Case in point? John Fairlane, the other Necromance left in Saint City besides Gabe. I couldn't stand Fairlane; his white linen suits and pretentious lisp drove me up the wall. The feeling was most emphatically mutual. Two Necromances in the same room usually ended up with either a catfight or a pissing match. "You know what? You're all right."

"Thanks. That means something, coming from you." Dry, ironic, and amused. He had a nice voice.

That won a tired giggle from me. His own laugh was warm caramel, the air suddenly relaxing between us. On the ebb of that laughter, Japhrimel entered the room and I heard the door close softly. The silent static of anger-his anger-touched me, made the mark on my shoulder turn hot and soft.

I wasn't ready for that. I'd expect the mark to hurt when he was mad at me. It had certainly hurt plenty before, usually when I was already in dire trouble and sinking fast.

My eyes flew open. I turned my head to see him standing by the door, his hands clasped behind his back as usual. "The next transport for a hub leaves past midnight," he said. "We can be in Paradisse by late morning, North New York by the following nightfall, and Santiago City by the next afternoon. Slow, but more efficient than layovers."

Too slow Gabe needs me now. "What about the hover Lucas had? That would be faster."

He shrugged. The crackle of anger around him hadn't abated. What did he have to be upset about? "Vann has already taken it."

The faint, precious good humor I'd been feeling drained away. "Why?"

"To convince the Prince we are hunting in good faith instead of following your whim." His voice was a little harsher than its usual even irony. "I suggest you rest, Dante. We will not leave until tonight."

I would have liked to settle down in a bed and do some heavy brooding, but being ordered to do it took all the fun away. Instead, my eyes swung over to Leander whose hand was just a little too tight on his katana. He was muscle-ropy and probably deadly with his blade, but I wasn't quite human anymore. My strength and speed were closer to a demon's-though not close enough.

Not nearly close enough for what I had to do.

"Well, I'm here in Cairo Giza and there's a couple hours to kill before we can catch transport. It'd be a shame to miss the Great Souk. I can probably even pick up a little something for Gabe." I stretched, yawned, and made it to my feet. "Hey, boy, this is your town. You want to show me around?"

"Happy to." Leander turned his own leaning-forward into a graceful movement bringing him up to his feet. "You've never seen the Souk? You're in for a treat."

"Good. Guess the day's not going to be a total loss, then." Was it just me or did my cheerfulness sound forced?

Then again, cheerful didn't seem to be on the menu lately. Here I was about to go running back to Saint City, to a disaster in progress. Lucifer would be breathing down my neck soon. I was under contract to the Devil himself to hunt the escaped demons down, which meant I had to think of some way to keep Japhrimel away from Eve for the length of that contract-a cool seven years of fun and games.

And Japhrimel was hiding some new nasty surprise from me, not to mention making it eloquently clear I was by far the weaker half of our partnership. There was a time I'd thought I'd learned to know him, when I'd thought nothing could break the bond between us-but all that crashed down when Lucifer started poking his nose in my life again.

I glanced down at the metal cuff on my left wrist. The space for my arm to slip free had narrowed, or maybe my wrist had gotten bigger. The Gauntlet's fluidly-etched lines weren't glowing green, but the feel of the warm metal against my skin suddenly turned my stomach. The feeling of being watched returned, my nape prickling.

You don't survive as a bounty hunter by ignoring that feeling.

Well, we can start fixing what's wrong right here. I shoved my sword into the handy loop on my rig and dug my fingers in, curling them around the metal, twisting. It didn't want to let go of my skin but I pried it loose, finding that I could just squeeze my wrist through the slim opening.

I stuffed the heavy barbaric silver in my bag, and looked up to find a demon and a Necromance both staring at me.

"Let's go." I almost hoped Japhrimel would stay behind, the faint line between his eyebrows and slight downward tilt to the corners of his mouth told me he wasn't pleased at all. My pulse pounded thinly in my throat, fear and sharp defiance mixing.

You can't control me, Japh. I love you, and you're stronger than me-but I won't let you win.

When I followed Leander out the door, Japh was right behind me, the weight of his disapproval a stone in my throat.

The Great Souk of Cairo Giza seethes under fierce sun, dust and sand drifting on a vast rectangular stone plaza glowered over by plasteel-reinforced mudbrick buildings. Climate control and the floating shadows of hovers in parking patterns overhead provide some relief from the heat, but not much. Plenty of the Souk hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Vast baskets of dates, figs, and other delicacies; whole hanging sides of slaughtered animals-I shuddered to see those, but even in Saint City they still have fresh meat-with stasis fields humming to keep the flies away, children laughing and playing among the shifting crowds, professional pickpockets and thieves scamming through the tide of humanity, every conceivable merchandise on display.

You can get just about anything in the Souk, from vat-grown diamonds to legitimate indentured servants to not-so-legitimate slaves-though that trade is relegated to back alleys and in perennial danger of Hegemony police coming through and cleaning them out. You can buy drugs, augments, or enzyme treatments; the sedayeen communes have open-air clinics and biolabs, and Skinlin sell herbal remedies. A Ceremonial or Magi can do a quickshield or tell a fortune. There are even paranormals who have their own booths-swanhilds run messages, werecain sell bright woven rugs or rent out as protection duty. And plenty more.

There's an advantage to being sandwiched between a demon and a Necromance in a crowd, you do get a certain amount of space. The Egyptianos seemed less likely than other normals to look askance at my tat and Leander's; they didn't seem to have much of the fear of psions I'd seen in other parts of the world. Japhrimel looked normal, but the breath of alienness he carried seemed to communicate itself to them more readily and he was given more strange looks than either of us psions. Maybe it was the long black Chinese-collared coat in the heat, or his straight face, or maybe it was the way he loomed behind me.

I won't admit to uncritical delight, but I will admit to feeling a lot better than I had in a long time. Haggling was the rule here. It took only a few times of watching Leander artfully bargain in pidgin Merican before I got an idea of the going prices, and soon I was munching on the dates he'd bought while fiercely arguing down the price of a pair of beautiful Erabic daggers. They were the finest in the stall, perfectly balanced for throwing-and metal that doesn't need to be filed down for throwing is a rarity indeed. Their hilts were dark wood, plain and serviceable, but the shape of the blades and their balance made them works of art.

We finished bargaining, I paid the man with New Credit notes and stuffed my thinning bankroll back into my bag. The keepcharm on my bag bristled-not many quick fingers would try a Necromance's bag, but you never know. I accepted the knives from the hawk-faced stall proprietor, who bowed, touching his forehead with his right hand and crying out his praise. I must have been smiling, because Leander gave me a curious look. "You do that like you've lived here for years." He handed me another date.