The Devil's Right Hand

Chapter 14

Four days later I made it into Freetown New Prague.

I wouldn’t have chosen a Freetown. I was a Hegemony citizen, and even the Putchkin Alliance was safer than a Freetown. I would have been able to plug into the bounty net in a Putchkin or Hegemony town. In a Freetown, I’d have to depend on luck and wits, both severely strained by recent events. I’d come a lot further on the hovertrain than I’d thought, and striking out across open country seemed more dangerous than just following the hovertrain trough and finding a station where I could get a transport or buy a slicboard. I’d found a station all right. The only trouble was, I’d somehow gotten on a nonstop train that ended up in New Prague.

I came into the city tired and grainy-eyed, the mark pulsing softly on my shoulder, and found a room in the red-light district. I don’t speak Czechi, but Merican is the trade-lingua in most Freetowns, so after a bit of pidgin-laced negotiation and the exchange of a handful of New Credit notes I found myself in possession of a few square feet among the bordellos and hash dens for a few days.

Strictly speaking, the bordellos and hash dens were my type of places; I’ve hunted many a bounty down in whorehouses and bars. More importantly, the psychic turmoil of sex, synth hash, and—since it was a Freetown—real hash, Clormen-13 and other drugs, desperation, and violence would keep some of what I was hidden. Not for long—I’d have to live with being hunted for a while—but the longer I could stay alive, the more I could find out about the demons Lucifer wanted tracked down. Since I had nothing left to do and was already being attacked, hunting down four demons was where I was going to start. Better to face death on my feet doing what I could, I couldn’t assume Japh would find me in time.

I warded the room well and dropped down on the narrow bed, sinking into another type of deathly doze, sleeping just deeply enough to let the mind rest a little; not the deep velvet unconsciousness Japhrimel could lull me into.

Stop thinking about him. He’ll find me. He said he would.

Yeah, but when? And what else might he have said to Lucifer when he was sure you couldn’t understand? Answer me that. I tossed and turned, fretfully.

Stop it. This doesn’t do you any good. Rest.

I lay and tossed, tried not to think about it, failed miserably. The room was small—a pink-flowered rug on the floor, a retrofitted plas-powered radiator giving out heat I didn’t need, a bed, a dresser I didn’t need either, and a bathroom. It was a far cry from a villa in the Toscano hills.

I didn’t need to use the toilet, but I did fill the bathtub and scrub the dirt off my skin. Then I soaked in the warm water, and then spent some Power on cleaning off my clothes. I had landed in slag after killing the imp, and if I was still human my skin might be burning with slagfever by now as my body struggled to cope with the aftermath of a cocktail of chemical sludge. It took a long time to get my clothes free of the stink.

Finally, clean enough to pass for human, I scanned the wards again. Nobody had noticed me, but I was still cautious. I didn’t catch a whisper of anyone even looking at the thin, subtle glow of warding meant to keep away notice and guard my door.

I had one other thing to do. The only thing I had was a knife, and it took a long time of hacking at my hair before I managed to get most of it off. The resultant shaggy mass around my face was short enough that I wouldn’t lose out on visibility, and nobody should recognize me right away unless they knew my tat. Only other psions were likely to be capable of distinguishing the fine differences between one psion’s accreditation tat and the next, so it would make me a little less likely to be caught.

Or so I hoped. Then again, I looked like a holovid model and spread out through the psychic ether with the unmistakable flame of demon. But the people who knew my face might just know my human face, and a demon would probably simply be able to smell me. In any case, I’d have to risk it; it was the best I could do. I toyed with the idea of trying a glamour to change my appearance, or even buying some skinspray to alter my complexion; but a glamour would just attract the notice of more psions and demons. Besides, I didn’t know how my dermis would react to skinspray. The last thing I needed was to break out in hives.

Though that might have been a good disguise strategy, too.

