Lilith Saintcrow - Dead Man Rising

What other secrets had Rigger Hall kept?

After an hour's steady walk I reached midspan, pausing to look over the dark algae-choked surface of the lake. I had no warning.

My left shoulder came alive with pain, as if a clawed hand had curled around and dug in. I went to my knees in the middle of the road, steel creaking under me. I found my claw-cramping right hand under my shirt, my fingertips touching the writhing ropes of scar that was Japhrimel's mark. The slight pressure—fingertips against scar—made the world swim as if a pane of wavering glass hung in front of me.

Saint City seen upside down, the lights shimmering on the TransBank Tower, hovertraffic zipping by. Need burning hot in the veins, dropping, wings furled, breaking the fall at the last moment, booted feet slamming into pavement. Following a scent that was not a scent, a sound that was a touch, afire of need in veins old and strong, drawing … eastward .

I came back to myself, ripping my fingers away from the scar. My knees dug into the Bridge, which swayed like a plucked string. I heard yells from both ends, used my scabbarded blade to lever myself up.

Can it be you have not resurrected him?

Lucifer's voice, taunting me. And the dark winged figure in the middle of the flames… Fire, enough fire to perhaps feed a demon?

Enough Power to perhaps bring one back, rebuild a demon's body from ash?

Ridiculous. Insane. If Japh—

If he had been alive, even just barely clinging to life, I would have known when I clasped his burning body to my chest. I would have known every time I touched the glassy lacquered urn. I would have known . I was a Necromance, death was my trade, and I was as exquisitely sensitive to the spark of life and soul as a sexwitch was to Power.

But what about the soul ? A demon's soul… or a Fallen demon's soul, the soul of an A'nankhimel …

I wished again that I'd been able to study more about demons. Or, more precisely, about A'nankhimel , Fallen demons, and the hedaira , their human brides. But none of the books had anything other than old legends garbled to the point of uselessness. The demons didn't like to talk about the A'nankhimel , for whatever reason; and the Magi for all their fooling around with demons, didn't know about anything the demons didn't care to talk about. The Magi's natural jealousy and obfuscation surrounding each practitioner's research and results didn't help. I couldn't even question a Magi about demons, they wouldn't talk unless it was to members of their own circle, and even inside circles each Magi had his or her own secrets.

What if I turned back now? I could find out. I could touch my scar and go wherever it led me. I could leave this horrible circle of murder and death and foulness behind and look for my dead demon lover instead of revenging myself and every other soul who had suffered at Rigger Hall. And if my sanity snapped, I could look anywhere in the world for him, anywhere at all. I could spend my life uselessly hunting down something that didn't exist, fooling myself into believing he was still alive, around the next corner, just out of reach.

No . If he had not come back before now, he wasn't going to. All the longing in the world couldn't fool me into knowing otherwise.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hot tears dripping down to the Bridge deck. I was just hallucinating, trying to hoodwink myself. Japhrimel was dead, Jace was dead, and I was hunting a Headmaster who refused to die.

Where did Kellerman Lourdes fit in? Was he carrying Mirovitch like a poisonous seed in his own thoughts? Was he a mule for the Headmaster's twisted psyche and soul, his slime-drenched Feeder ka ? Or had Mirovitch taken over completely, grown inside Lourdes's body, driven out of his own middle-aged body by the assaults of the other kids?

None of it made much sense. It was ridiculous anyway. I'd shattered his urn to remove the hope of Japhrimel coming back. It was my penance, and by every god that ever was, I was going to pay my penance and have my revenge.

I swayed on the middle of the Bridge. Another thought chilled me—maybe the Power I carried, like a plasgun over a barrel of reactive, was going to eat me up. Maybe the only reason I'd survived so long was because I hadn't used the full extent of my capabilities, wasting myself on grief, bounties, and torturing Jace. Maybe it was rising, and it would burn me to ash—just like Japhrimel.

Just like my house.

I'm going to take him with me. Mirovitch, Keller, whoever he is, I'm taking him with me when I go. If I go.

What if I managed to kill Mirovitch? What then?

I was so tired, weary with a weariness that went all the way down to my bones and even further. I had read about despair of the soul, and never thought it possible until now. Even the part of me that had fought all my life, the stubborn refusal to give in that had colored my entire existence, was dully muted, hanging its head. There comes a time when even simple endurance can't carry you through.

I knew what it would be like, laying my head on Death's black chest, feeling the weight of living rise away from me. The clear light would break out from the horizon of What Comes Next, and I would go gratefully into that foreign land.

But not before Mirovitch. Or Keller. Or whoever the hell he was.

I looked out over the algae-choked, glassy surface of the lake, reflecting the orange glow of the city on every shore. I lifted one foot, uncertain, and then put it back down. Remained standing where I was.

The last few dregs of light squeezed their way out of the sky. Night folded over Saint City and the Bridge—and me—with all the softness of black wings.

I shook my hair back, ash falling free of the black silky strands, and continued on.

Walking up Sommersby Street Hill at night was a strange experience. The last time I'd seen this place had been in broad daylight decades ago, when I'd walked to East Transport Station to board the transport that would take me north to the regional Academy for my specialized Necromance training. While at the Hall I had rarely seen the street at night; students weren't allowed off the school grounds after dark, and I'd never come east of the Bridge in all my after-Academy years of living in Santiago City. I'd been all over the world hunting bounties, but this place so close to home I'd avoided like the plague.

Given my druthers, I would have continued doing so.

Fog was rolling in off the bay and the lake, a thick soupy fog that glowed green near the pavement and orange between the streetlights. With the fog came the smell of the sea—thick brine—and the smell of fire, burned candle wax, and ash. Or maybe the smell of a burned, smashed life was only mine, rising from my clothes.

I paced up Sommersby Hill, my bootheels clicking, and saw with a weary jolt of surprise that the Sommersby Store was still open.

While I was at the Hall, the Store was where all the kids went in our infrequent free time. We bought cheap novels and fashion mags about holovid stars, candy bars to supplement the bland Hall food, and synth-hash cigarettes to be smuggled on campus. The Store used to have a counter that sold tofu dogs and ice cream and other cheap fare, but I saw that part of the building was boarded up now. With Rigger Hall gone, most of the Store's customers would be gone too. It was a miracle that even the main part was still there.

For a few minutes I stood, my hands in the pockets of Jace's coat, the sword thrust through the loop on the belt of my weapons rig. I watched the front of the Store, its red neon blurring on the dirty glass. The newspaper hutch standing to one side of the door was gone, a paler square of the paint of the storefront marking where it had stood; but the slicboard rack was still there. The boarded-up half of the storefront was festooned with graffiti, a broken window on the second story blindly glared at me. I stared at the glass door with its old-fashioned infrared detector, the plasticine sign proclaiming Shoplifting Will Be Prosecuted still set above the door's midbar, dingy and curling at its corners.