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It was a good thing I’d killed it, too. I didn’t think I could take another pass or two of combat. I was savagely tired, the mark on my shoulder pulsing, another soft, warm wave of Power sliding down from it. That was begi
I will always come for you.
How long did it take to turn an A’nankhimel back into a demon, back in Hell? What would happen to me if he found me, assuming he was even back in my world again? Could the genetic reshaping he’d done to me be undone? Last time it had taken a mixture of genetic shaping and tantric magick, a remaking from the center of my bones outward. I still wasn’t sure of the extent of what it had done to my psyche, but as long as I was still a Necromance it didn’t matter.
Maybe. But still, I wondered just how human I was anymore.
I waited until the imp was just a bubbling streak on the reactive before the point of my sword dropped slightly. I hadn’t known reactive would do that. I wondered what it would do for other demons. It was cheap and easy to obtain, and maybe I could think of something to do with it that would make my life easier.
Like maybe plasgu
Yeah, right. And Ludders will suddenly start riding slicboards.
The sides of the trough began to vibrate, another train was on the way. I took a few ru
Another hot flush of Power from the mark on my shoulder gave me strength to haul myself up over the edge of the wall. I collapsed and lay panting along the top, closing my eyes and blessing the gods. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you. Thank you.”
The rumbling whistle of a hovertrain—antigrav and screaming air pushed too fast—began to mount. Another train coming; would it have another imp on it? I rolled away from the hovertrain track and half-fell down a gently sloping embankment, landing with a splash in something cold and wet.
Oh, great. I lay and listened to the rumblewhine.
My arms and legs were weighted with lead. The mark pulsed again, this time all the way down my left arm and out my fingertips. I coughed, turned my head to the side, and vomited an incredible mass of ice-hot writhing poison; it jetted out of my nose and mouth and I almost choked on a lunatic giggle thinking that it might blow out my ears too. It seemed to take forever, but when it was done, I immediately felt much better. Scrabbled myself over onto my other side, hooked my claws in the solidity under the wet slimy stuff I’d landed in—please don’t let it be slag, I prayed—and began to struggle away from whatever I’d thrown up. My chest no longer burned.
I reached the top of another shallow slope and the scent of pines closed around me. I rolled, and ended up against something soft—tree branches drooping down to the ground.
They made a lovely little tent. I wriggled my way underneath, getting a confused impression of mountains and trees. It was as far away from the track and possibly being seen as I could get. I wanted to hide further away, but I couldn’t manage the energy to move. I curled up into a ball and fell into a deathly doze.
Chapter 14
Four days later I made it into Freetown New Prague.
I wouldn’t have chosen a Freetown. I was a Hegemony citizen, and even the Putchkin Alliance was safer than a Freetown. I would have been able to plug into the bounty net in a Putchkin or Hegemony town. In a Freetown, I’d have to depend on luck and wits, both severely strained by recent events. I’d come a lot further on the hovertrain than I’d thought, and striking out across open country seemed more dangerous than just following the hovertrain trough and finding a station where I could get a transport or buy a slicboard. I’d found a station all right. The only trouble was, I’d somehow gotten on a nonstop train that ended up in New Prague.
I came into the city tired and grainy-eyed, the mark pulsing softly on my shoulder, and found a room in the red-light district. I don’t speak Czechi, but Merican is the trade-lingua in most Freetowns, so after a bit of pidgin-laced negotiation and the exchange of a handful of New Credit notes I found myself in possession of a few square feet among the bordellos and hash dens for a few days.
Strictly speaking, the bordellos and hash dens were my type of places; I’ve hunted many a bounty down in whorehouses and bars. More importantly, the psychic turmoil of sex, synth hash, and—since it was a Freetown—real hash, Clormen-13 and other drugs, desperation, and violence would keep some of what I was hidden. Not for long—I’d have to live with being hunted for a while—but the longer I could stay alive, the more I could find out about the demons Lucifer wanted tracked down. Since I had nothing left to do and was already being attacked, hunting down four demons was where I was going to start. Better to face death on my feet doing what I could, I couldn’t assume Japh would find me in time.
I warded the room well and dropped down on the narrow bed, sinking into another type of deathly doze, sleeping just deeply enough to let the mind rest a little; not the deep velvet unconsciousness Japhrimel could lull me into.
Stop thinking about him. He’ll find me. He said he would.
Yeah, but when? And what else might he have said to Lucifer when he was sure you couldn’t understand? Answer me that. I tossed and turned, fretfully.
Stop it. This doesn’t do you any good. Rest.
I lay and tossed, tried not to think about it, failed miserably. The room was small—a pink-flowered rug on the floor, a retrofitted plas-powered radiator giving out heat I didn’t need, a bed, a dresser I didn’t need either, and a bathroom. It was a far cry from a villa in the Toscano hills.
I didn’t need to use the toilet, but I did fill the bathtub and scrub the dirt off my skin. Then I soaked in the warm water, and then spent some Power on cleaning off my clothes. I had landed in slag after killing the imp, and if I was still human my skin might be burning with slagfever by now as my body struggled to cope with the aftermath of a cocktail of chemical sludge. It took a long time to get my clothes free of the stink.
Finally, clean enough to pass for human, I sca
I had one other thing to do. The only thing I had was a knife, and it took a long time of hacking at my hair before I managed to get most of it off. The resultant shaggy mass around my face was short enough that I wouldn’t lose out on visibility, and nobody should recognize me right away unless they knew my tat. Only other psions were likely to be capable of distinguishing the fine differences between one psion’s accreditation tat and the next, so it would make me a little less likely to be caught.
Or so I hoped. Then again, I looked like a holovid model and spread out through the psychic ether with the unmistakable flame of demon. But the people who knew my face might just know my human face, and a demon would probably simply be able to smell me. In any case, I’d have to risk it; it was the best I could do. I toyed with the idea of trying a glamour to change my appearance, or even buying some skinspray to alter my complexion; but a glamour would just attract the notice of more psions and demons. Besides, I didn’t know how my dermis would react to skinspray. The last thing I needed was to break out in hives.