Dante Valentine Read online

  “What, another job?” I looked down at my toast, picked up my coffee. “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand. Standard.”

  That would take care of another few mortgage payments. “What kind?” I swirled the coffee in the cup, the steam rising and twisting into angular shapes.

  “A probate thing. Shouldn’t take more than a coupla hours. Old coot named Douglas Shantern, died and the will’s contested. Total estate’s fifteen mil, the estate itself is paying your fee.”

  I yawned. “Okay, I’ll take it. Where’s the body? How fresh?”

  “Lawyer’s office on Dantol Street has his cremains. Died two weeks ago.”

  I made a face. “I hate that.”

  “I know,” Trina replied, sympathetic. “But you’re the only one on the continent who can deal with the burned ones, since you’re so talented. I’ll schedule you for midnight, then?”

  “Sounds good. Give me the address?”

  She did. I knew the building; it was downtown in the legal-financial district. The holovid image of a Necromance is all graveyards and chanting and blood, but most of our work is done in lawyers’ offices and hospital rooms. It’s very rare to find a Necromance in a graveyard or cemetery.

  We don’t like them.

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell them I’m bringing an assistant.”

  “I didn’t know you had an apprentice.” She actually sounded shocked. I have never met Trina face-to-face, but I always imagine her as a stolid, motherly woman who lived on coffee and Danishes.

  “I don’t,” I said. “Thanks, Trina. I’ll hear from you again, I’m sure.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, barely missing a beat. “Bye.”

  “Bye.” I hung up. “Well, that’s nice. Another little job.”

  The demon made a restless movement. “Time is of the essence, Necromance.”

  I waved a hand over my shoulder at him. “I’ve got bills to pay. Santino won’t get anywhere quickly. He escaped fifty years ago; you guys didn’t jump right on the bandwagon to bring him down. So why should I? Besides, we’re going to visit Abra too, and after I do this job Gabe will have all the things I need and we can start hunting. Unless you’re going to pay my power bill this month.”

  “You are infuriating,” he informed me coldly. The smell of demon was beginning to make me dizzy.

  “Tone it down a little, Japhrimel.” I curled my fingers around the edge of the counter and glared at him, reminding him that I knew his Name. “I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to lose here. You make me angry and you lose your big chance to shine.”

  He stared at me with bright laser-green eyes. I think he’s angry, I thought, his eyes just lit up like a Yulefestival tree. Or is that just me?

  The plate holding my peanut butter toast chattered against the countertop. I held his gaze, wondering if the Power thundering through the air would burn me. My rings popped and snarled, my shields shifting, reacting to the charged air.

  He finally glanced down at the floor, effectively breaking the tension. “As you command, Mistress.”

  I wondered if he could sound any more sarcastic.

  I shrugged. “I’m not your mistress, Japhrimel. The sooner I can get rid of you and back to my life, the better. All I want you to do is stay out of my way, you dig? After you explain what a demon familiar does.”

  He nodded, his eyes on the floor. “When would you like your explanation?”

  I wiped a sweating hand on my shirt, my combat shields humming as they folded back down. “Let me finish my coffee first.”

  He nodded, his hair shifting, wet dark spikes. “As you like.”

  “And pour yourself a cuppa coffee or something,” I added, grudgingly. Might as well be polite, even if he wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ashton Hutton,” the lawyer said, his grip firm and professional. He didn’t flinch at the tat on my cheek or at the sight of Japhrimel—of course, lawyers in the age of parapsych don’t scare easily. “Nice of you to come out on such short notice, Ms. Valentine.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hutton.” I smiled back at him. You fucking shark, I thought. He was slightly psionic—not enough to qualify for a trade, but enough to give him an edge in the courtroom—and his blond hair was combed back from a wide forehead. Blue eyes sparkled. He had a disarming, expensive grin. The wet ratfur smell of some secret fetish hung on him. I filled my lungs, taking my hand back, smelling something repulsive and dry.

  Not my business, I thought, and looked past him into the tasteful meeting room. The windows were dark, but the lights were full-spectrum, and the table was an antique polished mahogany big enough to carve up a whale on.

