Saint City Sinners

It wasn't enough for a full-scale assault on a Mob Family.

The Ta

I might be stupid, but I'm fast, I'm mean, I have a sword that can cut the Devil and the will to use it. Whoever's there will just have to die, that's all. After they answer my questions.

All my questions.

I had to approach from uphill, swinging out in a wide arc and staying below the hoverlanes likely to hold police traffic. Slicboards can't go over water, and if I'd had a hover… well, a hover wouldn't have changed anything. Across the water, the lights of downtown glittered like a necklace, the orange glow of antigrav and streetlights staining the rainy sky. My city throbbed and pulsed like a heart, its chambers thudding with Power-a pulse echoed by the Gauntlet, clasped to my left wrist.

There are demons in the city tonight. Something's happened. Has Japh broken free? I don't think so, I'd probably feel it through the mark. But something's shifted.

Let's hope that's good for Eve.

The mansion was low and beautiful, a song of blue Graeco-Revival architecture, with outbuildings just as graceful and flawless. The Family had done well for itself. Good shielding wedded to the walls and property line, the kind of shielding laid for corporate clients. There would be regular security too, magscan and deepscan shields, a whole battery of defenses as well as guards roaming the grounds.

In other words, a great opportunity for me to let loose a little aggression.

I hid the slicboard under a juniper hedge, laying a small keepcharm over it. Then, my jeans and shirt flapping and crusted from my healed wounds, I walked up the broad, well-maintained sidewalk as if I belonged in the neighborhood.

The front gates were iron, stylized teeth writhing decoratively along the top curve. They reminded me of another set of gates on the East Side, gates with a gothic R H worked into their metal, standing slightly ajar and beckoning like every trap.

I set my shoulders, gritted my teeth.

The defenses started to quiver as soon as I got within half a block. I tasted the pulsing of the energies used to build them, could See the layers of Power thickening, hardening at my approach. By the time I stood in front of the gates the defenses trembled on the edge of locking down.

My sword was in my left hand, sheathed and ready. I would need it soon.

In the old days, I would have found a way to subvert the defenses, broken in quietly and pursued what I wanted. Now I had a share of a demon's Power and no need or desire to act like this was corporate espionage. Besides, I wasn't here to steal. I was here for something else entirely.

The house at the end of its black-paved drive was lit up like a Putchkin Yuletree. I looked at it shimmering on its' gentle hill and the rage rose up inside me. Whoever was in that house knew something about Gabe's murder, if they hadn't committed it. Either way, they were going to tell me what they knew. All of it. Quickly.

This time I didn't push the red, screaming fury down. I took a deep breath and jabbed my right hand forward, pushing through the layers of defenses on the property line. They went crystal, locking down-but I was already in, the stiletto of my Will driven like a physical knife between ribs.

My right-hand rings, amber and obsidian, sparked as I pumped Power into them, the mark on my shoulder blazing with soft spurred heat. I drew on it, drew on the brand that was Japhrimel's name, past caring that it was a demon's name I was relying on. If he had broken free and showed up here it was all to the good; if other demons came along… well, that was a risk I was going to have to take.

I found myself not minding as much as I should have. The wristcuff tightened, grinding the bones underneath again too, and sent another ice-burn of welcome strength jolting through my shoulder, into my chest.

I set my feet and pushed, a low sound of effort jetting between my teeth. Felt a yielding like fat-rich flesh under a sharp thin blade.

I struck. A short, sharp kia, my eyes suddenly hot and blazing as if lasers were popping out of them. Deadly force coiling, smashing loose, I wrenched the tough fabric of the defenses apart as casually as Japhrimel might tear apart an origami animal-a crane, perhaps-in his golden fingers.

Dead silence except for my own harsh breathing. Where were the alarms, the guards? Or was this the wrong house? The orange-haired courier had said this was the place, described it to me, and a few moments at a public infoshell had confirmed that the property was legally owned by one Asa Ta

I stepped through the rent in the shielding, now bleeding Power into the rainy air, and pushed the gates. Metal squealed as they swung wide on well-oiled hinges. My boots crunched on the raked immaculate gravel. I drew my sword, shoving the scabbard back in its loop on my belt and taking out a plasgun.

"Hi honey," I called, my voice flashing through the rain, breaking the drops into smaller steaming tracers of mist, spraying out in concentric rings. "I'm hooo-ome!"

Gravel crunched like small bones underfoot. I couldn't feel them, the guards, hanging back out of sight. But I could imagine them just fine. Trap. It was a trap.

So what? Close the trap, and see what happens when Da