Saint City Sinners

There's a mind-numbing brand of circular mental motion that takes place while you're on stakeout. I thought about Japhrimel, would remind myself not to think about him and wrench my mind into remembering Gabe, lying tangled in a young hemlock. I would think of Gabe's daughter and a holostill smile. Would she have the dimple in her left cheek, like Gabe? Would she have a hoarse little braying laugh like Eddie? Would I be able to protect her while I was ru

Though Eve didn't seem to be doing too badly. What the hell did she need me for? What was it with demons being so interested in me?

Which would lead me right back to thinking about Japhrimel. I'd begged him not to hunt her. Yet he'd refused to tell me what was going on, left me with McKinley while he went out looking for her. If he had managed to catch her and return her to Lucifer, what would have happened? Would he even have told me?

I shouldn't have been, but I was still surprised. Wearily, heart-wrenchingly surprised, each time I thought of it. He was a demon. His idea of truth wasn't necessarily mine. To him, I might be no more than a valued possession; a pet, even. You love your cat or your cloned koi, but you don't treat it like a human. No, you pet it, feed it, take it to the Animone for its shots and checkups. You don't treat it like a partner, or an equal.

Even if it's referred to in the singular, with you.

Had he thought that it would push me back on Lucifer's side if he appeared to be in danger? Or had he miscalculated, not thinking Eve was strong or smart enough to catch him or hold him this long?

Why? If I could have asked him anything, that little word would be it. It would cover so much, if I could trust his answer.

But he had held me while I cried, hadn't he? And no matter what kind of trouble I was in, I usually could count on him to bail me out. That was worth something, wasn't it?

I cherish my time with you. His voice, smoky-dark and smooth.

I tore my thoughts away from him again with an almost-physical effort, wondering about Lucas and Leander. Where were they? Were they even now frantically looking for me? Or had they been killed?

There was no more time for thinking. My prey came down the sidewalk in the early-morning dark, walking arm-in-arm as if they hadn't a care in the world. They might even have believed themselves safe.

After all, what did a sedayeen and a Saint City cop have to fear?

Only me, I thought, silent and deadly in the shadow of a holly hedge.

Only me.

I let them get through the shields. The layers of energy flushed a deep blue-green, settled as the healer stroked them. Bile rose in my throat. Gabe would not have denied a sedayeen entrance into her house, especially one working with Eddie. So she would have been already inside when something alerted Gabe to a possible attack on her property and the defenseless healer inside. Gabe, sword in hand, went out alone to defend her home and got shot. Then it was child's play for the healer to «clean» the psychic traces inside Gabe's house after she and the normals she'd let in through Gabe's shields searched for the vials.

Just like now it was child's play for the healer to slip in through the defenses with her normal in tow.

I let them get inside the dark, silent house, then drifted across the street and touched the shields. Softly, a kitten's brush of a touch, warning them not to react to me. Gabe's work recognized me-how could it not?

Oh, Gabriele. I failed you. I should have stayed. Even though it was hard, I should have stayed. Why didn't you tell me you were getting married, you had a kid, you were afraid for your life? Why? Didn't you trust me to come if you needed me?

No, she hadn't, because I'd lied to her about Japhrimel. With the best of intentions, because it would only raise more questions, because I couldn't stand to admit to her that I loved a demon and I was no longer fully human. Each phone call, with its long silences and the things neither of us could say, was another failure on my part. I should have told her.

It was my fault. I hadn't been here to protect her.

I slid through the layers of energy slowly, so slowly. Gabe's front gate squeaked as I pushed through it, but they wouldn't hear. Even if there had been Saint City PD magshielding or a lock on the place as the site of a homicide, a cop would have no trouble getting clearance, especially a normal homicide deet flush with dirty Chill money.

Everything so neatly arranged. Everything so perfectly pla

The front door was open, the shields on the house quivering with the presence of intruders, even acceptable ones. The windows, blank empty darkened eyes, watched as I approached carefully, cautiously, and closed my right hand around my swordhilt. Up the stairs to the massive double door, not the side door that any friend of Gabe and Eddie's knew to go to. I slid through the front door, my new boots soft and soundless.

Just like a thief.

I found the trigger by the front door, my fingers sliding over the base of a bronze statue. The statue was Eros in Psyche's embrace, his wings pulled close around the halfnude female. Eddie had called it Classic Porn, sniggering every time he passed it. Gabe would icily remind him that it was an antique, and that it had been in her family for generations, and that the artist had been a close family friend. I could just see her immaculate eyebrow lifting as she repeated this patiently, as if Eddie was a primary-school kid with a dirty mind.

Of course, Eddie did have a primary-school kid's dirty mind. It was one of his greatest personality traits.

It was dark, but demon sight pierced the darkness easily, showed me the coats and boots from Gabe's hall closet scattered in careless lumps, each pocket sliced. They were coming back for another search, looking for the four vials I had given away.

I smelled kyphii and Gabe's particular scent, the tang of Eddie's dirt-drenched aura. Then I felt the other psion's shock as I dropped the outer layer of my shielding and blazed through the Power-soaked house like a star.

I pressed down on the trigger, and had the satisfying experience of hearing the locks on each window and door click shut. Maglocks, to turn the house into a fortress. The front door whooshed on automatic hinges, thudding closed and locking too.

I'm sorry, Gabe. I walked through the foyer, my boots absolutely silent. I could feel them both, the sloppy wash of the normal man tainted with fear and thudding heart, copper adrenaline. And the healer's deep well of violet-scented calm, underlain with a slight nasty wet-fur smell of panic fighting with her training and genetic disposition to tranquility.

The kitchen. I gave them plenty of time, walking slowly, the rage rising until my aura flushed red, almost in the visible range. A low punky crimson stain spread through the trademark swirling glitter of a Necromance's aura, mixing with the black diamond flames of an almost-demon. Strength flowed hot down my left arm, poured through the mark on my shoulder. I wondered if Japhrimel could feel me drawing on the mark, could feel my anger.

I didn't care.

The sword whispered out of its sheath as I stepped into the hall. Nothing had changed-the place still looked like a tornado had hit it. It hadn't even been dusted or sca

I would have thought they would go through the motions of investigating, for a cop as good as Gabe. Or had this case been given to Pontside too? Of course, if the Chill cure was still here, they couldn't run the risk of anyone else finding it. Not after they tossed the house with a psion to clean up the traces of normals trooping through.