I felt the demon's shrug. "I don't care."

"Of course not." I tasted bile. "It's a human thing. You wouldn't care."

"I like humans," he said. "Most demons do. Otherwise we would not have bothered to make you our companions instead of apes." He stroked my hair. A few strands had come loose and stuck to my cheeks and forehead.

"Great. And here I thought we were something like nasty little lapdogs to you guys." I took a deep breath. I felt like I could stand up now. "So I guess I've got my marching orders, huh?"

"I suppose so." He rose slowly to his feet, pulling me with him, and caught me when I overbalanced. He put my sword in my hands, wrapped my fingers around it, then held the scabbard there until I stopped swaying.

It was my turn to shrug. "I should go home and pick up some more stuff if we're going to be chasing a demon down," I told him. "And I need… well."

"Certainly," he said. "It is the Prince's will that I obey."

The way he said it—all in one breath—made it sound like an insult. "I didn't do it," I said. "Don't get mad at me. What did he do to me, anyway?"

"When we get to your house, you should look," the demon said, infuriatingly calm. "I hope you realize how lucky you are, Necromance."

"I just survived a trip to Hell," I said. "Believe me, I'm counting my blessings right now. Where are we?"

"Thirty-third and Pole Street," he answered. "An alley."

I looked around. He was right. It was a dingy little alley, sheltered from the rain by an overhang. Three dumpsters crouched at the end, blocking access to the street. Brick walls, a graffiti tag, papers drifting in the uncertain breeze. "Lovely," I said. "You sure have a great flair for picking these places."

"You'd prefer the middle of Main Street?" he asked, his eyes glowing in the darkness. I stepped sideways as soon as my legs seemed willing to carry me. His hands fell back down to his sides. "The Prince…" He trailed off.

"Yeah, he's a real charmer, all right," I said. "What did he do to my shoulder? It hurts like a bitch."

"You'll see," was the calm reply. He brushed past me, heading for the mouth of the alley. "Let me move the dumpster, and we'll call a cab."

"Now you'll call a cab, where before you had to drag me through the subway?" I chucked my blade free of its sheath, checked the metal. Still bright. Still sharp.

"It was necessary. Leaving Hell is not the same as entering it, especially for a human. I had to find an entrance you would survive, but falling back into mortality is not so hard." He stopped, his back to me. "Not so very hard at all." The light was dim—I've been in Hell all afternoon, I thought, and felt an insane giggle bubble up inside me and die away. Why do I always want to laugh at times like this? I wondered. All my life, the insane urge to giggle had popped up at the worst times.

"Great," I muttered, shoving the blade back home. "All right, let's go."

He shoved one of the dumpsters aside as easily as I might have moved a footstool. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without keeling over.

Neon ran over the wet street. Thirty-third and Pole was right in the middle of the Tank District. I wondered if it was a demon joke—but then, there was likely to be a lot of sex and psychoactives floating in the air here. It was probably easier to open a door between here and Hell around that kind of energy charge.

We splashed through puddles, the demon occasionally falling back to take my elbow and steer me around a corner. He seemed content to just walk silently, and I hurt too much to engage in small talk. I'd ditch him soon enough.

He hailed a cab at the corner of Thirtieth and Vine, and I fell into the seat gratefully. I gave my address to the driver—a bespectacled, mournful Polish man who hissed a charm against the evil eye when he saw my tattooed cheek. He jangled the antique rosary hanging from his faredeck and addressed all his replies to the demon; he couldn't See that the demon was more of a threat than little old human me.

Story of my life. Guy didn't mind the demon, but would have thrown me out of the cab if he could.

CHAPTER 8

"Go ahead and make yourself at home," I said as I locked the door. "There's beer in the fridge. And wine, if you like that. I've got to take a shower."

He nodded. "I should speak of Vardimal," he said. "To familiarize you with—"

"Later," I told him. My shoulder twinged. "Hey."

He turned back to me.

"What did he do to me?" I lifted the sword a little, pointing at my left shoulder with the hilt. "Huh?"

"The Prince of Hell has granted you a familiar, Necromance," Japhrimel said formally, clasping his hands behind his back. He looked a little like a priest in his long black high-collared coat. I wondered where he hid the guns. I'd never heard of a demon with guns before. I should have studied harder, I suppose. But how the hell was I supposed to know that a demon would show up at my front door? I'm a bloody Necromance, not a Magi!

"A fam—" My brain started to work again. "Oh, no. I'm not a Magi. I don't want—"

"Too late," he informed me. "Go take your shower, I'll keep watch."

"Keep watch? Nobody knows I'm working for—" I put my back against the door. How did I get into this? I wondered—not for the last time, I might add.

"Your entry into Hell may have been remarked," the demon said. "I'll make coffee."

I shook my head and brushed past him, heading for the stairs. "Gods above and below," I muttered, "what did I do to deserve this?"

"You have a reputation for being honorable," the demon supplied helpfully. "And your talents as a Necromance are well-known."

I waved a hand over my shoulder at him. "Fine, fine. Just try not to set anything on fire, okay? Be careful with my house."

"As my Mistress wishes," he said. It would have been hard for him to sound more ironic.

I climbed the stairs, my legs aching. Even my teeth hurt. An hour into this job and I'm already wishing I was on vacation. I had to laugh, trailing my fingers along the painted wall. My sword seemed far heavier than it should be. Halfway up the stairs, under the altar niche, was a stash of three water bottles, and I snagged one. I fumbled in my bag for a salt tablet, took it. Dried sweatsalt crackled on my skin. I probably smelled like I'd been stuck in an oven. It was a miracle I hadn't been hit with heatstroke.

I drained the water bottle, dropped my sword on my bed, put my bag inside the bathroom door, and started stripping down. I paused halfway to turn the shower on, and examined my left shoulder in the mirror.

Pressed into the skin was a sigil I'd never seen before, not one of the Nine Canons I knew. I was no demonologist, so I didn't know what it meant, exactly. But when I touched it—the glyph shifting uneasily, ropy scar like a burn twisting under my fingertips—I hissed in a sharp breath, closing my eyes against a wave of heat.

I saw my kitchen as if through a sheet of wavering glass, the familiar objects twisted and shimmering with unearthly light. He was looking at my stove—

I found myself on my knees, gasping. I've read about this, I thought, oddly comforted. I've read about seeing through a familiar's eyes. Breathe, Danny. Breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Been doing it all your life. Just breathe. The tiled floor bit into my knees, my forehead rested against the edge of my bathtub. Steam filled the air. Gods, I thought. So that's what they're talking about when they say… oh, man. Heavy shit, dude. Can't take the scene; gotta bail.

I'd just been given a demon familiar. Magi everywhere would be salivating—it was the high pursuit of every Magi, to achieve a working relationship with one of the denizens of Hell. I'd never done much in that arena—I had more than enough work to keep me busy inside my own specialty. But occult practitioners are a curious bunch—some of us like to fiddle around with everything when time permits. And a lot of the standard Magi training techniques were shared with other occult disciplines—Shamans, Journeymen, Witches, Ceremonials, Skinlin… and Necromances. After all, Magi had been the ones pursuing occult disciplines since before the Awakening and the Parapsychic Act. So I'd been given something most Magi worked for years to achieve—and I didn't want it. It only complicated an already fucked-up situation.