Dead Man Rising

I've been called suicidal, and crazy, and fey; I've even been called glory-hungry and snobbish. I don't think that's accurate; I simply always knew I would survive, a core of something hard and nasty in me refusing to give in even at the worst of times. Better to face what frightens you than to live cowering in fear; and if Death frightened me I need only go further into the blue glow of His embrace until even fear was lost and the weight lifted from me.

I had nothing to fear. I kept my honor intact. An honorable person was only as good as the promises she kept, the loyalty she showed. My honor was unstained.

A familiar touch against my shields warned me—Jace coming back, probably on a slicboard. He was dropping in fast, probably to avoid being seen or shot by the holovid reporters outside. I felt the security net slide away to let him pass.

I made it almost all the way down the stairs before my legs started to tremble alarmingly. I slid down to sit, my knees giving out so I thumped inelegantly onto the second step. When Jace opened the front door I was perched on the steps, leaning against the wall, my knees drawn up.

He kicked the door closed. "Da

Three scars, dipping down my back, and the brand laid along the crease below my left buttock. I smelled the sick-sweet odor of burning flesh again, heard whistling soft laughter and my own throaty screams, felt blood and semen trickling down my i

And I heard something else: Headmaster Mirovitch's dry, papery voice whispering while the iron met my skin. I forced myself to stare unflinchingly into the memory, the door inside my head a little ajar, showing me what I'd locked away so I could go on living.

"Da

I lifted my head. His hair was messy, windblown, and his blue eyes were humanly kind. I didn't deserve his kindness, and I knew it.

My eyes burned, but my left shoulder had quieted. It took me two tries to reply through a throat gone dry as reactive paint. "No. I'm not. Get the shovels, Jace. We've got some digging to do."

Chapter Seventeen

The garage housed garden implements and a sleek black hover, dead and quiescent on its landing gear. This space had been empty before I'd gotten rich. I had always meant to turn it into a meditation room, but I ended up avoiding it and doing my meditating in the living room or bedroom.

I pushed a stack of boxes aside, my hands trembling, and looked up to find Jace watching me, his wind-ruffled hair a shock of gold in the light from the bare full-spectrum bulbs.

"Listen." He pushed his hand back through his wind-struck hair. The motion achieved absolutely nothing in terms of straightening it, only made it stick up raffishly. He looked like Gypsy Roen's sidekick Marbery, all angles and cocksure grace under a shock of hair. "Why don't we call this off and get drunk? Tackle this tomorrow night."

"You might be able to get drunk. I can't." I was surprised by how steady my voice was. The smell of the garage, the hover on its leafspring legs and cushion of reactive smelling of metal and fustiness, clawed at my throat.

"Well, why don't we just fall into bed and shag until we forget this, huh?" He tried to make it sound like a light, bantering offer. Just like prejob bullshitting to ease the nerves. Unfortunately, his breath caught and ruined the effect.

Oh, Jace. I actually managed a smile, then pushed again. The boxes of files scraped along the floor, cardboard squeaking against smooth concrete. I looked down, saw the wooden door set in the concrete. A round depression in the center of the trapdoor held an iron ring.

"You truly are amazing." Jace propped the two shovels over his shoulder like an ancient gravedigger. "This is right out of a holovid."

Irritation rasped at me, but my retort died on my lips. He was too pale, sweat standing out on his forehead. We were both claustrophobic, and he… what was he feeling? If I touched him I would know. Bare skin on skin, I might have been partly-demon but I was still the woman who had shared her body and psyche with him. Almost a decade ago, but that kind of link didn't fade.

Was that why I couldn't quite let go of him? Or was it because he reminded me of the person I had been before Rio, a feeling I couldn't quite remember for all the sharpness of my Magi-trained memory?

"You don't have to come down." I closed my hand over the metal ring. It was so cold it scorched—or was it that my fingers were demon-hot? Dust stirred in the still-hot air; I was radiating again. I'll never need climate-control again, maybe I should hire myself out as a portable dryer. Rent your very own psionic heater, reasonable rates, sarcasm included.

"And let you face this alone?" He shook his head. "No way, sweetheart. In for a pe

Words rose in my throat. I'm so sorry. I wish I could be what you needed.

Instead, I wrenched the trapdoor up.

A musty smell of sterile dirt exhaled from the square darkness. I felt around under the lip of the hole. "Probably not working," I muttered. "That would just cap the whole goddamn day."

My fingers found the switch, pressed it, and a bare bulb clicked into life. I let out a whistling breath through a throat closed to pinhole size.

"How was the suckhead convention?" Jace's tone was light, bored. I glanced up at him, suddenly intensely grateful for his presence. If I owed Gabe and I owed Eddie, what did I owe to Jace?

The answer was the same in each case: too much to easily repay. Debt, obligation, honor; all words for what I would keep paying until I took my last breath, and be damn grateful for the chance.

It was better than being alone, wasn't it?

It sure as hell was. "Interesting. He says he's got some books on demons I'm welcome to come by and peruse." I managed not to choke on my own voice.

"You do have a way of making friends." Hipshot and easy, Jace Monroe examined the trapdoor, the bare bulb's glare showing a drop bar and a square of pale, dusty dirt.

"Must be my charming smile." I leaned forward, catching the drop bar in both hands. The dress slithered as I trusted my weight to the iron, pulling my legs in and dropping them, then slowly lowering myself down. Thank the gods my swordhilt didn't snag. I hung full-length for a moment, then dropped the three inches to the dirt floor. "There was a werecain attack while I was there."

He hadn't mentioned my torn dress or the black demon blood crusted on the side of the bodice. I would never have believed him capable of such restrained tact. If I went upstairs to change out of the dress, I would find some way of putting this off.

"I can't leave you alone for a moment, can I." Jace handed the first shovel down, the second. He took his sword from his belt and handed it to me.

"Guess not. I went by and checked out Christabel's apartment." Bits of garden dirt still clung to the rusting metal of the first shovel. The second shovel was new. Why had I bought it? Was my precognition working overtime again?

Sometimes I hated being gifted with precognition as well as runewitchery. Being gifted with precognition is like being shoved from square to square on a chessboard, you're never sure if your intuition is working or if you're just getting paranoid. There's precious little difference between the two. Out of all the Talents, precogs—Seers—go insane the most.

"Find out anything interesting?" He leaned over, caught the drop bar, and levered himself down gracefully. His T-shirt came untucked when he curled down and I caught a flash of his ta