Lilith Saintcrow - Dante Valentine 2 - Dead Man Rising

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DEAD MAN RISING
By
Lilith Saintcrow
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
THE NINE CANONS: AN INTRODUCTION
NEITHER FRIEND NOR FOE
Glossary
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by
Excerpt from The Devil's Right Hand copyright © 2006 by Lilith Saintcrow.
Cover design by Don Puckey
Book design by Stratford Publishing Services, Inc.
Warner Books and the Warner Books logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. or an affiliated
company. Used under license by Hachette Book Group, which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group, USA
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: September 2006
To LI.
Peace. The charm's wound up.
Acknowledgments
This book would literally not exist without a number of people, starting with my husband, James. Without
his constant support, none of this would be possible; he is far better than I deserve even on my best days.
Also due for thanks are my two children, who teach me more about being human than any dry book
could.
Danny Valentine and her world would not be without my agent Miriam Kriss, who has believed in me
since the very first draft, and Devi Pillai at Warner, the editor every writer wishes for. Not to mention
Linda Kichline, who spotted the potential in a battered manuscript and continues to be both a true friend
and a stellar editor.
Thanks, also, to the ad hoc writer's community in Vancouver and online: the Write Like You Mean It
group; Carolyn Rose and Mike Nettleton, networkers extraordinaire; Mel Sanders (who gets the biggest
cookie); Clyde Holloway, the nicest man I know; Jefferson and Janine Davis, true friends even when I'm
rude; and the Mighty F-Iist, for massaging my brain every morning.
To the music makers who feed my Muse, thank you. Especially Rob Dougan, Garbage, the Eagles,
Delerium, and Frou Frou. Writing is much easier with good music.
Almost last but certainly not least, many thanks are due to Chelsea Curtis, coworker, fan, and righteous
babe; and Joe "Monk" Zeutenhorst, whose grasp of technology always stuns me.
Last of all, thank you, my Readers. As always, you are who I write for. Let me thank you once again in
the way we both like best: by telling you something really cool. Just settle in, turn the page, and let's get
started…
Quis fallere possit amantem?
—Virgil
Leaving Hell is not the same as entering it.
—Tierce Japhrimel
Since before the Awakening, the world has been aware of the existence of psionics. And since the
Parapsychic Act was signed into Hegemony law, the psionic Talents have been harnessed to
provide valuable service to mankind. Who can imagine a world without Skinlin and sedayeen
cooperating to find new cures for every gene-morphing virus, creating new techniques for
alteration and augmentation of the human body? Who can imagine a time when the Magi did not
probe the laws of magick and alternate realities, or when Ceremonials and Shamans didn't
minister to the needs of believers and track criminals, not to mention provide protection for
houses and corporations? Who can imagine a world without psions? The Necromance's place
within this continuum is assured: The Necromance treads in that realm of mystery called Death.
At hospital bedsides and in courtrooms, Necromances ease the passing of their fellow humans or
provide testimony for the last wishes of the dead. An accredited Necromance's work touches the
very mundane world of finance, wills, and bequests at the same time that they peer into the dry
land of Death and return with absolute proof that there is an afterlife. Necromances also work in
the Criminal Justice arm of the Hegemony, tracking criminals and murderers. A Necromance
requires not only the talent for entering the realm of Death, but also the training and sorcerous
Will to come back out of Death. This is why accreditation of Necromances is so expensive, and so
harrowing for even the Academy-trained psionics whose Talent lies in Necromance.
On the flap opposite you will see several careers where an accredited Necromance can make a
difference…
—Brochure, What Can Death Do For You?,
printed by the Amadeus Hegemony Academy of PsionicArts
Chapter One
The cavernous maw of the warehouse was like the throat of some huge beast, and even though it was
large and airy claustrophobia still tore at my throat. I swallowed, tasted copper and the wet-ratfur reek of
panic. How do I talk myself into these things? "Come on, do a bounty, it's easy as one-two-three,
we've done a hundred of them." Sure.
Darkness pressed close as the lights flickered. Damn corporate greed not putting proper lighting in
their goddamn warehouses. The least they could have done is had the fluorescents replaced.
Then again, corporations don't plan for hunters taking down bounties in their warehouses, and my vision
was a lot better than it used to be. I eased forward, soft and silent, broken-in boots touching the cracked
and uneven floor. My rings glinted, swirling with steady, muted light. The Glockstryke R4 was in my left
hand, my crippled right hand curled around to brace the left; it had taken me weeks to shoot left-handed
with anything like my former accuracy. And why, you might ask, was I using a projectile gun when I had
two perfectly good 40-watt plasguns holstered in my rig?
