I hate traveling transport, and my recent experiences with hovers falling on me hadn't cured me of it. It was with profound relief that I stepped onto the concrete dock under a familiar plasilica dome and filled my lungs with soupy chemical-laden tang, the familiar cold radioactive glow of Saint City's power well rising to greet me.

Goddamn, it's good to be home. The thought surprised me; I'd never considered the place home before. Never thought about what home would feel like.

Lucas jostled me from behind, Leander sighing as he worked the kinks out of his neck. "Damn transports." the Necromance said, and I felt sneakingly glad my own claustrophobia was shared by at least one member of our little troupe.

I looked over my shoulder. To the side, Japhrimel murmured to McKinley, who had showed up on the transport dock at midnight in Cairo, along with Tiens. The Nichtvren left to help Vann with whatever errand Japhrimel had sent him on, and the black-clad Hellesvront agent had boarded the transport with us. I didn't like that. The man-if you could call either Vann or McKinley a "man"-made me nervous. The oddly silver metallic coating on his left hand puzzled me too. I still didn't have the faintest idea what the Hellesvront agents were, precisely, but they were part of the net of financial and other assets the demons had in place on earth. Vann had said something about "vassals." Maybe they were organized into a feudal system, like some federated Freetowns.

Which meant that Vann and McKinley were loyal to Japhrimel-if they weren't exclusively loyal to Lucifer. Either way, neither of them was likely to be any help to me, or to give me any information. The Nichtvren didn't seem very likely to help me either.

Which left me with Lucas, Leander, and my own wits. Put that way, I seemed damn near rich. The Deathless and another Necromance were far from the worst backup I could have.

Don't say that, Danny. You're dealing with demons. All the backup in the world might not be enough.

As I watched, McKinley nodded and set off for the other end of the dock, apparently given his marching orders. Japhrimel watched him for a moment, but the mark on my shoulder was alive with heat. No matter that he was looking the other way, Japh's attention was all on me.

I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that. "Lucas?"

"Huh?" His whispering, painful voice barely reached through the sound of people disembarking. The North New York-Saint City transport run was a full one since both cities were hubs. That hadn't stopped us from having a whole first-class compartment to ourselves all the way from Cairo. Maybe Japhrimel had arranged for that, I didn't know. Didn't care, either.

"Two things," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "Find out what Japhrimel's business in Saint City is, and tell Abra I'll be coming by to see her. Good?"

"You got it." He detached himself from us and melted into the crowd. It was a relief to have a professional in my corner. Whatever Japh was up to, Lucas was my best bet of finding out sooner rather than later.

Leander raised an eyebrow as Japhrimel approached us, threading through a string of disembarking normals who didn't even look at him twice but cut a wide swath around the human Necromance and me.

I thought I'd grown past being hurt by that sort of thing. My mouth tipped up into the same faint half-smile I'd worn as a shield through so many bounties and apparitions as a Necromance. My cheek burned, the tat shifting under golden flesh, I wondered suddenly why my tat hadn't vanished like my other scars when I'd become hedaira. "I'll have a job for you too," I told Leander. "Just wait."

"Take your time." Amused and confident, his smile widened.

I grimaced, good-naturedly. He sounded like Jace.

The thought of Jace pinched hard deep in my chest, in a place I'd thought was numb.

Guess it isn't so numb, after all. If I took a slicboard and rose up into the traffic patterns, I would eventually see the huge soaring plasteel-and-stone pile that was St. Ignatius Hospital, where Gabriele had done what I could not and freed the empty clockwork mechanism of Jace's body from the illusion of life.

Leander's low laugh combined with the surf-roar of crowd noise-different from the Souk's genial roar and tainted with fatigue from the long transport haul. I'd slept between Paradisse and North New York, my head propped on Japhrimel's shoulder; the black dreamless nothingness I needed every two or three days. How odd was it that I could only sleep when he lulled me into it, when he was close?

I brought myself back into the present with a jolt. Stop wandering, Danny. Why are you getting so distracted? It's not like you. "First things first, though. Can you get us a cab?"

"All things should be so easy."

"You are truly a master," I called after him as he loped away to find and reserve us a hovercab in the queue that would be waiting outside along Beaumartin Street.

It was regular bounty-hunter banter meant to ease our nerves. When Japhrimel reached me, his fingers braceleted my left wrist. I controlled the nervous twitch-that was the hand holding my katana, as usual.

Did he think I was going to run now? Especially when he knew I would only go to Gabe's, a place he'd been before? "McKinley will search for information and find us accommodation." His voice cut through the crowd noise like a golden knife. "I thought that would please you."

There was no sign of the necklace I'd given him, and I had too much pride to ask what he'd done with it. Instead, I tried to pull my wrist out of his hand and got exactly nowhere, though his fingers were gentle. "There's no need for this. We should get going."

"I feel a need." His thumb stroked once across the underside of my wrist. Fire spilled up my arm again, I tugged harder. Achieved nothing. He might not be hurting me, but he wanted me to stay put. "This is unwise, Dante. I am not to be trifled with at this moment."

What the hell? Sekhmet sa'es, what the fuck are you talking about? "I'm not the one who's trifling," I hissed back. "You're the one who won't tell me a damn-"

"I will tell you something now," he said in my ear as if we weren't surrounded by a crowd of normals who shuffled toward a transport or away from one. Above us rose the vast dome of the transport well and the different levels of huge hovers docking like blunt whales at each level, the spine of the AI's relays bristling around each floor, failsafes and double-synaptics glowing and humming with electrical force and reactive-painted buffers.

I went still, closed my eyes. My shields shivered. "Fine." I would never have thought a demon could throw a tantrum. My rings popped, sparking, I wondered what the normals around us made of this. His aura covered mine, pulled close and comforting, but I felt the echo of his attention. He was doing it again, listening to a sound I couldn't hear, set at a harsh watchful awareness I couldn't imagine anyone keeping up for very long.

Why? I'm only here for Gabe, but Japh seems to think I'm in danger. Of course I'm in bloody danger, there are demons after me. Still-

"I never knew dissatisfaction before I met you, hedaira. The only time I feel any peace is when you are safe and I am near you. Be careful who you spend your smiles on, and be careful of what you make of me." Japhrimel paused. "I am seeking to be gentle, but frustration may make me savage."

In all the time I'd known him, he had never said anything even remotely like this. My throat went dry, my heart banging at my ribs and in my neck, the darkness behind my eyelids suddenly blood-warm. "You mean more savage than you already are?" I pulled against his hand again. I might as well have been chained to the dock.