Nausea retreated as he flowed to his feet. A single dot of black blood welled at the corner of his mouth and I dropped into position as he lifted the back of one golden hand to touch his lips. Fudoshin described a bigger circle this time, the blessed blue flame along its edge adder-hissing.

I heard myself speak. "I remember."

I remember how I screamed when you put that thing in me, how you sliced me open like I was a sodaflo can — and how you laughed when I screamed. I remember what you said, and how you really seemed to enjoy yourself. I remember how you sent me out to betray my daughter and my lover.

"What do you think you remember?" Contempt loaded Lucifer's voice, smoking land glittering like carbolic tossed over reactive paint. "Where were you when I made your kind? Where were you when I made your world?" He drew himself up and pointed again, the holocaust glow of his eyes so intense teardrop trails shimmered horizontally from their corners. "You have interfered for the last time!"

Oh, will you just shut up and kill me? I raised the Knife slightly, its clawlike finials prickling against my forearm, and felt the points slide into my skin. The sweet rottingfruit smell of demon blood hung cloying in the air. Was I bleeding?

I didn't care. I brought my sword down and around, a swordsman's move, hilt rotating in my hand as the blade spun like a propeller, before he leapt for me again.

Impact. Bones snapping in my side, the agony immense and useless, like everything else. Stars of pain shattering across the surface of my mind, I brought the Knife up in a sweep and felt the blade bite, a feedback squeal grinding the rubble around us into dancing cascading dust -

— and the Knife, wrenched from my grasp, clawed my hand desperately before flying in a high impossible arc, up and away, the Power feeding up my arm jolting to a stop as Lucifer backhanded me, smashing me to the ground.

Chapter 36

Rolling.

Get up get up get up — Before the words faded I was on my feet, every ounce of demon speed I could use in one last desperate lunge, swordblade screaming as it split air and twisted, driving home in the Devil's chest. A spike of fire jabbed through my left lung, blood dribbling down my chin, muscles pulled out of alignment by smashed bones, I swayed on my numb feet and saw what I had done.

We stood like that, Lucifer pinned like a butterfly, the scream dying on my lips as the Devil, black blood griming his ivory teeth and his eyes inches from mine, smiled.

The world halted. Sick realization thumped home in the wasteland my shattered mind had become, smoking with fury. That's not going to kill him.

There seemed no shortage of time as I watched his hand come up, claws springing free. This is going to hurt. I shifted my weight to pull Fudoshin free, knowing I would never be able to cut him a second time.

The Knife I dropped the Knife ohgods I'm dead I'm dead

It was hopeless. But I tore my blade free, metal howling under the abuse, Power raying out from the event we had just created in spiderwebs of force and reaction, rubble grinding to smaller bits and dust pluming, shaping into mushroom clouds.

Everything inside me rose and halted, hanging in the air above my skin. My left shoulder burned, a prickling mass of hot ice and barbed wire flooding me with a desperate burst of Power, straining through me, trying to shield me against the inevitable. Flexible demon-altered bones crackled, and the relief and weightlessness I had felt falling through the roof of Paradisse wrapped around me again.

It's over.

Lucifer's hand began its descent, claws sparkling with emerald flame to match the gem in his forehead. His face was a mask of unholy rage, psychic darkness flooding under its beauty, and my heart stuttered as the essential inhumanity of the thing I saw beneath that screen of loveliness was revealed.

And I recognized it. I recognized the twisted teeth and burning eyes. I heard its echo in my own brain. It was my own hatred.

How much more like the Devil was I going to have to become to kill him?

No.

Time paused again.

No. I will not be like you. No. The only word I could say repeated, gathering force in my eyes and arms and lips, filling me. It was the only prayer I could utter.

Dante, you have been so blind. And I struck.

Not with my sword. If I tried to cut with Fudoshin again, it would be in rage, in anger. I already knew how useless that would be, fury turning back on itself, destruction for its own sake.

Compassion is not your strongest virtue, Danyo-chan. How had my teacher known?

The red ribbon of rage in my head paled. It shrank to a thread-thin line. I did not want it to go. It was my only defense. I could not help what had been done to me, but I could fight. I could kill.

Couldn't I?

I can't hold a gun to your head and make you more human.

The dead rose about me, each of them a distinct shape of silver lattice and crystalline intent holding an imprint of the flesh they wore in my life. Lewis, with his smile and his steadfast love. Doreen with her gentleness; Jace with his stubborn refusal to give in. Gabe, who had known me better than I knew myself — and Eddie, always on the periphery but still necessary, who would have done for me what I did for him and not counted the cost.

All of them rose in me, a tide of love and obligation, the nets of duty and the lines of promises made, kept, broken, and kept again. The dead keened in my bones, spilled through my blood, and blazed through me as the red thread inside my head opened its jaws and roared.

Has a god ever used you to complete a circle? Have you ever been ridden by a loa? A vaudun Shaman will understand. The god or spirit spills into you, stretching you like a too-small glove on a hand, and the thin ecstasy of a bursting, too-ripe fruit shatters whatever you thought you were. Infinity recognizes you, and how can you help but recognize the infinity in your own soul?

My god woke in me, His slim canine head turning to look with its terrible eyes that became my eyes. For a dizzying moment Death filled me.

Compassion is not your strongest virtue.

Lucifer screamed. The force boiled out of me, my hand spread instead of locked in a fist. I touched the Devil's face, cupping his cheek as if he was a lover, my fingers gentle and delicate, the silk of an impermeable, invulnerable skin sending a heatless pang through my cracking ribs and bleeding meat.

Yes, it is, I replied. Gods grant I do not forget it. They did not.

Married to Anubis's still quiet, Sekhmet woke. She took a single step, the stamping dance that would unmake the world moving on, creation flooding in its wake. It was and was not me who did the striking, at the last. It was them.

No, it was me too. I swear it was.

The scream was the world stopping. It was a deathcry, or the cry of love like a knife to the heart. The god I thought had abandoned me gathered me to His chest, comfort singing through my sobbing, broken body.

It was not Anubis who had turned away. It was me. He had never left me for a moment.

You may not take this, Anubis-Sekhmet said. This is Mine, and you may not have her.

Ash threaded through Lucifer's skin, the even gold and bright light dimmed by spreading veins of dusty dirty gray. The sound was a crackling. My other hand came up, met his face. His emerald cracked, sending out one vicious caustic flash. The gulping sound was very loud in the stillness. A dripping point speared free of Lucifer's ribs, and over the Devil's shoulders, a pair of yellow eyes dawned, meeting mine with a blow no less critical than the one I had just meted out.