Because Manuel Bulgarov had taken refuge in a warehouse full of plastic barrels of reactive paint for
spreading on the undersides of hovers, that's why.
Reactive paint is mostly nonvolatile—except for when a plas field interacts with it. One plasgun blast and
we'd be caught in a reaction fire, and though I was a lot tougher than I used to be I didn't think I could
outrun a molecular-bond-weakening burst fueled by hundreds, if not thousands, of gallons of reactive. A
burst like that travels at about half the speed of light until it reaches its containment edge. Even if I could
outrun or survive it, Jace certainly couldn't, and he was covering me from the other side of the T-shaped
intersection of corridors faced with blue barrel after blue barrel of reactive.
Just like a goddamn bounty to hide in a warehouse full of reactive to make my day.
Jace's fair blond face was marred with blood that almost hid the thorny accreditation tat and the
spreading bruise up his left cheek, he was bleeding from his shoulder too. Ending up in a bar brawl that
alerted our quarry was not the way I'd wanted to do this bounty.
His blue eyes were sharp and steady, but his breathing was a little too fast and I could smell the
exhaustion on him. I felt familiar worry rise under my breastbone, shoved it down. My left shoulder
prickled with numb chill, a demon's mark gone dead against my flesh, and my breathing came sharp and
deep, ribs flaring with each soundless gasp, a few stray strands of hair falling in my face. Thank the gods
I don't sweat much anymore. I could feel the inked lines of my own accreditation tat twisting and
tingling under the skin of my left cheek, the emerald set at the top of the twisted caduceus probably
flashing.
Tone it down, don't want to give the bastard a twinkle and let him squeeze off a shot or two.
Bulgarov didn't have a plasgun—or at least, I was reasonably certain he hadn't had one when he'd gone
out the back door of the PleiRound nightclub and onto an airbike with us right behind him, only slightly
slowed down by the explosion of the brawl. After all, the PleiRound was a watering hole for illicits, and
once we'd moved and shown we were bounty hunters all hell had broken loose. If he'd had a plasgun, he
probably wouldn't have bothered to run. No, he would have turned the bar into a firezone.
Probably.
I'd almost had Bulgarov, but he was quick. Too quick to be strictly normal, though he wasn't a psion. I
made a mental note to tell my scheduler Trina to tack 15 percent onto the fee, nobody had mentioned the
bastard was gene-spliced and augmented to within an inch of violating the Erdwile-Stokes Act of '28.
That would have been nice information to have. Necessary information, even.
My shoulder still hurt from clipping the side of a hover as we chased him through nighttime traffic on
Copley Avenue. He'd been keeping low to avoid the patrols, though how you could be inconspicuous
with two bounty hunters chasing you on airbikes, I couldn't guess.
It was illegal to flee, especially once a bounty hunter had identified herself as a Hegemony federal officer.
But Bulgarov hadn't gotten away with rape, murder, extortion, and trafficking illegal weapons by being a
law-abiding jackass who cared about two more counts of felony evading. No, he was an entirely
different kind of jackass. And staying low meant a little more time without the Hegemony patrols getting
involved in the tangle, which made it him against just two bounty hunters instead of against full-scale
containment teams. It was a nice move, and sound logic—if the two bounty hunters weren't an
almost-demon and the Shaman who had taught her a good deal about hunting bounties.
My eyes met Jace's again. He nodded curtly, reading my face. Like it or not, I was the one who could
take more damage. And I usually took point anyway; years of working bounties alone made it a tough
habit to break.
He was still good to work with. It was just like old times. Only everything had changed.
I eased around the corner, hugging the wall. Extended my awareness a little, just a very little, feeling the
pulse thunder in my wrists and forehead; the warehouse was magshielded and had a basic corporate
security net, but Bulgarov had just walked right in like he owned the place. Not a good sign. He might
have bought a short-term quickshield meant to keep him from detection by psions or security nets. Just
what I'd expect from the tricky bastard.
Concentrate, Danny, Don't get cocky because he's not a psion. He's dangerous and augmented.
My right hand cramped again, pointlessly; it was getting stronger the more I used it. Three days without
sleep, tracking Bulgarov through the worst sinks in North New York Jersey, taxed even my endurance.
