seconds. “The Baron likes to dress in a different skin for each visitor,” he continued. “It’s normal. Just breathe.”