  The family was there: bone-thin, sucked-dry older woman who was probably the wife dressed in a peach linen suit, very tasteful, a single strand of pearls clasped to her dry neck; there were two boys, one of them round and wet-eyed, greasy-haired, no more than thirteen, a ghost of acne clinging to his skin. The other was a college-age kid, his hair cut into the bowl-shape made popular by Jasper Dex in the holovids, leaning back in his chair while he tapped at the table’s mirror polish shine with blunt fingertips.

  On the other side of the table was a woman—maybe thirty-five, her dark hair in a kind of spray-glued helmet, ruby earrings clipped to her ears. Mistress, I thought. Then my eyes flicked past her to the two plainclothes cops, and a whole lot more about this situation started to make sense.

  I looked at the lawyer. “What’s with the cops?” I asked, the smile dropping from my face like a bad habit.

  “We don’t know yet,” Hutton replied. “Miss Sharpley requested a police presence here, and it was not denied by the terms of the will, so…” He trailed off, spreading his smooth well-buffed hands.

  I nodded. In other words, the cops were here because someone was suspected of something, or relations between the wife and mistress were less than cordial. Also none of my business. “Well,” I said, and stepped into the room, digging in my bag. “Let’s get to work then.”

  “Who’s your associate?” Hutton asked. “I didn’t catch his name.”

  “I didn’t throw it,” I replied tartly. “I’m here to raise a dead man, not talk about my accessories.” I was already wishing I hadn’t accepted this job either.

  In the center of the table stood the regulation box, heavy and made out of steel, holding the remains of the man I would be bringing back out of death’s sleep. I shivered slightly. I hated cremains, worked much better with a body… but you couldn’t afford to be picky when you had a mortgage. I wondered why an estate worth fifteen million didn’t have an urn for the hubby, and mentally shrugged. Also none of my business. It wasn’t my job to get involved, it was my job to raise the dead.

  The first time I’d raised an apparition out of ash and bone had been at the Academy; I hadn’t been prepared for the silence that fell over the training room when I’d done it. Most Necromances need a whole body, the fresher the better; it was rare to have the kind of talent and Power needed to raise a full apparition out of bits. It meant steady work, since I was the only Necromance around who could do it—but it also meant that I pulled more than my share of very gruesome remains. One of the worst had been the Choyne Towers fiasco, when a Putchkin transport had failed and crashed into the three towers. I’d been busy for days sifting through little bits and raising them for identification, and there were still ten people missing. If I couldn’t raise them, they must have been vaporized.

  And that was a singularly unpleasant thought. That hadn’t made my reputation, though. My reputation as a Necromance had been cemented when I’d almost by accident raised the apparition of Saint Crowley the Magi. It was supposed to be a publicity ploy by the Channel 2004 Holovid team, but I’d actually done it, much to everyone’s surprise. Including my own.

  But most of what I was stuck with were the gruesome ones, the burned ones, and dead psions. It was Hegemony law that the remains of a dead psi had to be cremated—especially Magi and Ceremonials, because of t
he risk of Feeders.

  I shivered.

  I had the candles out and placed on the table when the wife suddenly made a slight choking sound. “Do we have to?” she asked, in a thready, husky voice. “Is this absolutely necessary?”

  “Chill out, Ma,” the college boy snapped. His voice was surprisingly high for such a husky kid. He leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “Smoke and mirrors, that’s all, so’s they can charge for it, you know.”

  “Ms. Valentine is a licensed, accredited Necromance,” Hutton said thinly, “and the best in the country if not the world, Mrs. Shantern. You did ask to have the… questions… resolved.”

  The stick-woman’s mouth compressed itself. On the other side of the table, the mistress’s dark eyes rested steadily on the steel box. She was as cool and impenetrable as a locked hard drive, her smoothly planed cheeks coloring slightly as she raised her eyes to mine.

  That’s one tough cookie, I thought, and looked over at the plainclothes. They didn’t look familiar.

  I shrugged. Once the candles were secure in their holders I snapped my fingers, my rings sparked, and blue flame sputtered up from the wicks, glowing like gasjets.

  I always got a kick out of doing that.

  The wife gasped, and the college boy’s chair legs thudded down on the expensively carpeted floor.