Jace could fall asleep almost instantly, wedged in a hover or transport seat while I crunched data or
piloted. It had been a fast run, no time to catch our breath.
Two other bounty hunters—both normals, but with combat augments—had gone down trying to bring
this guy in. The next logical choice had been to bring a psion in, and I was fresh from hunting a Magi gone
bad in Freetown Tijuana. From one job to the next, with no time to think, perfect. I didn't want to think
about anything but getting the next bounty collared.
I would be lying if I said the idea of the two extra murder charges and two of felony evading tacked onto
Bulgarov's long list of indictments didn't bring a smile to my face. A hard, delighted grin, as a matter of
fact, since it meant Bulgarov would face capital punishment instead of just filling a prison cell. I edged
forward, reaching the end of the aisle; glanced up. Nothing in the rafters, but it was good to check. This
was one tricky sonofabitch. If he'd been a psion it would have made things a little easier, I could have
tracked the smears of adrenaline and Power he'd leave on the air when he got tired enough. As it was,
the messy sewer-smelling drift of his psychic footprint faded and flared maddeningly. If I dropped below
the conscious level of thought and tried to scan him, I'd be vulnerable to a detonation circuit in a
quickshield, and it wasn't like this guy not to have a det circuit built in if he spent the credit for a shield. I
could live without the screaming migraine feedback of cracking a shield meant to keep a normal from a
psion's notice, thank you very much.
So it was old-fashioned instinct doing the work on this one. Is he heading for an exit or sitting tight?
My guess is sitting tight in a nice little cubbyhole, waiting for us to come into sight, pretty as you
please. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Sekhmet sa'es, he better not have a plasgun. He didn't. I'm
almost sure he didn't.
Almost sure wasn't good enough. Almost sure, in my experience, is the shortest road to oh fuck.
Jace's aura touched mine, the spiked honey-pepper scent of a Shaman rising around me along with the
cloying reek of dying human cells. I wished I could turn my nose off or tone it down a little. Smelling
everyone's death on them was not a pleasant thing, even if I, of all people, know Death is truly nothing to
fear.
Whenever I thought about it, the mark on my shoulder seemed to get a little colder.
Don't fucking think about that, Danny. Nice and cautious, move it along here.
A popping zwing! made me duck reflexively, calculating angles even as I berated myself for flinching.
Goddammit, if you heard the shot it didn't get you, move move move! He's blown cover, you know
where he is now.' I took off, not bothering to look behind me—Jace's aura was clear, steady, strong.
He hadn't been hit.
More popping, clattering sounds. Reactive paint sprayed as I moved, blurringly, much faster than a
normal human. My gun holstered itself as I leapt, claws extending sweetly, naturally, my right hand giving
a flare of pain I ignored as I dug into the side of a plastic barrel, hurling myself up, get up, and from there
I leapt, feet smacking the smooth round tops of the barrels. My rings spat golden sparks, all need for
silence gone. The racks holding the barrels swayed slightly as I landed and pushed off again, little glowing
spits and spats of thick reactive paint spraying behind me as lead chewed the air. He's got a fucking
semiautomatic assault rifle up there, sounds like a Transom from the chatter, goddamn cheap
Putchkin piece of shit, if he had a good gun he'd have hit me by now.
I was almost under the floating panel of a hover platform. Its underside glowed with reactive paint, and I
could see the metal cage on top where the operator would guide the AI deck through manipulating the
dangling tentacles of crabhooks to pick up five racks at a time and transport them to the staging area. A
low, indistinct male shape crouched on the edge of the platform, orange bursts showing from the muzzle
of the semiautomatic rifle with the distinct Transom shape. He wasn't aiming at me now, he was aiming
behind me at Jace, and this thought spurred me as I gathered myself and leapt, fingers sinking into the
edge of the platform's corrugated metal and arms straining, the deadweight of my body becoming
momentum as I pulled myself up as easily as if I were muscling up out of a swimtank. Almost
overbalanced, in fact, still not used to the reflex speed of this new body, proprioception still a little off,
moving through space faster than I thought I was.
Don't hit Jace, you motherfucker, or I'm going to have to bring you in dead and accept half my
fee. Don't you dare hit him, you piece of shit.
Gun barrel swinging, deadly little whistles as bullets clove the air. A smashing impact against my belly and
another against my ribcage; then I was on him, smacking the barrel up. Hot metal sizzled, a jolt of pain
searing up my arm from the contact, then faded as my body coped with the damage. He was
combat-augmented, with reactions quicker than the normal human's, but I'd been genetically altered by a
demon, and no amount of augmentation could match that.
