Lilith Saintcrow - The Devil's Right Hand

I dressed quickly, my fingers flying as they hadn’t for a long while. Buttoning up my shirt, my jeans, finding a pair of microfiber socks. My boots were a little cracked, but everything still fit. Living soft hadn’t made me fat yet, though I’d lost the look of being starved. A demon metabolism, every girl’s best friend.

I picked up the rig with trembling hands. Shrugged myself into it, buckled it down. Tested the action of the knives. They were still sharp. The plasgun went into its holster under my left arm. The projectile guns rode easy in their holsters. I slid clips in them both, chambered a round in each, and found the little clicks comforting to hear.

The only thing left was my tattered canvas messenger bag—the bag that had gone into Hell with me, back to the nightmare of my childhood with me, the bag I’d carried on every job since Doreen had bought it and sewn in the extra pockets and loops of elastic to hold everything down.

I scooped up the bag and the six extra clips, paced over to the bed, and dumped everything out. Scraps of paper, containers—blessed water, salt, cornmeal mix, my lockpick set, extra handkerchiefs and ammo clips and my athame, still glimmering with Power inside its plain black leather sheath. The chunk of consecrated chalk—my fingers trembled, touching its dry surface. I’d been searching for it desperately in the abandoned cafeteria of Rigger Hall with Lourdes chasing me, carrying the poisonous remnant of Mirovitch inside his brain like a cancerous flower. A silver Zijaan lighter with a cursive-script CM etched into it. A battered paperback copy of the Nine Canons—the runes that Magi and other psions and sorcerers had been using since before the Great Awakening—that I’d had since the Academy. My tarot cards in a hank of blue silk. Rough bits of quartz crystal, a few more bloodstones, some chunks of amber. More odds and ends.

My hands knew what to do. I laid Jace’s coat down, my fingers moving, checking, stowing everything in its proper place. I picked up the bag, gave it an experimental shake, and let it settle. I ducked through the strap and settled the bag on my hip, under the holster carrying my right-hand gun. I rolled my shoulders back as everything settled in, then shrugged into Jace’s coat. Picked up my katana.

“Ready for anything,” I muttered.

The house was oddly quiet. I listened and heard nothing, not even servants moving. I realized how used to the sound of human hearts beating I’d become. The maids didn’t talk to me—I didn’t speak Taliano, and they didn’t speak much Merican, so I let Japhrimel translate and was grateful none of them looked askance or forked the sign of the Evil Eye at me. None of them set foot in the library unless it was to dust while I was sleeping or to leave a box of new books inside the door. Only Emilio seemed completely unafraid, both of me and of the demon who shared my bed.

I stood for a few moments, the room resounding with small sounds as my attention swept in a slow circuit, brushing the curtains of the bed, sliding along the walls, caressing the framed Berscardi print above the low table where Japhrimel kept a single lily in a fluted black glass vase. The lily was gone, the vase dry and empty. The curtains fluttered. I sighed.

I turned on my heel, my boots clicking, and strode out of the bedroom, down the hall. The doors rose up on either side of me, never-used bedrooms, a small meditation room, a sparring room with a long wooden floor and shafts of light coming in every window.

The sparring room almost quivered with the echoes of sessions between Japh and me, combat as intimate as sex, his greater strength and speed giving me the ability to push myself harder, faster—I didn’t have to worry about hurting him, didn’t have to hold back. The only times I’d ever fought as hard were in Jado’s dojo , training to take on the world.

I found the door I wanted unlocked, hit it with the flats of both hands. It swung inward silently, banging against the wall. Dust flew. This wasn’t a place anyone entered often.

The room was long, a wooden floor glowing with layers of varnish. At the far end, barred by two shafts of sunlight, stood a high antique ebony table, and on this table lay a scarred and corkscrew-twisted dotanuki , its hilt-wrappings scorched.

Jace’s sword. Still reverberating with the final agonized throes of his death.

A blot of darkness hunched on the floor in front of the table. Japhrimel, on one knee, his back turned to me, his coat lying wetly against the floor behind him.

Of all the things I expected, that was probably the last.

He didn’t move. I strode up the center of the room and came to a halt right behind him, my boots sliding on the floor. I dug my heels in—going too fast. It seemed I would never learn how to slow this body down. My rings spat, swirling with color, each stone glittering.

I waited. Japhrimel’s head was down, inky hair falling forward to hide his face. His back was utterly straight. He didn’t speak. Sunlight fell like honey, but the sun was sinking down in the sky. We were going to go find this door into Hell soon.

I finally settled for stepping close and laying my hand on his shoulder. He flinched.

Tierce Japhrimel, Lucifer’s assassin and oldest child, flinched when I touched him.

I didn’t choke with surprise, but it was damn close. “Japhri—”

“I have been here, asking the ghost of a human man for forgiveness.” His voice slashed through mine. “And wondering why he has more of your heart than I do.”

It was the closest thing to jealousy I’d ever heard from him. I closed my mouth with a snap, found my voice. “He never did,” I finally said. “That was the problem.”

Japhrimel laughed. The sound was so bitter it dyed the air blue. “Are you so cruel to those you love?”

“It’s a human habit.” The lump in my throat threatened to strangle me. “I’m sorry.”

Even now, saying I’m sorry didn’t come easily. It tore its way out of my chest with razor glass studded along every edge.

Japhrimel rose to his feet. I still couldn’t see his face. “An apology without a battle. Perhaps there is hope.”

I knew he was using that black humor again, like a blade laid along the forearm to ward off a strike. It still hurt. “If I’m so bloody bad why don’t you go back to Hell?” Great, Danny. Lovely. You’re really on edge, aren’t you? This is really adult. No wonder he treats you like a little kid.

“I would not go back, even if Hell would have me. I seem to prefer your malice.” He turned on his heel, away from me, the hem of his coat brushing my knee. “I will wait for you.”

My voice had turned ragged, but even that couldn’t stop the dripping sweetness along its edges. “Don’t run away from me, dammit.”

He paused. Stood with his back to me still, his shoulders iron-hard. “Running away is your trick.”

You little snot of a demon, why do you have to make this so fucking hard? “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch,” I informed him. The air turned hot and tight, the twisted corkscrewed sword lying on the table ringing softly, its song of shock and death cycling up a notch. Catching the fever in the air, maybe. We were both throwing off enough heat and Power to make the entire room resound like an echo chamber.

“I am what you make of me, hedaira . I will wait for you outside the door.” He strode away, every footfall a clicking crisp sound. Anger like smoke fumed up from his footprints. His coat flapped as if a wind was mouthing it.

“Japhrimel. Japh, wait.”

He didn’t pause.

“Don’t do this. I’m sorry. Please. ” My voice cracked, as if Lucifer had just finished strangling me again.