The Devil's Right Hand

Chapter 41

Lucas slumped in a chair, blood stiffening on his torn shirt. Sunlight poured in the hover windows, I pushed my hair back behind my ear and examined him.

He looked like hell, gaunt and sticky with dry blood everywhere except for a swipe on his cheek where he’d probably rubbed the dirt-dusted gummy crust off. He still held one 60-watt plasgun, tilted up with the smooth black plasteel barrel resting against his cheek. His legs stretched out, clad in shredded jeans. At least his boots had survived. His yellow eyes, half-lidded, were distant and full of some emotion I didn’t want to examine too closely.

Something like banked rage, and satisfaction.

I lowered myself down in the chair opposite him. This hover was good-sized but narrow, with round porthole windows like a military transport. I didn’t know where Lucas had gotten it, but it was taking us away from DMZ Sarajevo, and that was all I cared about.

McKinley and Japhrimel held a low conference up front in the pilot booth—this hover was old enough to have an actual booth instead of a cockpit—and Vann leaned against the booth’s entrance, his arms folded. He scowled at Lucas. There were horrible livid bruises on his brown face, and one eye was bandaged.

I didn’t want to know.

There was no smell of human in the hover. The agents smelled like dried cinnamon, with the faintest tang of demon, Lucas smelled like a stasis cabinet and blood dried to flakes, and Japhrimel and I… well, we smelled like demon. Of course.

I leaned back in the chair, my katana across my knees.

I have a blade that bit the Devil. Gods grant me strength enough to use it next time. I’m sure there’s going to be a next time.

“Who are you really working for, Lucas?” My voice was quiet, stroking the air, calming.

He shrugged, his eyelids dropping another millimeter. “You,” he said, in his painful whisper. “Since New Prague. I was contracted by Ol’ Blue Eyes to meet you, look after you. Figured the two jobs tallied.”

I nodded, my head moving against the chair’s headrest. Thought about it. Decided. It was only fair, after all.

“If you want to go on your way, I won’t blame you. You stood up to the Devil for me.” Gave him a bit of trouble, too. We might almost have had a chance.

Not really. Not without Japhrimel.

He gave another one of those terrible, dry, husking laughs. He certainly seemed to find me amusing nowadays.

“Shitfire,” he finally wheezed. “This’s the most interesting thing I seen in years. Ain’t gonna stop now. Four demons, eyes an’ ears. Until the fourth demon’s dead, chica, I’m your man.”

I nodded. Braced myself. It was always best to pay debts before the interest mounted, and I owed him. If not for him, Lucifer would have killed me before Japhrimel could reach me. “I told you the pay’s negotiable. What do you want?”

“Your demon boyfriend paid me, Valentine. Consider yourself lucky.”

Well, it was certainly a day for surprises. I shifted uneasily in the seat, then rested my head against the seat’s high back.

“Do you think she was telling the truth?” I meant Eve. He’d been in the room, after all.

“Don’t know. I ain’t no Magi.” He shifted a little in the chair, as if he hurt. “Explains a helluva lot.”

“Are you all right?” It was a stupid question. We’d both gotten off lightly, for tangling with Lucifer.

“Devil damn near pulled my spleen out through my nose. It hurt.” Lucas sighed. He sounded disappointed. “Guess even he can’t kill me.”

“Give him time.” I didn’t mean for it to sound flippant. Then I leaned forward, running my hand back through my hair. “Lucas, do you have any friends? I mean, real friends?”

An evocative shrug. His yellow eyes fastened on me.

“If you had a friend,” I persisted, “and he lied to you but it was for a good reason, what would you do?”

Silence. Lucas studied me.

The hover began a stomach-jolting descent then rose again, probably to avoid a traffic stream. I folded my left arm across my belly; it wasn’t tender, but I was still cautious.

Finally, Lucas hauled himself upright, leaned forward. Rested his elbows on his knees. “You askin’ me for advice, chica. Dangerous.” He rasped in a breath. “I seen a lot of shit on the face of the earth. Most of it pointless. The only thing I can tell you is—take what you can get.”

I weighed the statement, wondering if it was any good. Take what you can get. Was that even honorable? “So you don’t have any friends?”

He shrugged again.

I closed my eyes, leaning back into the chair’s embrace. “You do now, Lucas.” I paused, let the fact sink in. “You do now.”

After all, he’d shot the Devil. For me. Who cared if it was just a job to him?

Take what you can get.

Eve wanted her freedom. Lucifer wanted her dead or captured—most likely captured, since he had used me as bait to draw her out. Lucifer also wanted me kept so busy with “hunting” down his escaped children that I didn’t have time to find out it was Eve he was really after. Japhrimel probably wanted to keep us both alive long enough to figure out which was the winning side, and I didn’t blame him. Lucas was curious, and he might have thought Lucifer could finally kill him.

Take what you can get.

What did I want out of this? I didn’t even know yet.

We were going to land in Giza, meet Leander, and figure out what course to follow next. I had to decide if I was going to hunt down Doreen’s daughter for Lucifer, or if I was going to risk my life—and Japhrimel’s too—taking on the Prince of Hell.

Who was I fooling? I already knew what I was going to do.

The trouble would be talking both myself and Japhrimel into it.