Dead Man Rising

I opened my fist.

Valentine, D. Student Valentine is called to the Headmaster's Office immediately.

The fléchette gleamed in my hand, long and thin and razor-sharp. Made of Power and the metal in the necklaces, it rang softly as I touched it with a forefinger. I blew a low tuneless whistle between my teeth and looked up toward the gate.

It was open slightly, fog wreathing through the bars. Come into my parlor, said the undead Headmaster to the wary ex-pupil. The lunatic singsong sounded a little bit more like me. I grabbed at the thought, sucked in another breath, and dug in my messenger bag. I had no sheath that would fit the fléchette, so I wrapped a supple piece of plasilica around it and stuck it in my pocket with the last spade necklace.

I don't think I'm going in through the front door. I melted out of the shadow of the doorway to vanish into the fog.

Chapter Thirty-four

It was still there, the old drainage tu

After hearing about the Black Room, I wondered if other secrets were kept. I would have thought it was impossible to keep anything from Mirovitch or his stooges. Now, with an adult's sense of circumstance and complexity, I found myself thinking a little more charitably about the stooges and rats. They had just been terrified kids, like me.

But I'd never broken. I hadn't broken even when he'd forced me to watch Roa

I had never broken, not even afterward when Mirovitch dragged me back into his office to punish me, demanding to know just what my sedayeen roommate had told her social worker—and if she had told anyone else. I knew now that he had been almost frantic at the thought of losing his personal playground, not to mention the punishment that would have been meted out to him; swift execution, most likely in a gasbox. After that, he'd had it in for me. My defiance outraged him, but I was still only one small girl in a large school. I frequently managed to stay beneath his notice.

I ducked into the end of the tu

I lifted my sword, thumbed it free. The slight click of the katana easing loose of the scabbard was loud in the cottony silence. Three inches of steel slid free, and a faint blue glow flowed along the metal.

I saw the tu

Halfway through, I paused and lifted my blade, looking at the left-hand wall. My boots sloshed; I moved very carefully, peering through the dark.

There it was. In black permaspray, the crudely-done drawing of a slender Egyptian dog with long ears, reclining; a copy of an ancient statue. I remembered biting my lip as I marked the wall, the sharp chemical reek of permaspray, and the satisfaction I'd felt when it was done. It was the mark of my personal war with the school, my badge of honor for not breaking. I smiled, holding my sword up a little higher, shaking my hair back. In the dim light, shadows shifting and crowding, it seemed the dog's head dipped once, nodding at me. I set my jaw and nodded back, then carefully stepped away.

The tu

The familiar loose tension invaded my body, my heartbeat speeding up. I chased down a demon even the Prince of Hell couldn't catch. I survived two run-ins with the Devil. I'm the best Necromance in Saint City. I'm listed as one of the top-ten deadliest bounty hunters in the Hegemony.

That thought caused a sniggering little laugh to jerk its way out of me. One of the biggest hunts of my life, and I wasn't going to make a red credit off of it.

That was a very adult thought, and I was glad. I still had to check to make sure I wasn't wearing the plaid skirt, and every time the denim of my jeans touched my knees I had to suppress a guilty start.

The grass was no longer manicured but knee-high, weeds lying thick and rank and edged by frost in the deeper shadows. I saw the familiar bulk of the dormitories' roofs over the hill, decided to go uphill and angle toward the Headmaster's House. I could cut around the back of the dojo and avoid any possible patrolling teacher or stooge.

As if there was anyone here.

For all I knew, nobody was here… but just because I felt like I should sneak around to avoid Mirovitch's hounds didn't mean it was a bad idea to exercise a little caution.

I'm being eaten alive by my own childhood. Gods above. Why me? The answer came in a flash. Why not? Who, after all, was better equipped than me?

I reached the top of the hill and hunched down instinctively, the edges of my shields roughening. Dust, offal, magick, aftershave, chalk, and leather. I retreated, almost as if scalded, gasping and dropping flat as the wall of magick passed overhead. He was sca

Well, now I know he's here. I tried to remember if I had any consecrated chalk in my bag. Then it occurred to me that I was doing exactly what a scared teenager would do—hiding, and waiting for Lourdes to find and trap me like a rabbit.

Which brought up another glaring hole in my plan. I didn't even have one. I was operating on a sort of half-ass instinct I hadn't used since I was twelve. A miserable instinct that was just what any stupid kid would use. The fact that it was impossible to plan for something like this didn't exonerate me from feeling a little dumb.

Time to start thinking, Da