Chapter 15

This part of the Tank District had grown even more forlorn. Half the streetlamps on Klondel were dead and dark, either broken or fallen out of service. From the rooftop of the row of buildings Abra's pawnshop was in, the darkened streetlights looked like spaces left by broken teeth. A flock of unregistered hookers milled in dark doorways, and hovers with privacy-tint and magcoding crawled streetside, cruising the strip. I smelled sour human sweat, decay, synth-hash and the salt-sweet odor of Clormen-13.

Chill.

Chill always raises my hackles. Chillfreaks in Saint City seem to smell worse than anywhere in the world. Maybe it's the radioactive cold of the city's Power well. Maybe it's just the rain giving everything a musty smell. I hate Chill anyway; the drug is instantly addictive and a blight upon the urban landscape. I've lost good friends to Chill and Chill junkies, starting with my foster-father Lewis and continuing down the years in successive waves. Each time a new flood of Chill hits the street someone-or several someones-dies.

Leander came through the shadows, flitting down the street as if trying to stay unremarked. He did a good job, showing just enough of a flicker of movement to make an onlooker believe he wanted to stay unseen.

"Let's go in;" Lucas wheeze-whispered in my ear. He stood by the hatch, I melted away from the low wall sheltering Abra's roof. "After you, chica."

I jammed my sword into the loop on my belt and dropped into the dark hole, negotiating the slick iron ladder with little trouble. It took my weight easily, something I was glad of. Denser muscle and bone gave me more strength, but also made me a little too heavy to trust sometimes-rickety human construction. My left leg throbbed, my jeans flopping loosely. Black demon blood had coated the slice from the hellhound's claws and healed it, but I still moved gingerly.

Lucas followed. I heard the whine of an unholstered plasrifle as my feet touched dusty wood floor.

"Dammit, woman," Lucas rasped. "Put that thing away!"

"Sorry." Abra didn't sound sorry at all. She rarely did.

I turned slowly, keeping my hands away from weapons. The attic was low and dusty, the roofhatch sealed and magshielded now, and I felt the crackle of magickal shields springing back into place. Abra had been expecting us.

My nostrils flared, demon-acute eyes piercing the dimness with little trouble.

She looked just the same.

Abracadabra had long, dark, curly hair and liquid dark eyes, a nondescript triangular face with a pointed chin. A blue and silver caftan fell to her slim ankles, sandaled brown feet met the floor but rested only lightly. Large golden hoops dangled in her ears, peeking out from under her hair.

The shop's smell-beef stew with chilies, dust, human pain-was the same. But Abra, of course, didn't smell human. She smelled like sticky dry silk and short bristly hairs, a smell that rubbed me the wrong way. Japhrimel hadn't liked her, and if his instinctive response was anything like mine I could see why. But I'd never had any trouble dealing with her while I was human. Even afterward, running infrequent messages between her and Jado, I never had cause to complain. She was always the same, mindnumbingly cautious and looking to drive a hard bargain. She never left her pawnshop, and I had amused myself several times by trying to deduce exactly which paranormal species she was.

The Spider of Saint City blinked her long lashes at me. "Valentine. Might have known. You're trouble all over."

Oh, if you only knew.

"It's not my fault I'm a popular girl, Abra. How are you?"

Her lip curled. "Be a lot better if Nichtvren and 'cain weren't showing up at my door. Where's the demon?"

So she knew Japhrimel was in town, and connected to me. Sometimes I wondered how much she knew that she didn't tell. "I left him at home tatting lace. And you like being in the thick of things; you get all your information that way."

Abra tilted her head. "The Necromance is here. Your idea?"

"Lucas's." I moved aside as Lucas leapt down, landing cat-silent. "Are you sure you trust him unattended?"

"What, like he'll steal from me?" A mirthless little-girl giggle, she made a complicated parade-drill movement, ending up with the plasrifle slung over her shoulder like an old-time bandido. "Come on down, I'll make tea. This is a complex situation."

"You better believe it. Abra, Gabe Spocarelli's dead. So's Eddie Thornton. And I'm hunting their killers."

Dust stirred in the air.

Silence. Finally, Abra sighed. "Come on down." Was it my imagination, or did she sound weary? "You're not going to like this."

Abracadabra Pawnshop We Make Miracles Happen was stenciled on the front window with tired gold paint, and the windows were dark with privacy-tint. That was a new trick, Abra had never been the tinted type before. Racks of merchandise stood neatly on the wood floor, slicboards and guitars hung up behind the glassed-in counter that sparkled dustily with jewelry. Her stock did seem to rotate fairly frequently, but I'd never seen anyone come into Abra's to buy anything physical.

No, we come to the Spider of Saint City for information.

There was a rack of the new, hot Amberjion pleather jackets, with shoulderpads up to the ear; a display of antique chronographs stood in a plasilica cube on one counter. Otherwise, it looked just the same as it always had.

Nice to have a friend that doesn't age.

Leander leaned hipshot against the counter, studying a display of necklaces. His eyes flicked every so often to the door, and his hand rested on his swordhilt. "Any eyes?" I asked.

"Two. A 'cain two alleys up, and someone right across the street." He shrugged. "I made sure both of them saw me." His dark eyes were alive; he was enjoying himself. Not too much, I hope. I sighed, rubbing at my eyes with one shaking hand. I'd just fought off a hellhound.

A hellhound. Japhrimel had told me to run if I ever saw one; they had been used to hunt hedaira I n the time of the first A'nankhimel, the Fallen Lucifer had destroyed because one of them might possibly breed and spawn an Androgyne, a demon capable of reproducing.

Like Lucifer himself. Like Eve.

Now I had more of the story verified. Temples and priestesses, and the demons who traded a piece of their power and got something in return.

Japh bargained to get a demon's Power back-he's different now. And so am I, if I share some measure of that Power.

I shivered, and Abra handed me a screaming-orange pottery mug. She looked a lot more comfortable perched behind the counter in her habitual space. "Here. Tea." By far the most civil she'd ever been. "You and Spocarelli were tight, weren't you." It wasn't a question.

Lucas took up a position on the far side of the room, settling between a rack of slicboards and a wooden box holding different-sized pairs of combat boots. His yellow eyes slitted but I wasn't fooled, he didn't look tired at all. Despite the floppy blood-crusty rip in his shirt, he looked very alert indeed. We matched, both of us bloody and air-dried.

I was beginning to believe I was still alive. The mark on my shoulder remained curiously numb. Was Japhrimel tracking me?

I hope so. This is getting ridiculous. I nodded, blew across the top of the mug to cool the liquid. "Way tight. Someone pumped Eddie full of enough projectile lead to trade him in at the metalyard, they did the same to Gabe in her own backyard." I didn't mention Gabe's daughter. One thing at a time. My tone was flat, terribly ironic through the lump in my throat. "I promised Gabe I'd take out Eddie's killers. He was working on something, I guess."

"I know. I got a visit from a Shaman-Annette Cameron. Works at that clinic on Fortieth, a sedayeen commune attached to a Chill rehab." Abra's lip curled.