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"You can't trust a demon, Da
He finally tilted his head back up, his green eyes meeting mine for a long moment. It wasn't hard to hold his gaze anymore. "I have not… told Lucifer of the child, only that Vardimal was attempting to create an Androgyne. I did not think it wise, as Lucifer would perhaps seek a different means of effecting Santino's capture. That would endanger you, Dante." He paused, his eyes holding mine. Here it comes, I thought, amazed I'd been able to predict him for once. "However, to lie to the Prince after Santino is dead… I will do as you ask," he said, "but in return, I will ask a price."
I shrugged. "I expected as much." My throat went dry. "What price?"
"I will tell you when the time comes," he said. "It is nothing you ca
"Da
"Shut up, Jace," I said, my eyes fixed on the demon. "All right, Japhrimel. It's a deal. Gods grant I don't regret it."
"I would speak with you privately, Mistress," he said, formally, nodding slightly. That managed to hurt my feelings—so we were back to Mistress, were we?
You will not leave me to wander the earth alone. Had he really said that, or had it been some kind of near-death hallucination?
I shook the thought away, hair sliding over my shoulders. "Soon enough. Gabe, I need you and Eddie at full strength. Do what you have to do to get there. We're hitting the trail soon as possible. Before twelve hours I need a work-up of every bit of munitions we can beg borrow or steal. Everything. Plasguns, assault rifles, projectile guns, explosives, everything. Eddie, I need as many golem'ai as you can make before we leave—and firestarters, too. You're the best Skinlin I know, and the mud-things will even the odds for us. Jace—" He flinched as I said his name, his shoulders hunching protectively. "Get yourself up to full strength and outfit us. We need transport, supplies, and passports into Mob Circle."
"Mob Circle?" Eddie actually sputtered. "Are you crazy?"
"We can't travel everywhere in the world just on a hunt," I said. "If Santino goes into any Freetowns, Mob Circle passports will give us some kind of protection and a place to sleep. Can you do that, Jace?"
He was paler than I'd ever seen him. "You'd trust me?" he asked, his blue eyes stuttering up to mine then sliding away, as if he couldn't stand to look at my face. "You'd trust me to do that?"
"I'm not going to forgive you," I told him. "I'm just going to overlook the fact that you took up a year and a half of my life with a complete lie. You do this for me, and we're even, your debt's paid. After this job, I never want to see your face again. If I see you after this is over, I'll fucking kill you—but if you help me take Santino down, I'll let you go your own way. Alive. All accounts balanced."
"Da
"You lied to me," I hissed. "Every time you touched me, it was a lie. And you didn't come clean when I came here, either—you kept lying to me. What, were you thinking I'd never find out?"
"You never would have—" he began.
"Well, we'll never know now, will we? I never had the chance." I shook my head, looking away to where the sheaf of sunlight fell into the green room, pure light glowing on every surface. It was nothing like the clear light of Death, but it was close enough that my heart twisted. The room was beautiful, clean, and made my entire body hurt. I wanted to be home, with Santino dead and the Devil's lies and little games out of my life. "Either you do this for me, or I'll kill you, Jace. It's that simple."
I don't know if it was my level tone or the way my face felt frozen, or maybe it was just the way my fingers touched the katana's hilt, but Jace believed me. He stared at the floor, his jaw working.
"Fine," he finally said. "If that's the way you want it, that's the way we'll play it."
"Good." I looked up at Japhrimel, who was wearing a faintly startled expression. "Japhrimel?"
He shrugged again, one of those faint, evocative movements. Nothing to add or subtract, and he wouldn't talk to me in front of them. Fine.
"Okay," I said. "That about covers it. Let's get moving."
Jace hitched himself up to his feet with a single measuring glance at Eddie. The Skinlin sat absolutely still, his eyes slitted, his hair tangling over his forehead. "I'll start working on passports and supplies," Jace said. "The staff will bring you breakfast, and whatever else you need."
I nodded.
He strode from the room without giving me a second glance.
Gabe whistled, shaking her head. "Are you crazy?" she said. "What if he's still working for Santino?"
"He's not. If he was, we'd all be dead." I sighed.
"You're letting him off easy," Eddie snarled.
I knew it. Ten years ago I might have gone after Jace just on principle. But I was just too tired. And the vision of all those canisters behind that glass shield, Santino's claws skritching against the glass, wouldn't go away. So much death, who was I to add to it? I was a Necromance. It was my job to bring people back. I was so tired of killing.
"Da
"Relax, Eddie," Gabe broke in, reaching out with her bare toes to rub his knee. "She knows what she's doing. The munitions aren't for a frontal assault on Santino, are they, sweets?"
"Of course not," I said. "They're for erasing whatever's left of the Corvins from the face of the earth. And Jace is going to do it himself. If he fails, we don't get any blowback, because Jace will be dead and his Family just another failed attempt at cutting out turf. If he succeeds, Santino doesn't have a Mob Family to do his dirty work, I'm free of the Corvin Family for good—and Jace will owe me a big-ass favor, since he'll be free too. Really free, not just street-war free."
"The golem'ai and the firestarters?" Eddie asked, comprehension dawning over his hairy face.
I suppressed a shudder. The golem'ai—semisentient mud creatures a Skinlin could create from organic matter and pure magick—made my skin crawl. "Those," I said, "are for Santino."
CHAPTER 40
We had a nice, if hurried, breakfast; the thick Nuevo Rio coffee-with-chicory did a good deal to dispel the cobwebs and ease my pounding head. Japhrimel was oddly silent, watching me eat, occasionally walking to the window and gazing out, his hands clasped behind his back. I didn't want to know. His silence seemed to infect all of us. Maybe there was just nothing left to say. The maids who came to clear away breakfast were both pale, their hands trembling, stealing little glances at me out of the corners of their eyes.
I couldn't even work up enough steam to care. You'd think they'd be used to psions, working for a Shaman.
I finally sent Gabe and Eddie to do their work and yawned, looking down at my katana. Oddly enough, the blade didn't seem to be reacting to Japhrimel's presence—it should have been spitting glowing blue as it had every other time he'd touched it.
Then again, after dealing with Santino and almost dying there was precious little Power left in the steel. I'd have to recharge before I could make my blade burn again. It was a kind of torture—the longer we waited, the more prepared we were to kick Santino's ass, but the more time he had to dig himself into a bolthole it would cost us blood to crack.
The door shut behind Eddie, and Japhrimel turned on his heel, sunlight falling into the bottomless dark of his coat.