  “If you’d be so kind as to kill the lights, Mr. Hutton,” I said, drawing my sword free of its sheath, “we’ll have this done in a jiffy.”

  The lawyer, maybe used to Necromances working in semidark, moved over to the door, brushing nervously past the demon, who stayed close, almost at my shoulder. I hopped up on the table and sat cross-legged, the sword in one hand, and rested my free hand on the steel box. This put my head above everyone’s—except the demon and the taller of the plainclothes cops in his rumpled suit. What are they here for? I thought, dismissed the question.

  “Dante?” the demon asked. It was the first time he had truly used my name.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Just wait. I’ll let you know if I need you.”

  I am your familiar, the demon had told me, and I may act to defend you. Any harm that comes to you, I will feel as if committed to my own flesh. I am at your command as long as you bear that mark. If it is possible for me to do, your word will make it so. I am not free to act, as you are.

  I understood a lot more now. No wonder Magi wanted familiars. It was like owning a slave, he had explained, a magickal slave and bodyguard. The trouble was, I didn’t want a slave. I wanted to be left alone.

  I closed my eyes. Deep circular breaths, my sword balanced across my knees. After the uncertainties of the last few days, it was a relief to have something I knew how to do and understood doing. Here, at least, was a problem I could solve. Dropped below conscious thought, the blue glow rising, my hand resting on the steel box.

  The words rose from the deepest part of me. “Agara tetara eidoeae nolos, sempris quieris tekos mael—”

  If you were to write down a Necromance’s chant, you’d have a bunch of nonsense syllables with no real Power. Necromance chants aren’t part of the Canons or even a magical language—they’re just keys, personal keys like the psychopomp each Necromance has. Still, someone always tries to write them down and make them follow grammatical rules. The trouble is, the chants change over time.

  Blue crystal light rose above me, enfolded me. My rings spat sparks, a shower of them, my left shoulder twinging. Riding the Power, crystal walls singing around me, I reached into the place where the cremains rested, hunting. Small pieces of shattered bone and ash a bitter taste against my tongue.

  To taste death, to take death into you… it is a bitter thing, more bitter than any living taste. It burned through me, overlapping the ache in my shoulder from the demon’s mark.

  I’ve seen the tapes. While I chant, my head tips back, and the Power swirls counterclockwise, an oval of pale light growing over the body—or whatever is left of the body. My hair streams back, whether caught in a ponytail, braided, or left loose. The emerald on my cheek glitters and pulses, echoing the pulsing of the oval of light hanging in front of me, the rip in the world where I bring the dead through to talk.

  My hand fused to the steel box. My other hand clamped around the hilt of my sword. The steel burned fiercely against my knees, runes running like water up the blade. My tattoo would be shifting madly, serpents writhing up the staff of the caduceus, their scales whispering dryly.

  Blue crystal light. The god considered me, felt through me for the remains, and the thin thread that I was stretched quivering between the world of the living and the dead. I became the razorblade bridge that a soul is pulled across to answer a question, the bell a god’s hand touches to make the sound out of silence…

  There was a subliminal snap and the wife gasped. “Douglas!” It was a pale, shocked whisper.

  I kept my eyes closed. It was hard, to keep the apparition together. “Ask… your… questions…” I said, in the tense silence.

  The chill began in my fingers and toes. I heard the wife’s voice, then the lawyer taking over, rapid questions. Shuffle of paper. The mistress’s husky voice. Some kind of yell—the college kid. I waited, holding the Power steady, the chill creeping up my finger, to my wrists. My feet rapidly went numb.

  More questions from the lawyer, the ghost answering. Douglas Shantern had a gravelly voice, and he sounded flat, atonal, as the dead always do. There is no nuance in a ghost’s voice… only the flatline of a brain gone into stormdeath, a heart gone into shock.

  There was another voice—male, slightly nasal. One of the cops. The numb chill crept up my arms to my elbows. The sword burned, burned against my knees. My left shoulder twisted with fire.

  The ghost replied for quite some time, explaining. My eyelids fluttered, the Power drawing up my arms like a cold razor.

