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"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 Cha
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 the 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.