Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (29 page)

“Not now?”

“You told me to wait once. I’m returning the favour.” She  stared at her sunny  yellow mug against the scratched and  gouged countertop. “One question, though. How did you find  me?”

“If I must wait for your answer, you may wait for mine on  that score.” Tiens eased off the stool, soundlessly touching the  scarred linoleum. This place was a wreck, and Liana was  briefly, hotly ashamed. But it was cheap, and she’d thought  nobody would notice she was home, back in the bad old cradle.

Guess I was wrong about that, wasn’t I
? “Fine. Close the

door on your way out.”

She listened as he paced down the hall, his feet deliberately making noise for her benefit. With her eyes closed, she could see his aura as well, the disciplined, deliciously wicked-smelling glow of a night-hunting predator.  They were machines built for

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seduction and power, the suckheads. For a moment a roaring  rose in her ears, the body’s instinctive response to something  inimical to its survival.

Like a sheep trembling at the smell of a wolf.

The front door opened, closed and the shields over the house  –  carefully laid, but not strong enough to put out a huge neon sign screamed HERE I AM, COME TAKE A LOOK!  –resonated as his aura stroked them, once: an intimate caress.  Then he was gone, vanished into the pall of night covering Saint  City, perhaps a little shimmer hanging in the air as he performed the ‘don’t look here’ trick Nichtvren were famous for.

Liana opened her eyes, and stared down. Her left hand curled around the katana’s scabbard, the metal inside quiescent.  Her right hand had knotted into a fist, bitten fingernails driving into her palm. The ring, three braided loops of silvery metal, its clawed setting grasping a dead-dark gem, glinted in the light from the overhead fixture. A single pinprick of green struggled up from the depths of the stone, winked out as she breathed  in, slowly, blowing out tension the way Danny had taught her.
 
That’s your best friend right there
, her foster-mother had said in her melodious, queerly husky voice.
 
Use your breath: it’s completely under your control. Not like other things
.

Not like a heart, or a dreaming mind, or the hint of spice in an aura that made you a magus instead of a necromancer  or even a shaman. Not like an accident of genetics that made you liable to snap Hegemony Enforcement inspections  or the hatred of normals.

Her right hand crept towards the blue mug, curled around its heat, almost scorching her fingers. She lifted it to her lips, rested them for a moment where his would have rested if he’d bothered

to drink even a single sip.

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I could toss this on the floor. Throw it through the window.

But then I’d have to clean up
.

She settled for sliding off her stool, stalking to the sink and pouring the liquid away. The tea bag landed, red as a blood clot, with a plop. She opened her fingers, let the mug drop and wished immediately that she’d thrown it.

An old-fashioned, chunky plastic vidphone hung on the wall, and she picked up the handset. She dialled a number burned into her memory, hoping he would answer.

There were two rings, a click and silence. Whether it was him listening or a machine taking messages was anyone’s guess.

“It’s me,” she said into the black mouthpiece, staring at the  ‘Video Disabled’ flashing across the screen. “I’m home. I need  you.”

And before he could reply  –  if he was there  –  she

disconnected.

The tower, downtown on Seventh, had a shielding so powerful it was almost in the visible spectrum, moving in lazy swirls, the black-diamond fire demon’s Power resonating with the flux of ambient energy. There was a keypad, a slot for a credit card disc and retinal scan, but even before she pressed her ring finger onto the keypad the shielding had changed, tautened with attention and expanded a few feet to tingle on her shoulders and the roots of her hair. The door slid aside before she even

finished keying in her  personal code.

She stepped through and into a lift, felt claustrophobia touch her throat briefly. She dispelled it. Her scalp itched.
 
I’ll be

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damned it I clean up or dress to visit her
. She hadn’t changed

since arriving by freight hover two days ago.

Sackcloth and ashes, anyone
?

The lift was high-speed, and even though it was pressurized her ears popped a few times as it ascended. The building looked so slim and graceful from the outside, it was easy to forget just how big it was, and how much was said by its construction.  Saint City was one of a handful of places that hadn’t been affected by the first Tithe, when the mouths of Hell opened and madness poured out. A twentieth of the Hegemony population had died, either that night or in the week following,  when the citizens of Hell hunted at their leisure or simply, merely, drove the normals to suicide or insanity.  Magi had died in droves trying to drive them off, other psions had died trying to protect  Hegemony troops or just being in the wrong place at the  wrong time. It had been even worse in the Putchkin Alliance, the chaos, reaching global proportions before suddenly, inexplicably, waning. All was well for seven years . . . and then the mouths of  Hell gaped again.

Liana had been nineteen that second time, and she remembered the Hegemony ambassadors coming to her mother.
 
This city hasn’t been affected by the Tithe. Why
?

And Dante’s reply.
 
You know better than I do, you supercilious jackasses. Come in and ask him what you’ve come to ask
.

The lift chimed  and halted, chimed again, and the doors slid open. The familiar entry hall  –  white floor, white walls, a restrained Berscardi print hanging over a neo-Deco table of white enamel  –  swallowed her whole. Her whole head itched, long dark hair matted and hanging lank, and she was sure her clothes were none-too fresh, despite the antibacterium

impregnating the  micro fibre  explorer’s shirt and the leather-

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patched jeans. The non-slip soles of her boots squeaked slightly,  echoed by the faint sound as the double doors  at the end of the  hall swung open.

Grey, rainy, winter light poured through, glowing mellow  on a wooden floor. The sparring-space was huge, cavernous and  walled with mirrors on one side and  bullet proof  tinted plasglass  on the other. A ballet barre was bolted to the mirrored side,

varnished with use and wax, and a slim shape in loose black silk  with long, slightly curling dark hair stood precisely placed, her  back to the door, the golden tint to her hands clearly visible.