I slipped out through the third-story window and down the rickety iron fire escape, leaving the door locked—I had another day paid for—and I didn’t leave anything behind.

The alley below was filthy, but I was relatively comfortable in my own bubble of demon scent. I found a mound of garbage and threw down the heavy mass of curling black hair, then used a very small bit of Power to spark the strands. They smoked and smelled awful, but they burned. I finally stamped the fire out and kicked garbage over it to hide the stench and the crisped ash. I tried not to feel victorious, but I didn’t try very hard. I’d survived for five days—not bad when you’re matched against demons.

I stepped out into the wilds of Freetown New Prague on a chilly afternoon just as the sky was beginning to cloud over. I decided to look around the bars a bit and see if I could get lucky. After all, everyone went to the bars to hook up, and I might be able to find a mercenary or bounty hunter I knew, either personally or by reputation. It was more than likely that someone I had met once or twice would be hanging around—New Prague was that kind of town. Once I found someone I knew, things would get a whole lot easier. I could hire someone to help me hide, or maybe find a Magi I could “persuade” to give me a crash course in what to do when demons were looking to kill you.

Six bars and one short, vicious fight in an alley later, I stepped into a dingy pivnice, a watering hole tucked under a bridge. I brushed at my sleeve—one of the group of normals who’d thought I’d be easy prey had bled on me. I hadn’t killed any of them, but I’d been tempted. Human flotsam tends to collect in Freetowns. Sometimes their greed overpowers their good sense and they decide to find out if a psion carrying steel is combat-trained.

I can never understand why any accredited psion—someone legally allowed to carry anything short of an assault rifle on the streets—would not undergo combat training and stay in shape. Even non-accredited psions are allowed to carry steel and one projectile weapon, though non-accrediteds usually didn’t go in for bounty hunting or anything else that would make a weapon necessary. Still… it doesn’t make sense to me not to both carry steel and know how to use it. Life is just too dangerous, especially for a psion. Normals hate and fear us enough that the less law-abiding are often tempted to think of us as targets.

The silence that fell in the pivnice when I entered was enough to make me think I’d done the wrong thing. It was a low, smoky room, three steps down from the sidewalk outside, a first floor that might have been at street level a hundred years ago but was now halfway to being a basement.

I scanned the place once. Normals, no shielding on the walls, and an atmosphere suddenly charged with fear and loathing. A deadhead bar. I would have backed out, but a familiar pair of almost-yellow eyes met mine.

Well, isn’t this par for the course. Shock and unfamiliar fear slammed into my stomach. A queasy sense of unease boiled under my breastbone. Of all the people I expected to see here, he was the last.

But I’d been looking for someone I knew, and this was better than I’d hoped for. If I could convince him not to try to kill me.

I paced away from the door, through the haze of synth-hash smoke and the effluvia of unwashed human. This was a rough place—for once I didn’t look out of the ordinary with my weapons. Freetowns don’t have the type of legislation covering who could carry what the Hegemony or Putchkin have; it’s largely up to the ruling cartel of each town to make the rules and enforce them. So I saw projectile guns and shortswords, a few machetes, assorted other odds and ends. No plasguns.

That was a mark in my favor. I had a bounty hunter’s license, and here in the Freetown I could carry whatever I wanted if I kept my nose clean and didn’t interfere with Mob Family wars or cartel turf disputes.

Lucas Villalobos sat in a heavily shadowed back booth, a bottle on the table in front of him. I picked my way between tables, giving the bartender in his stained apron one glance when he opened his mouth. My tat shifted on my cheek, burning, my emerald spat a single green spark. I saw a few normals around me flinch.

Don’t say anything. I really don’t want to kill anyone today.

The bartender, a stolid heavy Freetowner with a long, drooping black moustache, closed his mouth and wiped his hands on his apron. I felt no gratitude or relief.

