"If you can beat me, Santino will—"

"Santino preys on humans?" he said. "He is a scavenger. I was the Prince of Hell's Right Hand, Dante."

"What did you prey on?" I tried to sound rude, only managed to sound breathless.

"Other demons. I have killed more of the Greater Flight of Hell than you can imagine." His lips peeled back from his teeth, one of those murderous slow grins.

I tried to feel afraid. Every other time he'd grinned like that my skin had gone cold with terror. Not now. Now my breath caught, remembering his mouth on mine. Remembering his hands on my naked skin.

I almost drew my katana, five inches or so of bright steel peeking out. No blue glow.

He still smiled, watching me.

"Did you plan this? Or did Lucifer?" I swallowed, wishing for my normal human terror with a vengeance that surprised me. I never thought my own fearlessness would be so scary; I'd lived with comfortable fear for so long.

"Lucifer did not plan this, Dante; he will be exceedingly displeased. No demon plans to Fall. To become A'nankimel is to give up much of the power and glory of Hell." He shrugged again, his hands still clasped behind his back.

"You can't go back?" I asked. "What about… what about being free?"

He shook his head. "There are other kinds of freedom. My fate is bound to yours, Dante. I am bound to finish the Prince's will in this matter, and then… we shall see, you and I, what compromise we can reach."

I closed my eyes.

You're so sharp and prickly, aren't you? So tough. Someday you're going to find someone you can't bamboozle, Danny, Doreen's voice echoed through my memory. Someone's going to find out what a soft touch you are, and what are you going to do then?

I'm not soft, I had replied, and changed the subject. And Doreen had giggled, her fingertips sliding over my hip, a soft forgiving touch.

I'd met Jace at the party we threw to christen the house, and he started coming around after Doreen died, doing repairs, showing up once or twice while I was on a job to watch my back, and going out on a limb for me during the Freemen-Tarks bounty, the one that had given me the worst case of nerves from a bounty ever. I still had nightmares about being trapped in the rain, Tarks beating me with a crowbar until Jace appeared out of nowhere and took him down. Even when Jace had started to actively court me I'd kept him at arm's length. Everything had to be a fight between us, and he seemed to enjoy the battles as much as I did, exchanging sharp word for sharp word, finally a sparring partner I didn't have to hold back and be careful of.

I opened my eyes, looked down at my blade, peeking out between hilt and scabbard. Slid the blade home. It clicked back into the sheath, useless. What was I going to do, try to kill him because he'd made me stronger? If Santino couldn't kill me now, if I was quicker and tougher because of what Japhrimel had done…

I didn't realize I was walking toward him until he moved down off the bottom step, opening his arms, enclosing me in the warmth of a demon's embrace. I sighed, my shoulders dropping, the weight of uncertainty slipping away. In his arms, I could breathe. As if he carried around the only sphere of usable air on the planet.

He kissed my forehead, gently. Fire sparked through my veins, recognizing the touch. "If you wish to fight me, Dante, fight me." His lips moved against my new skin. "If it will ease you, I will play that game. Or we can devise new ones."

I hadn't thought it possible that a demon could seduce me. But seduction was what demons did. Cajoling, enticing, fascinating, tempting—they made it into sport, and had a long time to practice.

He kissed my cheek, the corner of my mouth; I tipped my head back, a small pleading sound escaping me, and his mouth met mine. This kiss wasn't like the first—it was gentler. Softer. A sharp, greedy demon I could fight.

Japhrimel, gentle, sharing his mouth with me as if he was human, and mine—I had no defense against that.

Japhrimel led me through Jace's house, his warm fingers in mine. I cried without a sound, tears sliding down my cheeks as he closed the door of yet another bedroom behind us. He wiped away the tears, tenderly, and I forgot to weep as he told me silently everything I had always wanted to hear.

CHAPTER 46

"It's a ten-hour hover flight," Jace said. "You said we needed something that could go over water."

I eyed the freight hover, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. It looked like a garbage scow, dirty and blunt-nosed. Her name—Baby—was permasprayed on her hull in pink. "Any particular reason why you chose this piece of trash?"

"Watch." Jace lifted his wrist and tapped his datband. He was grinning, an expression he usually reserved for when he'd won a card game.

The hover—almost as big as a freight transport—vanished. My jaw dropped. I saw the marble plaza, the smoke drifting up from Nuevo Rio in the background, hover traffic beginning to slide through the city once more—but no garbage scow.

I lifted my own datband and scanned. Then I dug in my bag and extracted my datpilot, scanned again. I thinned my shields and tried to find any electromagnetic disturbance.

Nothing. If I hadn't watched it vanish, I would never have guessed.

"Gods above and below," I said. "How did you—"

"Hegemony military tech and a little extra," he replied, his golden hair shimmering in the reflected light from the vast marble courtyard. "I've got a great Tech guy, and your demon's been pretty useful. Invisible to radar, deepscan, magscan, and psi. It's faster than it looks, too. And it's combat-equipped, fore-and-aft plascannons—"

"Yeah, but does it have that new-hover smell?" Eddie snorted. He handed me a small plas package full of six gray crystalline nubbins, each as big as my thumb. "Firestarters. Be careful, okay?" But his eyes didn't quite meet mine. I didn't blame him. I had trouble looking in the mirror, and I was living inside this new body.

Gabe shrugged, her coat settling against her shoulders. "I've got the map," she said. "Let's get this show on the road, huh?"

"One second." Jace pressed his datband again, and the hover reappeared. "She only looks ugly, guys. She's got a heart of gold." He produced his chromium hip flask.

An ash-smelling wind touched my hair. Nuevo Rio had stopped burning, but it would be racked with gunfire again as soon as Jace's lieutenants moved out into the city. Hours of frantic planning had narrowed down to this: if his network succeeded, Jace would take over all the Corvin Family's assets in Nuevo Rio and probably elsewhere in the Hegemony. It was the accepted method for a Family to start out, in murder and fire after all the legal paperwork of incorporation was done. And we hoped it would distract Santino—he was arrogant enough to think that if we were attacking the Corvin Family, we weren't going after him, right?

Wrong, I thought.

Jace unscrewed the flask, took a swig. Rolled it around in his mouth. Tossed it back. "We who are about to die, salute you," he said. Handed the flask to Gabe, who glanced at me.

"A sort of ritual," I said. "Every time we started a job, we would take a slug and give a quote. Good luck."

She shrugged, took a hit, and coughed, her cheeks flushing pink. "Let the gods sort them out," she said, and grimaced. "Hades love me, that's foul."

Eddie took the flask, took a long swallow. "Fortis fortunam iudavat," he growled. Coughed slightly, blinking watering eyes. "Goddammit, Jace, what is that?"

"Jungle juice," Jace replied. He was smiling, and his eyes glittered madly. Fey.

Eddie handed me the flask. If it was a gesture, it was a good one. I tipped it into my mouth, a long swallow, felt it burn fiercely all the way down. I coughed, my eyes watering. "Go tell the Spartans, passers-by; That here, obedient to their orders, we lie." It was just as awful as every other time I'd tasted it. I gave the flask back to Jace, who watched me for a moment. Had he been watching the flask meet my mouth, the way my throat moved as I swallowed? Maybe.