Saint City Sinners (dv-4) by Lilith Saintcrow

Author:Lilith Saintcrow [Saintcrow, Lilith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_horror
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 2007-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

I massaged my numb shoulder while melding into the shadow of a large holly hedge, watching the intersection of Fifth and Chesko on the East Side of Saint City. My skin prickled with harsh hurtful awareness and my heart pounded a little too rapidly. The icy cuff of metal on my left wrist didn't help, taunting me with its dull dead surface.

This made only the second time I'd been on the east side of the river since boarding the transport to take me to the Academy. I suppressed a guilty start everytime I realized where I was-and found, without any real surprise, that my hands were shaking a little. So I braced them with my sword in its scabbard, and settled down to watch. The slicboard I'd stolen-a nice sleek Chervoyg deck-leaned against the hedge next to me, hot-taped and magwired. I'd lifted it from a rack outside a yuppie club in the Tank District. More than likely some rich kid gone slumming would have to take a hovercab home, I wouldn't have stolen a slic courier's deck.

I waited, my knuckles almost white as I clutched the scabbarded blade. I hoped I wasn't too late.

I couldn't even enjoy the fact that I'd ridden a slicboard again. It used to be after every Necromance job I'd take a slic up into the hoverlanes until the adrenaline hammered my heart and brain into believing I was alive. Now the rushing speed and sense of being balanced on a stair-rail, sliding down with knees loose and arms a little spread, was oddly diluted..

Maybe because I was on the East Side again. On the same side as Rigger Hall.

I looked back over my shoulder again, checking the empty street under its drench of streetlamp light. At any moment I might hear a soft sliding footstep, or catch a whiff of chalk, offal, and aftershave.

Stop it. Mirovitch is dead. You killed him. You scattered his ka and Japhrimel cremated Lourdes. He burned Rigger Hall to the ground, wiped that cursed place off the map. Just stop it. Stop.

A different set of memories rose. Japh touching my back gently, his fingers digging into cable-strung muscles as I sobbed and shook with the aftermath of Mirovitch's psychic rape tearing through my vulnerable head. My own hands clenched in fists, my wild thrashing when the flashbacks returned, Japhrimel catching my wrists in a gentle but inexorable grip, stopping me from beating my head against the wall or flinging myself into damage. The pulse beating in his throat as we lay in the darkness, his voice a thread of gold holding me to sanity.

I let out a soft breath. I wish he was here. It was a traitorous thought; would I be in this position if he hadn't maneuvered me from square to square in Lucifer's game? He'd been sneaking out while I was asleep, maybe hunting Eve, and keeping important information from me.

What choice did he have, Danny? Lucifer trapped him, just like he trapped you. Japh's doing what he has to do.

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