Lilith Saintcrow - The Devil's Right Hand

Japhrimel kept his arm over my shoulders, his thumb stroking my upper arm every so often. I kept looking down at the floor, though I was feeling a lot better. The languid, drained feeling had faded within a couple blocks of the Anhelikos’s temple. I wasn’t feeling a hundred watts, but I was all right. Except for the way my chest hurt, especially the rubbed-raw little spot under the diagonal leather strap of my rig.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to use an elevator to get to the third floor. McKinley led us up a long, sweeping red-carpeted flight of stairs lifting from the marble-floored lobby. A sharp right-hand turn past a glowering werecain guard, and I was ushered into a room that was dim and soft and luxurious, with antique blue velvet chairs and a silky cream-colored carpet I immediately wanted to foul in some way. A wet bar gleamed. There was even a canister of cloned blood in a stasis cabinet under the shelves of liquor. A plasma holovid player perched on a wide cherrywood dresser, and the beds were huge and looked soft enough to sink into.

There were, unfortunately, no windows. The walls were smooth and blank. A Nichtvren room, safe from daylight. Airless.

As soon as I realized this I looked up at Japhrimel, already feeling the air grow thick. “No. Please, no.” My voice cracked, my throat closing with claustrophobic weight. If McKinley hadn’t been right behind us I would have tried to backpedal. As it was, I tried fruitlessly to tear myself out from under Japh’s arm, failed. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll be a good little prisoner and stay.”

He shrugged, his fingers gentling but still iron-hard. I couldn’t break his grip. “I am sorry.”

“There’s no goddamn windows. You know how I feel about—” I was about to start hyperventilating, I could feel it.

“This is necessary , Dante.” His arm loosened, but I could feel his readiness. Even if I could bowl over McKinley, Japh would catch me before I got to the hallway. The fight went out of me. I could feel it leave, like a splinter drawn out of torn flesh.

“Fine.” My voice cracked, making a picture-frame rattle against the wall. “Whatever.” I tore away from him, stalked past the beds into the furthest corner of the room, and pushed the chair occupying it away. I put my back to the corner and slid down until I sat on the floor, my knees up, my katana across my lap, right hand clamped over the hilt, left around the scabbard. I leaned my head into the corner, closed my eyes, and struggled to breathe.

Japhrimel murmured to McKinley, I heard the room door open and close again. Peeked out from under my lashes to see Japhrimel walking softly around the end of a bed, approaching me. The familiar breathless feeling of demon magick rose as he warded the walls, demon defenses springing into being under the humming of the hotel’s security net and magickal shielding. Cracking a kobold-constructed building run by swanhilds was a tall order indeed. We were probably safe, even if my heart hammered and my throat felt savagely constricted.

I took the only refuge I had left, shutting my eyes and breathing, reaching into the still quiet part of myself that had never failed me. “ Anubis et’her ka, ” I whispered. “ Se ta’uk’fhet sa te vapu kuraph. ” My mouth was dry, the whisper was cracked and imperfect. “Anubis, Lord of the Dead, Faithful Companion, protect me, for I am Your child. Protect me, Anubis; weigh my heart upon the scale; watch over me, Lord, for I am Your child. Do not let evil distress me, but turn Your fierceness upon my enemies. Cover me with Your gaze, let Your hand be upon me, now and all the days of my life, until You take me into Your embrace.” I breathed in again, tried it again. “ Anubis et’her ka. Se ta’uk’fhet sa te vapu kuraph. Anubis, Lord of the Dead…”

The blue flame rose up before my inner eyes. I didn’t see the hall of infinity, or the bridge, or the well of souls—but the blue light closed around me, and that was good enough. With a grateful sobbing breath, I gave myself up to the comfort of my god.

The room was twenty-four steps long from the blank wallpapered wall to the door that led into a short entry hall, with a huge bathroom off to one side. I know because I counted the steps as McKinley paced it over and over again. Japhrimel was silent, folded down cross-legged on the carpeting a few feet away from me, his eyes closed. Waiting. His coat spread behind him on the floor, a deep, lacquered darkness.

Hours ticked away. I had plenty of time to think through that long weary day, slipping in and out of a hazy blue-flamed trance as I sought the comfort of my god over and over again. My chest hurt. I could barely breathe, and I was hungry, but I shook my head when McKinley asked me if I wanted breakfast. Shook it again when he asked about lunch. A third time when he asked about dinner.

Japhrimel sat, his spine straight, his face closed like the room itself. Tears rose in my throat, pricked at my eyes, I denied them. I would have liked to take a hot shower and cry, but I was damned if I’d give them the satisfaction. Instead, I studied Japhrimel’s face, my fingers aching around my swordhilt. I looked at the wallpaper, patterned with gold fleur-de-lis. I examined the edge of the blue velvet bedspread. I looked at the nap of the carpet, found myself looking back at Japhrimel’s face. How many times had I run my fingertips over his cheekbones, let him kiss my fingers, lain beside him and told him things I’d never told another living person?

What kind of inhuman patience had it taken to live with me for so long, keeping the fact of the Devil’s asking for me to himself? All the presents, the sparring matches, his fingers gentle against my ribs, his mouth against my neck as he shuddered in my arms.

It couldn’t all have been a game to him. It couldn’t have.

I knew the Devil meant me no good. I knew other demons would want to kill me because of Lucifer’s meddling in my life. But I’d never questioned Japh since his resurrection. After all, he’d Fallen, hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he? Even Lucifer had said so. But neither the Devil nor Japh had told me very much about what Fallen really meant.

I didn’t like the way my thoughts were tending. What did Fallen really mean? What had Japhrimel wanted to collect from the Anhelikos? Who was trying to kill me now, and why, and what was Lucifer’s endgame in all this? I knew better than to think it was what he had originally presented to me—a straight, simple hunting-down of four demons, badda-bing, time served, Danny Valentine free of demonic manipulation.

Another thought rose, even worse than the first.

Let’s just suppose Japhrimel has been ducking out to talk to the Devil while I sleep. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say. What do they have planned? Was it all an act?

But Japhrimel had protected me, hadn’t he? Tracked me down, found me, asked me to trust him, rescued me from the hellhounds.

That only means Lucifer has some use for you. Ten to one says you’re bait too, Danny. It was a puzzle. I’d hunted down Santino for Lucifer, could that have made me an enemy or two? Santino had bred an Androgyne—the type of demon Lucifer was, the most rare and precious because Androgynes could breed. Santino—or Vardimal, as Japh called him—had thought he could create a puppet Androgyne to replace Lucifer on the throne of Hell, effectively crowning Santino as king too, if the Androgyne was malleable enough.

Maybe there were other demons who’d wanted a crack at Santino’s patented process of creating an Androgyne, the shining path of genes even Lucifer with all his tinkering couldn’t find. So, conceivably, they could want a little revenge for my interference, no matter that I’d been given no choice in the matter. So far this theory was holding up uncomfortably well.