Dead Man Rising

His face eased slightly, mouth relaxing into a genuine smile. "Hey, no problem, baby. Hanging out with you is better than a holovid game."

An unwilling smile tilted my lips up even as my heart sank. Jace Monroe, the man I'd thought abandoned me years ago, loved me. But I still couldn't stand the thought of anyone but Japhrimel touching me. If Japhrimel could be resurrected… "I'll choose to take that as a compliment. Let's go."

Chapter Twenty-four

Polyamour's was in the Tank District, on the very northern fringe between the Tank and the financial heart downtown. Of course, she had to be close to her clients; and her clients had to be rich. To afford a liaison with Polyamour, or one of her contracted sexwitches, took a chunk of hard cash or credit that Lucifer himself might have balked at spending. She was evidently expecting us, for the security net acknowledged my hover; Jace spent a few minutes tapping on the deck, and the net's AI linked with ours, brought the hover down in a circling pattern to land with a jolt on the roofpad. It was broad daylight, so the roof lot was empty except for one sleek gleaming hoverlimo.

I spent a few moments studying the roof and the shielding. The place was well-shielded, both magickally and electronically; I wouldn't have wanted to crack it. The roof entrance was a sort of small gazebo seemingly made of stone and strung with glittering plaslights; stairs descended. I exchanged a glance with Jace and shook my right hand out. It threatened to cramp. My shoulder eased a little; maybe the thin shell of calm over my deepening panic was fooling the demon-made mark.

We went down the stairs and finally came to a beautifully carved mahogany door. Venus glowed from one half, her wooden face serene; Persephone with her pomegranate on the other. Others might have mistaken it for art, but any Magi-trained psion would know better. The sexwitch's realm was Eros and Thanatos, the life-urge married to the reality of Death itself, pain turned to pleasure turned to Power; that it was offered for clients dispelled none of the mystery.

Some theorists said sexwitches were the bridge between sedayeen—the healers—and Necromances, those who tread in the realm of Death. I didn't believe it.

Still, I couldn't dismiss the power of sex itself. No psion who deals with the deepest urges of the body and psyche can.

Sex was the least of what sexwitches offered. Redemption, delight, the chance to play with the deepest and most forbidden of fetishes and fantasies, companionship, vulnerability—sexwitches offered all the power of the physical body to soothe, all the power of sex to enlighten, to loosen, to liberate. It was heady stuff, and people paid in buckets for it, making sexwitch House taxes a top revenue source for the Hegemony government.

Two full-spectrum lights made to look like gaslamps burned behind the silvery lattices of ornate carriage lamps. I inhaled and smelled kyphii, sex, and synth hash.

"Great," Jace murmured. "The one time I go into Polyamour's and it's during the day."

I laughed. The sound bounced off the creamy marble walls. "I wonder what these stairs are like when it rains."

"Slippery. But think of the possibilities."

"Slipped disk. Cracked skull." I kept the laughter back only by sheer force of will.

He snorted, a short chuckle. "You have no imagination."

"More like too much." The banter to ease our nerves was so familiar I began to relax fractionally. Then the doors gave a theatric creak as they began to open, a slice of glowing almost-candlelight widening.

We waited, my right hand closing around the hilt of my sword. Jace let out a short sound that wasn't quite a whistle and nowhere near a word. When the door was fully open, it revealed a dimly lit hallway hung with red velvet and decorated with tasteful marble statues. And there, standing in the middle of the hall, was the transvestite Polyamour, the most famous sexwitch of our generation.

She was tall, and her face was as beautifully made as any architectural triumph: caramel skin; long, curling black hair; and amazing gray eyes fringed by thick charcoal lashes. She had long aesthetic legs, lightly muscled and revealed by a fluttering pale-pink silk dress. Her feet were bare and surprisingly small, the nails lacquered deep blood-red. One dainty ankle was graced with a thin gold bracelet, and gold hoops hung from her perfect ears. High on her left cheek was the inset ruby, aesthetically placed, which any datscan would reveal as encoded with a powerful protective chip. If a plasgun or projectile discharged anywhere near her or if the ruby were removed, the police would automatically be called. A datscan would also reveal her as a licensed sexwitch, immune to several laws applying to other psionics—and worth ten years in a federal prison if she was assaulted. The Hegemony received far too much in tax profit from sexwitches to look kindly on any harm done to them—not like the fifty years before and after the Parapsychic Act, when sexwitches had all but died out due to the abuse they received from being bought and sold like chattel, worse than any other sort of psion.

Her quick intake of breath showed a pair of shallow high breasts under the silk. I wondered if they were augments, or if she'd taken hormone courses.

Her Power reached out, caressed the edges of both my shields and Jace's. The familiar smell of sexwitch—sex and vulnerability and pure sugary musk heat—rolled out from her in waves.

Anubis, she's powerful.

"Dante Valentine. And Jace Monroe." She tilted her beautiful head slightly, an acknowledgment that sent her perfect ringlets cascading. "I thought you would be along sooner rather than later. The holovids just reported Aran Helm's death." Her voice was caramel with a slight astringency, too deep for a woman's but too light for a man's.

I sniffed. Something smelled odd here: a rank edge of fear under all the perfume.

I saw a glint of silver at her throat.

I dug in my pocket, pulled out the broken necklace. The spade swung at the end of it. "Tig vedom deum." My voice stroked the hall, made the velvet hangings flutter. I was forgetting to be careful.

Polyamour actually turned pale and stepped back. She reached up to her sculpted throat and touched her own necklace. If my eyes hadn't been so sharp, I might not have been able to see it in the shifting, dim light. But there it was, a silver spade. I felt a jolt of sick happiness, one more co

"You were not a member, but you know." Her voice was less smooth now. Her eyes slid over me again. "I suppose you should come in."

"I suppose we should." I moved down the steps, heard Jace behind me. "The way I see it, either you're part of it or you're a potential victim. If it's the former, I'll get you first. If it's the latter, you could do worse than have my protection."

She laughed, but the sound was unsteady. Polyamour turned on one soft bare foot and started off down the hall. "I was told you were direct. That seems a bit of an understatement."

"One of the victims was a girl of yours." I moved after her, my boots clicking softly. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She cast me one extraordinary dark glance over her shoulder. The sway of her hips under the silk was almost a woman's. I looked back at Jace, who seemed bemused. "You were at the Hall," Polyamour said. "You know the habit of silence can be hard to break. I didn't know anything useful about Yasrule's death until Edward brought me the pictures. Then I knew."

"What exactly do you know?" She wasn't moving very quickly. My boots, and Jace's, thudded in the murmuring silence, all sound dulled by the velvet on the walls. The doors closed behind us on whisper-soft hinges.