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It was impossible. I wasn’t going to be calm anytime soon.
“Patience, my curious one.” He made a slight movement, as if reaching for me. His hand fell back to his side when I shied away, my bootheel scraping the immaculate floor. It wasn’t him I flinched from. It was that the elevators were very close and he obviously expected me to get into one, my hands threatened to start shaking again at the thought. My breath came hard, harsh, my ribs flickering. “Soon enough.”
The normals in hotel uniforms drew back as he stalked through the lobby. I suppose a wild-haired, wide-eyed Necromance with a white-knuckle grip on her sword and the static of bloodlust and rage following her like a cloud wasn’t exactly their usual clientele. The lobby was nice, I supposed—red velvet couches in baroque style, synthstone glowing white, a statue of a woman in a traditional Czechi costume with water pouring from her bucket into a rippling pool below. I tried to ignore the sudden swirling of fear and worry in the normals, followed Japhrimel’s back. The tattoo on my cheek shifted.
One of the elevators opened as we approached. It was empty. It stayed open, and Japhrimel stepped inside.
No. Please, no.
I couldn’t back down. I had promised, I’d said it was fine. Backing down now would be weak.
So I stepped into the elevator and fought down the hot sourness that rose in my throat as the doors slid closed. All the air seemed to vanish. I couldn’t close my eyes to shut out the terrible feeling, so I stared at Japhrimel’s feet, pressure building behind my eyes. The push of antigrav helped by pulleys made the bottom of my stomach drop out.
“Japh?” I sounded about a half-step away from panicking, my voice breathless and cracked.
A long pause. “Yes.”
“Could you… is it possible for you to turn me back into a human?” I have to know. I won’t get any peace until I know. It’s just one of those questions I have to ask. Just… I have to know.
His boot-toes didn’t shift. “Would you want to?” Was that hurt in his voice? Wonders never ceased.
“Will you just tell me? I need to know.” Had to know. Sekhmet sa’es, he was a demon again, with all a demon’s Power.
Did he still want me?
It’s not that he’s back to his old self. I stared at his boot-toes. It’s that I have no control. He could make me do whatever he wants. He could do anything he liked to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. That scares the hell out of me. How am I supposed to deal with that?
“Even if I wanted to, I could not grant you mere humanity again.” His tone was so chill the air cooled a perceptible five degrees. “The changes have settled in, and you would not survive such a thing. You will not escape me that easily.”
You know, I would have settled for a simple yes or no, Japh. I sighed, my shoulders hunching with tension. The air inside the elevator was begi
That, of course, reminded me of my altar and the shape of fire behind Anubis as he laid the geas upon me. I had studied geas in Theory of Spirituality classes, the gods asking of a specific service; they were rare even among Necromances. Gods, demons—everyone was messing with my life now. I tried to remember what the gods had asked of me. Couldn’t.
I just had to wait. But the thought of that waiting didn’t fill me with terror. I didn’t think my god would ask me for anything I couldn’t do.
The door opened and I bolted from the close confines, searching for a wall to put my back to. Japhrimel stepped out, soundlessly, and waited. He knew better than to touch me, but his aura did what he refrained from, wrapping around mine in an almost physical caress.
When I looked up and nodded, taking in harsh gulps of blessed air, he led me down a quiet, red-carpeted hall and opened a pair of double doors. Once I followed him through, they sighed closed behind me on maghinges.
The suite was done in gold and cream, and a large mirror hung over the nivron fireplace, which was cold and empty except for a fire screen decorated with peacocks. And I wasn’t alone in the room with Japhrimel. I caught a confused sense of movement and threw myself away, my back meeting the wall with a thump between a bathroom door and a tasteful, restrained end table made of spun plasglass.
Lucas Villalobos looked over from where he leaned against the mantel, his lank hair lying slick against his forehead. “Relax, chica,” he said in his softest voice, but he was gri
“Friends?” My own voice cracked. My nerves were too jangled for me to be polite to anyone right about now. I was slowly, slowly coming back from the edge. “If these are friends, I’ll take my enemies.”
I didn’t mean it. My mouth just bolted like a runaway hover.
Villalobos laughed, the crackling wheeze I was begi
Four other men and a woman watched me. A Shaman, a Magi, a Nichtvren—and two men without the glow of psions, but who weren’t normals either. They weren’t werecain, or kobold, or swanhild, or Nichtvren. I took this in as Japhrimel held perfectly still, his glowing eyes on me.
“Introductions.” Lucas sounded maniacally calm. “Da
Thanks, Lucas. That really helps.
The Nichtvren rose, a tall male with a shock of dirty-blond hair and the face of a holovid angel, his eyes curiously flat with the cat-sheen of his nighthunting species. Below the shine, they were a pale blue. He wore dusty black, a V-neck sweater and loose workman’s pants, his feet closed in scarred and cracked boots. I had only seen this kind of Power once before in a Nichtvren, a heavy blurring onslaught of a creature built to be both a psychic and physical predator. He felt like Nikolai, the Prime of Saint City. “Tiens,” he said.
I blinked.
Prickles of almost-gooseflesh touched my back. Nicht-vren don’t make me as nervous as demons do—but anything that fast, that tough, and with that much Power made me nervous enough. “What?” I managed, blankly.
“I am Tiens.” He smiled broadly, showing white teeth; fangs retracted to look like ordinary canines. No wonder he’d been Turned—Nichtvren were suckers for physical beauty. I guess immortality was easier when you could collect pretty toys. The rolling song of a different dialect tinted his voice, it sounded faintly like Franje or Taliano. “At your service, belle morte.”
“Nice to meet you,” I lied. “Look, I don’t mean to—”
“I’m Bella Thornton. I worked for Trinity Corp.” The female was a Shaman, her tat a curved symmetrical thorn-laden cruciform. It shifted, stabbing her cheek. “Seem to remember you cracked us once.” She had wide dark eyes and a triangular Neoneopunk haircut, her bangs falling in her face. Her rig was light—only carrying four knives and a scimitar. The sword lay across her lap, in a beautifully made leather scabbard, not reinforced by the look of it. I would have bet hard credit the steel inside was only decorative.
“Might have been me.” It had been me, if she was talking about the corporate espionage I used to do with Jace. I’d done Trinity a few times. “I hear Trinity had the best shields in the biz while you were there.” It was a lie—I’d been before her time, and I knew it. She couldn’t be more than twenty, so unless she was working as an intern there I wouldn’t have cracked her shields.