Dante Valentine turned and regarded her foster-child. The same sharp, hurtful, intelligent wariness in dark liquid eyes, the same high cheekbones and sweet, sinful mouth pulled tight in an iron half-smile, the same tensile grace to her shoulders and her left hand holding a long, curved shape. The emerald set in  Dante’s cheek spat a single welcoming green spark over her tat, a winged caduceus that ran under her skin. Liana’s own tattoo betrayed her, ink prickling with diamond feet in her flesh, answering. The ring tightened, green swirling in its depths before it relaxed into dead darkness again.

They regarded each other, and Liana felt herself bulge shapelessly like a blob of reactive paint in zero gravity.
 
You’re the very image of your mother
, Dante had said over and over again.
 
She was so  beautiful
. And each time, Liana flinched. She hated being the image of a dead woman she couldn’t remember even with the holostills of her precise little smile and dark hair.  She wanted to be as pretty as her
foster-mother
,  the most famous necromance in the world. The woman who had raised her, the woman whose demon had played with her for hours in the long dim time of Liana’s childhood.

As usual, Liana’s nerve broke first. “The prodigal returns.”  Her tone was a challenge, and she winced inwardly as Dante’sshoulders hitched slightly, as if bracing herself for a blow.

243

“I’ve never known you to waste much, Lia. I didn’t know

you were in town.”

“A thief in the night.”
 
Ask me what I’m doing here, Get

angry for fuck’s sake. Say something
.

“Are you . . .” Dante  caught herself.
 
Are you all right? Are

you well
?  She would never ask. “Are you staying long? I  ”–

“Not long.”
 
Now that Tiens found me
. I just came by to say

hi. And to see Jaf.”

Again, that slight movement, as if words were a blade slid into flesh. “Nothing else?” Other questions crowded under the two words  –  questions such as:
 
Do you forgive me? How long will you hate me if you don’t
?

Questions with no real answer.

“Not really. I suppose he’s at the office?”
 
I knew he would  be. Coordinating defence and taking care of the business of  keeping this city afloat. Probably organizing refugee camps,

too
.

“Yes.” Dante tilted her exquisite head slightly, silk  fluttering as she took a single step forwards. Loose pants and a  Chinese-collared shirt, reinforced in  patches, not the jeans and  explorer’s shirt she would wear if she intended on stepping  outside the tower. “I worried about you, Lia.”

More unspoken words crowded the still, grey air.
 
It’s my job

to protect you. I promised your mother
.

And Liana’s response, flung at her in the middle of screaming matches during the storms of adolescence.
 
I don’t care what you promised her! I’m not her!

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“Tiens visited me,” she said. She heard the catch in her  voice and hated herself. “Don’t tell Jaf, but I’m doing dirty  laundry for him. Like mother, like daughter, huh?”

Dante sighed. “If you wanted a fight, you could have come  a little later in the day. You know I’m not ready for homicide  before noon.”

Liana’s heart squeezed down on itself. “Sorry to

disappoint.”

“
Sekhmet sa’es
.” But the curse didn’t have it’s usual snap

.

“What can I do, Lia? What do you want? Blood?”

Not like you could bleed over me anyway. The instant you cut yourself Jaf would show up, and I’d have to deal with the disappointment on his face too. Isis  preserve me
. “I just wanted to say hello. I’m allowed that, aren’t I?”

“You’re the one who keeps away.” The necromance made a  swift, abortive movement, too quick to be a flinch. “Can I take  you to dinner? That noodle shop on Pole Street is still open. Or we could go for a walk. Even . . .”

“Even sparring? You’d do that just to keep me in the room a  little bit longer, wouldn’t you?”
 
Listen to me whine. I promised  myself I wouldn’t do this
. “I’m a lot better than I used to be.”

“So I’ve heard.” Dante’s shoulders relaxed. “What are you

really here for, Lia?”

I wish I knew
. “Just wanted to say hello,
 
Mother
.”  Deliberate emphasis on the word, watching as Dante turned into a statue carved of fluid golden stone, every inch of her braced and ready, giving nothing away. Except her eyes. The pain there was half balm, half poison. “I’ll be on my way. Give my regards to Jaf.”

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“Come back soon,” Dante whispered. Her aura, full of the  trademark glittering sparkles of a mecromance, embedded in  black-diamond demon fire,  turned dark and soft with hurt.  “Please. Lia  ”–

“Maybe, Hold your breath.” And Liana stalked away.

There. Mission accomplished. Now I can go
.

As usual, though, Dante got the last word. “I love you.” The words were soft, scarred with deadly anger, and so  husky they almost refused to stir the air. “I always will.”

Liana made it down the hall and into the lift before she started digging in her pockets with her free hand.
 
Well, that went well. I saw her. Now I can go away again. I can catch a transport in an hour and be back in Angeles Tijuan by nightfall
.

But the tears, sliding hot and thick down her cheeks, said

otherwise.

Taking a cheap hotel room on the fringes of the Tank was merely a gesture. She wasn’t even really surprised when she exited the shower, dripping, every hint of grime washed away and her scalp thankfully not itching, and found him sitting on the bed, hands loose on his knees. Darkness had fallen, pressing against the curtain-shrouded window with the pock-pock of projectile fire and a  scream down on the corner. They might have found a cure for the worst drug of the century, but people still got addicted to Clormen- 13 and shot each other, or innocent bystanders. The blight of inner-city rot fuelled by addiction still crept outwards, though not as quickly as twenty years ago.