At least, none that I'd come across yet.
I tore the Transom away and grabbed his wrist in my cramping right hand, setting my feet and yanking
sharply down. An animal howl and a crunch told me I'd dislocated his shoulder. Fierce enjoyment spilled
through me, the emerald on my cheek giving one sharp flash, the kia burst from my lips as I struck, hard;
ringed fist ramming into the solar plexus, pulling the strike at the last moment so as not to rupture fragile
human flesh. My rings turned my fist into a battering ram, psychic and physical power wedded to a strike
that could kill as well as daze. The oof! sound he made might have been funny if I hadn't felt hot blood
dripping down my ribs and the slight twitching as a bullet was expelled from the preternatural flesh of my
belly. Ouch. It stung, briefly, then smoothed itself out, black blood rising and sealing the seamless golden
flesh. Another shirt ruined. I was racking up dead laundry by the ton now.
Of course, I could afford it. I was rich, wasn't I?
Knee coming up, he struggled, but he was off balance and I shifted my weight, hip striking as I came in
close, he fell and I was on him; he howled as I yanked both arms behind his back, my fingers sinking into
rubbery, augmented muscle fed by kcals of synthprotein shake and testos injections. Gonna have to pop
that shoulder back in so he can't shimmy free of magcuffs. You've got him down, don't get cocky.
This is the critical point. Just cuff him, don't get fancy. He bucked, but I had a knee firmly in his back
and my own weight was not inconsiderable, heavy with denser bones and muscle now. The quickshield
sparked and struggled, trying to throw me off; it was a sloppy, hastily purchased piece of work—all right
for hiding, but no good when you had an angry Necromance on your back. One short sharp Word broke
it, my sorcerous Will slicing through the shell of energy—a Magi's work, and a good one, despite being
so hurried. I snapped the mental traces aside, taking a good lungful of the scent; maybe we could track
down whoever did the quickshield, maybe not. They hadn't done anything illegal in providing the shield;
quicks were perfectly legal all the way around. But a Magi this good might have something to say about
demons, something I'd want to hear.
"Jace?" I called into the warehouse's gloom. The sharp smell of reactive paint bloomed up, mixing with
dust, metal, the smell of human, hot cordite, sweat, and my own spiced fragrance, a light amber musk.
Sometimes my own smell acted like a shield against the swirling cloud of human decay all around me,
sometimes not; it wasn't the psychic nonphysical smell of a true demon, but the scent of something
in-between. "Monroe? How you doing?" Jace? Answer me, he was aiming at you, answer me! My
voice almost cracked, stroking the air with rough honey. My throat was probably permanently ruined
from Lucifer's fingers sinking in and cracking little bits of whatever almost-demons had in their necks. I
sounded like a vidsex operator sometimes.
Apparently I could heal from bullets, but demon-induced damage to my throat was another thing entirely.
"You're so much fun to hang out with, Valentine," he called from below. I tried not to feel the hot burst of
relief right under my ribs. The bitter taste of another hunt finished exploded in my mouth, my heart
thudding back to a slower pace. My left shoulder prickled numbly, as if the fluid mark scored into my
skin was working its way deeper. Don't think about that. "Got him?"
Of course I've got him, you think I'd be talking if I didn't? "Stuffed and almost cuffed. See if you can
find the control panels and bring this sucker to the loading dock, will you?" My lungs returned to their
regular even task.
My tone resumed its normal, whispering roughness. Most Necromances affect a whisper after a while;
when you work with Power wedded to your voice it's best to speak softly. "You okay?"
He gave a short jagged spear of a laugh, he was rubbed just as raw as I was. "Right as rain, baby. Get
you in a second."
My right hand clumsily rumbled for the magcuffs. Bulgarov mumbled a curse in some consonant-filled
Putchkin dialect. "Shut up, waste." I sank my knee into his heaving back. Short squat man, corded with
heavy muscle and dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans under his assassin's rig, a long rat-tail of pale
hair sliding out from under the kerchief he'd tied around his head like a kid playing minigang. "Unlucky
day for you."
The magcuffs cooperated, and I had to hold him down while I popped his shoulder back into the socket
with a meaty sound, eliciting a hoarse male scream. The cuffs creaked but held steady, and just to be
sure I dug in my bag and retrieved the magtape, spent a few moments binding the bastard's elbows,
knees, and ankles; I gagged him too. I was ready when the hover platform's control board lit up, I kept
the man down and watched him cautiously while the platform jolted into life and began to glide on its
prearranged path. Bulgarov had escaped last year from a seven-person Hegemony police unit that had
him down and cuffed; I didn't want to underestimate him.