  There was a scuffle, something moving. The lawyer’s voice, raised sharply. I ignored it, keeping the ghost steady.

  Then the lawyer, saying my name. “Ms. Valentine. I think we’re finished.” His voice was heavy, no longer quite as urbane.

  I nodded slightly, took a deep breath, and blew out between my teeth, a shrill whistle that ripped through the thrumming Power. The cold retreated.

  Blue crystal walls resounding, the god clasping the pale egg-shaped glow that was the soul to His bare naked chest, dog’s head quiet and still. White teeth gleaming, eloquent dark eyes… the god regarded me gravely.

  Was this the time that He would take me, too? Something in me—maybe my own soul—leapt at the thought. The comfort of those arms, to rest my head on that broad chest, to let go—

  “Dante?” A voice of dark caramel. At least he didn’t touch me. “Dante?”

  My eyes fluttered open. The sword flashed up between me and the pale egg-shaped blur in the air. Steel resounded, chiming, and the light drained back down into the steel box, fluttering briefly against the flat surfaces, limning the sharp corners in a momentary pale glow.

  I sagged, bracing my free hand against the polished mahogany of the table, the smell of my own Power sharp and nose-stinging in the air. I could feel the demon’s alertness.

  When I finally looked around the dark room, one of the cops had the younger son—the acne-scarred wet-eyed boy with the greasy hair—in plasteel cuffs. The boy blinked, his fishmouth working. Goddammit, I thought sourly, if I’d known this was a criminal case I’d have charged the estate double. Got to have Trina make a note about this lawyer.

  The wife sat prim and sticklike still, but her eyes were wide and wild with shock, two spots of red high up in her dry cheeks. The mistress sat, imperturbable. The older boy stared at his younger brother as if seeing a snake for the first time.

  I managed to slide over to the edge of the table and put my legs down, sheathing my sword. Surprisingly, the demon put his hands up, held my shoulders, and steadied me as I slid down. My fingers were numb. How long? I thought, numbly.

  “How long?” I asked, forcing
my thick tongue to work.

  “An hour or so,” Jaf replied. “You… Your lips are blue.”

  I nodded, swayed on my feet. “It’ll pass soon, I’ll be fine. What happened?” I deliberately pitched my voice low, a whisper. Jaf caught the hint, leaned in, his fingers digging into my shoulders.

  “The mistress was accused of killing the man,” he said softly. “The ghost said it was his son that beat him to death with a piece of iron.”

  “Ms. Valentine?” the lawyer interrupted, urbanely enough. The cops were dragging the limp kid away. He hung in their hands, staring at me. The shorter cop—curly dark hair, dark eyes, he looked Novo Italiano—forked the sign of the evil eye at me, maybe thinking I couldn’t see.

  Lethargy washed over me again. I swayed. An hour? I kept the ghost talking—a full manifestation—for an hour? From a pile of ashes? No wonder I’m tired. I took deep, circular breaths. The air was so cold from the ghost’s appearance my breath hung in a white cloud, and little threads of steam came from Jaf’s skin. “I hate the ash ones,” I muttered, then faced the bland-faced lawyer. “It just happened to slip your mind that this was a criminal affair?”

  “Consider your… ah, fee, tripled.” His eyes were wide, his slick blond hair ever-so-slightly disarranged. Maybe I’d scared him.

  Good. He’d think twice before trying to cheat a psi out of a decent fee again.

  “Thanks,” I said, and blinked deliberately.

  He was sweating, and his face was pasty white. “I’ve never—I mean, I hardly—” The lawyer was all but stammering. I sighed. It was a transitory pleasure to scare the shit out of a little scumbag like this.

  “I know. I’ll be going now. I suppose I can just let myself out?”

  “Oh, well—we could—”

  “No worries.” I was suddenly possessed of the intense urge to get the hell out of this bland, perfect, antique office and away from this stammering frightened man. Maybe he wasn’t quite as used to Necromances as he’d thought.

  I never thought I would be grateful for a demon. But Japhrimel apparently had grown impatient waiting for me to finish making the lawyer stumble and sputter, because he put his arm around me and pulled me away from the table. I stumbled slightly; the demon’s arm was a warm weight.