Lilith Saintcrow - Working for the Devil

"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.

As soon as he led me past the empty secretary's desk and into the office lobby, I ducked out from under his arm. "Thanks," I said, quietly. My knees were still a little shaky, but my strength would return quickly. "That was a little draining. I had no idea they wanted a full hour from a bunch of ashes."

"You appear to be most exceptional." Japhrimel's arm fell back to his side. His eyes were half-lidded, glowing so fiercely that the skin around them seemed to take on a greenish cast. Again, there were runic shapes guttering in their infinite depths.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm just a girl looking to pay off her mortgage."

"I am sorry I doubted your ability," he continued, falling in step beside me as I headed for the stairs. The elevator dinged, nearly sending me through my skin; Japhrimel's hand closed around my upper arm. Steel fingers sank into my flesh. "Easy, Dante. There is nobody there."

"Not… the elevator." I forced the words out. If I had to be closed in a small space—

At least he had his own shields, and could keep his thoughts to himself. Raw as I was, if he'd been human I might have torn my arm out of his grasp to escape the onslaught of someone else's emotion. As it was, I let him steer me through the door and into the echoing, gray-painted stairwell. "So you've decided I'm not so bad?" I asked, trying for a light tone. The ghost's voice echoed in my head, just outside my mental range, shivering, a deep husky sound. I would hear him for another few hours, until my psyche recovered from the shock of holding someone else so closely. Training helped lessen the shock, but could not deaden it completely.

"I have decided that you need a familiar," he said flatly. "You seem foolhardy."

"I'm careful," I protested. "I've survived this long."

"It seems like luck instead of care," he remarked. I stumbled, my feet feeling like huge blocks of cold concrete—he steadied me, and we began down the stairs, my footsteps echoing, his silent.

"I don't like you very much."

"I supposed as much."

By the time we reached the bottom floor, my boots were beginning to feel less like concrete and more like they belonged to me. The awful cold retreated slowly, the mark on my left shoulder a steady flame that dispelled the ice. My energy was returning, the Power-well of Saint City flooding me with what I'd expended on the apparition. The ground-floor lobby was plush and quiet, water dripping down a tasteful Marnick wall fountain. I kept my fingers curled around my sword, my bag bumping my hip. As soon as I could walk by myself I shook his arm away. It was a good thing the weakness never lasted long. "Thanks."

"No thanks necessary." He opened the security-lock door, sodium-arc light shining against glass. The parking lot was mostly empty, the pavement drying in large splotches. Night air touched my face, a cool breeze sliding through pulled-loose strands of my hair. I tucked one behind my ear and checked the sky. Clearing up from the usual evening shower. That was good.

"Hey." I stopped, looking up at him. "I need to do something. Okay?"

"Why ask me?" His face was absolutely blank.

"Because you'll have to wait for me," I replied. "Unless you can ride a slicboard."

"Hey, deadhead," Konnie said, stripping green-dyed hair back from his narrow pasty face. "Whatchoo want?"

The Heaven's Arms resounded with New Reggae music around me, the sweet smell of synth hash from the back room filtering out between racks of leathers in garish colors, shinguards, elbow pads, helmets. "Hi, Konnie," I said, ducking out of my bag. The demon accepted the strap—I felt a thin thread of unease when I handed my sword over. "I need a board and an hour."

Konnie leaned back, his dead flat eyes regarding me over the counter. "You got credit?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake." I sounded disgusted even to myself. "Give me a board, Konnie. The black one."

He shrugged. "Don't suppose you're gonna wear any pads."

"You've got my waiver on file." I ran my fingertip over the dusty counter, tracing a glyph against the glass. Underneath, blown-glass hash pipes glowed. There were even some wood and metal hash pipes, and a collection of incense burners. Graffiti tags tangled over the walls, sk8 signs and gang marks. "Come on, Konnie. I've got a job to do."

"I know." He waved a ringed hand. His nails were painted black and clipped short—he played for a Neo-neopunk band, and had to see his hand on the bass strings in pulsing nightclub light. "You got that look again. Who you hunting down this time, baby?"

" Give me the goddamn board," I snarled, lips pulling back from my teeth. My emerald sparked, my rings shifting crazily. The demon tensed behind me. "I'll be back in an hour."

Konnie bent briefly, scooped up a slicboard from its spot under the counter. He slid the chamois sheath free, revealing a sleek black Valkyrie. "I just tuned it up. Had a Magi in here not too long ago told me to 'spect a deadhead; I hate that precog shit. You're the only deadhead crazy 'nough to come to the Arms. Why dontcha keep this thing at home?"

I snatched the board. My hands were trembling. The ambient Power of the city helped, soaking into me, replacing what I'd spent in bringing Douglas Shantern back from the dry land of death. But I still wasn't convinced I was still living… "Fine. Thanks."

"Hey, what to do with the stray here?" Konnie called after me as I headed for the front door.

"Try not to piss him off," I tossed over my shoulder, then hit the door. I was running by the time cool night wind touched my hair, my fingers pressing the power-cell. I dropped the board just as the cell kicked in, and the sound of a well-tuned slic hummed under my bones.

My boots thudded onto the Valkyrie's topside, the board giving resiliently underneath me. My weight pitched forward, and the board hummed, following the street.

No, I don't want streetside , I thought. I want to fly. Tonight I need to fly .

I pitched back, the slic's local antigrav whining. Riding a slicboard is like sliding both feet down a stair rail, weight balanced, knees loose and relaxed, arms spread. It's the closest to flight, to the weightlessness of astral travel plus the gravity of the real world, that a human body can ever attain.

Hovercells thrummed. Up in the traffic lanes, hovers were zipping back and forth. The thing about hover traffic is that it's like old-time surfing waves—catch the right pattern, and you can ride forever, just like jacking into a city's dark twisted soul and pouring Power into a spell.

But if you miscalculate, hesitate, or just get unlucky, you end up splashed all over the pavement. Hovers and freights have AI pilot decks that take care of keeping them from colliding, making driving mostly a question of following the line on your display with the joystick or signing the control over to the pilot deck, but slics are just too small to register. The intricate pattern of mapped-out lanes for hover traffic was updated and broadcast from Central City Hall in realtime to avoid traffic jams, but the slics couldn't tune in to that channel. There wasn't room on a slic for an AI deck, sk8ers and slic couriers disdained them anyway.