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Despite my brave words, I couldn't rescue Doreen's daughter. I stared at the phone, longing to reach through and throttle the Prince of Hell. Why call me now? He'd left me to rot in Rio, stewing in the aftermath of Japhrimel's death and savage guilt that I hadn't been able to save Eve. The fact that Eve was a demon Androgyne—a child I had no hope of raising—didn't salve the ache. Doreen's ghost had asked me to save her, and I'd tried.
Tried and failed. Lucifer had Eve now. That I'd had no hope of fighting the Devil to keep him away from her didn't ease my conscience one iota.
Failed. Just like with Japhrimel, lying dead on the white marble plaza under the hammerblow of Nuevo Rio sun, dead and gone. I kept my hand away from the mark on my shoulder only with a titanic effort of will that left me shaking, sweat for once springing up along my scalp and the curve of my lower back.
I drove my teeth into my lower lip, the sweet jolt of pain shocking me back into some sort of rational frame of mind. Too bad rational never worked where demons were concerned. Stop it. You don't owe the Devil jackshit, you're free. He can't hurt you now.
That was a lie. The Devil could hurt me plenty if he bestirred himself to do it.
"Da
I backed away from the phone, eyeing it as if it would rise up and strike me. Given what I knew of demons, it was a distinct possibility.
"Da
I cleared my throat. "Wrong number," I called back, my voice as harsh as if Lucifer had just half-strangled me again. The same wrong number that sent a letter I never let you see.
Silence. I glared at the phone, daring it to ring again.
It didn't.
Leave me alone. Leave Jace alone, leave my city alone. You killed Japhrimel and stole Eve, you leave me alone or so help me, I will…
What could I do? A big fat nothing. Fat gooseflesh rose rough on my arms, bumps struggling up under golden skin. I took a deep, racking breath in. I couldn't worry about demons now too. Let's just hope he was playing with me, what do you say, Da
Finally, my shoulders dropped slightly. Why would Lucifer pick now to start playing mind-games on me again? I hadn't done any divination for a week or so, but even when I had, there had been no whisper of demons in my cards.
Then again, last time there hadn't been any warning either. And the letter, with its fat blood-red seal…
Don't think like that, Da
Despite the fact that paranoid people usually survived better than the foolhardy, I told myself sardonically. Besides, if Lucifer thought he could use me again, he was going to have another thing coming. A long, hard thing, preferably a painful one.
"Da
I swallowed, my throat clicking. Turned away.
The phone rang again. Twice. Three times.
No. My hands shook.
"Da
I scooped the phone up, pale crimson fury spilling through the trademark sparkles of a Necromance in my aura. "Look, you son of a bitch—" I began, the cupboards chattering open and closed, a mug falling from a rack and hitting the wooden floor with a tinkling crash.
"Da
I swallowed. Jace skidded into the room, his guns out. "I'm fine," I said to both of them. My throat was full of scorching sand. "What's up, Spooky?"
"Saddle up, I've got another body." Gabe was trying to sound flip and hard, but her voice shook. I could almost see her pale cheeks, the trembling around her mouth.
"Where?" I shook my head at Jace, whose hands blurred, spi
"Corner of Fourth and Trivisidero, the brick house with the holly hedges." No wonder Gabe sounded uncomfortable—that was precious close to her own home. "Get here quick, we're holding the scene for you."
"I'll be there in ten." I dropped the phone back into its cradle. "Let's go, Jace."
"You might want to take a look at this first. Are you all right?" His eyes dropped from me to the shattered mug on the floor. Shards of ceramic dust—my anger and fear had shattered the mug, ground into it, compounding injury with insult. It was the blue Baustoh mug.
The one Jace liked, the one Japhrimel had chosen for his use the only time he'd drunk coffee in my house.
Anubis et'her ka. I didn't want to think about it.
"What have you got?" I rubbed delicately at my throat with my fingertips, my nails pricking, claws threatening to spring free. My right hand actually itched for my sword-hilt, and the sensation was so eerie I almost couldn't feel relieved that it wasn't cramping.
"It occurred to me to look at the last yearbook that listed Mirovitch as Headmaster, the year he died. Guess who was on the Student Yearbook Committee?" Jace looked up from the glossy blue shards of ceramic, and the question in his eyes remained unspoken. I was grateful for that, more grateful than I ever thought I would be to him.
"Who?"
"Christabel Moorcock."
Chapter Twenty-two
I suppose we had to give the reporters something; besides, it was too hard to talk while on slicboards with the wind rattling and howling around us. So we took the hovercar. The flashes from pictures being snapped bathed the underside of the hover. I glanced out the window, my lip curling, glad of the privacy tinting. Jace drove while I looked through the yearbook from my eighth year at school. "Check page fifty-six," he said, and I flipped through the heavy vellum pages. "Now look at Moorcock's picture."
Christabel Moorcock, known as "Ski
Below were the usual lists of interests, including Faerie Ceremonial magick—and a small black mark shaped like a spade in a deck of playing cards. I rubbed at it, thinking it an ink blot, but it didn't blur. "The black mark?"
"Now try page fifty-eight. Steven Sebastiano." Jace's fingers danced over the touchpad, and the AI pilot took over inserting us into hovertraffic. I felt the familiar unsettling pull of gravity against my stomach, swallowed hard. Can it be you have not resurrected him? Lucifer's soft, beautiful voice teased at my brain.
Resurrect a demon? It's not possible. But then again, I'd been researching only to try and find out how Japhrimel had altered me. I had never thought that… It wasn't possible that I could bring him back, was it?
Was it?
I want him back. That was a child's plaint. I wanted each dead person back. I wanted every person I'd ever loved back.
And I, of all people, should understand the finality of Death.
"Da
I shook myself back into the present, closed the yearbook with a snap, not bothering to check Sebastiano's picture. "You're a sneaky bastard." I tried to sound admiring. "Good work, Jace. I wouldn't have thought of that. Have you looked to see—"
"I haven't made a list yet. But I thought it was worth looking into, seeing as how that's the only link between Christabel and Polyamour I can find in the yearbook."