Lucas had his back to the wall. There was nothing I could do—I slid into the other side of the booth, my back prickling at the thought of the door behind me. It was an implicit gesture of trust. Lucas wouldn’t get many clients if he let them get shot in the bars he frequented. He was known for taking difficult, complex jobs most generally involving assassination; if you had enough cash to hire him, he would kill whoever you asked. He only had one rule—no kids. He wouldn’t kill anyone under eighteen.

At least, not unless they got in the way during a job. I’d heard unavoidable casualties didn’t bother him too much.

His eyes met mine. A river of scarring ran down the left side of his narrow face. I shivered. Word was—now, this is only pure rumor, I don’t know for sure—that he’d once been a Necromance, and committed some act so awful Death had denied him.

I couldn’t imagine. To be a Necromance, to be protected by Death, and to have that protection snatched away; to be able to see other psions but unable to touch, unable to perform in that space where a Necromance is most fiercely alive… that would be torture. I could have pitied him, if he wasn’t so dangerous.

He examined me, blinking slowly like a lizard. His almost-yellow eyes brightened a little, and his lipless mouth curled up slightly. “Well,” he said, lifting one finger and tapping his ruined cheek. “You come up in the world, chica.” He used the same whispery tone most professional Necromances adopt after a while. Or maybe it could have just been something wrong with his throat. Sometimes a whisper’s more effective than a shout for scaring the blue lights out of people.

I felt a prickle between my shoulderblades. Did not look back over my shoulder, did not dare even shift my weight. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me.”

“I’d know that tat anywhere. You still move the same, too.” His hair lay lank against his skull. He smelled, as usual, of a dry stasis-cabinet, and I realized it wasn’t a human smell. Whatever he’d once been, he wasn’t strictly human now. “You owe me.”

I’d bargained with him in Nuevo Rio, while hunting Santino. “You turned down payment that time,” I reminded him. Shivered at the thought of paying him what he usually asked of a psion. There was a reason most of his clients were corporations and Mob Families. I heard he even did secret work for the Hegemony sometimes. “You thought I was dead.”

His face didn’t alter in the least, his expression was blank uninterested boredom. “Ain’t you? I don’t see much of what you once was in your face, Valentine.”

A hot plasburst of relief exploded in my stomach. So he did know who I was, he wasn’t just bluffing. Or if he was bluffing, he’d bluffed right. “Every day is a death,” I quoted, tapped my fingers on the table. “I’ve got a question and an offer for you, Lucas.”

He looked at me for a long time. There was a time when I would have raised my sword between me and his gaze, a time when the demon Japhrimel had been melded to my shadow while I faced down Lucas and I’d been damn glad of the backup. Now I held his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see how desperate I was. I kept my thumb on my katana’s guard and my right hand near the hilt, just in case. I might be almost-demon, but Lucas was truly dangerous. They don’t call him the Deathless for nothing.

He finally scooped up the bottle, lifted it to his lips, took a swig. Set it down with a precise little click. “What you want, chica?”

Relief, sharp and acrid. I didn’t let it show. He wasn’t averse to bargaining, or being hired. Maybe I could pull this off. “Are you afraid of demons?”

That won a small whistling wheeze from him, Villalobos’s version of a laugh. I watched his face crinkle, scarred flesh pleating. “They die just like everythin’ else,” he finally whispered.

I’m not even going to ask you how you know that. “All right. How would you like to work for the Devil, Lucas Villalobos? The Prince of Hell?”

He measured me for a long moment. “You’re fucking serious?”

I held his eyes for longer than I would have thought possible. “I’m fucking serious. Pay’s negotiable; the boss is a bitch, but you get to kill things the like of which you’ve never seen before.” At least I hope you’ve never seen them before. Or maybe I hope you have, and you know what to do to keep me alive.

He thought about it. I hoped he was tempted, too.

Dante Valentine, alive despite demons for maybe a little while longer, tempting a man who couldn’t die. I thought temptation was a demon trick.

Maybe I’d learned it from the best.

“Pay’s negotiable?”

