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That was a high compliment from a Nichtvren, but I never want to hear a bloodsucking Master contemplate any of my vital fluids.
“Thanks for the compliment.” I settled for a shrug worthy of Japhrimel. My eyes flicked over the room, full of heavy pseudo-antique furniture. Drapes pulled tight over the windows, a nivron fire in a grate. The room was done in red and brown, a graceless slashed painting of a bowl of fruit hung over the fire. Two tables, a collection of heavy chairs. Bella crouched by the fire, her eyes closed. The Asiano Magi hunched over a table spread with papers, his sword close at hand. Today he wore a Chinese-collared shirt and a long brown coat, as if he was cold. He also looked extremely nervous. He was pale under the rich color of his skin, and his hair was sticking up like a crow’s nest.
Va
I looked past him—a fire escape going down to a dark alley. A good escape route, or a good way for an enemy to sneak up on us. I shook my head, backing away from the window. My hair fell in my face again, I pushed it back.
“He can look after himself,” Japhrimel replied. “Do not worry on his account.”
The Necromance I’d seen in the sparhall tipped me a lazy salute from a chair set in a dark corner, his long legs outstretched. His emerald spat a single spark, my cheek burned again in answer, the inked lines of my tat ru
Gods above. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Nice way to thank a man who saved your life,” he answered in a low, clear voice. “I was following you; saw you get hit with that hover. Your… ah, demon there, he shunted the reaction fire straight up and repaired the damage. Damnedest thing I ever saw.” He rose easily; he was tall when he wasn’t hunching. Dark eyes, dark hair, unshaven cheeks blurring his tat a little. Nice mouth. Lines around the eyes—he wasn’t young. “I’m Leander Beaudry.”
My jaw didn’t quite drop, but it was close. “The Leander? The Mayan reconstructionist?” I knew he looked familiar. What’s he doing here, and why isn’t he laser-shaved according to the Codes? It was time to measure him out.
He gri
Ah. No Necromance codes out here. He was trained Hegemony, but he works bounties. Probably not very good at following orders, been doing freelance for a while. Nice to know. “I read about Egypt. Raising Ramses for the Hegemony Historicals. Nice work—I saw the holovid.” You kept his apparition up for a good forty-five minutes, very nice work indeed. I heard you’re pretty good with an edged weapon, you brought in Alexei Hollandveiss alive and trussed up like a Putchkin Yule turkey. That’s right, you specialize in cold-case bounties.
He completed the psionic equivalent of dogs sniffing each other’s rumps by meeting my eyes. “Well, mummies are easier than cremains. You’re the one who raised Saint Crowley the Magi. And the Choyne Towers.”
That managed to make me shudder. It was one of the jobs that had made my reputation as the best Necromance in the world, one capable of raising apparitions from bits of bodies instead of the whole corpses, the fresher the better, that other Necromances needed. A Putchkin transport had failed and crashed into the three Choyne Towers, and I’d worked for weeks raising and identifying the dead—all but the last ten, who must have been vaporized. Thanks for reminding me. I looked down at his hands, scarred and bruised from swordfighting and working the heavy bag. “Why were you following me?” A faint tone of challenge.
“Not every day I see a tat I recognize on the face of a holovid angel. Was curious. Did a few stunts with Jace Monroe in Nuevo Rio before he went solo. He always talked about you.”
“Did he.” I looked away first, down at the floor. My chest tightened. He’d talked about me? What had he said? “Well, you’ve fallen into bad company.”
“Looks like you’ve got a hunt going. I want in.”
Everything I’d ever heard said he was direct. “Ask Japhrimel.” I tipped my head back. Japh had gone still and silent behind me, the mark on my left shoulder turned molten-hot. I paced over to the table the Magi was hunched over and pulled out a chair, dropping down and presenting the Necromance with my profile. “I normally don’t work in groups, but it seems I’m overruled.” I looked down at the papers, started shuffling through them. Maps of New Prague, magscans, sheets covered with cramped, crabbed Magi codewriting. I glanced at the Asiano, who said nothing. His eyes glittered at me, and I saw how tight his hand was on his swordhilt.
He’s afraid of me. Why? My left hand tightened on my scabbard as I stared back at him. The room had gone hot and tense. “What do we have?”
The Asiano shifted in his seat, said nothing.
I heard Leander move, leather boots creaking. “If you’re hunting demons, you’ll need every hand you can get. I’m trustworthy, I’ve got a reputation to protect just like you do.”
The Asiano handed me a blue file folder. The mark on my shoulder crunched with heat, another flush of Power tingling along my skin. “Fine.” I glanced up at Leander, flipped the file open. “I told you to ask Japh. I’m not the one in charge here.”
“Could have fooled me,” Leander muttered. He turned on his heel, facing Japh. “What do you say, then? I’ve done bounties in every Freetown on earth, and I’m bored. A demon should be a nice change.”
“If you like.” Japhrimel sounded chill and precise. Why? It wasn’t like him to care about something like this. “You are here on Dante’s sufferance, then, Necromance. Since you rendered her aid.”
Amaric Velokel, I read. Then a twisted, fluid glyph—the demon’s name in their harsh unlovely language. The glyph had lines scratched out and redrawn, obviously the Magi was working on figuring out if there was more to it. A combination of divination and codebreaking, feeling around for a demon’s Name, sidestepping countermeasures and protections that the demon would use to keep its identity a secret.
I felt the familiar thrill go through me, shortening my breath and prickling at my skin. A new hunt.
All the shutting myself up in a library hadn’t managed to change the way I felt about bounties. Sure, they paid well—most of the time. But the real reason I took them was for the hunt. The feeling of pitting myself against an enemy both strong and fierce; just like a sparring match and a battlechess game all rolled into one. The year that Japhrimel spent dormant I had flung myself into bounties, working one after another after another, always feeling nervous and edgy if I didn’t have a hunt started or under way. Gabe called it “bounty sickness.”
I hated the danger of bounties—they had almost killed me more than once—but I’d grown to need it. Almost addicted. Hate and love, love and hate, and need.
I had said all I wanted was a quiet life. Had I been lying? Or was it just that I was angry now, being jerked around by demons once more?
I turned the page over. More conversation in the room, but I closed it away. I turned over the next sheet too and looked down at a drawing, finely shaded in charcoal. A face—round and heavy, square teeth that still looked sharp, cat-slit eyes that seemed light-colored. The face wasn’t human, for all that a human hand had drawn it. The eyes were too big, the teeth too square, and the expression was… inhuman.