Four little girls, six hookers we know he killed for sure, three we're not sure of, and eight men,
mostly Chill dealers. I wouldn't have minded the Chill dealers, but the kids… My rings were back
to a steady glow: amber, moonstone, obsidian, and bloodstone all swirling with easy Power.
I surveyed the mess the bullets had made of the reactive barrels as the hover platform glided over
neatly-placed racks and rows. Glowing paint dripped thickly under dim sputtering light from fluorescents
turned down for the night pulsing outside in all its shades of darkness. And he killed them slow. Gods.
I could understand killing when necessary, the gods know I've done my share. But kids… and
defenseless women. Even a sedayeen healer experienced with mental illness could do nothing for this
man; he was a pure sociopath. No remorse, no hesitation, no conscience at all; he was neither the first
nor the last of his kind the world would see. And probably not the last one I'd hunt, either.
The trouble was, I'd had little difficulty tracking him. Thinking like him. Being like him, to catch him.
That was starting to worry me.
The hover platform settled with a jolt and Bulgarov thrashed, making a muffled sound behind the gag. It
probably wasn't comfortable, lying facedown on a cold metal platform with a stretched-out, busted
shoulder and a bruised solar plexus. I might have broken his nose, too, when I had my knee in his back.
At least, I hoped I had. My hand tightened on the neck of his jacket as I finished searching him for
weapons, finding the trigger to the quickshield—a pretty ceramic medallion with a Seal of Solomon
etched into one side—four knives, two projectile guns, and a little 20-watt recharge plasgun fitted into a
pocket on the thigh of his jeans.
I turned the plasgun over in my hand. Gods. A tremor slid through me, my teeth chattering briefly. That
close to blowing up this whole warehouse, would have taken a good chunk out of the
neighborhood here too. You son of a bitch. Thank the gods you didn't use this.
The assault rifle bothered me, but he could have had it stashed on the airbike. My tat tingled, ink running
under my skin, and my left shoulder tingled too. I was used to both sensations by now; did my best to
ignore them. I'd smashed my slicboard into the side of a concrete building. If I was still human I'd be
dead by now.
Jace met me on the platform. He looked like hell, his clothes torn and his face bloody and bruised. He
also looked chalky-pale under his perpetual tan. I'd have to healcharm him, or find a healer to do it.
"You okay?" My throat rasped a little, but my voice still made the air shiver like a cat being stroked.
He nodded, his blue eyes moving over the trussed package on the floor, checking. I reached down, set
my feet, and hauled Bulgarov up, nodding toward the pile of weapons. Without the brace of his Shaman's
staff, Jace almost-limped on his stiff knee over to the pile, his sword jammed through the belt on his rig. It
was a dotanuki; heavier than the last sword I'd used. My right hand cramped again, remembering driving
the shattering blade through a demon's heart as we both fell through icy air and smashed into the surface
of the frozen sea.
Don't think about that. Because thinking about that would only make me think of Japhrimel.
I winced inwardly as I hopped down to the yellow-painted concrete of the loading dock, the shock
grating in my knees. I'd gone a whole… what, forty-five minutes without thinking of him? Adrenaline was
wonderful, even if I wasn't sure what the demon equivalent to adrenaline was. Now if I could just find
another bounty as soon as I dragged this guy in, I'd be all set.
"Chango," Jace breathed. "He had a plasgun."
I could have laughed, didn't. The short man was a heavy limp weight, more awkward than hard to carry;
I was a lot stronger than I looked. He'd given up thrashing, his ribs heaved with deep breaths. I caught
him straining against the magtape and dumped him on the concrete. Drew one of my main-gauches from
its sheath and dropped to my knees, my fingers curling in his greasy hair. This close I could see the
blemishes on his skin, blackheads rising to the oily surface. A side-effect of illegal augments, he had a
pallid moon-shaped face scarred and pocked by terminal acne. Revulsion touched my stomach. I pushed
it down, pulling his head back and craning his neck uncomfortably. It would be easy to give a sudden
twist, hear the snap like a dry stick. So easy.
I laid the knifeblade against his throat. "Keep struggling," I whispered in his ear, my voice husky and
broken. "I'd love to rid the world of a blight like you. And I'm a deadhead, Bulgarov. I can easily bring
you back over the Bridge and kill you twice."
