He actually shrugged, a complex eloquent movement. I hate demons shrugging at me. They do it so much, like the only thing humans are worthy of is a shrug. Or maybe we perplex them. I'd like to think it's the latter.

Call me an optimist.

"Fine." I gave up. My shoulders slumped. I was too tired to fight with him over this. I had other questions, other problems, and other things I needed to figure out before Lucifer got another crack at me. "Let's move on to something productive, at least. Where's the Knife?"

"Close." Silence stretched like taffy. "I have some other things to tell you, but not yet."

Great. More secrets. "Idon't want to hear it." My fingers tensed, pressing into the leather. I struggled with the beast of pain tearing inside my chest. Tearing like glass-clawed fingers around my beating heart.

It took every scrap of self-control I possessed to hold the book out to him. "If it means that much to you, you can have it, and all your goddamn secrets too."

The hover evened out. We'd descended a long way. He didn't move, staring at my hand holding the book the way a mongoose stares at a cobra.

"Just take it," I persisted. "Just fucking take the thing, Japhrimel."

He slid it from my hand gently, as if afraid I'd change my mind. The hover bounced a bit, atmospheric pressure rippling around it. His hand fell back to his side, carrying its cargo. Whatever the goddamn book said, I no longer wanted to know. He couldn't tell me what I was.

Nobody could.

I was broken, I knew that much. I was a wreck in the shape of a woman, and I had something to get done. But most importantly, I was who I decided to be. Hadn't my life taught me at least that much?

I am Danny Valentine. Everything else was just noise. "Now." I drew myself up in my dusty, bloodspotted clothes. "You're going to answer a couple questions, and then we're going to get this goddamn thing done. I'm tired of Lucifer fucking around with my life. Fucking around with me." You can't even comprehend how tired I am of that. The black hole in my head shivered and retreated under the sound of rushing flame. I pushed both things away, bottled the rage and covered over the horror. "Where's Eve?" I almost said, where's my daughter?

I couldn't let the words past my lips. I was keeping my own secrets from him. I couldn't throw any stones on that account, could I.

But oh, how I wanted to.

He actually answered me directly, for once. "Chained, and watched. In the hold."

"Great." I turned on my booted heel and stalked back to the bed, scooped up my rig, and began buckling it on. "Where are we flying to now?"

"Sudro Merica. Caracaz." In Japhrimel's voice was something new — a hoarseness, as if there was something in his throat.

The rig was none the worse for wear, and it creaked much less than it had. I guess that kind of hard use will take the starch out of any gear. It was all to the good as far as I was concerned.

I scooped up my sword. The sound of fire in my head abated, a thin red thread at the bottom of my consciousness. Waiting.

What do we do next, sunshine?

"All right." I rolled my shoulders habitually, settling the rig. "Let's get this run started."

I left him standing there and stamped for the door.

Chapter 22

I was getting pretty sick of the cargo hold.

McKinley leaned against a stack of plasteel crates, his aura flushed a weird violet, matching the purplish light running over his metallic left hand. My eyes wanted to slide right over him, helped by the smooth shell of seeming that wasn't quite a glamour, since it didn't carry any stamp of personality like sorcery or psionic camouflage would. He was like a chameleon, blending motionlessly into his surroundings. His dark eyes met mine and flicked away, and I recognized the hair-trigger tension in him.

Past him, in a space cleared of all gear and boxes, sat a small, slender shape with a flame of pale hair. Her arms locked around her knees, and it became apparent she'd had a hell of a fight. Her sweater was torn, her slacks singed, and she was missing a boot.

I stepped forward. Eve's face was buried in her knees, that pale sleek cap now subtly wrong, ropes instead of the silk of Doreen's hair. I couldn't even smell her, and that was wrong too.

"Valentine." McKinley's voice, oddly respectful. "Don't get too close."

Don't tell me what to do. Itook another step. I'd shoved my sword into the loop provided on my rig, not trusting myself with edged metal right now. "Eve." All the things I might have said boiled through my head, and I settled for just one. "I know you're not asleep."

Her face came up slowly, a pale dish on jeweled bearings. Doreen's daughter looked at me, and there was nothing human in that blue-fire gaze.

My eyesight was keen even before Japh changed me; thanks to genesplicing it's hard to find anyone with bad sight anymore, except Ludders. I can't see like a Nichtvren, in total darkness — even demon eyes need a few photons to work with. So I stared at Eve, searching the demon's face for any shadow of what she'd looked like before.

Running along the floor between us was a thin silver strip, humming with malignant force as it circled her. It matched the brutally thick cuffs around her ankles and wrists. The silver seemed a part of the metal grating, despite its fluid movement. It was a piece of demon sorcery I'd never seen before and should have been surprised at. Nothing seemed surprising anymore.

"Why?" I barely had the breath for the word. "Why lie to me?"

One corner of her perfect lips tilted up. She acknowledged the question with a slight, wry smile. "Would you have believed me, if I looked like this?"

"But when you were small-"

"That was humanity. It burned away from me. In Hell." One shoulder lifted a little, dropped. The silver circle responded with a change in pitch, its low evil hum stepping up a half-note and dropping back down.

Damn demons, always shrugging at me. But something else crossed her face — a swift flash of vulnerability, gone in less than a moment. The look of a child caught with her hand in a jar full of candy, incongruous on a demon's face.

I kept forgetting how young she had to be, even if time moved differently in Hell than it did here.

I felt Japhrimel arrive, though he was soundless as Death Himself. His hand closed gently over my shoulder, and I didn't know whether it was to offer support or because he wasn't sure if I'd pitch myself at the circle to free her.

Eve's gaze flickered up past me. She studied Japhrimel intently for fifteen long seconds, the color draining under her golden skin, and dropped her face back into her knees. The air subtly changed, and I got the idea she was ignoring us, very loudly and pointedly.

And very desperately.

Good for you, kid. I couldn't find it in me to blame her. I turned and headed for the end of the cargo bay, brushing past Japh. His hand fell away from my shoulder.

The ladder leading up to the main deck was solid cold plasteel. I rested my hands on a crossbar, staring at my wrists. It occurred to me that they were like Eve's, seemingly frail and made of demon bone. We'd both started out human, hadn't we? Partly human?

Was I still? I felt human where it counted, inside the aching ruin of my heart. "Japh?"

He made no sound, but I felt his attention. He was listening.

"Is that… what she really looks like?"

Why was I even asking? I had seen the glamour shred away from her with my own eyes, I saw her now. I knew. But I still wanted to hear it. I needed to hear someone say it.

"We are shapeshifters, my curious." His breath touched my ear; he was leaning in close, the heat of him comforting against my back. I hadn't been this aware of his closeness in a while.