Dead Man Rising

"Da

I looked back over my shoulder, brushing my hair back with my left hand, the sword's scabbard bumping my cheek, my emerald spitting a single spark.

Gabe leaned against her desk again, her arms folded. Tears glimmered on her cheeks, her eyes were red and overflowing. She looked wavery through the welling water in my own eyes. "Why did you burn your house, Dante?"

What could I tell her? In the end, I settled for a simple answer.

"That was a toll. A toll paid to the dead." I felt the smile tilt the corners of my mouth up even as a tear slid down, touching my emerald and rolling across my Necromance tat. "Gods grant they stay there. Goodbye, Gabriele. May Hades watch over you."

Outside, the sky was cloudy, night falling early as it always does in winter. There were no holovid reporters—they were busy covering a scandal (having to do with a judicial candidate, three hookers, two million credits, and a plasgun) in the North District. I was now, to my profound and everlasting relief, yesterday's news and probably already forgotten by a great many people.

A gleaming black hoverlimo broke free of its holding pattern overhead and drifted down, landing with a sigh of leafsprings, the side hatch opening. I barely waited for it to open all the way before I climbed up, ducking through the airseals into climate control and filling my lungs.

Inside, everything was crystal and pale pleather, gleaming softly. Fitted into a rack on the wall was a twisted, scarred dotanuki, its blackened blade still seeming to vibrate with the last strike made against an enemy it had no hope of defeating. If Japhrimel had been there, Mirovitch couldn't have attacked me—and Jace would probably still be alive.

The sharp pinch of guilt under my breastbone retreated. I would pay my penance in my own way, in my own time. For right now, I couldn't stand to think about it.

I made a slight sound, wiping my cheek with the back of my right hand.

Japhrimel sat tensely on one side. I made my way over to him as the hatch closed. The whine of hovercells crested, rattling my teeth as it always did, and my stomach flipped as the hover ascended smoothly.

I dropped down onto the pleather seat next to him, letting out a sigh that seemed to crack my ribs.

"You are done?" He sounded as flat and ironic as he had when I'd met him; he stared straight ahead, giving me his profile. It had taken some doing to convince him to stay out of sight in the hover while I finished the hunt I'd started. He had remarked dryly and fiercely that after coming back to physical life, tracking me through Saint City, and finding me trying to fight off Mirovitch, he now knew what fear was, having never felt it in all the long time of his life as a demon.

The admission, pulled out of him as if by force, had broken me into a sobbing heap. And he had agreed to let me finish up with Gabe alone.

"That was the last bit of business," I said. "The case is closed. Gabe can go on now. And nobody needs to know about you. It would just raise more questions."

"Hm." He opened his arm as I slid next to him. I settled against his side, letting out another deep sigh as his familiar heat and aura closed over me. I laid my head on his shoulder and was rewarded with the pressure of his cheek against the top of my head, a subtle caress. "And you?"

I shut my eyes. It seemed they were leaking again. I had thought I was done with crying. "I thought you were dead," I said for the hundredth time. "I keep thinking you'll vanish, and I'll wake up."

"I told you, while you live, I live." He sounded calmer now, the tension leaving him. He settled back into the seat, and I leaned into him, grateful. "I would not abandon you, Dante."

"So if I'd dumped the… the remains into a vat of blood, would it have… brought you back?" A flare of embarrassment stained my cheeks with heat. It had been hard to leave him in the hover while I went into the police station; I still wasn't sure he was real. The throbbing of his mark on my shoulder, sending waves of heat through me, had remained a steady reassurance. But I wanted to hear him tell me again, I wanted him to keep talking, and above all else I wanted to feel his arm around me and feel the proof and comfort of his skin on mine.

He repeated his answer for me, again. "Most likely. The first… resurrection… is always the hardest."

"The fire, and the shields on my house collapsing—"

"I am here, am I not?" Now he sounded amused. He stroked my cheek, and my breath caught. It was almost enough to drown out the persistent scratching sound of Mirovitch's last scream. "It was not so long a time, Dante. Not for us."

"Long enough," I muttered, my heart twisting again. "And if I'd known—if someone would have told me—Jace would still be alive."

"You said yourself the god denied you entrance into death. Perhaps it was his time." Japhrimel now sounded thoughtful. His coat shifted slightly as he moved against the seat. The driver made one low swooping turn over the city, banking to head southeast. The setting sun glittered on the water, rippling on the bay's surface, the shadows of transport hovers like the shapes of great fish drifting against the ground. I sat up to look out the window past his profile, studying the familiar geography of Saint City falling away under the hover while he studied my right hand loosely clasped in his left, lying in his lap. "I am sorry. I should have sought to tell you more."

"There wasn't time while we were hunting Santino. It doesn't matter." It did matter, but who was I to tell him that? If he wasn't going to make a fuss over me leaving him for dead in a burning house, I wasn't going to blame him for not having a chance to tell me more about what I was. Even enough for me, for once. More than I deserved. "Where are we going?" And the more important question, "Are you… are you angry with me?"

Anubis help me, I still sounded like a kid. Could he forgive me for using Jace to remind myself of what I used to be? Could he forgive me for loving a human, even if it was no match for whatever it was I felt for him?

A demon.

My demon. One of the many. Only this one, I hoped, wouldn't hurt me.

He stirred slightly, freeing his left hand to gently cup my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. A spark of green flared to life in his dark eyes, like a flash at the bottom of a deep, old well. "You are asking if I am jealous. I recall a certain swordfight not too long ago, and the outcome—and my warning you not to use me to make the Shaman jealous."

I was glad part-demons didn't blush. At least, I hoped I didn't. My cheeks were on fire. The green spark vanished, leaving his eyes dark and thoughtful as they had been since his resurrection; his skin on mine made pleasant shivers rill down my spine. Seeing him brought home how little I knew about him—and how little I knew about what he'd made me into.

A hedaira.

Whatever that was. Maybe now I could learn what it meant.

His thumb stroked my cheek. My eyes half-closed. When he spoke next, it was very softly, his voice an almost-physical caress against my whole body. My flesh tightened like a harpstring. I swallowed hard against the wave of liquid heat. "How can I possibly be jealous when I know you spent your time grieving for me, Dante?"

That reminded me of something else. "Lucifer," I reminded him. "He said he'd been trying to contact you. That was the first clue I had that…"

Japhrimel shrugged. "What do you owe him?" He leaned closer, a fraction of an inch at a time. My heart sped up, anticipation beating just under my skin with my pulse.

I swallowed dryly. My eyes were dry and grainy, and bright diamond needles of pain sometimes rippled through my head. I couldn't think of Jace without my chest hurting and my eyes filling—couldn't think of Rigger Hall without shuddering, my hands shaking like windblown leaves. It would take time for the effects of Mirovitch's mental assault to fade, time for my almost-demon body to heal. It would be quick, Japhrimel told me—but his idea of quick wasn't exactly mine. Yet.