I set my jaw, stared into his eyes, and nodded. “Negotiable, Lucas. What do you want?”

The faint twitch at the corner of his eye warned me. I slapped his hand aside, locking his wrist, the knife buried itself into the table. I found myself sitting across from him, my slim golden fingers locked in a vise around his hand on the knife.

Lucas Villalobos smiled, the river of scarring down one side of his face wrinkling. He hadn’t meant to attack me, just see if I was on my toes. His other hand was loosely clasped around the bottle.

I’ve never seen anyone human move that fast. If I squeezed, I could probably break a bone or two in his hand, and my fingers would sink into plasteel if I extended my claws.

His pupils dilated, turning his almost-yellow eyes a darker shade. “What’s the job?” he whispered. His skin was dry and surprisingly fine, but I could feel the tense humming strength in his arm. No, he wasn’t human anymore.

If he ever was. It’s only rumor when it comes to him, Danny. Be careful.

I took a deep breath. “Keep me alive long enough to kill four Greater Flight demons, and be my eyes and ears.” I quelled the urge to look behind me. The mark on my shoulder was soft heat now, wrapping around me, each pulse of Power sliding through my veins and bones. Distracting—but I could use the Power. Was Japhrimel tracking me even now?

Oh, gods, I hope so.

Lucas made that whistling, wheezing sound again, as if he was being slowly strangled. “You’re never boring,” he said in a low, choked voice. “Let’s go out the back door.”

Relief made me feel a little weak, but I didn’t look away. “What do you want in return, Lucas?”

“The usual.” His mouth twitched. “Or I’ll think of somethin’ else.”

Oh, gods. Gods above. My skin seemed to chill. But here was an opportunity, and he was definitely the lesser of two evils. I was slightly nauseated at the thought of what I was about to agree to.

Slightly? More than slightly. But when it comes to a choice between nausea and dying in some hideous way, I’ll take a little bit of indigestion.

“Done.” My voice husked through the word, like sodden silk dipped in honey. “One thing.” I paused, my hand still clasped around his. The knife creaked in the tabletop, a muttering tide of whispers rising through the pivnice. The town would soon be buzzing with the news that Villalobos had found a new client. “What are you doing in New Prague?”

He rasped out a laugh. I wasn’t sure I liked being the butt of Lucas Villalobos’s humor. “Abracadabra.” He pulled a wad of rumpled New Credits from his pocket and tossed a few on the table. “I was in Saint City way; she told me to go to New Prague and you’d find me. Bad news always turns up. I owed her a favor.”

The Spider of Saint City wasn’t quite a friend, but she wasn’t an enemy either. We’d done each other some good turns in the past—and she had warned me about Santino and given me the direction to track him. So she’d used a favor to send Lucas to me, which meant I owed her now.

Oddly enough, I found myself not minding. And unsurprised that Abra knew I’d turn up in New Prague. I wasn’t quite sure what she was, but she wasn’t human either, and she always seemed to know far more than she should even with her thriving trade in information.

But there might be more to this. “What were you doing visiting Abra?” I loosened my fingers, and he worked the knife free of the tabletop and made it vanish back into his clothing. I watched, but he didn’t so much as twitch toward another weapon.

“I drop in every twenty years or so. Nice to have a client that doesn’t age.” He stood up, and I slid out of the booth as well. Now I could see he was only about three inches taller than me (instead of the five-inch edge he used to have), and bandoliers still crisscrossed his narrow chest. He wore a blousy cotton shirt, yellow with age, and old broken-in jeans. The heels of his boots were worn down. “Let’s go, Valentine. From now until the fourth demon’s dead, I’m your new best friend.”

I let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh. Lucas was a viper, deadly and unpredictable—but if he said he was my man, it was a bargain. Villalobos didn’t back down from his word. He still scared the hell out of me, but if you’re facing down a clutch of demons you could do worse than have the Deathless on your side.