I couldn't, of course. Death didn't work like that; an apparition brought back from the halls of the
hereafter couldn't be killed twice, only sent back into Death's embrace. But there was no reason for this
bastard to know that. I'd seen the files and the lasephotos. I knew what this bastard had done to the little
girls before he killed them.
He went limp for a moment, then struggled frantically against the magtape. I held him down, easy now
that he was bound, and used the knife's razor edge to prick at his flesh, right over where the pulse beat.
"Come on," I whispered. "Struggle harder, sweetheart. I'd love to do to you what you did to the little
blonde girl. Her name was Shelley, did you know that?"
"Danny!" Jace's voice. "Hey, I've keyed in for pickup; we've got a Jersey police transport coming to get
us and our little package. Want me to bag the weapons?" Did he sound uneasy? Of course not.
Or did he? I might be a little uneasy if I hung around me. I wasn't hinged too tightly these days. Call it
nerves.
"Sure. Make sure that plasgun's sealed." My messenger bag's strap dug against my shoulder as I turned
my head, objects inside shifting and clinking a little against my hip. A tendril of dark hair fell in my face,
freed of the tight braid I'd put in this morning. Bulgarov had gone limp and still as a fresh corpse
underneath me.
I resheathed the knife and let him go, his head thudding none-too-gently against the concrete. My hands
were shaking, even my crippled right hand, which rubbed itself against my jeans. I was duty and tired, no
time for a shower while I was tracking this bastard, barely time enough for food to keep Jace going, since
my stomach usually closed up tight on a hunt. Jace was looking a little worse for wear, but he insisted on
coming along. And I was soft enough to let him—after a bit of bitching, of course.
Anything was better than staying at home, staring at the walls and thinking thoughts I would rather not
think. Especially since the only thing I seemed able to do while I was at home was research in Magi
shadowjournals and stare at the black urn that held a demon's ashes.
A Fallen demon. Japhrimel.
You will not leave me to wander the earth alone, a soft male voice, flat but still expressively shaded,
whispered in my head. I shut my eyes briefly. The mark on my left shoulder—his mark, the burning scar
Lucifer had pressed into my flesh to make Japhrimel my familiar—hadn't faded with Japh's death, just
gone numb as if shot with varocain. Sometimes it was hike a mass of burning ice pressed into the skin,
pulsing every now and again with a weird necrotic life of its own. I wondered how long it would feel like
that, if it would ever fade, and how long it would take for the cold burning numbness to fade.
If it ever did.
Goddammit, Dante, will you quit thinking about that?
Distant sirens began at the edge of my hearing, slicing through the rattling whine of hovertrafric. All this
reactive paint, and the bastard had a plasgun all the time. What if he'd decided to take a potshot, take us
with him?
Would a reactive fire kill me? I didn't know. I didn't know what I was now, other than almost-demon.
Part demon. Whatever. I was stuck with the face of a holovid model and a body that sometimes escaped
my control and moved far faster than it should, and I was taking down bounties like they were going out
of style. Gabe called it "bounty sickness," and I wasn't sure she was far wrong.
I'd be home this week for my usual Thursday rendezvous with Gabe in the back booth they saved for us
at Fa Choy's. I'd missed it last week. That's a good thought, I told myself grimly as the sirens drew
nearer and Jace finished bagging Bulgarov's weapons. Keep that one.
But what I thought of, as I watched the shapeless lump of the man magtaped on the floor, was green
eyes, turning dark and thoughtful, and a long black coat, golden skin, and a faint, secretive tilt to a thin
mouth. Goddammit. I was thinking about a demon again. A dead demon, at that.
Does a demon have a soul? The Magi don't know, they only know what demons tell them, and the
question's never come up. And what am I? What did he do to me, and why didn't I die when he
did?
That was a bad thought. Jace brought the bagged weapons over, his injured knee slowing him a little, and
gave me a tight smile. "Fresh as a daisy," he said in his usual careless tone. "I hate that about you."
摘要：

 Color---1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9-TextSize--10--11--12--13--14--15--16--17--18--19--20--21--22--23--24DEADMANRISINGByLilithSaintcrowContentsChapterOneChapterTwoChapterThreeChapterFourChapterFiveChapterSixChapterSevenChapterEightChapterNineChapterTenChapterElevenChapterTwelveChapterThirteenChapterFo...

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